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
John Lydgate, Troy Book, written c. 1412-1420 at the request of Henry V when still Prince of Wales. It is composed in couplets, with a prologue, five books, an epilogue, and an address to Henry V (thirteen stanzas rhyme royal=7-line stanzas ababbcc), and envoy, titled ‘Verba auctoris' (two 8-line stanzas). Lydgate translated the story of the Trojan War into English, not directly from Homer but through the re-workings by Benoit de Ste Maure, Roman de Troie (1165) and Guido delle Colonna, Historia Destructionis Troiae (1287).
Online Since: 06/18/2020
CB 113 is a copy of a manuscript from the Bibliothèque nationale de France and contains a collection of fables in the Æsopian tradition written by Marie de France in the 12th century. Marie de France, author of the famous Lais, augmented the 101 fables with six "fabliaux". The erotic passages of the fabliaux have been erased from this manuscript.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
This manuscript, written in a humanistic script, contains the Epigrammata by Martial (ca. 40- ca. 102) in twelve books, followed by the usual two concluding texts, Xenia and Apophoreta. The first leaf of the manuscript is missing. Several epigrams were added, probably at the same time period, but by a hand different from that of the principal scribe (41v, 105v, 132r, 133v, 136v). In the absence of a title page, the decoration is limited to a series of initials, created by two different artists; one with bianchi girari, the other with interlace on a background of gold, sometimes referred to as “a cappio annodato.“ Each epigram begins with a simple initial in blue. Produced in Northern Italy in the middle of the 15th century, the manuscript was verifiably in France since the 18th century, in the hands of the Jarente de Sénas family; later it was owned by Ambroise Firmin-Didot. During the 19th century, ownership changed several times before the manuscript became part of the collection of Martin Bodmer.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
Of all the 19 surviving manuscripts and fragments containing the Prophesies de Merlin, only CB 116 transmits the entire text. The manuscript thus clarifies which episodes from the Arthurian tales comprise the complete body of the work.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
This early 14th century manuscript was copied in Italy; it brings together Ovid's Ars amatoria (The Art of Love), two books of Priscian's grammar, excerpts from the Secretum secretorum, an incomplete book on physiognomy by an unknown author, as well as a series of hymns attributed to, among others, Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose or Sedulius. The manuscript, which is missing two leaves at the beginning, shows old signs of use, with commentaries and maniculae added in the margins. This copy has no decoration with the exception of several red and mauve pen-flourish initials, highlighted in gold and framed.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
The double page at the beginning of this manuscript of the Metamorphoses and the Fasti of Ovid shows its connections to antiquity: the use of initials in the fashion of antiquity, the purple tint that colors the entire double page and the laurels that crown the poet's verses and anchor the production of this volume in the Italian Renaissance. The dedication in golden letters on the back of the first page confirm this origin: the manuscript was copied by the Neapolitan Ippolito Lunense for the secretary of Ferdinand I. of Aragon, Antonello Petrucci, whose coat of arms, surrounded by putti and horns of plenty, may be found on the back of the second page. The style, color and ink are changed according to the text. The decoration with bianchi girari of a very high quality is typical of Neapolitan production methods that were practiced by the royal illuminator Cola Rapicano.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This manuscript from Italy contains Ovid's Metamorphoses. The text is annotated with marginal and interlinear glosses by various contemporaneous and Italian hands from the 15th century. Four types of notes can be discerned: structuring, lexical and philological, intertextual and commenting, which testify to the vitality of Ovid's text in the 14th century and up to the beginning of the modern era. The frontispiece is decorated with a letter surrounding a portrait of the author during the composition of his work, as well as a side border bearing an angel with red wings.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
This copy of the Lives of the Saints, produced during the 12th century, possibly in the German Cloister of Weissenau, is decorated with ornately detailed and illustrated initial capitals, including one notable initial in which the illuminator, "Fr. Ruffilus" includes himself (fol. 244r).
