Sub-project: Manuscripts from the Carthusian monastery of Basel
Summer 2017 - December 2020
Status: Completed
Financed by: University Library Basel
Description: The Carthusian monastery of St. Margarethental was founded in 1401 in Kleinbasel (Lesser Basel); until the Reformation it was an important spiritual and intellectual center whose influence extended far beyond the city of Basel. At the beginning of the 16th century its library contained about 2,000 books, almost all of which became the property of the university after the dissolution of the monastery and constituted the substantive basis of the early university library. Among these books are more than 600 manuscripts, which are currently in the process of being catalogued and made accessible by the University Library Basel. In addition, a scholarly relevant selection of these manuscripts is being digitized, among them the German manuscripts from the the library of the lay brothers as well as the manuscripts containing texts by the Carthusians of Basel.
All Libraries and Collections
This Eusebius manuscript is from the 14th century and was already part of the holdings of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel under Heinrich Arnoldi (prior between 1449 and 1480). The manuscript is made of high quality calfskin vellum; it is carefully written and rubricated, in part with pen-flourish initials. The manuscript contains various 14th and 15th century additions; the binding is from the 19th century.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
This manuscript was the property of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel; in a German translation, it transmits the legend of the Three Magi by John of Hildesheim, the legends of the Desert Fathers known as the “Vitaspatrum“ and the Athanasian Creed.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This manuscript was owned by Johannes Heynlin de Lapide, who donated it to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel; it contains a collection of speeches and letters by renowned humanists such as Poggio Bracciolini and Enea Silvio Piccolomini— among them an original letter from Johannes Reuchlin to Jakob Louber— with texts by Greek and Oriental authors in Latin translation. Parts of the manuscript are written by Heynlin and Reuchlin.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
This manuscript, of French origin, came to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel after having been the property of Johannes Heynlin. The massive volume contains Aristotle's six works on logic, some with commentary, which were assembled into the so-called “Organon“ only after the time of Aristotle. The decoration and science are complementary: each of the books of the main text begins with an elaborate ornamental initial; the commentary, if there is one, is grouped closely around the main text and is mostly unadorned.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This composite manuscript from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel was written by various hands; it contains primarily astrological writings, among them texts by Abraham ibn Esra, Al-Zarkali and Hermes Trismegistus translated from the Arabic, Hebrew and Greek. In the margin of f. 120r there is a blessing against worms, on f. 145v medical advice in a blend of German and Latin. In addition to handwritten parts, the volume also contains three prints. One of the two original leather clasps is still intact.
Online Since: 03/29/2019
This composite manuscript with content regarding astronomy, bound in crimson sheepskin, was owned by Heinrich Amici († 1451), city physician of Basel, who bequeathed it to the city’s Carthusian monastery. In addition to calculations of planetary conjunctions and eclipses, the volume also contains astronomical treatises by Pierre d’Ailly or Petrus de Alliaco (around 1350-1420). D’Ailly was a scholar and church politician and infused his theological works with astrological justifications.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
Since the 9th century, Aristotle’s Historia animalium, an orderly description of various creatures, had been available in an Arabic translation, which Michael Scotus translated into Latin in 1220. The decoration of the initials in this manuscript, which Johannes Heynlin purchased in Paris and bequeathed to the Carthusian monastery of Basel, is rich in drolleries. Throughout the volume, there are annotations by various hands.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This composite manuscript comes from the library of the Carthusian monastery of Basel and contains school texts on the ancient comic poet Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) (ca. 195 - ca. 159 B.C.), such as Comoediae cum didascaliis, as well as various Rhetoricae, or teachings on the art of speech making and letter writing. The first part of the manuscript was written by the later Prior Jacob Lauber while he was still a student in 1471 and 1472.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This manuscript was written by Johannes Heynlin during his time in Paris between 1469 and 1471. It contains three "classic works for education", the (annotated) Bucolics, the Georgics, and the Aeneid by Virgil, as well as a whole series of pseudo-Virgilian works. The volume is finely decorated with figural initials from a Parisian studio with scenes from Virgil's works. The manuscript was probably bound in Basel, perhaps at the instigation of the Carthusian monastery, into whose possession it came when Heynlin entered the monastery.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This manuscript, written in a 13th century textura, was the property of the cleric and historian Dietrich von Niem (1340-1418), who provided it with numerous marginal notes. The volume, which was passed on to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel, contains, among others, Seneca’s Naturales quaestiones, the discussion Cur deus homo? by Anselm of Canterbury, and the astrological work De radiis stellarum by the Arab philosopher and scientist Alkindi. It also contains the article De probatione virginitatis beatae Mariae from the so-called "Suda", a Byzantine encyclopedia widely used in the Latin translation by Roberto Grosseteste.
