Preliminaries. The alpha, the Maiestas Domini and the portraits of the authors
This full-page painting at the top of the main text combines three elements usually shown separate: the portrait of the author, the letter alpha and the Maiestas Domini. The figures at the top represent the collective portrait of the authors whose works were used by Beatus of Liébana as sources when writing his Commentary on the Apocalypse. All of them are shown beardless, with nimbi, to indicate their importance, in front of lecterns with their books resting upon them, grouped in simple or double pairs apparently in conversation.
Despite the nature of this work it begins and ends with this apocalyptic motif used so frequently by the illuminators in this area in their desire to emphasise and multiply the symbols of Christ triumphant and his eternal nature. The top and bottom ends of the alpha open out into large, complex, interwoven motifs as does the transversal line, a rather V-like shape of interwoven foliate motifs. The use of a large initial covering the entire page originated in Carolingian art, in the Franco-insular tradition to be precise, in which this type of page layout is common. In addition, the tiny, triple lines between semicircular shapes surrounding the outlines of the letter, are highly stylised designs, derived from kufic inscriptions, that became very commonplace in the tenth-century miniatures of León.
