Leaf from an Antiphonary with Historiated Initial (H) with The Nativity (recto) and Music (verso)

This enormous initial h illustrates the beginning of the text of the first matins response for Christmas Day: Hodie nobis celorum rex (“On this day the King of Heaven”). The initial is appropriately decorated with a scene of Christ’s nativity. Along with other painters and illuminators, Neri da Rimini established the school of Rimini, characterized by a painting style owing much to the work of Giotto, who he perhaps encountered in Padua.