Liturgical manuscript of the Bratislava missal I from the beginning of the 14th century is preserved in several fragments. It can be found in the Bratislava Archive, in the Town Museum in Bratislava and in the St. Adalbert Association in Trnava. Originally having 366 sheets, nowadays there are 303 altogether. There are painted figural illuminations mainly as initials with biblical motifs on some of these parchment sheets of the Codex.
    One of these paintings, on the parchments sheets in the Town Museum, is the Nativity initial. The scene is placed in the shape of letter P. This is initial of the text Peur natus est… (Baby boy was born). Simple notation above the text reveals that it is a Christmas song which was integrated to the liturgical codex. Baby Jesus – stiffly lying, wrapped in a napkin with distinctive gloriole on his head is dominating the scene. Jesus is accompanied with an ass, calf and two angels pointing to the star on the golden background of the miniature picture. Such a composition of the Nativity is unusual, since lacking Mary – the Mother of God. This decor, but also the decor of some other parchments sheets consists of gliding, geometrically stylized ribbon between the columns of the text. There are two birds standing opposite to each other at the bottom margin.
    The figures are painted in bright colours. Their compressed style resembles archaic Byzantine patterns. Other circumstances of the missal origin confirm the connection with Italy. Over the Middle Ages Italy mediated cultural stimuli to Hungary from the East. According to some musicologists and historians, the hand writing comes from Esztergom. This is based on the fact that the centre of archbishopric was a meeting point for many scholars at the turn of the 13th and 14th century. On the other hand, in the period when the missal came into existence – at the beginning of the 14th century – the centre of Bratislava was the place where papal legates Nicolaus Boccasino von Treviso and cardinal Gentilis were residing. Similarly, we can assume that the Codex could have been written and decorated for Bratislava canonry by one of the writer and illuminator of their delegation.
                    Dušan Buran