The Apocalypse of 1313

f. 87v, The Hell of trades (cont.) – Portrait of the author of the commentary or the translator


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The Hell of trades continues, still against a backdrop of flames, on the half folio before the start of the commentary on the Apocalypse and the portrait of its author.
The demons let fly at a cobbler holding a pair of shoes in each hand and looking anxiously at the monster lifting a shoetree above him to strike him. Behind them, a devil pokes a finger into the eye of a rich man or furrier whose knees are covered with a Siberian squirrel pelt. A wine grower – subsequently turned into a woman like two of the damned in the previous painting – carrying a bunch of grapes and a billhook is jostled by the devil.
The hellish spirits underneath lay into the drapers. The one on the left is held prisoner by a devil grabbing him by the hair and an arm whilst another torturer, unfolding a length of striped cloth, prepares to measure it with a rod whilst questioning the dishonest merchant. Another trader, a draper or tailor, uses scissors to cut a piece of cloth that is also striped, whilst the demon ties a cord round his neck to strangle him. Finally, it is the turn of a porter with a heavy sack on his shoulders to be manhandled.
Beneath this last painting of the tortures endured by the damned, the author of the commentary or the translator is depicted as a barefoot monk dressed like a friar minor in a brown cowl pulled in at the waist by a cord. He is seated at a desk inside a rudimentary building with a copyist’s tools in his hands – a quill to write and a penknife to scratch his mistakes out – and is ready to write his work.

Marie-Thérèse Gousset and Marianne Besseyre
Illuminated Manuscripts Research Center, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Fragment of the Apocalypse of 1313 commentary volume


f. 87v, El Infierno de los oficios (continuación), Retrato del autor del comentario o del traductor

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f. 87v, The Hell of trades (cont.) – Portrait of the author of the commentary or the translator

The Hell of trades continues, still against a backdrop of flames, on the half folio before the start of the commentary on the Apocalypse and the portrait of its author.
The demons let fly at a cobbler holding a pair of shoes in each hand and looking anxiously at the monster lifting a shoetree above him to strike him. Behind them, a devil pokes a finger into the eye of a rich man or furrier whose knees are covered with a Siberian squirrel pelt. A wine grower – subsequently turned into a woman like two of the damned in the previous painting – carrying a bunch of grapes and a billhook is jostled by the devil.
The hellish spirits underneath lay into the drapers. The one on the left is held prisoner by a devil grabbing him by the hair and an arm whilst another torturer, unfolding a length of striped cloth, prepares to measure it with a rod whilst questioning the dishonest merchant. Another trader, a draper or tailor, uses scissors to cut a piece of cloth that is also striped, whilst the demon ties a cord round his neck to strangle him. Finally, it is the turn of a porter with a heavy sack on his shoulders to be manhandled.
Beneath this last painting of the tortures endured by the damned, the author of the commentary or the translator is depicted as a barefoot monk dressed like a friar minor in a brown cowl pulled in at the waist by a cord. He is seated at a desk inside a rudimentary building with a copyist’s tools in his hands – a quill to write and a penknife to scratch his mistakes out – and is ready to write his work.

Marie-Thérèse Gousset and Marianne Besseyre
Illuminated Manuscripts Research Center, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Fragment of the Apocalypse of 1313 commentary volume


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