Manuscript compilation from the 11th century containing some Latin-Old High German works by the St. St. Gall monk Notker the German († 1022). Also includes the works Quid sit syllogismus, De partibus logicae, and De materia artis rhetoricae. In the last section of the manuscript: a copy of the Commentaries of the Venerable Bede Super epistolas catholicas expositio (upon the seven catholic letters) from the 11th century.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
The present Codex contains the complete text of the Dialogus (ca. 1110–1120) of Petrus Alfonsi, a converted Jew from Huesca (since 1096 Kingdom of Aragon). The Dialogus is a polemic and apologetic work, introducing (for the time) innovative, in view of the author «rational» argumentation against Jewish religion and Islam. The work spread quickly and had significant influence on Christian polemics especially in the 13th and 14th century.
Online Since: 03/22/2012
Manuscript compilation from the 9th century from the monastery of St. Gall containing, among other items, the Liber Hermeneumatum (a biblical glossary organized after the order of the books of the bible), a genealogy from Charlemagne to Ludwig the German and to the year 867; includes one of the oldest copies of a fictional exchange of letters between the Roman philosopher Seneca and the Apostle Pau (the so-called Pseudo-Seneca-Briefwechsel) as well as a sample letter ascribed to the St. St. Gall monk Notker Balbulus († 912).
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Manuscript of collected works (Collectanea) penned by and part of the personal collection of the wandering monk of St. Gall, Gall Kemli († 1481). It includes mainly texts with theological-philosophical, astronomical and medical content, but also, for example, recipes against lice, fleas, and worms, and a text about the fish and crustaceans inhabiting various bodies of water in Switzerland and southern Germany, together with advice on the best times to catch them and ways to prepare them.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
Sermons and admonitions by the novice master of the monastery of St. Gall (P. Anton Widenmann?) to his Fratres juniores (monks in the period between their entry to the cloister/profession of vocation and their ordination to the priesthood) from the year 1633, probably taken down by Brother Chrysostomus Stipplin (1609-1672)..
Online Since: 04/26/2007
Volume 1 in a series originally consisting of eight volumes by the St. St. Gall monk P. Ulrich Aichhaim (1626-1675): collection of Carmina heroica seu epica from the year 1673 containing, among many other texts, descriptions of various countries of Europe in verse, poems about numerous saints and two printed poetic compositions by the Reformed St. Gallen rector David Wetter: Poemata for the St. Gallen City Physician Sebastian Schobinger (1579-1652) on the occasion of the new year, Sangallas, description of the city of St. Gall in Latin verse.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Volume 2 in a series originally consisting of eight volumes by the St. St. Gall monk P. Ulrich Aichhaim (1626-1675): including 1) Verses from St. Gall on the birth of Christ and the births of prominent historical figures in the realms of politics, the church, science and literature, 2) so-called Aggratulationes (congratulatory addresses) for individuals in responsible positions in the monastery of St. Gall (abbots, deacons, subpriors, officials, professors and teachers) with anagrams, chronograms from the time of Abbot Pius Reher (1630-1654) and Gallus Alt (1654-1687), compiled from previously collected single sheets in the year 1673, most of which are in Latin, but some of which are in Greek or Hebrew.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Volume 3 in a series originally consisting of eight volumes by St. St. Gall monk P. Ulrich Aichhaim (1626-1675): the so-called Affixiones, a thematically ordered exposition of heraldic devices by a combination of words (verses) and illustrations (of heraldic devices, which are no longer present) assembled by students of the cloister school of St. Gall from the writings of St. Gallen Friars Constatinius Pfiffer, Johannes Geiger, Ahtnasius Gugger, Chrysosotmus Stipplin, Basilius Renner, Jacob bon Tschernemell and Simon von Freiburg, with, among other devices, those of St. Gallen's founding patron St. Gallus and of Otmar.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Volume 4 in a series originally consisting of eight volumes by St. St. Gall monk P. Ulrich Aichahaim (1626-1675): poems and epigrams for various high holy days, Marian feast days, and saints' days, composed by monks from the monastery of St. Gall, some during the last third of the 16th, but most during the 17th century. Examples also include elaborate New Year's Exhortations by abbots of St. Gall and printed verses by St. St. Gall monk Johannes Ruostaller, composed while he was studying in Dillingen in 1565, compiled in the year 1673.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Volume 6 in a series originally consisting of eight volumes by St. St. Gall monk P. Ulrich Aichhaim (1626-1675): declamations and speeches, composed mainly by St. St. Gall monks during the late 16th and first half of the 17th century, some the product of rhetorical classes in the monastery of St. Gall, others produced for festive occasions, compiled in 1655. Contents of this volume include speeches, epitaphs, a fictional letter about Herod's the bloodbath of the holy innocents, verses about Gallus's exorcism of Fridiburga, daughter of the Duke Gunzo of the Allemans, and twelve extensive meditations on the life of Christ, composed by Mayor of Villingen Ferdinand von Freiburg, father of St. St. Gall monk Simon von Freiburg.