Composite manuscript consisting of three parts, bringing together French translations of classic reports of voyages to the Far East. The manuscript, especially its first and third parts, is richly adorned with gold decoration and delicate scroll ornamentation in the margins, yet it contains no illustrations. Hand-painted coats of arms make it possible to identify the family de Pons de Saint-Maurice from the Périgord as a previous owner; later the codex was purchased by Jacques Bongars, who, towards the end of his life, was preparing a volume of source materials about travels to Asia. (mit)

Online Since: 10/13/2016

Important remnants of a collection of homilies, probably in two volumes, from the Dominican Monastery of Bern, which were used around 1495 by the bookbinder Johannes Vatter as pastedowns for various incunables that are currently held in Bern and Solothurn. After the secularization of the monastery in 1528, the host volumes perhaps as part of a bequest of books by the Venner [standard bearer] Jürg Schöni in 1534, became part of the Bern library. Around 1945, Johannes Lindt detached the fragments from the host volumes. (mit/hol)

Online Since: 07/14/2021

Important remnants of a collection of homilies, probably in two volumes, from the Dominican Monastery of Bern, which were used around 1495 by the bookbinder Johannes Vatter as pastedowns for various incunables that are currently held in Bern and Solothurn. After the secularization of the monastery in 1528, the host volumes perhaps as part of a bequest of books by the Venner [standard bearer] Jürg Schöni in 1534, became part of the Bern library. Around 1945, Johannes Lindt detached the fragments from the host volumes. (mit/hol)

Online Since: 07/14/2021

Single leaf with a splendid initial from a richly illustrated manuscript of Flavius Josephus' Antiquitates Iudaicae from the monastery of Engelberg; around 1600 it was sold by Abbot Andreas Hersch or Abbot Melchior Kitz to the Zurich bookseller and bookbinder Johann Felix Haller (active 1603-1637) and was then used by him as manuscript waste for a historical work by Hans Felix Grob the Younger (1572-1653). It is unclear when this volume reached the City Library of Bern and when it was assigned the shelf mark Mss.h.h.XXIa.25; the binding manuscript waste was removed by Johann Lindt in 1941. (mit)

Online Since: 07/02/2020

This fragment, consisting of 1 leaf, contains an excerpt from a missal with neumes, which probably originated in the Strasbourg area based on its contents, the celebration of St. Arbogast. Around 1650 it was re-used, presumably in Bern, as dust cover for a school notebook of Niclaus Frisching (BBB Mss.h.h. XXIV.183), from which it was removed in 1944. (mit)

Online Since: 07/02/2020