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This large, incomplete manuscript in folio format contains the summer portion and the Commune sanctorum of the homiliary by Paulus Diaconus. It was written by various hands in a 9th century Carolingian minuscule; in addition to initials drawn in ink and decorated with red scrolls which indicate an Irish influence, there are even several elegant incipits in capital script. The manuscript probably comes from Reichenau, certainly from the area of Lake Constance. It belonged to the Phillipps collection, later to Chester Beatty; it was bought in 1968 by Martin Bodmer.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
This codex was produced in the opening years of the 16th century. Though it was created at a time when book printing had already proven its usefulness, this manuscript serves to demonstrate a high level of achievement in the calligraphic and illuminatory arts. Copied by Bartolomeo Sanvito, who also produced four other manuscripts of the Canzoniere and the Triumphi by Petrarch, CB 130 was written using a well-balanced, simplified script and refined illuminations. The beginning of the manuscript contains three full-page illustrations on parchment.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
This manuscript unites two different collections of Italian poetry: a collection of 380 poems by Petrarch and a collection of works by the preceding generation of poets, especially Dante. In this mysterious "libro de la mia Comare" (Book of my Godmother), the poems of Petrarch are recorded in an archaic script, augmented here and there with individual glosses which are not found elsewhere, apparently in an effort to introduce these texts to a female readership.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This manuscript, which was probably created in the St. Matthias-Eucharius Abbey in Trier, clearly belonged to the Benedictine abbey, as the ex libris on f. 1r declares. It contains, among others, the Liber antiquitatum biblicarum, which recounts Biblical history from Adam to King Saul, i.e., from the Book of Genesis to the Book of Samuel. This work was falsely attributed to Philo of Alexandria (1st century AD), the Hellenistic philosopher of Jewish culture. It also contains excerpts from the Carmina by the poet and Bishop of Tours Hildebert of Lavardin (1056-1133).
Online Since: 12/18/2014
"De Balneis Puteolanis", a didactic poem by the Salerno physician Petrus de Ebulo, describes the health benefits of about thirty healing springs found in the region around Pozzuoli and Baia, Italy. This work was widely disseminated in Latin as well as in Italian and French translations. It describes baths that were destroyed by an earthquake in 1538. The manuscript is decorated with full-page illustrations and was probably produced in the artistic circle of Robert d'Anjou.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
In this work from Plato's most productive period, Phaedo tells of the death of Socrates from a witness's point of view and relates the last words of the great philosopher in the form of a last dialogue with Cebes and Simmias. This manuscript, which contains a number of attractive decorative initials, was written during the 15th century on parchment. The round humanistic script is that of a single scribe, who identifies himself in red thus, "Marcus Speegnimbergensis scripsit" (fol. 76)
Online Since: 06/02/2010
The twenty comedies by Plautus contained in this manuscript were written in the course of the second half of the 15th century in a very careful humanist script. Each comedy begins with a golden initial with bianchi girari. The first page is also decorated with a frame of floral interlace, which is interrupted in the lower part by a laurel crown flanked by two putti; the inside of the frame was left blank and must have been meant to contain the owner's coat of arms. According to a shelfmark on the front pastedown, in the 17th century this manuscript belonged to the Maurist library in Rome.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This manuscript, which was written during the 15th century in Florence, retains its original binding. The humanistic script is the work of a single scribe, with large golden initials and "bianchi girari" (white vine) decorations at the beginning of each book. There are some marginal glosses written in violet ink as well as other, newer additions which were probably made during the 16th century. After Herodotus and Thucydides, Polybius is the third-greatest Greek historian. He concentrated on accounts of the Roman conquest, as characterized in the many conflicts that took place in a variety of different locations.
Online Since: 06/02/2010
This manuscript contains Propertius' elegies; it was written in an elegant humanist script by Gian Pietro da Spoleto in Florence in 1466. The manuscript belonged to Antonello Petrucci d'Aversa († 1487), who was active in the Aragonese chancery and later in the library of the Aragonese kings in Naples. The initials at the beginning of each book as well as on the frontispiece are decorated with bianchi girari (white vine scroll); the coat of arms that should have appeared within the laurel wreath (f. 1r) was never executed.
