This pocket format 15th century Hebrew Book of Psalms from Ashkenaz, is representative of private use hand copies, which are more seldom preserved in separate textual units rather than incorporated in the Hagiographs section of Hebrew bibles and liturgical manuscripts. Nonetheless, this genre of biblical literature is already attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Additionaly, Ms Or. 159 contains 149 Psalms, rather than the canonical 150, which is only one among many configurations found in early and late medieval Hebrew manuscripts, enclosing between 143 and 151 Psalms. Lastly, two medieval Hebrew manuscript fragments of an Esther Scroll have been reused as flyleaves for the 16th century leather tooled binding, protecting this little exquisite Book of Psalms.
Online Since: 06/13/2019
This richly illustrated manuscript of Rudolf von Ems' Chronicle of the world was written in the 1340s, probably in Zurich (in the same writing workshop as the 1346 book of statutes of the Zurich Grossmünster). Its iconographic program is closely related to that of the Chronicle of the World currently held in St. Gall (Vadian Collection Ms. 302). Ms. Rh. 15 came to Zurich in 1863 from the library of the dissolved Rheinau Abbey.
Online Since: 03/29/2019
The Rheinau Psalter, Ms. Rh. 167, is among the preeminent treasures of the Zurich Central Library. Its miniatures are a product of the highest level of artistry of the High Gothic painting of this period around 1260, which is also true for the sophisticated color and painting techniques that were used. In contrast, the script, while of quite good quality, cannot be counted among the highest examples of the art of writing. The commissioner of the manuscript must be sought in the area of Lake Constance, probably in the city of Constance, which was very important in the politics and church politics at the time of the interregnum. In 1817, Father Blasius Hauntinger purchased the manuscript from Melchior Kirchhofer in Schaffhausen for the Benedictine Rheinau Abbey; in 1863, the manuscript, along with the Rheinau Abbey Library, became part of the Cantonal Library (today Central Library) in Zurich.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
In its first part, the parchment manuscript contains the text that has been named, on the basis of its outstanding cycle of illustrations, the Aurora consurgens. The manuscript also contains numerous other alchemical treatises, for ex. Albertus Magnus on Secreta Hermetis philosophi, Johannes de Garlandia (John of Garland), excerpts from Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan), the Thesaurus philosophiae and the Visio Arislei. Nine other Aurora-manuscripts are currently known to exist: Berlin Die uffgehnde Morgenrödte, Bologna, Glasgow, Leiden, Vienna, Paris, Prague and Venice. The Berlin manuscript, dating from the early sixteenth century and containing the illustrations as well as the texts in German translation, is closely related to the Zürich Codex.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
The main portion of the manuscript Ms. Rh. hist. 27, written in the early 9th century, contains the so-called Codex of Fraternisation of Reichenau. Codices of Fraternisation contain a list of the members of the monastery's confraternities who were required to include the other living or deceased members of the confraternity into their daily prayers. The zone of influence was large, reaching from Reichenau in the South to Monteverde and Conques, from Mondsee in the East to Fulda and St. Trond in the North as well as to Jumièges in the West. Over 38.000 names are documented. The earliest entries have been continuously amended and updated for several centuries. At the end of the volume, following the Codex of Fraternisation, there are 15 leaves of parchment from the 10th-12th centuries containing lists of friars, additional names and transcriptions of charters. At the beginning of the volume there are straps glued on paper containing agreements of fraternisation and obituaries from the 14-16th centuries.
Online Since: 03/31/2011
This codex contains a rare illuminated manuscript constituted entirely by illuminated pages, for each of which only a succinct caption is given, most often only a line of text, and which therefore provides exceptional historical image-sources for numerous domains. The pictures presented here of military technology were perhaps originally part of a medieval house book. A typical collector's item, this illuminated manuscript underscores the collection character of the Rheinau conventual library, whose librarians and abbots were expressly on the lookout for rare books.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
"Codex Florus dispersus” contains a virtual reconstruction of a manuscript of letters and sermons by Augustine. It was written by a single hand in a late 7th or early 8th century uncial script. The manuscript evidently originated in France, perhaps in Luxeuil or in Lyon. Originally the manuscript contained at least 30 quinions (at least 300 leaves), of which 117 leaves remain today. One part with 63 leaves from the original quires 4-11 is currently held in Paris (BnF, lat. 11641); after leaf 26 there could be inserted a single leaf which currently is held in St. Petersburg (NLR, Lat.F.papyr. I.1). Another part with 53 leaves from the original quires 24-30 is being held in Geneva (Bibliothèque de Genève, lat. 16). The outer leaf of each quire (quinio) is parchment, while the remaining leaves are papyrus. During the 9th century the volume was part of the library of Florus of Lyon, who added numerous marginalia to the manuscript in his own hand. "sine loco", codices restituti, Cod. 1 contains a virtual reconstruction of the surviving pieces in their original order.
Online Since: 12/15/2014
This codex contains a virtual reconstruction of Engelberg Abbey Library's Cod. 20 with the first volume of Gregory the Great's Moralia in Iob. It contains the first (ff. 6r-99r) and second part (99r-193v), each divided into five books. At the front of the volume there used to be a full-page illustration consisting of an artistic portrayal of Job with his three friends (upper half) and a portrayal of Gregory the Great and a writing monk (lower half), who according to custom represents Peter the Deacon (Petrus Diaconus). This leaf with a verse of dedication by Frowin on the back, the actual recto side, was carefully described by P. Karl Stadler in his hand-written catalog of 1787; this helped to identify the membrum disiectum, which is now held by the The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1955.74 (Purchase from the J.H. Wade Fund), as unequivocally belonging to this volume.
