{"id":25626,"date":"2014-10-06T11:47:08","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T15:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=25626"},"modified":"2014-10-06T11:47:08","modified_gmt":"2014-10-06T15:47:08","slug":"st-mark-and-the-lion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2014\/10\/st-mark-and-the-lion\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Mark and the Lion"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the Archives & Rare Books website<\/a>,\u00a0we try to keep it fresh by putting up new images from time to time, especially our banner pictures.\u00a0 All of them are taken from our various holdings and we often get queries about what they are exactly, what collections they\u2019re from, what era they represent, and the like.\u00a0 Lately, we\u2019ve received several about our banner image of St. Mark.\u00a0 The painting of the gospel writer is from our book of hours, what we call the Limoges Book of Hours, but is listed in UCLID as Ms. No. 37<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"St.<\/a>Created ca. 1475 in a monastic workshop in Limoges, France, this book of hours is written on vellum and bound in velvet.\u00a0 There are exquisite illuminated pages throughout the volume illustrating events like the Conception and the Resurrection.\u00a0 As with all books of hours from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, the volume contains the prayers read at the designated times of day, along with a list of saints and feast days important to the region in which the book was made.\u00a0 Additionally, most books of hours contain the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.\u00a0 And this is where St. Mark comes in.\u00a0 Each evangelist often was depicted with a symbol associated with that saint in Christian iconography.\u00a0 Matthew\u2019s symbol is often an angel, Luke is accompanied by an ox, and John by an eagle.\u00a0 The angel represents human nature and salvation, the ox means strength and service, and the eagle denotes eternity and the sacred nature of Christ.<\/p>\n

For Mark and his accompanying symbol of the lion, the representation is of courage, the concept of Christ as king, and salvation.\u00a0 Our image of him shows the lion in the lower left corner and Mark, clad in gold, red, and blue, is looking toward heaven and writing down the divinely-inspired words of his gospel.\u00a0 Mark, along with the other three evangelists, is painted in a historiated initial.\u00a0 Decorated initials abound throughout the book of hours, leading off sentences and paragraphs. \u00a0Historiated initials differ in that while they are certainly decorated letters, they also contain a picture of a figure that relates to the entire story or account.\u00a0 These types of initials in illuminated manuscripts date to the 8th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 The legacy of these letters, especially decorated initials, is still evident today, more than a millennium later.\u00a0 As we have moved from calligraphic manuscripts to moveable type to electronic texts, these enhanced initials signify chapter beginnings and important documents.<\/p>\n

To learn more about the holdings of the Archives & Rare Books Library, please contact us at 513.556.1953; by email, archives@ucmail.uc.edu<\/a>;\u00a0 or on the web at http:\/\/www.libraries.uc.edu\/arb.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the Archives & Rare Books website,\u00a0we try to keep it fresh by putting up new images from time to time, especially our banner pictures.\u00a0 All of them are taken from our various holdings and we often get queries about … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[67],"class_list":["post-25626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arb","category-uclibraries","tag-rare-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}