The Tree of Jesse, from a book of hours

This leaf comes from a prayer book published in Paris in the early 1500s. Thielmann Kerver often incorporated elements from the illuminated manuscript tradition. Here, for example, he combined expensive vellum, lavish illustrations, and hand-colored initials with the newer technology of printing. While the words were printed with moveable type, the central images and composite borders were printed from separate carved blocks, or matrices, that could be arranged in different groupings and reused for future editions.