Online Since: 12/12/2019
This volume contains the so-called Wörterbuch des alten Schulmeisters (old schoolmaster’s dictionary). This is an independent adaptation of the more widely used Vocabularius ex quo. In contrast to the more original version, in the old schoolmaster's edition the German explanations take a back seat to the purely Latin ones. The original pastedowns, which were detached from the cover during a restoration in 1974, also contain excerpts from a Latin translation of Aristotle's De anima and other pieces of related content. The fact that the text on the rear pastedown directly continues the text from the front pastedown shows that, in their original context, the pastedowns must have been two successive pages of one manuscript.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
Probably written in Schongau and later acquired by the Carthusian Monastery of Basel, this volume is part of the vast tradition in manuscript and in print form of the so-called Vocabularius Ex quo. This alphabetically ordered dictionary was intended as a resource for users with limited knowledge of Latin and remained enormously popular in the German-speaking region until the end of the 16th century.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
This manuscript transmits various Latin-German vocabularies, among them the Mammotrectus by the Italian Franciscan John Marchesinus, which was written around 1300. This manuscript, written around 1400 by a certain Ulrich Wachter, was purchased for the Carthusian monastery of Basel in 1430.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This French manuscript from the third quarter of the 15th century contains two works from ancient times. Nonius Marcellus (4th/5th century) offers linguistic and factual explanations on Latin authors mainly from the time of the Republic, partly in alphabetically-ordered lemmas; M. Terentius Varro († 27 BC) addresses linguistic questions concerning the Latin language.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
Various Aristotelian writings in the Latin translation of Boethius as well as treatises by Boethius, written in a small 13th century script; they were bound together with two 15th century additions, probably for the scholar Johannes Heynlin from Basel, who bequeathed the volume to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel. Noteworthy for codicological reasons are the back pastedown and flyleaf, a parchment leaf that had been prepared for a prayer book. It consists of two bifolios with upside down text that should have been folded before binding, as was usual for printed sheets. However, the two bifolios were excluded and were not used in the prayer book; therefore there are no pinholes in the fold.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This small-format, almost square 14th century Ovid manuscript contains the Heroides accompanied by the commentary of William of Orléans (Guilelmus Aurelianensis, around 1200). An older erased note of ownership suggests a French origin; Johannes Heynlin bequeathed this manuscript to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
Pierre d’Ailly (Latin: Petrus de Alliaco) was a scholar, church politician and productive writer. His geographic work Imago mundi became famous; Christopher Columbus used it in order to plan his voyages of discovery. This Basel exemplar belonged to the city physician of Basel, Heinrich Amici († 1451), who bequeathed it to his city’s Carthusian monastery.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
This volume contains texts that are related to late medieval, early humanistic school practice; i.e. on the one hand, works intended for school practice (grammars, word lists) and on the other hand, theoretical treatises of didactic-pedagogical content. This volume, bound at the Carthusian monastery of Basel, brings together several originally independent parts. The first part, the prose version of Alexander of Villedieu’s versified grammar, is from the Carthusian monastery of Mainz and was donated to the Carthusian monastery of Basel. The last part, the grammar of Giovanni Sulpizio, here in a version printed by Johannes Amerbach, came to the monastery library as a gift from the printer.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This manuscript contains exercises and Quaestiones on Aristotle’s works De anima and De physica by the reform theologian Johann von Wesel (1425-1481). This volume is from the Carthusian monastery of Basel; based on a comparative study of the script, it can be assumed that the scribe of the first part is Jakob Louber. Numerous annotations in the margins and on slips of paper attest that the manuscript was heavily used.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
As its main part, this manuscript, completed in 1474 by Henricus de Bacharach, contains a copy of the widely transmitted Latin-German Vocabularius Ex quo, which was very popular through the end of the 16th century; in addition, it contains a calendar, an astrological table and several short texts by other hands. The main text was decorated by the scribe himself with naive but partly very imaginative initials and drawings. This paper codex came to the UB (Basel University Library) along with the holdings of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 06/14/2018