Basel, Universitätsbibliothek
This paper manuscript, transferred from the Basel Charterhouse to the University Library in 1590 contains (from f. 15r) a complete annual cycle of sermons, which begin with a biblical passage (the pericope) as a theme, which first has an extensive, literal explanation, and then follows, in a second ‘spiritual’ part, with a heavily Neoplatonic, mystical-contemplative reading. The Latin text, more suitable for advanced self-study, occasionally contains interspersed German: translations of specific terms, probably for further use in popular sermons.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This Greek manuscript, dating primarily from the tenth century, contains the letters of Paul along with chains of commentaries. It shares similarities with the manuscripts of the so-called “scriptorium of Ephrem” of Constantinople. In that same city, in the fifteenth century, John of Ragusa, legate of the Council of Basel, bought the codex, which he then bequeathed after his death to the Dominicans of Basel. Erasmus used it for his text of the Pauline Epistles as part of his first edition of the Greek New Testament (1516). Erasmus’ printer, Johannes Froben, left annotations on the pages.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This richly illuminated manuscript is a Greek Tetravangelion of Italo-Byzantine origin copied in the eighth or ninth century in a biblical uncial script. Some scholars have connected the uncommon style of its decoration with, on the one hand, Byzantine art of the Iconoclastic Period, and on the other hand, with the aesthetic of churches and artefacts from the period of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna. In the fifteenth century, John of Ragusa, legate of the Council of Basel, bought the codex in Constantinople, and then bequeathed it on his death to the Dominicans of Basel.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This Greek Tetravangelium from the twelfth century was acquired in the fifteenth century, perhaps in Basel, by the Dominican theologian John of Ragusa, who bequeathed it on his death to the Basel Dominicans. Later, Erasmus borrowed it from the Dominicans to use it for his first edition of the Greek New Testament (1516). During his editorial work, the humanist made in the margins numerous additions and corrections to the text. He then entrusted the codex to the Basel printer Johannes Froben, who left many annotations on the pages.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
In this twelfth-century Greek manuscript of the New Testament, divided in two parts (without the Apocalypse), the Epistles and Acts were surprisingly placed before the Gospels. Magnificently illuminated, this codex has initials that represent the epistolographers of the New Testament; one miniature depicts John the Evangelist and Christ’s descent into Hell (f. 265v). In the fifteenth-century, John of Ragusa, a delegate from the Council of Basel, bought the codex in Constantinople; he then bequeathed it on his death to the Dominicans of Basel. The codex passed into the hands of Johannes Reuchlin, as well as those of Erasmus for his first edition of the Greek New Testament (1516).
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This Greek manuscript contains the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. The main hand, rushed and cursive, very often distances itself from the archaicizing forms of the traditional minuscule used in Byzantine copies of the Bible. The codex received its current Byzantine binding perhaps from the monastery of Saint John Prodromos of Petra in Constantinople and was purchased in that city in the fifteenth century by John of Ragusa, delegate from the Council of Basel. John bequeathed the volume on his death to the Dominicans of Basel. Erasmus used it for his first edition of the Greek New Testament (1516).
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This hefty volume, written by two hands, is made up of multiple texts having the same, although not entirely uniform, layout with pen-flourished initials in the so-called Upper-Rhine Style, similar to the two volumes of Nicolas of Lyra, B IV 3 und B V 5, which also came from the Basel Dominican Convent, but not from the same workshop. Johannes von Effringen, Prior of the Convent in 1347, was likely the first owner. Gerhardus, the first of the two scribes, copied multiple works of the church father Augustine: his commentary on the Psalms, the Confessions in 13 books, but also other, smaller writings, some of which are no longer ascribed with certainty to Augustine. A corrector worked through these texts and marked the improvements in a small cursive in the margin, so that the scribe could, in a further step, carefully write them neatly and erase the notes, which did not happen throughout. The text of the second, anonymous, scribe is nearly flawless and written more beautifully. It consists in a commentary on Jeremiah by Jerome, the translator of the Bible.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This manuscript was produced in the Upper Rhine Region and was previously owned by Hugo and Johannes Münch of Münchenstein, two priors of the Basel Dominican Convent. It is a copy of the Franciscan Nicolaus of Lyra’s Postilla super Psalmos. The dating of 1323 at the end likely refers to the exemplar or to the work itself, and not to this copy. The same scribe produced another volume of Lyra’s work (Basel, UB, B V 5), with the same diagnostic pen-flourished initials, with which the same artist decorated some folio volumes from the Cistercian abbey of Pairis currently in the ZHB of Lucerne (P 13 fol.:1, 3 and 4; volume 2 burned in 1513 in St. Urban), which Hugo von Tennach copied in 1338–1340 under commission from a rich canon of the collegial of Basel, Peter von Bebelnheim.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