Online Since: 12/18/2014
In the foreword to CB 142, Prudentius underscores his desire to please God through the work he does, or at least though his poems. The most important works of this Latin-Christian poet, born in the 4th century in Tarragona, have been collected in this manuscript from the end of the 11th or the beginning of the 12th century, and they reflect the light of the word of God. One may read here, among other things, the famous Psychomachia, which portrays the struggle between the allegorical figures of vice and virtue, a lesson that had a profound influence upon medieval art and poetry.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This manuscript contains the Romuleon, a collection of anonymous Latin texts about the history of Rome attributed to Benvenuto da Imola. CB 145 was written in France in about 1440, probably during the lifetime of Charles VII, whose portrait can be found on fol. 6v. There is a series of noteworthy miniatures at the beginning of the manuscript.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
This manuscript contains the tract Le Mortifiement de Vaine Plaisance by King René of Anjou. This allegorical poem, composed in 1455, invites people to live a holy life by means of a dialogue between soul and heart about abstinence from unsatisfying earthly things. CB 144 is decorated with eight full-page miniatures made by Jean Colombe in about 1470.
Online Since: 07/25/2006
This manuscript produced at the end of the 13th century contains a copy of the Arthurian romance tales in prose: "Estoire del Graal", "Merlin", "Suite Merlin", "Queste del saint Graal", and "Mort le roi Artu". The interpolations used in CB 147 make it a particularly unusual manuscript: the heroes of the Arthurian tales are made to utter translations of the Gospels, Genesis, and various other biblical texts as well as sermons by Maurice de Sully. The manuscript also contains the "Faits de Romains", and a prose version of the "Roman de Troie" not found elsewhere. The plentiful illuminations are executed in a highly unusual style.
Online Since: 07/25/2006
This manuscript contains François Dassy's French translation of Carcel de amor by Diego San Pedro (1437-1498). This translation is also based on Lelio Manfredi's Italian translation, completed in 1513. Diego de San Pedro is a Spanish pre-Renaissance poet and storyteller; perhaps he was of Hebrew origin but converted to Christianity. Carcel de amor, one of his two best-known novellas, is a sentimental romance about the overcoming of passionate love through reason; it was first printed in Seville in 1492 and was translated into many languages. The manuscript is illustrated with 19 vignettes, most of which are surrounded by an architectural frame containing representations of figures in period clothing. This manuscript might have been created for Charles III de Bourbon-Montpensier (Charles de Bourbon) between 1521 and 1527 — his coat of arms is on f. 1v. Before becoming part of the Martin Bodmer collection, the manuscript was owned by the Demidow family, Count Alexis Golowkin and Sir Thomas Philipps.
Online Since: 12/17/2015
The Schwabenspiegel (mirror of the Swabians) contains a collection of national and feudal laws; during the late Middle Ages it was used in Southern Germany, but it was also widely used in Bohemia and in present-day Switzerland up to the German-French language border. The manuscript was edited in the second half of the 13th century and thus belongs to the oldest of altogether more than 350 textual witnesses.
Online Since: 12/18/2014
During the Middle Ages, Seneca was the most popular and most read of the ancient playwrights. The manuscripts of his tragedies, of which almost 400 copies are known today, are mostly from the 14th and 15th century, as is this copy, owned by the Fondation Bodmer. At the beginning of each of Seneca's dramas, this version has a historiated initial that summarizes the plot of the drama, such as the suicide of Jocasta and the blinding of Oedipus at the beginning of the eponymous drama (f. 46v). The rather modest execution of these initials was most likely carried out in Northern Italy, where most of the illuminated copies of this text (about 50) were produced.
