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IM-10135: (585 x 392mm – 23 x 15 3/8’’) Original leaf from a large manuscript Antiphonal. The music and text (eight lines written in rounded gothic script) are written in dark brown ink, on a four-line-stave, with headings and rubrics in red. Three illuminated initials alternating in red and blue; one large (95mm square) illuminated initial in deep blue with white penwork on a burnished gold ground framed by colored bars of pink, violet and green with white penwork.  Exceptional floral border  in pink, green, violet, blue and burnished gold - with a bird resting on a branch (right of line seven).  

Southern Germany (probably Nuremberg), c. 1460-80.

This leaf begins a hymn for the first Sunday in Advent:  "Ecce nomen..."  (Behold the Name of the Lord cometh from afar, and the world is filled with the brightness thereof. Behold the King is coming, let us run forth to meet our Savior. And that knowing the season; that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep.  For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed.  The night is passed, and the day is at hand).

Antiphonals contain chants for the canonical hours of the Divine Office: first vespers or the vigil of great feasts, matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers and compline.