© The Cleveland Museum of Art

BIBLICAL KING DAVID. As the alleged author of much of the Book of Psalms, David often appears in medieval psalters. He is usually depicted as playing the harp or fighting Goliath, but on this opening page of a 15th-century parchment manuscript from Italy, King David is portrayed kneeling in God’s presence. The scene is framed in the initial letter B of Beatus vir, or “Blessed is the man,” the opening words of Psalm 1 in Latin.