The figure of Christ faces frontally. He holds a scroll (or mappa) in his left hand and his right hand is raised in blessing,
echoing his pose in the Magdalene at the feet of Christ panel on the opposite side of the cross. Christ rests his feet on the
snouts of two beasts, which cross their paws in recognition of his divinity. Their crossed paws form an X, or chi, the first
letter of his name.
The Latin inscription surrounding the panel reads: + IhS XPS IVDEX (across the top) ⋅ AEQVITATIS ⋅ (down the right side);
BESTIAE ⋅ ET ⋅ DRACON[ES] ⋅ COGNOVERVNT ⋅ IN DE ⋅ SERTO ⋅ SALVA[TO]REM ⋅ MVNDI ⋅ (down the left side). Translation: ‘+
Jesus Christ, judge of equity. Beasts and dragons recognised in the desert the saviour of the world’. There is no one source
for this metrical sententia, but it recalls both Psalm 90/91:13 (Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt
trample under foot the lion and the dragon), and Habbakuk 3:2 (Between two living things you will become known).
