IMAGE01 St. John on the Island of Patmos. John is seen in isolation on the island, which looks like a cloud. The angel announces the Revelation with a scroll that says, "What you see, write in a book." Note the ship which seems to be preparing for departure. Rev. 1:1-11 (fol. 3r).
IMAGE02 Opening the sixth seal. John watches as the earth is torn apart, trees are uprooted, and a naked figure crawls into a cave for shelter as stars fall to earth. Rev. 7:1-8 (fol. 10r).
IMAGE03 The second trumpet sounds and a burning mountain falls into the sea. Beneath the falling fire the waters turn to blood and a ship sinks in them, while those in the ship on the left try to avoid the storm. Rev. 8:8-9 (fol. 13r).
IMAGE04 Hellmouth swallows the beasts of Revelation, one clearly visible in the jaws at the upper right. Fire pours from the sky. Rev. 20:9-10 (fol. 34).
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We have stressed the role of fear of judgment in inducing candor in the penitent. The chief medieval source of images and ideas about the Last Judgment was the Book of Revelations or the Apocalypse of St. John. Our sequence of images is from an early fourteenth-century source known as The Cloisters Apocalypse. We offer these images to support the narrative of death and judgment that appears in the Introduction to the Scriftboc.
St. John received his vision during his exile on the Island of Patmos, where he had been sent by the Roman emperor Domitian. In IMAGE01 John is seen in isolation on the island, which looks like a cloud. The angel announces the Revelation with a scroll that says, "What you see, write in a book." Note the ship which seems to be preparing for departure, as if to emphasize John's solitude. Rev. 1:1-11 (fol. 3r).
One of the important elements of Revelations is the opening of a sequence of seven seals that bind a scroll (Rev. 4:9-5:5). As the seals are opened, the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (War, Strife, Famine, and Death) emerge, one by one. The fifth seal is the Martyrs. IMAGE02 shows the opening of the sixth seal, the signs of heaven and earth that the Apocalypse nears. "There was a great earthquake, and the sun became black . . . and the whole moon became as blood. And the stars of heaven fell." John watches as the earth is torn apart, trees are uprooted, and a naked figure crawls into a cave for shelter as stars fall to earth. Rev. 7:1-8 (fol. 10r). The seventh seal is the angels, who emerge to begin the destruction of earth.
Three trumpets sound in IMAGE03 The second trumpet sounds and a burning mountain falls into the sea. Beneath the falling fire the waters turn to blood and a ship sinks in them, while those in the ship on the left try to avoid the storm. Rev. 8:8-9 (fol. 13r).
Our last image (IMAGE04) advances to the end of the sequence. Here Hellmouth swallows the beasts of Revelation, one clearly visible in the jaws at the upper right. Fire pours from the sky. Rev. 20:9-10 (fol. 34).