Psalter

This Psalter in two volumes was made for the monastery of Santa Maria in Porto in Ravenna. Its decoration consists of numerous initials of various types, and six pages with historiated initials and borders filling the four margins. These six pages are distinguished from the body of the manuscript because they were decorated by a different artist, Giovanni Battista Cavaletto. His style is characterized by figures with either youthful faces or white beards, drapery incised in sharp folds and barely sketched backgrounds. The borders with foliate motifs surrounding the pages and initials enclosing the figures show a marked tendency to stylisation.

Folio 123v, shown here, is one of the six pages.