The four evangelists

A quatrefoil set on the cross, each lobe lettered with an evangelist’s name in Latin and his living creature in the words of the Vulgate. The creatures come from the vision of the throne in Revelation 4:7: a lion, a calf, one with the face of a man, and a flying eagle. Irenaeus matched them to the gospels one way, the lion to John and the eagle to Mark. Jerome, in the preface to his commentary on Matthew, gave the pairing now usual, and it is the one lettered here: the man for Matthew, the lion for Mark, the calf for Luke, the eagle for John. At the centre stands the chi rho of the plate before, drawn again with its whole construction.