<div class="description">
The illuminator of this initial placed three small scenes one above another to suggest the vertical stem of the initial <em>I</em>, here standing for the introductory passages of the Gospel of Saint John,<em> In principio erat verbum . . .</em> (In the beginning was the word . . .). Such initials have been called "ladder initials" because the individual scenes were arranged one on top of the other to be read in sequence. Each group of figures stands beneath a cusped gable and depicts scenes from the Marriage at Cana. At the top, Christ and the Virgin speak together; at the center, Christ tells the attendant to fill the jars; and below, the banquet proceeds after the miraculous change of water into wine. The present leaf (actually a fragment) comes from a large lectern bible, which probably existed in several volumes because of its size. In the 1100s and 1200s, the large multivolume bible was a standard form used for refectory readings at meals or else kept in a library for reference.</div>
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