Most books of hours presented pages with extracts from the four Gospels after the calendar. The Très Riches Heures followed this practice, only deviating with the insertion of the Anatomical man.
Saint John is shown first because the content of his Gospel concerned the origins of everything ("In the beginning was the Word . . .") Here John is depicted on Patmos, the island to which, according to tradition, he was exiled by the Emperor Domitian. There he had a vision of the Apocalypse, which is also shown in this miniature.
In medieval art, the four evangelists who wrote the Gospels each have symbols associated with them. John's symbol is an eagle, because his Gospel begins with Jesus Christ as the Word of God, existing in heaven, before he came to earth. Here the eagle is shown beside John with a portable ink-stand in his beak, helping him record his vision for posterity.