Da Costa hours
Illuminated by Simon Bening (1483/84–1561)
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913), 1910
The initial D beginning Vespers of Office of the Dead is decorated with foliate ornament.
The text is framed by a border decorated with flowers and inhabited by butterflies, a caterpillar, a bird, a snail, and a skull.
Image courtesy of Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz/Austria.