“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” begins the story of Creation in the book of Genesis. The six days of Creation converge in this miniature portraying the sun, moon, stars, plants, birds, animals, and Adam and Eve. Within the walled Garden of Eden, a fountain sends forth the Four Rivers of Paradise. God, flanked by angels, blesses his work. At left, in a backstory to Creation, the rebel angels fall to earth, losing their robes and heavenly bodies to become hideous demons. Their influence on the subsequent narrative is intimated by the tall gate at the right. Through it, the first man and woman, having sinned, will be expelled from terrestrial Paradise.
Literal and Moral Commentaries on the Old Testament, in Latin. Belgium, Bruges, 1467, illuminated by the workshop of Willem Vrelant, MS M.535, fol. 4v (det.). Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1910.