Online Since: 10/10/2019
A precursor to the rediscovery of Statius during the Renaissance of the 12th century this manuscript of the Thebaid (sometimes Thebiad) from the 11th century was certainly copied in Germany. It contains some marginal glosses that originate in part in the commentary of Lactance, and is distinguished above all by its neumes, which stand above the verses on fols. 46v, 80r and 81r. The notation indicates the rhythem of the text and underscore the importance of some passages that have a pathetic tone: the mourning of Hypsipyle over the body of the child Archemorus, the prayer of Tydeus shortly before death, the pain of Polyneikes before the body of Tydeus.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
The Theban and Trojan sagas held an important place in the literature of the middle ages. The contents of manuscript CB 160, written in 1469 on paper by Jacotin de Lespluc (« escript par la main de Jacotin de Lespluc »), form part of this tradition. This codex contains a prose version of the "Historia trojana" by Guido delle Colonne and a history of Thebes that closely follows the "Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César". The ink wash drawings are very similar to those found in Ms. 9650-52 of the Königliche Bibliothek of Belgium.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
"Even as it is better to enlighten than merely to shine, so is it better to give to others the fruits of one's contemplation than merely to contemplate." The greatest work of Thomas Aquinas, the Summa Theologica, is the emblematic work of Christian scholasticism. This work, written near the end of the life of the great Dominican is incomplete, as its compositon was broken off by the death of the author. Organized in the form of questions (quaestiones) and subdivided into articles, the work presents theology in an organic form. Manuscript CB161 was produced in France, certainly in Paris, only a short time after the philosopher's death; it has been preserved in its original binding. The inscription from the end of the 13th century which can be found on the lower portion of the back cover shows that the manuscript was deposited as collateral by Jean de Paris against the loan of another work.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
In his De bello Peloponensium, Thucydides fully achieves the work of a historian, as he shows the origins of the Peloponnesian War and then relates its events year by year with great exactitude. This parchment manuscript is extraordinarily beautiful in its illustrations, especially the two "putti" and the human figure in the center of one initial, wearing a blue suit of armor and holding a sword. The humanistic script, a slightly angular cursive, is the work of a single scribe.
Online Since: 06/02/2010
This elegant codex, written in humanist cursive, contains the Elegiae by the Latin elegiac poet Tibullus; this text was not very widely distributed in the Middle Ages, but was rediscovered by Italian humanists at the end of the 14th century. The manuscript was written and illuminated in Florence, perhaps for Braccio, a member of the Martelli family, who had his coat of arms added to the title page. Later the manuscript passed into the hands of the Medici family of Florence; they had their coat of arms painted on the front pastedown. In 1968 Martin Bodmer purchased the manuscript from the collection of Thomas Phillipps.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This 12th century French manuscript contains the first six books of Virgil's Aeneid, along with the Argumenta attributed to Pseudo-Ovid. Among the famous previous owners of this codex is Charles de Montesquieu (1689-1755), whose ex-libris is on f. 1r. Later the manuscript was owned by Sir Thomas Philipps (1792-1872). Martin Bodmer acquired this manuscript in 1966, during one of the auctions of the Philipps collection.
Online Since: 12/17/2015
The manuscript held by the Fondation Martin Bodmer contains the only exemplar of the long Anglo-Norman roman lignager (family history tale) Waldef. This text, originally written at the beginning of the 13th century, consists of some 22,300 octosyllabic couplets celebrating the lives of its hero and his sons; after a long preamble going back to the Roman occupation of England, the tale recounts love and separation, travels and battles using conventional imagery. This manuscript was copied near the end of the 13th century or the beginning of the 14th century and is decorated with pen drawings in the margins; it also contains a second roman lignager, Gui de Warewic and a chanson de geste, Otinel.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This late Renaissance Italian humanist manuscript contains excerpts of various works by Latin and Greek authors, among them Pliny, Cicero, Silius Italicus, Plautus, Livy, Horace, Sallust, Plutarch, Seneca and others. Pellegrin, following Tammaro de Marinis, attributes the writing to the copyist Gian Marco Cinico, who worked for the kings of Naples between 1458 and 1494. The different parts are introduced by golden initials with bianchi girari, only partly completed (ff. 1v, 4v, 20r, 22r, 50r, 186v). Some of these bianchi girari are left unfilled on a blue, red, green or black background, others are colored pink, green or blue on a black or golden background. The vine scrolls are inhabited by putti and animals such as rabbits, stags, butterflies or birds. Numerous frames show putti engaged in hunting or other playful activities (e.g., ff. 55r, 79r, 139r, 169r).
Online Since: 12/17/2015
This ethical work by Boccaccio, originally written between 1353 and 1356 and expanded in 1373, addresses the subject of the unevenness of fate. Manuscript copies of the work were frequently made; it was issued in print and translated into many languages. It enjoyed great popularity in Europe. The French translation by Laurent de Premierfait for Jean de Berry was equally popular, as evidenced by the 68 manuscript copies of this text still in existence. Unlike the Latin version, the French manuscripts display a rich iconographic accompaniment, most likely produced by Laurent de Premierfait himself. This is also the case with CB 174, which was produced during the 15th century in France. Each book opens with a small illustration (150 in all) portraying the “pitfalls” described in the text that follows.
