"Large cutting, 363 by 330mm, of an almost complete choirbook leaf, trimmed at foot with loss of perhaps a single line of text and music there, with a large initial 'K' (opening ""Kyrie eleison ..."") in green acanthus leaves, the lower compartment of the letter enclosing a detailed portrait of a bishop, tonsured and dressed in richly edged floral robes on vivid blue grounds, one large white-dotted red fruit emerging at join of the upper and lower compartments of the letter, large gold fruit and purple acanthus swirls emerging from top and bottom of initial, all on brightly burnished gold grounds, six coloured initials on dull gold grounds with delicate designs picked out in their bodies in white penwork, red rubrics, the 'y' following the large initial in calligraphic penwork strokes and heightened with acanthus leaves and a human face in hairline penwork, four lines of text remaining, accompanied by music on a 4-line red stave (rastrum: 44mm.), modern pencil marks from earlier mounting, flaking and crackling of gold of main initial in places, one smaller initial slightly smudged, marks at edges from previous mounting, slight cockling"
Two smaller cuttings from the same parent codex, with nearly identical portraits, were sold by Christie's, 23 November 1998, lot 5 (later Les Enluminures, cat. 8, 1999, no. 32). There they were connected to the workshop of Francesco da Castello, a Milanese artist who worked on manuscripts for King Matthias Corvinus in Budapest, with particularly close comparisons drawn to a series of choirbooks presented to the Cathedral of Lodi by its bishop, Carlo Pallavicino, in 1495 (Lodi, Civica Biblioteca Laudense Mss lauden. 1-6 and New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Mss 682-687) and others made for S. Maria degli Angelo in Busseto
