Initial F: The Birth of the Virgin

In the upper half of the initial F, Saint Anne nurses the infant Virgin Mary. A man, perhaps her husband Joachim, appears within a medallion encircled by a scroll reading Emerge dulcis filia nitesce iam (Come forth, sweet daughter, shine now). Although Saints Anne and Joachim are not mentioned in the Bible, their conception of the Virgin is described in apocryphal literature as divinely ordained, foreshadowing the favor that God later shows to the Virgin Mary. As devotion to the Virgin Mary grew during the Middle Ages, interest in her parents also increased.