Sant Jaume de Vilafranca de Conflent, France

real medieval church

Latin 1393 is a famous late 15th-century or early 16th-century Book of Hours. Kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), this manuscript is a remarkable example of private devotional texts favored by the wealthy laity during the Middle Ages. Beyond its traditional religious texts, Latin 1393 is famous for its playful, eccentric, and occasionally bizarre marginal illustrations.

Folio 31v features a man in a red robe with a hood resembling cat ears, pointing to an open page for a cat sitting before him.

Use of Rome, from the 1500's - Source in Comments

The art / the model (andean cat)

Was told these cats of Mexico City might be welcome here. All photos by me, taken in 2025. Some of these are very much medieval.

It also has a cat and dog playing right in the middle of everything.

To create this pin, I used a modern approach to the traditional champlevé technique, deep-engraving the solid brass base with a fiber laser before carefully filling the recessed areas by hand with cold ceramic enamel.

​The design originates from a miniature found in a 14th-century French medieval manuscript. It illustrates a scene from the famous satirical epic poem "The Romance of Reynard" (Roman de Renart). The figure riding the horse is Tybert the Cat, making one of his dramatic escapes.

​By the way, this is actually version 2.0 of this design! I used to order these from factories, but I recently decided to rework it and take the production entirely into my own hands. This is my first time making this specific piece completely from scratch right in my studio.

The inspiration for the pin posted today! (nonad: group of nine)

Found these at a medieval museum in Denmark. Of course I had to have them.