Online Since: 12/15/2014
Fewer than ten textual witnesses of Theodulf of Orléans' († 821) version of the Vulgata have survived. Numerous fragments of such a 9th century Theodulf Bible from the collegiate church of St. Ursus in Solothurn, where it was cut up and used as binding material, have been preserved in the state archives of Solothurn and the central library of Solothurn. Virtual reunification of the fragments: [sine loco], codices restituti, Cod. 3 (Biblia Theodulfi Fragmenta).
Online Since: 03/19/2015
A total of 23 leaves of a Fulda Legendary that originally consisted of six volumes, commissioned in 1156 by Rugger, monk at Frauenberg Abbey in Fulda (1176-1177 abbot of Fulda as Rugger II). The main parts probably were written by Eberhard of Fulda; the book decoration as well is very reminiscent of the Codex Eberhardi (Marburg, Hessisches Staatsarchiv K 425 and K 426). Based on the numbering in the surviving indexes and at the beginning of the texts, the size of the collection can be projected to have been about 500 vitae and passions. Thus this work bears testimony to the efforts for not only the economic, but also the spiritual and cultural reform undertaken under Abbot Markward of Fulda (1150-1165); at the same time this work is the northernmost and probably the earliest of the surviving five- and six-volume 12th century legendaries from Southern Germany. Later it served as (indirect) model for the base stock of texts of the great Legendary of Böddeken, through which it remained influential for the Bollandists' Acta Sanctorum and on into the modern times. The monumental Fulda Legendary was still used in Fulda in the middle of the 16th century by Georg Witzel (1501-1573) for his Hagiologium seu de sanctis ecclesiae (Mainz 1541) as well as for his Chorus sanctorum omnium. Zwelff Bücher Historien Aller Heiligen Gottes (Köln 1554). Fragments from the 3rd, 4th and 6th volumes are preserved in Basel, Solothurn, Nuremberg and Stuttgart. This indicates that at least the 3rd (May-June) and 6th (November-December) volumes of the legendary reached Basel, where both evidently were used as manuscript waste around 1580.
Online Since: 06/13/2019
Remnants of an Alcuin's Bible, written in Tours in the early 9th century; from the Dominican Monastery of Bern; around 1495 the remnants were used as pastedowns for various incunables by the bookbinder Johannes Vatter. After the secularization of the monastery in 1528, the host volumes by various paths reached the Municipal Library of Bern and various libraries in Solothurn. Around 1945, the fragments BBB Cod. 756.59 (1 leaf), Cod. 756.70 (8 leaves and 1 strip) as well as Cod. 756.71 (2 leaves) were removed from the host volumes by Johannes Lindt; today they can be found in the Burgerbibliothek Bern (BBB). Also in situ, i.e., in incunables from the University Library Bern (MUE), is a further leaf (MUE Inc. I.20) or smaller fragments (MUE Inc. IV.77). In addition, the Central Library of Solothurn holds: Cod. S 458 (pastedowns) as well as S II 151 (detached fragments).
Online Since: 12/12/2019
Two successive bifolia of a Fulda manuscript from the 2nd third of the 9th century with the so-called Collectio Veronensis of the acts of the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431. The codex was obviously used as waste paper in modern times in Switzerland. When and by what route it reached Switzerland from Fulda cannot be determined; however, it may have arrived there, like a number of other Fulda manuscripts, in the first half of the 16th century as a potential text source for prints by Basel print shops.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This manuscript consists of four codicological units; it was written around 1505 by the two Dominican nuns Cordula von Schönau (Constance, previously St. Gall) and Regina Sattler (St. Gall) at and for the Cloister of the Dominican Nuns of Zoffingen in Constance. For this codex, the two sisters copied the poems in dialogue form Kreuztragende Minne and Christus und die minnende Seele, the prose dialogue Disput zwischen der minnenden Seele und unserem Herrn, Henry Suso's Exemplar (without the Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit) as well as 15 of his open letters, the Tösser Schwesternbuch, the legends of Elizabeth of Hungary, Margaret of Hungary, and Louis of Toulouse, the Vierzig Myrrhenbüschel vom Leiden Christi , the story of the founding of the Cloister of the Dominican Nuns St. Katharinental near Diessenhofen, and the St. Katharinentaler Schwesternbuch.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
The Eidgenössische Chronik by Werner Schodoler (1490-1541) is in chronological order the last of the illustrated Swiss Chronicles of the late Middle Ages. It was written by private initiative between 1510 and 1535 and took as its model primarily the Official Bernese Chronicle - Amtliche Berner Chronik - by Diebold Schilling and the Chronicle - Kronica - by Petermann Etterlin. This volume, the first of the three volumes of the chronicle, covers the history from the legendary origin of Zurich and Lucerne up to Antipope John XXIII's flight from Constance (1415). Although space was left for illustrations, they were not realized (except those of 12v). 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 Archives in Bremgarten, and the third in the Cantonal Library of Aargau.
Online Since: 12/20/2012