Img. ID: 17681

The page also depicts a building formed by carmina figurata in the commentary column—the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:3–4), shown as a chequered brick wall constructed in a most original way. Four workers are entwined between the bricks: at the top is a man reaching up with his left arm and pointing with his right at a woman climbing steps with a basket of bricks on her head. Between them is inscribed: “This is the tower of the ‘Divided Generation’”(זה מגדל דור הפלגה). Below them there is a hooded workman raising a hoe over a built-up corner, and another man further down is holding a vertical plumb line. The inscription reads: “These are bricks”(לבינים זה). This interesting iconography, which is not known to me from any other Hebrew or Latin manuscript, may be the scribe-artist’s own invention. In the outer margin is a plant marking the scribe’s name Shlomo.