Online Since: 03/22/2012
The Rhetorica, a work in Latin recording ten years teaching by Guillaume Fichet, is a witness to this „Art of Speaking“, treatments of which would soon disappear. This richly illuminated manuscript was written in 1471 at the Sorbonne in Paris (in the same year as the printed edition of the text). The manuscript begins with a large miniature portraying the author presenting his book to Princess Yolanda of Savoy.
Online Since: 03/22/2012
The 13 large illustrations in this French manuscript, written in the 15th century, were produced by one of the most important book decorators of the late middle ages : Jean Fouquet (BnF, ms. fr. 247). They are richly decorated with gold and cover two thirds of a page; a large number of initials adorned with flowers round out the illustrator's iconographic program. The first page, which is missing, also certainly held a decorative illustration (Adam and Eve?). At the beginning of a prolog is a small miniature portraying the author writing the book. The Antiquitates iudaicae recounts the history of the Jewish nation from Genesis to the year 66 according to the modern western calendar.
Online Since: 03/22/2012
A luxurious copy of the Life of Aesop, part historical and part legendary, that was compiled around 1300 by Maximos Planudes. These pages once constituted the first part of a manuscript of Aesop's Fables , which today is held primarily in New York. It was written in Florence between 1482 and 1485 by Démétrios Damilas, one of the main scribes at the court of the Medici, for Lorenzo the Magnificent's young son Piero II de' Medici, who was 10-12 years old at the time. On the splendid frontispiece one can recognize the portraits of Planudes and Piero II.
Online Since: 12/17/2015
The text De verborum significatu by the Latin grammarian Pompeius Festus is an extremely valuable dictionary of Latin language and mythology for those seeking to understand the world of the Romans. This manuscript is of Italian origin and retains its contemporary binding with a wooden cover. It was written during the 15th century on parchment and contains lovely gilded initials on a blue and red background. Quotations have been added in the margins to explain certain words in the text. The last leaves in the volume contain excerpts from Greek and Latin authors.
Online Since: 06/02/2010
Exemplar of the so-called Parisian Bible, a pocket Bible which contains the entire text of the Old and the New Testaments in a relatively small format in two columns in small script. The codex was produced around the middle or in the second half of the 13th century in Central or Eastern France. It is distinguished and made luxurious by no fewer than 82 historiated initials and 66 ornamental initials. Noteworthy is the fact that the biblical text shows signs of careful correction and that the psalms are divided into smaller sections according to a scheme, which rules out that it was commissioned by a monastery, but suggests instead that it was commissioned by a secular priest or a layperson. An erased note of ownership suggests that in 1338 this manuscript belonged to the Celestine Monastery Notre-Dame of Ternes (Limoges), perhaps a gift from its founder Roger le Fort, who was the son of the Lord of Ternes and was Archbishop of Bourges in 1343. Before this Bible became part of the collection of Martin Bodmer, it belonged to the collection of Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845-1935), hence the name “Rothschild-Bibel.”
Online Since: 12/17/2015
This manuscript contains the Dragmaticon, a work by the scholar Wilhelm de Conches, a member of the School of Chartres. It is possible that the codex was produced in about 1230 in the area of Cologne in a scholastic circle and that it is among the oldest surviving texts of the Dragmaticon, which is transmitted in a total of about 70 medieval manuscripts. The portable format, assorted schemata and tables provided, and the script used (Gothic cursive) indicate that the manuscript was intended for university use. The first section of the manuscript contains a computus for determining when movable feast days should fall.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
In about 1310 the Bishop of Liège, Thibaut de Bar, commissioned Jacques de Longuyon to write the Vœux du paon, which extends the tradition of the Alexander romance. Thirteen miniatures and a number of filigreed initials adorn the alexandrine monorhyme stanzas of the poem.
Online Since: 03/25/2009
A copy of the four Gospels with commentaries by Jerome, produced in the Abbey of St. Gall during the 10th century (before 950).
