Fol. 4: A man dressed as a fool, wearing a head-dress with ass's-ears, and a bi-coloured tunic and holding a fool's stick in his hand, is standing in the open landscape, flanked by two youngsters who are touching and annoying him. Another knave is standing at the far right holding a stick and about to beat him. The caption above reads: “Image of the fool blathering his speech, and the youths walking round him” (צורת הכסיל מתהולל בניבו, והנעורים הולכים סביבו; Loewe 2004, I:45).
For depictions of the same subject in the other 15th-century manuscripts of Meshal ha-Kadmoni see Appendix 1: line 2. Our depiction differs from the other copies, since the youngsters are not just bothering the fool but also touching and annoying him (Gronemann 2006, I:234-235). For other iconographical examples see fig. 1:
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Fig. 1: Bible, Dutch, 1431. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale MS 9020-23, fol. 65. (Gronemann 2006, II:fig. 223) |
For the Rothschild Miscellany, see IJA 1982/1/90.