Fol. 3v, Part I: In Praise of Intelligence and Wisdom, opens with a scene of the author and five debaters. The author (המחבר) is sitting in a high-backed chair with a canopy, dressed in a long garment and a cap, debating with a young man by pointing with his index finger at an open book resting on a lectern. The youth, dressed in a short slit tunic, is approaching the author holding an open book. Behind him are three older men dressed in long garments, one with a book under his arm, and another youth in a tunic with an open book. The scene does not exactly follow the caption since it represents more people than necessary. The inscription above reads: "The image of the interlocutor and author, speaking to each other" (צורת המקשה והמחבר, זה את זה ידבר; Loewe 2004, I:43). This scene is repeated at the beginning of each of the other four parts (fols. 18v, 41v, 52, 68).
For depictions of the same subject in the other 15th-century manuscripts of Meshal ha-Kadmoni see Appendix 1: line 1. For other iconographical examples see fig. 1:
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Fig. 1: Calendar, Alsace, 1450-1455. Berlin, SBB, mgf.1191, fol. 57. (Gronemann 2006, II:fig. 63) |
For the Rothschild Miscellany see IJA 1982/1/89.