Italy, Lombardy, first half of the 15th century. State Library of Victoria, RARESF 096 IL 1 (cat no 23).

This initial is bound in a volume containing 49 historiated initials cut from four different Italian manuscripts of the 14th and 15th centuries. In the cutting from a psalter displayed here, the Ascension of Christ is set within an initial ‘C’ of Psalm 97, ’Cantate Domino canticum novum’ (Sing to the Lord a new song). The image of ‘the disappearing Christ’ originated in 11th-century England, but by the 15th century it was a widely used way of representing the Ascension, effectively encouraging the viewer to imagine Christ rising bodily into the heavens, especially in close-up depictions such as this. The delicate interplay of naturalism and decoration is characteristic of Lombard illumination.