Four bifolia (1 quire) from a manuscript written in France with the Beniamin minor by Richard of Saint-Victor. Unfortunately, the origin cannot be determined more precisely from the partly cut owner's note on folio 1. In 1632, the fragment came to Bern as part of the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Four bifolia of a manuscript that belonged to the abbey of canons regular of Sainte-Geneviève in Paris. The quire with the Glossae in Vetus Testamentum (Leviticus and 1 Kings) and the Quaestiones Hebraicae in librum I Regum by Hieronymus forms the beginning of Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 554. In 1632, the fragment came to Bern as part of the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Two bifolia from a manuscript written in France, containing Sedulius' Carmen paschale. The sparsely illuminated and glossed fragment previously belonged to Pierre Daniel and came in 1632 to Bern in the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Four bifolia from an illuminated manuscript produced in France containing the De civitate Dei of Augustine. As can be seen from the fold marks and partially present book titles, the bifolia were later used as book covers. In 1632, the fragment came to Bern as part of the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Four bifolia (probably 1 quire) from a manuscript produced in France with texts by Walter Map and Jean Lefèvre, further parts of which are in Vatican City, B.A.V., Reg. lat. 598; it shows similarities with other manuscripts of the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Paris and connections to Saint-Vaast Abbey in Arras. In 1632, the fragment came to Bern as part of the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Composite manuscript consisting of four very different parts that probably came to Bern in 1632 as part of the property of Jacques Bongars; parts B and C are from the Collège de Navarre in Paris. All parts are at least partly illuminated. All fragments have related parts in other libraries: for part A, Paris BN lat. 7709, f. 1–4; for B, Paris BN lat. 17566, f. 1–40; for C, Paris BN lat. 17902, f. 1–85; and for D, Leiden UB, Voss. Q 2 IX (f. 60).
Online Since: 10/10/2019
The Amtliche Berner Chronik (Official Chronicle of Bern) was commissioned by the city of Bern in 1474. About ten years later, Diebold Schilling was able to present the city council with this three-volume work, with its title pages in color, decorative initials, and more than six hundred large illustrations. The first volume contains the early history of Bern from the founding of the city until the year 1421, based on the older chronicle by Konrad Justinger, following the version by Bendicht Tschachtlan. The work remained in the possession of the Bern Chancellery for nearly three hundred years before the volumes were given to the City Library in 1762.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
The Amtliche Berner Chronik (Official Chronicle of Bern) was commissioned by the city of Bern in 1474. About ten years later, Diebold Schilling was able to present the city council with this three-volume work, with its title pages in color, decorative initials, and more than six hundred large illustrations. The second volume contains accounts of events from the years 1421 through 1466, based for the most part on Benedicht Tschachtlan's edition of Fründ's work. The work remained in the possession of the Bern Chancellery for nearly three hundred years before the volumes were given to the City Library in 1762.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
The Amtliche Berner Chronik (Official Chronicle of Bern) was commissioned by the city of Bern in 1474. About ten years later, Diebold Schilling was able to present the city council with this three-volume work, with its title pages in color, decorative initials, and more than six hundred large illustrations. The third, artistically richest volume contains Schilling's own description of the Burgundian wars, together with that of the preceding period, up to the year 1480. It is closely related to the Grosse Burgunderchronik (Great Burgundian Chronicle) currently held by the Zentralbibliothek Zürich. The work remained in the possession of the Bern Chancellery for nearly three hundred years before the volumes were given to the City Library in 1762.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
The Spiezer Chronik by chronicler Diebold Schilling, named after its longtime home city of Spiez, is also known, because it was privately commissioned by Rudolph von Erlach, as the Privater Schilling. It contains the early history of Bern from the founding of the city to events that took place in the mid-15th century. Unlike Schilling's three-volume official chronicle, the Amtliche Berner Chronik (Bern, Burgerbibliothek Mss.h.h.I.1-3), it remains incomplete (the Burgundian wars are not included).
Online Since: 12/20/2012
This missal following the practice of the Diocese of Constance was written for the church in Hochdorf (Lucerne) in 1474-1475 by Johannes Dörflinger, prebendary of Beromünster. The manuscript was commissioned for the new chaplainry of Sts. Peter and Paul, probably by its founder, the parish priest and dean Johannes Teller. It contains delicate filigreed initials at the beginning of the various liturgical sections and a full-page miniature of the Crucifixion (f. 106v), which introduces the Te igitur. Several pages originally left blank hold copies of the most important documents concerning the establishment of the prebend of Sts. Peter and Paul in Hochdorf (f. 78r-82v).
Online Since: 09/23/2014
Composite manuscript of catechetical-ascetic content, in quarto format on paper. Three fascicles of various strengths. The oldest is from the second half of the 14th century; it is written by Albert von Münnerstadt, Conventual from the Commandry of the Teutonic Knights of Hitzkirch, and contains Moralitates super evangelium sancti Lucae. In the second half of the 15th century, probably in Beromünster, this was bound together with two natural science Compendia moralia (excerpts from Thomas of Cantimpré's encyclopedia) and with catechetical treatises by Heinrich von Langenstein, Johannes Gerson and Bonaventure. Scholarly manuscript for regular use in the area of pastoral care (hasty hand with numerous abbreviations, especially in the third fascicle).