Copied by the same hand as the Postilla super Psalmos from the same library (B IV 3), this volume, with Nicholas of Lyra’s postils on New Testament texts, on the Acts of the Apostles, the Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse, is also decorated with pen-flourished initials in the so-called Upper-Rhine Style, and had the same previous owners, Hugo and Johannes Münch of Münchenstein, members of the Basel Dominican Convent and contemporaries of Nicholas of Lyra. Hugo, attested several times as Prior of the Convent, and Nicholas, probably both died in the same year, 1349, while Johannes, Hugo’s younger brother, was still prior in 1365.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This incomplete liturgical psalter was made between 1335 and 1350 in Naples. The unusual decorations are the work of the artist Christoforo Orimina. Because the manuscript contains three different coats of arms, the original owner (a member of the Angevin court in Naples) can not be definitively named. After changing hands many times during the 19th and 20th centuries, the manuscript was acquired in 1968 by the owner of the collection "Comites Latentes" ("Hidden Friends") held by the Bibliothèque de Genève.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
This elegant pocket-size book of hours was illuminated in Tours around 1480 by the Maître des camaïeux d’or Le Bigot, who was active in the circle of the painter Jean Bourdichon. The sixteen tiny historiated initials in camaïeu d’or that are contained in the manuscript succeed the usual repertoire with an original cycle dedicated to the seven days of Creation. The artist demonstrates his exceptional technical mastery by lending the body of the initials an especially attractive evanescent character. The subtle arrangement of the surrounding letters should invite the anonymous patron to appreciate the meticulous combination of gold and colors in detail.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This precious book of hours was made in Florence around 1470-1480. Its rich and elegant illumination is due to the close circle of the most famous florentine miniaturist of his time, Francesco d’Antonio del Chierico. The same hand is responsible for the major illuminations at the beginning of the various sections as well the initials in the text. The flourished initials are of great elegance. A partly erased coat of arms on the opening leaf indicates that the book of hours was made for the wedding of a male member of the Serristori family. The manuscript entered in the collection of the present owner in 1970 and it was deposited at the Bibliothèque de Genève as part of Comites Latentes.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
This handwritten Haggadah Comites Latentes 69 was created in Vienna in 1756. It is decorated with black ink and masterfully imitates copper engraving. The author is the famous scribe and illustrator Simmel ben Moses from Polna (active between 1714 and 1756), who produced about thirty dated manuscripts that have survived until today, of which, however, only 17, including CL 69, are autographs. His works of art are among the most remarkable examples of Hebrew manuscript decoration in 18th century Central Europe. The Song of Solomon, copied by later hands, concludes this magnificent manuscript.
Online Since: 06/22/2017
This manuscript is a hagiographic compilation in French prose which recounts the lives of the apostles, martyrs, confessors and saints. Some of the accounts are attributed to Wauchier de Denain. The manuscript is dated to the first quarter of the 14th century; it was decorated by the Papeleu Master and the illuminator Mahiet and notably contains more than eighty historiated initials.
Online Since: 03/17/2016
This richly decorated book of hours was illuminated in Tours in about 1500, for an owner from Toulouse. In the 15th century, the city of Tours and the Loire valley region were home to the court of the kings of France. This manuscript is closely connected to that glorious past era. The name of court painter Jean Bourdichon (ca. 1457-1521) is associated with two of the miniatures in this book of hours. The other 35 miniatures were painted by three book painters from the atelier of Jean Poyer (+ before 1504), also well-established in Tours.
Online Since: 07/04/2012
The greater part of the manuscript (pp. 21-598) is a compendium by Joseph b. Elijah Tirshom titled Sefer Shoshan Yesod Olam that includes 2174 numbered paragraphs, containing, inter alia, a book of magic called Harba de-Moshe (Sword of Moses) and other texts. Copied in the Ottoman empire in a 15th century Byzantine script with additions in later hands.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
One of the earliest manuscript exemplars of the version of the Tanhuma midrash text known among scholars as the "printed text" (first printed in Constantinople, 1520-22), as distinguished from the version first edited and printed by Solomon Buber in Vilnius, 1885. Copied probably somewhere in the Orient around the 14th century, the Hebrewscript is Oriental semi-cursive.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
This legal manuscript with the title Sefer Ḥokhmat Nashim is part of a vernacular literary genre for women that was widely read in Ashkenazic and Italian communities since the Renaissance. This manual of prescriptions in Judeo-Italian is said to have been copied by the famous Italian kabbalist and preacher Mordechai ben Juda Dato during the second half of the 16th century.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
This text contains an adaptation of several narrative parts of the Bible in Old French. The poem in alexandrine verse (en laisses d’alexandrins) was composed in the 12th century by an author of the continent and became one of the most successful religious works in Old French. This manuscript preserves one of the oldest and most complete exemplars of this work; it is the only one to contain almost the entire text from the Anglo-Norman branch of the text tradition. Because the text probably is of insular origin, this manuscript proves the almost simultaneous dissemination of the text in England.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
This volume is a collection of letters, made in 1467 and 1468 in Naples for Roberto da Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, contains letters by Diogenes of Sinope, Brutus and Hippocrates, who were regarded during the middle ages as the true authors of these letters. They were translated into Latin by Francesco Griffolini Aretino and Ranuccio of Arezzo. This book was presented for sale several times during the 20th century and passed through the hands of prestigious collectors.
Online Since: 04/15/2010