Circumcision of Christ

Circumcision of Christ, Illumination from Menologion of Basil II, ca 985 CE, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome.

The Menologion of Basil II is an illuminated manuscript designed as a church calendar or service book with each page divided horizontally in half for a miniature and its accompanying sixteen line text. The four hundred and thirty miniatures are unusual in that a scribe has recorded the name of painters. These painters were working during a period of naturalism called the Macedonian Renaissance. In this style figures are placed within architecture or in landscape with natural facial expressions.