Online Since: 09/23/2014
The Beromünster cantatorium contains the solo sung parts of the mass with notation, and some tropes added during the 14th century. Among these are the Kyrie tropes Kyrie fons bonitatis and Cunctipotens. The examples of conductus are interesting. The codex is bound in a wooden case with two ivory panels from the 8th-9th century.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
The Epistolary is the oldest manuscript in the library at Beromunster; according to local tradition it was presented by a member of the patron family of Lenzburg, Count Ulrich († before 1050). The front cover, added later, is an ivory panel dating from the second half of, perhaps the end of, the 13th century.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
The Eidgenössische Chronik by Werner Schodoler (1490-1541) is the last of the illustrated Swiss chronicles of the late Middle Ages. It was written on private initiative between 1510 and 1535 and took as its primary models the Official Bernese Chronicle - Amtliche Berner Chronik - by Diebold Schilling and the Chronicle - Kronica - by Petermann Etterlin. This volume, the second of the three volumes of the chronicle, consists primarily of an account of the Old Zurich War and is illustrated with 130 colored pen sketches. Today the three volumes are held in different libraries: the first volume is in the Leopold-Sophien-Bibliothek in Überlingen, the second in the City Archive in Bremgarten, and the third in the Cantonal Library of Aargau.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
Composite manuscript of liturgical texts, containing the prayers of the breviary of the Carthusian Order (1r Capitula, 18r Temporale, 35v Sanctorale, 49v Commune Sanctorum und 51v Usus communis). This small prayer book was probably produced in a Carthusian monastery in Burgundy in the 13th century. Certainly it was used from the 13th to about the 15th century in one of the Carthusian monasteries in present-day Western Switzerland, such as La Valsainte, La Part-Dieu or La Lance. The text is written on parchment and is decorated with blue and red paragraph initials. There are notes and drawings in the margins.
Online Since: 06/22/2017
This small liturgical book was used in the Monastery of San Michele di Campagna near Verona during the 15th century. The work contains the rite of the profession of faith and of the consecration practiced on the occasion of the investiture of a Benedictine nun. It is valuable evidence of a ritual for women who take their vows.
Online Since: 06/22/2017
The Ordo iudiciarius is a work of canon law written at the beginning of the 13th century by Tancred of Bologna (ca. 1185-ca. 1236): f. 60r Explicit ordo iudiciaris magistri Tancreti. Tancred was archdeacon and professor at the University of Bologna.
Online Since: 06/22/2017
Inventory of property, prepared by the notary Michel d'Enney on behalf of Peter of Gruyère, Prior of Broc, and written between November 17, 1565 and November 20, 1566. The register consists of records of the properties of Broc Priory, organized by location. Originally Broc Priory was a dependency of the one at Lutry; in 1577 it was annexed to the Cathedral Chapter of St. Nicholas in Fribourg.
Online Since: 06/22/2017
This martirologio-inventario (annal) was written in 1554 at the request of the vicini (the original members of the municipal corporate body) of Castro and Marolta in the Blenio Valley (Ticino) in order to replace an older one that was destroyed in a fire. It contains the list of obligations toward the parish and toward the community for bequests and anniversaries of deaths. The first page is decorated with an illuminated initial and has in its bottom margin a painting of the coat of arms of the canton of Uri. At the time, the Blenio Valley was governed ruled by the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This manuscript contains the poems La satyre megere, a poem about the reconciliation of King Louis XII with Emperor Maximilian I, Les quatres eages passees, followed by a Ballade and three Rondeaux, and at the end Le portail du temple, inspired by an incomplete treatise by Boccaccio. This artificial composite manuscript consists of three original manuscripts entitled "Satyre Megere, poème d'Antitus dédié à Aymon de Montfacon, evesque de Lausanne, l'an de grâce mille cinq cens". The author Antitus Faure was chaplain to the Dukes of Burgundy and Savoy and, beginning in 1499, to the Prince-Bishop Aymon de Montfaucon († 1517) of Lausanne, to whom he dedicated these three works. This illuminated manuscript was bought by the state archive of the canton of Vaud in 1920.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
This Book of Hours following the liturgical custom of Paris contains a large number of private prayers in Latin and French, most of them unpublished. As indicated in the colophon on page 193r, the book was produced in 1421 in Paris in the workshop of the bookseller Jacquet Lescuier. It was commissioned, or perhaps only bought, by Jean II de Gingins, born around 1385 and died either at the end of 1461 or the beginning of 1462; he had his coat of arms painted on p. 193v. The miniatures were executed by several illuminators, among them the “Guise Master,” the “Bedford Master” and a student associated with the “Boucicaut Master.” The last representative of the Gingin-La Sarraz family left the castle to her brother-in-law, Henri de Mandrot, who in turn gave this manuscript and the family archive to the state archive of the canton of Vaud in 1920.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
Manuscript from Italy with the widely disseminated and successful collection of Medieval Latin fables in elegiac couplets called Esopus. These were initially anonymously published in 1610 by Isaac Nevelet and were therefore attributed to the Anonymus Neveleti. The editor Léopold Hervieux in 1884 attributed them to a Gualterus Anglicus, who lived in Palermo during the 12th century. However, this attribution has in recent years been called into question by various specialists. The fables have as their protagonists various animals and end with a moral in the form of a couplet.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
This Latin manuscript on astronomical topics includes works by Germanicus, Pliny the Elder and Hyginus. The codex features numerous pen and ink drawings, including a planisphere (rotatable star chart) consisting of five golden concentric circles containing constellations portrayed as people or animals. These drawings, dating from the 15th century, have been attributed to Antonio di Mario of the Neapolitan region.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
Multiple treatises by Archimedes are brought together in Codex Bodmer 8, notably On the Sphere and Cylinder and The quadrature of the Parabola. This manuscript, which was written in about 1541 on paper, also includes commentaries on the work of the celebrated mathematician by the geometer Eutocius, followed by a treatise on instruments of measurement by Heron of Alexandria.
