| A full-page miniature in a Book of Hours dated c 1480, probably from Macon or possibly Lyons, of a nimbed Bernard standing with a crozier in his left hand, his right hand placed on a large scroll of parchment on which is a liberally-adapted version in blue letters of a quotation from Bernard's friend and biographer, Arnold, former monk of the Benedictine Marmoutier, then abbot of Bonneval (in PL189:1726), a shortened version of which reads: 'O Man, you have a secure access to the Father where the Mother is before the Son and the Son is before the Father. The Mother shows to the Son her bosom and her breast, the Son to the Father his side and his wounds. Where so many signs of charity come together there will be no rejection'. The passage is illustrated by the full-page miniature on the opposite folio (f 16v), where the Office of the Virgin opens, with portraits of the owners, a man of law and his wife presented by her guardian angel, both with hands clasped in prayer and with the scroll which reads 'Monstra te esse matrem'. Before them and between heaven and earth stands the Virgin accompanied by five angels, the intermediary between them and God. She intercedes for them with her son in a most tender and maternal gesture, baring her breast to ascertain that she has a request which cannot be refused. The sequence to this takes place in heaven where Christ, wearing the crown of thorns, transmits the request to God the Father, represented as an old man wearing a tiara, by baring His side to show his wound. The intercession of Mary with Christ and of Christ with the Father perfectly illustrates the words of Arnold in what is a rare image in Books of Hours. Above Bernard are the letters IHS on one side and MA on the other - Ihesus Maria, and below a scroll with the words 'Benyt soit Dieu a tous Iours' (Blessed be God forever) and the initials RG, those of the owner.
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