Getty Museum

The Fifth Trumpet: The Angel of Destruction and the Locusts

Date

about 1255–1260

Medium

Tempera colors, gold leaf, colored washes, pen and ink

Culture

English

Department

Manuscripts

Institution

Getty Museum

On the sounding of the fifth trumpet, a star falls from heaven and is given the key to the bottomless pit. Here the star, with the key dangling from one of its rays, hovers over the pit, nearly obscured by the issuing smoke. From the pit, a legion of monstrous locusts emerges to plague the earth. The illuminator closely followed Saint John's description of the locusts, drawing them with the bodies of battle horses, the faces of men, the hair of women, and the tails of scorpions. A king riding on one of the locusts leads the horrible troop. For five months they will be given the power to roam the earth, and the text reports that men "shall desire to die, and death will evade them." (Apocalypse 9:6)

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