Online Since: 06/02/2010
Manuscript CB 10 was probably intended for educational use, it contains works of Aristotle, Avicenna, Nicolaus Damascenus, Qusta Ibn-Luca and Alexander Aphrodisiensis. This manuscript, written on parchment during the 13th century, presumably belonged to a student of the Faculty of Arts in Leipzig, as may be concluded from a list of lectures attended during the year 1439 which is included in the codex. The list contains the names of the professors, titles of the texts covered, lecturers' fees, and starting and ending dates for the lecture periods.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
There is only a single medieval Italian translation of Augustine's De civitate Dei (City of God), an impressive apologetic work in twenty-two books; the translation was prepared at the end of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th century. It is usually attributed to the Florentine Dominican Jacopo Passavanti (ca. 1302 – 1357); however, this attribution is without basis. The frontispiece of this manuscript is richly decorated with foliage in all four margins and initials with vine scroll ornamentation at the beginning of each book.
Online Since: 12/17/2015
This Latin parchment manuscript from the 14th century contains a comprehensive commentary by jurists of Bologna on the "Corpus Iuris Civilis" as well as on others, such as the "Codex Justinianus" and the "Digests".
Online Since: 07/31/2007
This manuscript was created in the German area in the 12th century. It contains the Venerable Bede's († 735) commentary on the Gospel of Mark. The codex belongs to the libray of the Benedictine Abbey of Gladbach near Cologne.
Online Since: 10/07/2013
In the middle of the 12th century the Latin works of Statius and Virgil as well as adaptations of Homer were translated into the vernacular. At the same time these Latin texts were being brought into the “romance” language (French), the first examples of the French poetic form called the “Roman” or Romance were being written. CB 18, a parchment manuscript, contains two such works, the Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure and the anonymously authored Roman de Thèbes.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
This manuscript, produced in 1480 at the Cistercian Abbey of Maulbronn (Diocese of Speyer, Württemberg, cf. f. 44r), contains texts written by Ekbert of Schönau, the brother of St. Elizabeth of Schönau, as well as prayers to Mary written in another hand.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
The Chronique de Bertrand du Guesclin (Version B) is one of the two prose versions of Cuvelier's epic poem Chanson de Bertrand du Guesclin. This work recounts the life of the Constable for Charles V, from his childhood to his death.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
A remarkable manuscript from the end of the 10th century, undoubtedly produced in either Constantinople or Smyrna, CB 25 presents all four Gospels together in Greek. The biblical text is accompanied by commentaries by Peter of Laodiceia (an exegetical chain) written in cursive. The volume is decorated with two valuable full-page miniatures representing Luke and Mark against gold backgrounds.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
Copied in the 13th century, probably in the north of France, this Latin Bible unifies in one volume the books of the Old- and New Testaments, most of them preceded by prologues. It transmits the standard Vulgate text, called the Paris version, with the chapter divisions attributed to Stephen Langton, and its last thirty pages provide a glossary of Hebrew names. Historiated initials open the various biblical books and give the volume its structure. A smaller script than usual in this volume has been used on fol. 1 for the Commentary on the Tree of Consanguinity, a text usually transmitted in juridical works, augmented here by an illustration of such a tree.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This codex from southern Germany is composed of two parts bound together in one German binding in 1569. The first part of the manuscript contains about a hundred leaves from the 12th and 13th centuries. It begins with a calendar featuring numerous constellations and full page illustrations. Following are prayers and liturgical songs. The second part consists of thirty leaves containing a series of Latin prayers in carefully wrought late 14th century Gothic script.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
This manuscript contains the Song of Songs with a lacuna (6.5-8) due to the loss of a sheet. The Glossa ordinaria is written on the first sheet (1r-1v); it contains a heretofore unknown commentary. Placed alongside this is the first part of the Song of Songs (f. 2r-29r. until Ct 6.8), which in the beginning (f. 2r-v) is surrounded by another unknown commentary. The last sheets (f. 29v-30) contain excerpts from the prologue to the interpretation of the Song of Songs by Rupert of Deutz. The beginning of the Song of Songs is adorned with an initial depicting Solomon and the Shulamite.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
This Armenian manuscript was written in 1606 at the church of Saint Nikoghayos in Istanbul. It contains the Four Gospels, the Apocalypse of Saint John, and a Gospelindex devised for liturgical use written by another scribe in the same century. The silver binding was probably made a century after the manuscript writing. Special attention should be drawn to the illuminations of the canon tables painted according to the text of the “Commentary of the Canon Tables” of Stepanos Syunetsi (8th century), where the author thoroughly expounds the animal, floral and geometrical motives, as well as the symbolism of numbers and colors of each of the canon tables. The painter has interpreted the symbols and motives used in all ten canon tables by placing the explanations below each of them.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
Written in two columns in bastarda script with a decoration of fleuronné initials, from the first quarter of the 15th century (Wetzel), with two astrological tables added already in the 15th century (Wetzel) on the old flyleaf (f. 1r). The text of the Psalter, in the dialect of Rhenish Franconia (Hessen?), is closely related to the Psalter Göttingen, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Ms. theol. 214 v from the beginning of the 15th century. Wetzel assumes at least one common model. Thus the translation is part of Schöndorf's group 9, subgroup c) around München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cgm 182 or Walter's Psalter 18.
