It has 20 miniatures by Simon Marmion and elaborate borders with "CM" for the initials of Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy and her husband Charles the Bold.

She took full advantage of this privilege by commissioning a scribe by the name of David Aubert whose excellent talents in calligraphy can be seen in The Visions of Tondal.

It was the most widely read of any manuscript predating the story of Dante, which explains why it was translated into major and minor European languages.

It was "the most popular and elaborate text in the medieval genre of visionary infernal literature" and had been translated forty-three times into fifteen languages by the 15th century,[6] including Icelandic and Belarusian.

In the story, Tondal is a wealthy Irish knight who passes out at a feast and goes into a deep dream-journey through Hell, Heaven and Purgatory (never so named – the doctrine was still in development), guided by an angel.

The miniatures shown throughout The Visions of Tondal display a large variety of techniques and use of color to depict the ideas presented in the text.

The images of Hell capture the artist's observations of reality in the form of glowing flames with hot red tips over a dark smoky background.

[3] Depictions of strange looking monsters fill the landscapes which are full of elegant usage of colors to show not only flames, but also frozen lakes and coldness.

[3] Dramatic lighting enhances the effects of the colors and landscapes which in conjunction with the text tell the story in vivid detail.