a rabbit on a precious page

thanks wikimedia commons user sailko.
part of the wiki loves monuments italia 2013

Toward the end of the fifteenth century Jacopo Filippo Argenta created this oddly rangy yet elegant rabbit.  He's one of a handful that grace the margins of works identified only as "Antiphon" by this artist over at Wikimedia Commons; an antiphon is a liturgical call and response, usually in song.  I think the late 1400's are an intriguingly late time to find such a stylized animal form; this looks positively medieval. This long-necked fellow is in Antiphon XVIII 13.1, one of the illuminated manuscripts at the Museo della Cattedrale in Ferrara (here is a page full of other lovely images there).