| One of the earliest representations of Bernard is in a composite manuscript from the Austrian abbey of Zwettl dated c 1189 which contains the 'Vita Prima' and is roughly contemporary with another manuscript of this work (see MA26). In the upper half of the initial B(ernardus) - the opening word which goes on to announce his birth at Chatillon in Burgundy of illustrious parents - is a half figure of a youthful Bernard in a frontal position holding a simple crozier in his right hand, his left hand raised in blessing. He appears to be wearing a chasuble. In the lower half a tonsured monk is sits on a stool writing at a desk with a pen in his right hand and a knife in his left. The initial is in reddish brown ink, the figures the same and in black. The figure in the lower half is almost certainly the author of the first part of Bernard's Life, William of St Thierry, and as such, with the exception of a slightly later example (see MA120), it is the only early medieval portrait of Bernard's great friend and biographer.
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