Online Since: 07/31/2009
This volume contains a number of tracts by anonymous authors as well as extracts from works of textual criticism treating individual books of the Old and New Testaments. Specifically worth naming are: Guilelmus Brito (died ca. 1275), Johannes de Colonia (13th century) and Guilelmus de Mara Lamara (1230-ca. 1290). The content is of Franciscan authorship, suggesting that the manuscript was produced in a Minorite cloister.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
A composite manuscript consisting of sections from three datable periods, the first from the 10th century, the other two from the 12th century. The first part (1-222) contains glosses on Priscian, the second (223-310) a collection of medical tracts assembled by Constantinus Africanus, the third part (311-357) contains the Liber Tegni by Galen (129/131-199/201).
Online Since: 12/19/2011
The content consists mostly of an anonymous commentary on the Gospel of Matthew attributed to Geoffrey Babion, together with other short texts, not all of which have been identified. The manuscript probably originated in Einsiedeln, certainly it has been there since the 14th century as attested by various annotations and marks by Heinrich von Ligerz.
Online Since: 09/23/2014
Commentary on the first eight epistles of Paul. This is a copy of a (lost) exemplar which, according to tradition, was written before 945 by Abbot Thietland († around 964). The text depends to a great degree upon the Pauline commentary of Bishop Atto of Vercelli (885-961).
Online Since: 12/20/2012
Lectionary, produced in the Abbey of St. Gall during the 10th century (before 950). It may have been presented by St. Gall to Einsiedeln on the occasion of the consecration of the church at Einsiedeln in 948, together with Codex 17.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
Cod. 83 is a complete breviary consisting of the following parts: calendar, antiphonary with neume notation, lectionary with biblical readings, homilary containing interpretations by the Church Fathers, hymnal, canticles from the Old and New Testaments, psalter, brief readings, prayers, preces and benedictions. Of special note is the oldest version of the Meinrad Office known to us, which is still used today. The melodies used in the antiphonary belong to the Alemanic choral dialect, still sung in the same form in Einsiedeln in the liturgy of the hours.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
A manuscript of collected works, including the Ordines Romani and the works of Amalarius (Metensis). The content of this codex is nearly identical to that of Abbey Library of St. Gall Cod. Sang. 446, indicating that this copy, made in the second half of the 11th century, is of St. Gallen origin.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
This manuscript contains a martyrology (pp. 1-28), the Rule of Saint Benedict (pp. 28-83) and a homiliary (pp. 84-126). It was written by two scribes in a late Carolingian minuscule and contains two initials decorated with plant branches drawn in ink. In the 13th century, a document about the confraternity of Einsiedeln Abbey and St. Blaise Abbey in the Black Forest was added to a blank area at the end of the text of the Rule of Saint Benedict (p. 83).
Online Since: 03/17/2016
This Codex comprises the oldest complete surviving neumed mass antiphonary; it includes assorted appendices (such as Alleluia verses, Antiphons and Psalm verses for the Communion Antiphons). Because the mass antiphonary is complete, the manuscript remains important to this day as a resource for Gregorian chant research. The second part of the codex contains the Libyer Ymnorum, the Sequences of Notker of St. Gall. Recent research has established that the codex was written in Einsiedeln itself (in about 960-970), most likely for the third abbot of the cloister, Gregor the Englishman.
Online Since: 03/31/2011
This manuscript contains Jerome's commentary on Matthew; it was written in Carolingian minuscule by the scribe Subo, who signed at the end of the text (p. 267) as well as on the last page (p. 268), which today, as the inside back page, is glued to the cover. The style of the initials indicates the Rhaetian area, whereas the scribe Subo is attested at Disentis Abbey. The manuscript has been in Einsiedeln since at least the 17th century, as shown by an ex libris on page 1.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
This composite manuscript contains among others the De viris illustribus by Jerome and the De viris illustribus by Gennadius, the Deflorata by Isidore of Seville and, at the very end, the Tractatus de VII sacramentis, which was only added in the 12th/13th century. The 14th century binding is probably from Einsiedeln; certainly the manuscript was in the monastery library in the 17th century, as attested by the ex libris on p. 1.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
The first part of this manuscript (pp. 2-261) contains the Gospel of Matthew by Jerome and a sermon attributed to Isidore of Seville (pp. 261-262), while the second part (pp. 263-378) contains a copy of the Expositio quattuor evangeliorum by Pseudo-Jerome. Various scribes wrote this manuscript in a pre-Carolingian minuscule which may show characteristics of Raetian script. The influence of the Raetian script can clearly be seen in several initials (p. 2, 5, 62).
