Hortus Deliciarum facsimile Tab.04

This three-tiered composition displays various biblical figures identified by Latin labels in a Romanesque style. The top register shows a banquet with King Ahasuerus and Esther, the middle features the Virgin Mary and Miriam playing a timbrel, and the bottom depicts King David playing a ten-stringed psaltery alongside King Herod and an apostle. The artwork is a 19th-century facsimile of a 12th-century manuscript illumination, preserving the original's emphasis on symbolic posture and pedagogical clarity.

The Hortus Deliciarum was a monumental 12th-century encyclopedia compiled by Abbess Herrad of Landsberg to provide a 'garden' of spiritual and secular knowledge for her nuns. It represents a peak of medieval natural philosophy and theology, using biblical history and musical symbolism, such as David's ten-stringed psaltery, to illustrate the harmony between the Old and New Testaments.