Online Since: 12/17/2015
The Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine or Ameto, an early work (around 1341) by Boccaccio, recounts the transformation of the rough shepherd Ameto into a virtuous man after overhearing the stories told by seven nymphs, allegories of the virtues. The text is written as a prosimetrum — alternating prose and verse — as is immediately obvious from the single column page-design of the manuscript. Copied on paper without watermark, the manuscript opens with a single initial in watercolor that contains the coats of arms of the Almerici family (f. 2r), the owner of this copy who probably also commissioned it.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
The Elegia di madonna Fiammetta, dedicated to "women in love", describes in the first person the feelings of the young Neapolitan Fiammetta, who has been left by her beloved Panfilo. The Elegia, a prose work written by Boccaccio in his youth, praised for the subtlety of its psychological approach, mixes autobiographical elements and obvious references to Latin literature. It is preserved here in a manuscript copied in 1467 by Giovanni Cardello da Imola, whose regular calligraphy is set off by decorations in bianchi girari (white vine-stem).
Online Since: 12/21/2009
Jean Bodel, who was a member of the Brotherhood of Buskers and a bourgeois (middle-class resident) of Arras, wrote his Chanson des Saisnes (Song of the Saxons) during the last third of the 12th century. This epic in Alexandrine verse tells of the war prosecuted by Charlemagne against the Saxon King Guiteclin. The Chanson exists today in three manuscripts (a fourth was completely destroyed in the fire at the library of Turin) which present different versions of the text. The long version held by the Fondation Martin Bodmer is in a small-format manuscrit de jongleur or performer's script. It was probably produced around the end of the 13th century and is a simple piece of work, without miniatures, written on parchment, much of which was poorly cut, and it is roughly sewn together.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
Boethius' De consolatione Philosophiae knew continuous success during the Middle Ages. This 14th century manuscript offers a complete copy of the Latin text with some interlinear glosses. The book decoration consists of a historiated initial with a half-length frontal portrait of the author as he points to his book (f. 1). From this initial sprouts a short leaf scroll. In addition there are very beautiful decorated initials placed at the beginning of the various books of the Consolatione (f. 8, 17, 30 and 41). Their style indicates that the manuscript was made in northern Italy, perhaps Bologna.
Online Since: 12/12/2019
The Edelstein contained in this manuscript consists of 100 fables, composed around 1330 by the Bernese Dominican Ulrich Boner; the fables were taken from various Latin sources and were translated by Boner into Swiss Dialect. The script and the typical characteristics of the layout with spaces for never-executed illustrations indicate a work from the late phase (approximately about 1455-1460) of Diebold Lauber's workshop in Hagenau in Alsace, a work that had been prepared to be completed at the request of a buyer.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
This parchment manuscript from the end of the 15th century contains the "Chronicle of London" as well as a version of the paraphrase text of the "Metrical Chronicle" by Robert of Gloucester found only in this manuscript, CB 43. The dialect used in the text indicates that the manuscript was written by a scribe from the southern Midlands.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
This copy of Cesar's "Commentarii" from about 1480 attests to the great popularity this text attained during the early Renaissance (there are more than 240 surviving manuscripts of the "Commentarii" from the 15th century). This manuscript was produced in the atelier of the illuminator Cola Rapicano in Naples. The "bianchi girari" (white vine) book decoration and the illuminated initial capitals which mark the beginning of each book are of a type often found in codices containing humanistic works. The illuminated initial capital on fol. 1r, on the other hand, portrays the Roman ruler in an unusual way, as an armored horseman.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
This elegant codex, written in humanistic script, was commissioned by Pope Leo X († 1521). The Medici coat of arms can be found in the middle of the original binding's cover, in a rich frieze on the frontispiece, and in the initials on f. 3v and f. 134v. The decoration is attributed to the famous Florentine illuminator Attavante degli Attavanti († 1525) or his circle. This codex is from the collection of Major J.R. Abbey.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
The Carmina by Catullus contained in this codex was written in a humanistic cursive, attributed to the calligrapher Ludovico Regio di Imola. The frontispiece in grisaille with gold highlights is framed by motifs in the manner of antiquity with trophies, sphinxes and mascarons, while the title in gold letters stands out from the crimson background. At the bottom of the page, the coat of arms on a disc held by two putti is overlaid in the same crimson color.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
This manuscript, commissioned by the bibliophile Antoine of Bourgogne in 1460, contains the Epître d'Othea by Christine de Pisan, decorated with about a hundred masterful miniatures (a complete pictorial cycle). One of these contains the dedication of the work and shows four figures, identifiable as Philip the Good, Charles the Brave, and two of Philip's illegitimate sons, David and Anthony of Burgundy.
Online Since: 07/25/2006
This codex contains De senectute, De amicitia, the Paradoxa ad Brutum by Cicero, the Synonyma by Pseudo-Cicero, and the anonymous treatise De punctorum ordine. It was created in Italy in a humanistic script from the second half of the 15th century. The frontispiece and the intials introducing the various texts are decorated with “bianchi girari;“ on f. 1r the coat of arms with the golden lion rampant on a red background, framed by a laurel wreath, could not be identified.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
This manuscript contains Cicero's speeches, which were copied out in a humanistic script of the 15th century. The book decoration consists of initials with „bianchi girari“ (white vine-stem) on colored background which introduce the various texts, and a frontispiece, the decoration of which extends across the entire page f. 1r. At the center of the bottom margin, surrounded by a laurel wreath, the coat of arms of the Medici family of Florence stands out, covering an even older coat of arms. The manuscript belonged to Cardinal Giovanni Salviati (1490-1553) from Florence and then to the Venetian monk and later manuscript dealer Luigi Celotti (1768-1848).
