Paris, France c 1330. Cambridge University Library, MS Gg.4.6, fol. 3 (cat no 77). Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

This popular courtly love poem Le roman de la rose (Romance of the rose) was composed in two stages by Guillaume de Lorris, 1220s, and Jean de Meun, 1269–78. This copy was illuminated by Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston, a husband and wife team active in the commercial book trade in early 14th-century Paris. The frontispiece shows the chief character, Lover, dreaming of his idealised love, symbolised in the flowering roses above him. On the right, dressed first in orange and then with an additional blue mantle, he sets out on his quest, being initially confronted with hostile allegorical figures indicative of the difficulties ahead; the surrounding roses have closed their petals.