The House of Wisdom (Aurora Consurgens)

The illumination depicts a small, white stone building with a red-tiled roof and a steeple, surrounded by dark blue birds, each holding a golden arrow in its beak or talons. To the left, three figures in simple tunics (blue, green, and pink) gesture toward the building. To the right, an elderly man with a tonsure, wearing a blue robe, sits on the ground holding an open book that contains circular diagrams. A glass vessel on a high, slender stand is placed between the figures and the seated man. The architectural style is Gothic, and the figures possess the stylized features typical of early 15th-century manuscript illumination.

This illustration originates from the 'Aurora consurgens', a 15th-century alchemical text traditionally attributed to Thomas Aquinas. The imagery represents the 'House of Wisdom', a central metaphor in the text linking divine revelation with the laboratory processes of the Great Work.