Online Since: 12/13/2013
While Cicero is regarded today mainly as a philosopher and politician, he was regarded during the middle ages mainly as a teacher of public rhetoric. This is demonstrated by CB 52, most likely of French origin, which consists of copies of "De inventione" and a work long attributed to Cicero, "Rhetorica ad Herennium". The manuscript dates from the beginning of the 12th century.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
This French translation of the story of Alexander, destined to belong to Charles the Bold, was commissioned by Vasco da Lucena, "the Portugese", a retainer of the Infanta Isabella, who was married to Philip the Good. This revival of the work by Quintus Curtius Rufus, which is augmented by texts from Plutarch, Valerius Maximus, Aulus Gellius and Justin, allows the author to liberate the Macedonian conqueror from legends perpetuated by the medieval tradition. The Miroir des princes portrays a model of a hero shaped within the framework of the humanistic movement initiated by the dukes of Burgundy in the late middle ages. CB 53 was copied in Burgundy and may be fairly accurately dated only a few years after the translation was made; it was decorated with miniatures in the artistic circle of the Master of Marguerite of York (ca. 1470-1475).
Online Since: 12/21/2009
The "Codex Ricasoli Firidolfi", written on paper at the end of the 14th century, provides important evidence of the dissemination of Dante Alighieri's Commedia. The initial of the opening verse of the Inferno shows the famous profile of the author, surrounded by flowers.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
Copied in 1378 by Francesco di maestro Tura of Cesena, who included both a date and a signature at the end of the volume, the Codex Severoli opens each of the three sections of the Commedia with an historiated initial. A number of interlinear glosses explicate the verses of the Paradiso.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This manuscript from the 14th century unites four disquisitions on medicine. The rounded Gothic script is the product of several different hands and the principal incipits are set off with Gothic capitals elaborately decorated with penwork filigree. At the end of the manuscript is an assortment of formulas for medical preparations.
Online Since: 06/02/2010
The Sachenspiegel by Eike von Repgow is one of the oldest books of law in the German language. This parchment manuscript, CB 61, was produced at the beginning of the 15th century and contains codes of common and feudal law.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
Carolingian reform efforts responded to a desire to regularize religious orders by creating a unified rule for monastic life, the Concordia regularum of Benedict of Aniane. In the resulting course of events, an effort was made during the turn from the 9th to the 10th century to dinstinguish the monastic status from the canonical. In 816 Ludwig the Pious made the results of the Council of Aix public; the first part of the Institutio canonicorum presents the statutes of the church fathers and the previous councils, the second part explains the resolutions of the council. The task of putting this work into writing was long attributed to Amalarius of Metz, a student of Alcuin and advisor of Charlemagne; however, another author must be acknowledged for this work, which totals 118 chapters, some of which are extremely comprehensive: Benedict of Aniane is also supposed to have been a contributor. The manuscript held by the Fondation Martin Bodmer was copied only a few years after the original publication of the text (in the first half of the 9th century) in a very fine Carolingian script, and it belonged to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Jacob in Mainz. A full-page drawing portraying the crucifixion was added in the 12th or 13th century at the end of the book.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
The so called "Kalocsa-Kodex" contains more than two hundred texts from the time between the and of the 12th century and the beginning of the 14th centuries. It is a wide-ranging written record of German lyric poetry in the middle ages. In its approximately 330 parchment leaves, it preserves poetry by Walter von der Vogelweide, Konrad von Würzburg, Hartman von Aue, Reinmar von Zweter, and the Stricker as well as texts in the tradition of "Fuchsdictung" (Fox Tales) and a series of anonymous works. CB 72 is closely related to another manuscript written in the same hand, a partial copy of the same material, which is held by the University Library of Heidelberg (Cod. Pal. Germ. 341).
Online Since: 12/20/2007
This Gradual was produced in 1071 by the archpresbyter of the Church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere; it contains the musical scores for assorted liturgical songs. These melodies set down in written form make CB 74 the oldest record of Roman song.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
This manuscript containing legal materials from the 13th or early 14th century demonstrates the high regard in which the "Decretum Gratiani", often considered the foundation of modern canon law, was held during the middle ages. The text is bordered by the "Glossa Ordinaria" of Johannes Teutonicus, in the first revision by Barthomeus of Brescia (before 1245). The manuscript features numerous ornately illustrated initials.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
This 12th century manuscript from central Italy contains works of music theory by three Latin authors. Among these is Guido Aretinus, a Tuscan monk of the 10th century who is regarded as the inventor of solmisation. Some passages of text in the codex are based on the Institutio musica by Boethius.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
This 14th century parchment manuscript preserves the "Historia destructionis Troiae" by Guido de Columnis for posterity. Its 187 miniatures crafted by Giustino da Forlì portray the most important scenes of the Trojan War against a background of the Gothic architecture of Venice. The margins of the manuscript reveal written traces of the collaborative efforts of the copyist and the illuminator: the scribe made notes in Venetian dialect indicating the plan for incorporating a series of miniature illustrations, which were then duly added by the illuminator.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
Guillaume de Loris and Jean de Meung (Meun) are the authors of the Roman de la Rose, one of the masterpieces of medieval courtly literature. In a phantasmagoric and allegorical setting, the lover seeks entry to a locked garden which conceals a rose, the image of his beloved. The second part, written by Jean de Meung, provides a philosophical and moral lesson. This manuscript, written on parchment in the 14th century, contains many golden and gold-accented illustrations and borders as well as initials with blue and red extensions.