Online Since: 09/23/2014
This manuscript contains Gregory the Great's Moralia in Job. It is assumed the manuscript originated in Disentis, since its Carolingian minuscule is very similar to that of manuscript 126, written by the scribe Subo of Disentis. Therefore this manuscript, too, should be dated to the first third of the 9th century. The manuscript has been held at Einsiedeln since the 17th century, as attested by an ex libris on p. 3.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
This manuscript contains the homilies of Gregory the Great on the prophet Ezekiel. It is written by various hands in a minucule which in general is close to the Raetian minuscule. Some researchers attribute the manuscript to a Swiss or Raetian scriptorium. A part of pages 204 and 206 and the entire page 214 are written in uncial script. The mansucript contains numerous initials with geometric and vegetal elements, similar in style to the Remedius-Sacramentary (Cod. Sang. 348). The maniculae by Heinrich von Ligerz confirm that the manuscript was in Einsiedeln in the 14th century already.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
This manuscript contains the Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam of Ambrosius of Milan. It was produced in Engelberg as a commission for Abbot Frowin (1143-1178), a fact indicated by the dedicatory verse on 1. It also contains three illuminated initials with the motive of tendrils generally used during Frowin's tenure.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
A 12th century manuscript (1170-1190), probably copied in Switzerland (Einsiedeln?) or in Austria. It contains the introduction In prima parte agitur (fol. 1r-7ra) and the Decretum by Gratian [Σ-group, cf. C. Wei, A Discussion and List of Manuscripts Belonging to the Σ-group (S-group)] (fol. 7ra-217va); an additio (from fol. 167vb to C.29: Adrianus papa Eberhardo Salzeburgensi archiepiscopo. 'Dignum est et a rationis... [JL 10445: 1154-59]); various excerpts of glosses (scraped on fol. 21a) and excerpta of the Summa by Rufinus (cf. R. Weigand, Die Glossen zum Dekret Gratians. Studien zu den frühen Glossen und Glossenkompositionen, Roma 1991, pp. 737-740); fragments of the Glossa Ordinaria by Bartholomaeus Brixiensis (France, middle of the 13th century) were copied onto the erasures on fol. 6va-9va.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
The Panormia contains a collection of canon law texts, attributed to Ivo of Chartres, which apparently was edited after 1095. The codex probably originated in Einsiedeln and was written by a single scribe who used a regular and calligraphic Carolingian script. The text is divided into eight books, each introduced by an initial; of these eight initials, only one is executed in red, while for the others the preliminary drawings remain visible.
Online Since: 09/23/2014
Originally, this codex constituted a whole together with Einsiedeln 281. It was created in the 8th/9th century in the Raetian-Lombard area. The first part (p. 1-256) was written in Carolingian minuscule, the second (p. 258-430) in Raetian minuscule, the third (p. 431-526) in Raetian or Alemannic minuscule. The maniculae (bookmarks) by Heinrich von Ligerz confirm that the manuscript was in Einsiedeln in the 14th century already.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
This is an especially lovely exemplar, written in France (Paris?) or Flanders, of The Mirror of Human Salvation, or Speculum humanae salvationis. The work itself exists in over 200 manuscript copies and numerous print editions. The Mirror of Human Salvation is divided into the prefiguring of salvation (Old Testament), the story of salvation as told in the New Testament (from the Annunciation to the Judgement Day), the 7 Stations of the Passion, the 7 Sorrows and the 7 Joys of Mary. At this time, four leaves and the opening portion are missing.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
The principal text in this manuscript is the Explanatio Dominicae Orationis by Engelberg's Abbot Frowin (†1178), who probably commissioned the volume, as indicated by the verses on the last page (468). The manuscript was probably brought to Einsiedeln at the beginning of the 17th century.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
This manuscript, together with Cod. 247(379), 248(380) and 249(381), constitutes the four volumes of a collection of lives of the saints and passions of the martyrs, arranged according to the liturgical year. Without a doubt these four volumes were used in Einsiedeln, where most likely they also were produced. Each life is introduced with a large rubricated initial, and numerous glosses and maniculae by Heinrich von Ligerz were inserted along the margins. The original endpapers, now removed, left traces of a liturgical text with neumes on the inside of the cover and traces of an illuminated initial on the inside of the back cover.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