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Volume 8 in a series originally consisting of eight volumes by St. St. Gall monk P. Ulrich Aichahaim (1626-1675): the major portion of this volume contains verses by St. St. Gall monks for, among other events, the translation festivities surrounding the transfer of the remains of Saints Anthony and St. Theodorus from the catacombs to St. Gall in 1654, poetry dedicated to the respective saints on their feast days, verses about the most important European rulers and nations during the Thirty Years War, and fictional grave inscriptions for St. Gallen abbots and monks, compiled in the year 1673.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Oratory practice pieces in Latin by novices at the monastery of St. Gall (fratres studiosi), dedicated as a "Festschrift" for the name day of St. Gallen Abbot-Bishop Gallus Alt, 1660/61.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Latin homilies by a St. St. Gall monk, delivered in various churches in the territory of the Fürstabtei (Bishop's Abbey) of St. Gall between 1674 and 1691.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Latin poems of praise honoring the Augsburg Bishop Marquard von Berg, written in 1577 by students from the monastery of St. Gall who were attending the Jesuit University of Dillingen on the Danube, where the Benedictine monks from St. Gall frequently studied during that period.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
"Festschrift" from the monastery of St. Gall: translation of the Marian psalter into Greek by monks at St. Gall in the year 1661.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Composite volume from the monastery of St. Gall with bound printed texts from the 16th century: 1) Berhnard Legner, Septem psalmi poenitentiales, Mainz 1576, dedicated to St. Gallen Abbot Otmar Kunz (1564-1577); 2) Johannes Hartmann, De dulcissima sententia Davidis, o.J., dedicated to St. Gallen Abbot Joachim Opser (1577-1594); 3) Wolfgang Betulanus, Rudimenta doctrinae christianae, Konstanz 1592; 4) Portion in manuscript form: copy of Psalm 91, produced by Georg Balticus, the son of noble family of Ulm, dedicated in 1595 to St. Gallen Abbot Bernhard Müller (1594-1630); 5) Portion in manuscript: Latin verses by St. St. Gall monk P. Chrysostomus Stipplin (1609-1672) for all the saints' feast days of the year, in calendar order. Among them are also numerous verses about St. Gallen's patron saints and highly respected abbots and monks from the monastery of St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Latin poetry composed by St. St. Gall monk P. Athanasius Gugger (1608-1669) on the occasion of the great translation festivities of 1628 (about, for example, the return of the remains of Saints Otmar and Notker Balbulut to the newly renovated Otmar Church in the year 1628) in addition to Latin hymns and verses on various themes from the monastery of St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Greek translation of the Benedictine Rule and some additional devotional materials, made at the monastery of St. Gall by St. Gallen's Frater Gallus Schindler (1643-1710), a native of Lucerne, between 1660 and 1667.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
This elegant illuminated copy of the Sefer Moreh Nevukhim (Guide to the Perplexed) by Moses Maimonides was produced in Christian Spain in 1292. It is a copy of the Hebrew translation of the work made in 1204 by Samuel ben Judah Ibn Tibbon (1150-1230). The manuscript arrived in Italy either after the Jewish persecutions of 1391 or the ensuing expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian peninsula in 1492. It was in the possession of the renowned Bolognese Sforno family before reappearing in the early 17th century in the hands of the Italian Jewish apostate and inquisitor Renato da Modena. After more than a century, the manuscript reappeared in the possession of Johann Caspar Ulrich (1705-1768) a Protestant theologian, who donated it in 1762 to the Bibliotheca Ecclesia Carolina, the chapter library of the reformed Grossmünster church of Zurich. In 1835, when the chapter was dissolved, the books and manuscripts of the chapter library became part of the new Cantonal Library in Zurich. Finally in 1917, the holdings of this library, among others, formed the new Zentralbibliothek, where the manuscript still remains today.
Online Since: 03/19/2020
The Sefer ha-Shorashim by R. David ben Joseph Kimhi (1160-1235) is extant in numerous medieval Hebrew manuscripts and fragments of diverse origins (Sephardi, Italian, Ashkenazi, Provençal), several printed editions and Latin translations, all testifying to the incomparable popularity of the work throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. However, the great significance of the Sefer ha-Shorashim of the Zentralbibliothek, dated to the 14th century, lies within the fact that it is the only preserved copy of Byzantine origin known today.
Online Since: 10/10/2019