He speaks to the Apostles below. Flanking Christ are two angels coming out of the clouds

and each holds a large censor. The twelve standing Apostles beneath the two arches have

either their eyes or their face tilted up, staring at Christ. With one exception, the Apostles

are beardless. They all wear tunics and mantles of different colors. All the figures are

placed in front of a patterned background with small squares fill with X' s and contoured

with a red line that resembles a rose. One inscription identifies this scene. The

inscription, In die pentecostes sps scs super discipulos uenit (here the day of Pentecost,

the Holy Spirit comes above the disciples), is located above the illumination, over the

head of Christ and the angels. According to Yarza Luaces, there are only three versions

of Pentecost in the miniatures of Castile and Leon of the 11Ith and 12th centuries. The

Bible ofAvila is one of them, and the others are in the Missale Vetus Oxomense and in

the Homilies of Saint Isidore of Leon.ll However, there is the possibility of an

alternative interpretation. As mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, the awkward

placement of the inscriptions, and their crowded character between the figures would

seem to indicate that the inscriptions were added at an uncertain time after the

illuminations of the Cycle of the Life and Passion of Christ were completed. Thus, the

scribe that wrote the inscriptions for these illuminations may have misinterpreted the

iconography of the scene. Rodriguez Velasco challenged the identification of this scene

as the Pentecost since some of the most significant elements, like the Virgin Mary or the

Holy Spirit, are not present. It is her belief that this scene represents the Mission to the




""s Yarza Luaces, J., "Iconografia de la Miniatura Castellana-Leonesa,"' 1973, pp. 32-33,
also mentions the fact that these three examples of the Pentecost are similar in the fact
that they place little or no importance to the image of the Virgin Mary.