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One of the standard illustrations in Medieval and later Gospel Books is the Evangelist Portrait. These portraits were almost always full page miniatures and were derived from the Late Antique tradition of author portraits such as those found in the Vergilius Romanus and the Vienna Dioscurides. Evangelist Portraits were often combined with a representation of their symbols. The Evangelists are often shown writing or holding a book or a scroll. All images unless otherwise noted are pigment on parchment.

Evangelist Symbols
Hiberno-Saxon artists did not have a tradition of representation of the human form or of naturaliststic representation of animals prior to the conversion to Christianity. Many Hiberno-Saxon artists, rather than providing an Evangelist portrait would in its place provide a full page miniature of the Evangelist's symbol. A few manuscripts, notably the Book of Kells, were provided with full page miniatures of the Evagelist symbols and full page miniatures of the Evangelist themselves.