Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer
The Fondation Martin Bodmer is one of the most important private libraries in the world. It seeks to reflect the “adventure of the human spirit” since the beginning of writing; in this it follows the example of its founder Martin Bodmer, who sought to set up a “library of world literature.” The collection comprises about 160,000 items, hundreds of Western and Eastern manuscripts, Egyptian Books of the Dead, 270 incunabula including a rare exemplar of the Gutenberg Bible, autographs by Goethe, Einstein and Mozart...
Cleomadés, a poem in octosyllabic verse, is considered the masterpiece of the 13th century French poet Adenes le Roi. He lived at the courts of Brabant, France, and Flanders and composed various chansons de geste and courtly romances.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
This manuscript fragment, which was used as binding for an edition of the De quattuor virtutibus by Domenico Mancini (London, R. Dexter, 1601), contains an excerpt from a sermon by Aelfric (around 950 - around 1010), who was one of the most important Anglo-Saxon authors of the High Middle Ages. The section of this sermon, which is intended for Septuagesima Sunday and which has survived in full in 9 manuscripts, contains Aelfric’s almost complete English translation of the parable of the sower (Matthew 20:1-16), followed by a few lines of explanation. According to N. Ker, this fragment, which can be dated to the 2nd half of the 11th century, presents various interesting linguistic variations on the original text by Aelfric. It is the oldest Anglo-Saxon manuscript owned by the Fondation Martin Bodmer.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
The prolific poet Aeschylus dominates the history of Greek tragedy. His artistry reaches its high-point in the writing of Persae (5th century BC). This piece, which has served to pass on its author's name for posterity, is his oldest known surviving work.
Online Since: 06/02/2010
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
Although the Aesopian tradition enjoyed great popularity during the middle ages, thanks to the dissemination of Latin translations, the Greek text of the fabulist was first rediscovered during the Renaissance. CB 5, which was written on paper near the end of the 15th century, is a collection of some 150 fables ascribed to the poet, which served as an inspiration for La Fontaine. Following are, among other things, the Delphic prophecies of Pseudo-Pythagoras, which transmit the well-known aphorism "Know thyself!", and The Clouds, the comedy that made the Athenian writer Aristophanes famous.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
The Historiae de preliis Alexandri Magni forms a part of the vast body of Latin literature devoted to Alexander the Great during the middle ages in the occident. This manuscript, written on parchment during the 14th or 15th century (perhaps around 1400), is most likely of English origin, judging by its extremely rounded Gothic script. The titles are rubricated, and contemporaneous glosses and corrections have been added in the margins.
Online Since: 04/15/2010
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
During the entire middle ages in the occident, the texts of Aristotle and Boethius were well circulated and inspired a large number of thinkers. These two great philosophers are brought together in this volume, written in a variety of different hands. The first portion, which can be dated sometime in the 11th or 12th century, contains the works of Aristotle. It also includes an extremely interesting schema (fol. 27) and initials accented in green and decorated with scrollwork. The text of Boethius, which is dated somewhat later, was copied during the 12th century. In this text one also finds some contemporaneous corrections as well as glosses from the 14th century.
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
The Estoire de la guerre sainte, attributed to Ambroise d’Evreux, informs us that the Chanson d’Aspremont was read aloud during the winter of 1190 to entertain the soldiers of Richard the Lionhearted and Philip Augustus, who were stationed in Sicily. This heroic epic (chanson de geste) in rhymed decimeter and Alexandrines tells of the campaign of Charlemagne in Italy against the pagan king Agolant and his son Helmont. The Anglo-Norman manuscript held by the Fondation Martin Bodmer was produced in the 13th century and contains interlinear and marginal corrections, added in a second hand at a slightly later date than that in which the text was written. Because the additions were doubtless made with the help of a proofing manuscript, we can thus measure the complex effort that was required for the dissemination of this text.
Online Since: 10/04/2011
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 French manuscript, probably incomplete, contains the commentary on the Psalms (Ps. 101-117, f. 1r-110v and 113r-136v) by Augustine of Hippo. De meditatione by Hugh of Saint Victor was inserted between Ps. 108 (f. 110v) and Ps. 109 (f. 113v). This manuscript probably comes from the manuscript collection of Hautecombe Abbey in Savoy, which was acquired by Archbishop Giacinto della Torre of Turin (1747-1814) for thearchdiocese’s seminary library, which was later dispersed. The manuscript was acquired in 1957 from the book dealer Hoepli in Milan by Martin Bodmer.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
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 paper manuscript contains the prose version of the heroic epic Fierabras by Jean Bagnyon (1412-1497). As a lawyer in Lausanne, he wrote this adaptation around 1465-1470 at the request of Henri Bolomier, Canon of that same city (f. 117v). Divided into three books, the work begins with an outline of the history of the kings of France up to Charlemagne (Book I: f. 7v-19r), followed by the history of the “merveilleux et terrible“ giant Fierabras (Book II: f. 19v-93v), and a story about the Spanish War according to Turpin (Book III: f. 94r-117v). This copy and the Bibliothèque de Genève’s copy (Ms. fr. 188) are the only two handwritten witnesses of this text, which experienced great success in print from the 15th century onward (1st printed edition by Adam Steinschaber in Geneva in 1478).
Online Since: 03/22/2018
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
Four fragments of parchment, separated from a binding, contain parts of the account of the so-called Navigatio sancti Brandani, the sea voyage of St. Brendan, an Irish monk of the fifth and sixth centuries. The work in Latin prose, handed down anonymously, is considered a classic of medieval hagiography and travel literature; since the 10th century, it has been preserved in numerous manuscripts. This version is an Anglo-Norman translation by the monk Benedeit (about 1120).
Online Since: 12/13/2013
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