Online Since: 06/02/2010
Manuscript in three parts. The first part (f. 1r-20v) contains the oldest version of Gunzo's Epistola ad Augienses and can be dated to the 10th century. The second part (f. 21r-27v) probably is the original core of the codex, to which the other two pieces were added; it contains the autograph of Lambert of Hersfeld's Vita s. Lulli episcopi Moguntini and dates to the 11th century. The third part (f. 28r-43v) is from the 13th century and contains the transcripts of the Constitutiones of the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215). This codex is from the Benedictine Tegernsee Abbey (the first part is mentioned in the monastery's library catalog); later it became part of the collection of the Princes of Oettingen-Wallerstein and in 1948 the antiquarian book dealers Rosenthal sold it to Martin Bodmer. The old guard-leaves are fragments of a liturgical manuscript from the Diocese of Freising.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
The Ilias Latina, copied on paper during the 14th century, is a Latin adaptation of the great epic by Homer, one of the foundational texts of ancient Greece. It was written in Gothic quasi-cursive script by a single scribe in the region of Naples in Italy. One should take note of some of the decorated initials, some of which incorporate figures, especially that of a muse, clad in a dress covered with stars and holding a sword in her hand.
Online Since: 06/02/2010
Manuscript CB 88, which combines the Odes, the Epodes, and the Carmen saeculare, a piece interpreted by children's choirs of the Roman nobility during secular performances, is an unusual example of a Horace manuscript from the turn of the 10th to the 11th century. Its many marginal and interlinear glosses, which frequently consist of scholii by Pseudo-Acro, explain the verses and praise their metrical accuracy and verbal virtuosity. The alphabetical tables and the title were added in the 14th century at the end of the volume.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
The countless marginal and interlinear glosses in CB 89 are evidence of the rediscovery of the works of Horace during the 12th century. This copy was produced in France.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
This manuscript from the southern Tyrol was produced by two scribes in the year 1468 and bound as one volume during the same period. It brings together the didactic work Der Renner (The Runner or Courier) by Hugo von Trimberg and the Alexanderroman (Romance of Alexander) following a compilation by Johann Hartlieb. The codex contains 91 pen sketches. Instructions for the execution of these sketches can be found in the lower margins of the pages on which they appear.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
The first three books of the principal work of the Bishop of Seville, the Etymologiae, written at the beginning of the 7th century, provide the earliest medieval instance of division of scholarly study into the trivium (grammar, rhetoric and dialectic) and the quadrivium (mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy). Relying heavily on the--often unreliable--etymologies of the words, Isidore collected in his work the whole of ancient knowledge, in order to prevent it from being forgotten. This manuscript was produced about the end of the 13th century, possibly in the area of the University at Paris and is a witness to the enormous success of this extensive encyclopedia.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This parchment manuscript from the time around 1400 contains a work by the Dominican sermonist Jacques de Cessoles, using the game of chess as the allegorical basis for a lesson in morals. The same theme is carried out in 16 accompanying illustrations as well.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
The Laudi by the Italian Franciscan Jacopone da Todi are religious-inspired poems, written as ballads with varying metrical forms, often set in dialog form. This codex was produced in the second half of the 14th century by four different scribes.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
This manuscript is one of four known textual witnesses (not counting a fragment) of the Roman de Jules César attributed to Jean de Thuin, a poem of about 9,500 alexandrines that is an adaptation of Lucan's epic poem the Pharsalia. The beginning and the end of the text of the Roman are missing in this manuscript, where the main divisions in the poem are signaled by alternating blue and red initials placed at the beginning of each stanza and accompanied by filigree in the opposite color.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
This generously illuminated manuscript in two volumes was made at the beginning of the 15th century and contains Guiron le Courtois, a romance about the fathers of the knights of the round table written around the year 1235. The various tales are presented here in an order unique to the to the CB 96 manuscript.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
This generously illuminated manuscript in two volumes was made at the beginning of the 15th century and contains Guiron le Courtois, a romance about the fathers of the knights of the round table written around the year 1235. The various tales are presented here in an order unique to the CB 96 manuscript.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
This manuscript contains a Latin translation in pre-Carolingian script of the "Antiquitates Judaicae", originally written in Greek by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in the first century. CB 98 was produced in the Benedictine abbey of San Silvestro di Nonantola (Province of Modena), as was Ms. CB 99, which also contains texts by Flavius Josephus.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
This codex contains the Jewish War, originally written by the historian Flavius Josephus in the 1st century. The 7 books of De bello Judaico present an account of the Jewish rebellion from the year 66 until the overthrow of Masada in the year 73. CB 99, like Ms. CB 98, was produced in the Benedictine abbey of San Silvestro di Nonantola (Province of Modena), though later than CB 98 and by different scribes.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
The two originally independent parts of this manuscript were bound together probably in the last third of the 15th century (after 1469, cf. Index p. Iv). The first part, written in a single column (pp. 1r-272), contains the Buch der Natur (Prologfassung) by Conrad of Megenberg. This part of the manuscript features marginal corrections and glosses (especially for medically relevant parts of the text), which may be by the original owner of the manuscript (Hayer 1998, p. 162). Especially parts I, III, IV, and V of the Buch der Natur contain marginal notes and interlinear glosses in a 15th century hand which reworks the natural history texts allegorically for preaching. Numerous smaller and larger marginal illustrations. The second part, written in two columns (pp. 274ra-307rb) contains a medical compendium in six parts (childhood illnesses – illnesses due to the imbalance of the humores – diseases of the eyes – the plague, skin diseases, fever – surgery and wound care – venereal diseases, bone injuries, burns), Latin and German recipes and prescriptions, as well as a German table of contents. On p. 284ra is a drawing of surgical instruments. Formerly privately owned by the antiquarian Hans P. Kraus, New York, Nr. 1958/13; prior to that Maihingen, Fürstl. Öttingen-Wallersteinsche Bibl., Cod. III.1.2° 3.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
