Saint Augustine's fifth-century Latin treatise De Civitate Dei (The City of God) was translated into French in 1375 to satisfy the courtly taste for ancient history during the reign of Charles V. Romantically embellishing the saint's theological arguments, the translation, known as La Cité de Dieu, was spiced with commentaries in courtly dialect and illustrated for its noble French audience. The Museum's manuscript is among the most richly illustrated of the translations, with miniatures and border decorations by one of the numerous manuscript workshops active in Paris in the early fifteenth century. This is the largest of the manuscript's sixty-one miniatures and serves as an emblem of its title, for within the four quatrefoil frames the walled Gothic City of God (upper left), blessed by God the Father, is juxtaposed with an onion-domed pagan city, flanked by the Fall of the Rebel Angels. The artist enlivens this contrast with minute descriptive details, such as the darkened hands of the plummeting rebel angels that have taken on the color of the devils. Innis Howe Shoemaker, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 216.