Pentecost

Girolamo da Cremona

about 1460–1470

Tempera colors and gold paint, Tempera Colors, Gold paint

J. Paul Getty Museum

Aligned with the figure of the Virgin Mary, the dove of the Holy Spirit descends toward the apostles, who hold their hands folded together or outspread in a variety of positions of prayer. A sense of serenity and calm pervades this depiction of the Pentecost. Although only eight inches tall, this miniature has an impressive monumentality. The illuminator Girolamo da Cremona used the compositional and mathematical principles employed by fifteenth-century painters who worked on a larger scale. The miniature is symmetrically organized around the clear central axis of the Virgin and the dove: windows flank the dove, an equal number of a