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...
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 13th century manuscript is from Italy and contains the first four books of the work De fide orthodoxa, written in Greek by John of Damascus. As the title (f. 1r) indicates, this text was translated into Latin at the request of Pope Eugene III (1145-1153) by the jurist and prolific translator Burgundio of Pisa. Numerous marginal glosses, for the most part contemporaneous with the creation of this copy of the manuscript, are sprinkled throughout the text.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
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
This 14th century Italian manuscript, probably from Bologna, contains the Digestum Vetus, a fundamental work which attests to the 14th century’s interest in the history of Roman law. It comprises various reference texts, which are systematically accompanied by the Glossa ordinaria, the so-called "Magna glossa" by Franciscus Accursius, an interlinear gloss and the gloss of the Gloss, which are works of explanation and instruction for the use of the text. Many manicules or fists (lat manicula, ae: small hands) testify to the assiduous labor which a large number of readers have performed on this dry text. This manuscript contains numerous pecia marks. A detached page (f. 37bis) contains a poem to the reader by the Italian jurist Angelus Boncambius (about 1450).
Online Since: 04/23/2013
Contains Juvenal’s Satires (I-XVI) with glosses which are probably from the commentary by Pseudo-Cornutus. Glued onto both inside covers are fragments from a 14th-century manuscript written in Dutch which contain part of the poetic work Martijn by Jacob van Maerlant, one of the greatest Flemish poets of the Middle Ages.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
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
Two contiguous fragments from the same leaf, which used to be part of a luxury-lectionary of the New Testament, probably copied in Constantinople in the 11th century. The two pieces were later also used for numerous clumsy drawings, graffiti and arithmetic exercises.
Online Since: 12/17/2015
A legal manuscript, probably incomplete, which contains an extensive collection of texts. Among the most important are four laws, the Lex Salica, Lex Ribuaria, Lex Alamannorum and Lex Baiuvariorum; a short and fragmentary collection of capitularies issued by Charlemagne; excerpts from De legibus, from Isidore of Seville’s Sententiae, from the Codex Theodosianum and from the Rule of Saint Benedict. The text of the Lex Baiuvariorum also contains legal terms in Old High German. In 1789 the codex was acquired by Count Johann-Christian Solms, who resided in Klitschdorf Castle near Bunzlau (Silesia) - his coat of arms can be found on f. 1r - which is why the codex is known in the literature as the "Codex Klitschdorf" or "Codex Solmsianus.” In 1960 Martin Bodmer purchased this codex from the New York antiquarian book dealer H. P. Kraus.
Online Since: 06/25/2015