This manuscript contains works by Lactantius, written in an Italian humanistic script in the second half of the 15th century. The book decoration consists of numerous initials with bianchi girari (white vine scroll), with side borders and with a frontispiece decorated along three sides with bianchi girari and with naturalistic elements: birds, butterflies and a donkey. In the bottom margin, two putti hold a laurel wreath surrounding the coat of arms of the person who commissioned the work, a member of the Aragonese royal family of Naples, probably Ferdinand I, King of Naples (1458-1494). An old signature confirms that the manuscript is from the library of the Aragonese Kings of Naples.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
This 15th century paper manuscript in four volumes brings together the prose texts Lancelot Propre, La Queste del saint Graal, and La Mort le roi Artu. The first volume contains 42 aquarelle tinted pen drawings, the fourth volume features two full-page illustrations on inserted parchment leaves.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
This 15th century paper manuscript in four volumes brings together the prose texts Lancelot Propre, La Queste del saint Graal, and La Mort le roi Artu. The first volume contains 42 aquarelle tinted pen drawings, the fourth volume features two full-page illustrations on inserted parchment leaves.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
This 15th century paper manuscript in four volumes brings together the prose texts Lancelot Propre, La Queste del saint Graal, and La Mort le roi Artu. The first volume contains 42 aquarelle tinted pen drawings, the fourth volume features two full-page illustrations on inserted parchment leaves.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
This 15th century paper manuscript in four volumes brings together the prose texts Lancelot Propre, La Queste del saint Graal, and La Mort le roi Artu. The first volume contains 42 aquarelle tinted pen drawings, the fourth volume features two full-page illustrations on inserted parchment leaves.
Online Since: 12/20/2007
John Lydgate, Troy Book, written c. 1412-1420 at the request of Henry V when still Prince of Wales. It is composed in couplets, with a prologue, five books, an epilogue, and an address to Henry V (thirteen stanzas rhyme royal=7-line stanzas ababbcc), and envoy, titled ‘Verba auctoris' (two 8-line stanzas). Lydgate translated the story of the Trojan War into English, not directly from Homer but through the re-workings by Benoit de Ste Maure, Roman de Troie (1165) and Guido delle Colonna, Historia Destructionis Troiae (1287).
Online Since: 06/18/2020
CB 113 is a copy of a manuscript from the Bibliothèque nationale de France and contains a collection of fables in the Æsopian tradition written by Marie de France in the 12th century. Marie de France, author of the famous Lais, augmented the 101 fables with six "fabliaux". The erotic passages of the fabliaux have been erased from this manuscript.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
This manuscript, written in a humanistic script, contains the Epigrammata by Martial (ca. 40- ca. 102) in twelve books, followed by the usual two concluding texts, Xenia and Apophoreta. The first leaf of the manuscript is missing. Several epigrams were added, probably at the same time period, but by a hand different from that of the principal scribe (41v, 105v, 132r, 133v, 136v). In the absence of a title page, the decoration is limited to a series of initials, created by two different artists; one with bianchi girari, the other with interlace on a background of gold, sometimes referred to as “a cappio annodato.“ Each epigram begins with a simple initial in blue. Produced in Northern Italy in the middle of the 15th century, the manuscript was verifiably in France since the 18th century, in the hands of the Jarente de Sénas family; later it was owned by Ambroise Firmin-Didot. During the 19th century, ownership changed several times before the manuscript became part of the collection of Martin Bodmer.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
Of all the 19 surviving manuscripts and fragments containing the Prophesies de Merlin, only CB 116 transmits the entire text. The manuscript thus clarifies which episodes from the Arthurian tales comprise the complete body of the work.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
This early 14th century manuscript was copied in Italy; it brings together Ovid's Ars amatoria (The Art of Love), two books of Priscian's grammar, excerpts from the Secretum secretorum, an incomplete book on physiognomy by an unknown author, as well as a series of hymns attributed to, among others, Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose or Sedulius. The manuscript, which is missing two leaves at the beginning, shows old signs of use, with commentaries and maniculae added in the margins. This copy has no decoration with the exception of several red and mauve pen-flourish initials, highlighted in gold and framed.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
The double page at the beginning of this manuscript of the Metamorphoses and the Fasti of Ovid shows its connections to antiquity: the use of initials in the fashion of antiquity, the purple tint that colors the entire double page and the laurels that crown the poet's verses and anchor the production of this volume in the Italian Renaissance. The dedication in golden letters on the back of the first page confirm this origin: the manuscript was copied by the Neapolitan Ippolito Lunense for the secretary of Ferdinand I. of Aragon, Antonello Petrucci, whose coat of arms, surrounded by putti and horns of plenty, may be found on the back of the second page. The style, color and ink are changed according to the text. The decoration with bianchi girari of a very high quality is typical of Neapolitan production methods that were practiced by the royal illuminator Cola Rapicano.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This manuscript from Italy contains Ovid's Metamorphoses. The text is annotated with marginal and interlinear glosses by various contemporaneous and Italian hands from the 15th century. Four types of notes can be discerned: structuring, lexical and philological, intertextual and commenting, which testify to the vitality of Ovid's text in the 14th century and up to the beginning of the modern era. The frontispiece is decorated with a letter surrounding a portrait of the author during the composition of his work, as well as a side border bearing an angel with red wings.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
This copy of the Lives of the Saints, produced during the 12th century, possibly in the German Cloister of Weissenau, is decorated with ornately detailed and illustrated initial capitals, including one notable initial in which the illuminator, "Fr. Ruffilus" includes himself (fol. 244r).
