This page is much easier to interpret than its predecessors since it is inventive and at the same time traditional. The main picture, placed under a radiant figure of God bestowing a blessing on He who has just arrived in the world, is really a Nativity constructed like so many others. The scene is placed close to a roof, perhaps that of a barn, with a room closed off by a green curtain with visible folds. In the centre is a small enclosure of woven branches forming a circle around the naked infant Jesus, lying on the ground and surrounded by light. Mary kneels before him with clasped hands and the ox and ass lie down on the ground, equally quiet and attentive, with Saint Joseph recognizable in his pilgrim's garb, and two angels behind him. In the background is the outline of a fortified city, or of a castle. On both sides of the frame of the Nativity are angels: one alone, playing a harp, on the left, and six on the right, divided into three registers. On the top a trio of angels sing from a musical score. They are accompanied, on the middle level, by an angel organist and his helper, and at the bottom by an angel playing his fiddle (vielle).
Between the two framed miniatures on this page we find again the capital D of Deus in adiutorium meum intende ('Oh God, come to my assistance'), words intoned throughout the centuries and still the opening of the religious office celebrated in Latin.
Below, a new scene unfolds which is easy to identify. From the starry sky comes a scroll-carrying angel announcing the incarnation to the shepherds, in this case a shepherd and shepherdess herding six white sheep and two black sheep. In the background to the right is the outline of a city in blue. The margins of the folio are decorated not only by the angel musicians described above but also by the customary flower-bearing stems and bunches of blooms.
This page is much easier to interpret than its predecessors since it is inventive and at the same time traditional. The main picture, placed under a radiant figure of God bestowing a blessing on He who has just arrived in the world, is really a Nativity constructed like so many others. The scene is placed close to a roof, perhaps that of a barn, with a room closed off by a green curtain with visible folds. In the centre is a small enclosure of woven branches forming a circle around the naked infant Jesus, lying on the ground and surrounded by light. Mary kneels before him with clasped hands and the ox and ass lie down on the ground, equally quiet and attentive, with Saint Joseph recognizable in his pilgrim's garb, and two angels behind him. In the background is the outline of a fortified city, or of a castle. On both sides of the frame of the Nativity are angels: one alone, playing a harp, on the left, and six on the right, divided into three registers. On the top a trio of angels sing from a musical score. They are accompanied, on the middle level, by an angel organist and his helper, and at the bottom by an angel playing his fiddle (vielle).
Between the two framed miniatures on this page we find again the capital D of Deus in adiutorium meum intende ('Oh God, come to my assistance'), words intoned throughout the centuries and still the opening of the religious office celebrated in Latin.
Below, a new scene unfolds which is easy to identify. From the starry sky comes a scroll-carrying angel announcing the incarnation to the shepherds, in this case a shepherd and shepherdess herding six white sheep and two black sheep. In the background to the right is the outline of a city in blue. The margins of the folio are decorated not only by the angel musicians described above but also by the customary flower-bearing stems and bunches of blooms.
