Venice: Franciscus Renner, de Heilbronn, 1482–83

The Vision of the four creatures pulling the heavenly chariot at the beginning of the Book of Ezekiel is one of a series of drawings devised by Nicholas of Lyra (c. 1270–1349) as an accompaniment to his commentary on the Bible. The printer of this edition deliberately left spaces in the printed text for the insertion of illustrations. In this copy an anonymous Venetian draftsman ignored the blank spaces left by the printer and instead supplied the Vision in tinted colours on an additional leaf, taking inspiration from a woodcut image used in another printed edition produced in 1481 in Nuremberg.

Inc.2.B.3.6d[4638], fol. 22.6bis recto