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This large, incomplete manuscript in folio format contains the summer portion and the Commune sanctorum of the homiliary by Paulus Diaconus. It was written by various hands in a 9th century Carolingian minuscule; in addition to initials drawn in ink and decorated with red scrolls which indicate an Irish influence, there are even several elegant incipits in capital script. The manuscript probably comes from Reichenau, certainly from the area of Lake Constance. It belonged to the Phillipps collection, later to Chester Beatty; it was bought in 1968 by Martin Bodmer.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
This codex was produced in the opening years of the 16th century. Though it was created at a time when book printing had already proven its usefulness, this manuscript serves to demonstrate a high level of achievement in the calligraphic and illuminatory arts. Copied by Bartolomeo Sanvito, who also produced four other manuscripts of the Canzoniere and the Triumphi by Petrarch, CB 130 was written using a well-balanced, simplified script and refined illuminations. The beginning of the manuscript contains three full-page illustrations on parchment.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
This manuscript unites two different collections of Italian poetry: a collection of 380 poems by Petrarch and a collection of works by the preceding generation of poets, especially Dante. In this mysterious "libro de la mia Comare" (Book of my Godmother), the poems of Petrarch are recorded in an archaic script, augmented here and there with individual glosses which are not found elsewhere, apparently in an effort to introduce these texts to a female readership.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This manuscript, which was probably created in the St. Matthias-Eucharius Abbey in Trier, clearly belonged to the Benedictine abbey, as the ex libris on f. 1r declares. It contains, among others, the Liber antiquitatum biblicarum, which recounts Biblical history from Adam to King Saul, i.e., from the Book of Genesis to the Book of Samuel. This work was falsely attributed to Philo of Alexandria (1st century AD), the Hellenistic philosopher of Jewish culture. It also contains excerpts from the Carmina by the poet and Bishop of Tours Hildebert of Lavardin (1056-1133).
Online Since: 12/18/2014
"De Balneis Puteolanis", a didactic poem by the Salerno physician Petrus de Ebulo, describes the health benefits of about thirty healing springs found in the region around Pozzuoli and Baia, Italy. This work was widely disseminated in Latin as well as in Italian and French translations. It describes baths that were destroyed by an earthquake in 1538. The manuscript is decorated with full-page illustrations and was probably produced in the artistic circle of Robert d'Anjou.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
In this work from Plato's most productive period, Phaedo tells of the death of Socrates from a witness's point of view and relates the last words of the great philosopher in the form of a last dialogue with Cebes and Simmias. This manuscript, which contains a number of attractive decorative initials, was written during the 15th century on parchment. The round humanistic script is that of a single scribe, who identifies himself in red thus, "Marcus Speegnimbergensis scripsit" (fol. 76)
Online Since: 06/02/2010
The twenty comedies by Plautus contained in this manuscript were written in the course of the second half of the 15th century in a very careful humanist script. Each comedy begins with a golden initial with bianchi girari. The first page is also decorated with a frame of floral interlace, which is interrupted in the lower part by a laurel crown flanked by two putti; the inside of the frame was left blank and must have been meant to contain the owner's coat of arms. According to a shelfmark on the front pastedown, in the 17th century this manuscript belonged to the Maurist library in Rome.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This manuscript, which was written during the 15th century in Florence, retains its original binding. The humanistic script is the work of a single scribe, with large golden initials and "bianchi girari" (white vine) decorations at the beginning of each book. There are some marginal glosses written in violet ink as well as other, newer additions which were probably made during the 16th century. After Herodotus and Thucydides, Polybius is the third-greatest Greek historian. He concentrated on accounts of the Roman conquest, as characterized in the many conflicts that took place in a variety of different locations.
Online Since: 06/02/2010
This manuscript contains Propertius' elegies; it was written in an elegant humanist script by Gian Pietro da Spoleto in Florence in 1466. The manuscript belonged to Antonello Petrucci d'Aversa († 1487), who was active in the Aragonese chancery and later in the library of the Aragonese kings in Naples. The initials at the beginning of each book as well as on the frontispiece are decorated with bianchi girari (white vine scroll); the coat of arms that should have appeared within the laurel wreath (f. 1r) was never executed.
Online Since: 12/18/2014
In the foreword to CB 142, Prudentius underscores his desire to please God through the work he does, or at least though his poems. The most important works of this Latin-Christian poet, born in the 4th century in Tarragona, have been collected in this manuscript from the end of the 11th or the beginning of the 12th century, and they reflect the light of the word of God. One may read here, among other things, the famous Psychomachia, which portrays the struggle between the allegorical figures of vice and virtue, a lesson that had a profound influence upon medieval art and poetry.
Online Since: 12/21/2009