This manuscript (9th century) from Disentis contains the Recognitiones of Pope Clement I in the Latin translation of Rufinus of Aquileia. Books IV-VI and individual chapters are missing.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
The first part (pp. 1-178) contains ascetic treatises in Rhaetian or Alemannic minuscule, which originally constituted a single volume together with Einsiedeln 199. The other parts were written in Carolingian minuscule. The second part there of (pp. 179-270) can be localized to Switzerland or Northern Italy and the last part (pp. 271-314) to France. The manuscript was held in Einsiedeln in the 14th century already, as attested by numerous maniculae in the hand of Heinrich von Ligerz.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
The devotional book of Abbot Ulrich Rosch of St. Gall contains various prayers, timetables and calendars, is decorated with elaborate initials and was written in the year 1472.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
The work of Bartholomew de Glanville forms only the first part of this manuscript of collected works, which also includes the following: Albertus Magnus (De compositione hominum et de natura animalium), De Romana Curia, De consecratione Romanorum Imperatorum, Forma iuramenti, Privilegium Constantini, a list of cardinals and their titular churches, De arboribus.
Online Since: 08/12/2010
This manuscript contains several works by Prudentius and was written by various scribes. The test is surrounded by mostly interlinear glosses; most of these are in Latin, some are in Alemannic dialect.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
"De consolatione philosophiae" by Boethius and the life of St. Wolfgang by Otloh of St. Emmeram make up this two-part codex. One part was written in Einsiedeln, the second may have been written in Strassburg.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
This manuscript, written in Rhaetian minuscule, contains selected chapters of the ecclesiastical history of Eusebius of Caesarea.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
This is actually a manuscript of collected texts, since, in addition to the incomplete Imago mundi by Honorius Augustodunensis, it also contains other texts by unnamed authors such as: Nomina XI regionum, Divisio orbis terrarum, De anima, De anima humana, De origine animarum, De anima mundi, De origine animarum and ends with the Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem.
Online Since: 08/12/2010
Contains works of Isidore of Seville: Libri originum (I-III e V-XX), De natura rerum, and letters exchanged between Isidore and Braulio of Zaragoza. The manuscript was assembled from an assortment of fragments that had been removed in the 19th century from law volumes held by the library of the chancery of St. Gerold in Vorarlberg. This volume was assembled at the request of Abbot Frowin of Engelberg (1143-1178), as indicated by dedicatory verses on f. 1r.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
The fragments assembled in this collection were removed from their previous volumes by P. Gall Morel in 1858 and bound together into this volume in 1860. They consist of fragments from sequences (two volumes), hymn melodies (such as those still sung to this day in Einsiedeln), three Gloria melodies (the third of which is attributed to Pope Leo IX), three liturgical plays as well as the Novem modi by Hermannus. This manuscript is important to music history, as it is the first instance in Einsiedeln where the neumes are set upon four (incised) staff lines; the form used here represents the Alemannic choral dialect.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
This antiphonary was written by order of Abbot Johannes I of Schwanden for the liturgy of the Hours of the monastic community of Einsiedeln. Together with Cod. 611-613, this manuscript attests to the introduction of Guido of Arezzo's (Guido Monaco's) system of musical notes with square notation.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
It is highly likely that this codex is the original transcription of the neumed manuscript in the hand of Guido von Arezzo commissioned by Abbot Johannes I of Schwanden shortly before 1314. The calligraphic copies found in the other "Schwanden codices" were then produced following this source. Evidence of heavy use indicates that these manuscripts remained in use into the 17th century, that is, until the liturgical reform of the Council of Trent. The forms used are from the Alemannic choral dialect, which is still sung in Einsiedeln today.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
German Psalter. The psalms are preceded by rubrics that indicate the occasion when the psalm should be recited. The manuscript also contains several canticles, the Te deum and the Litanies of the Saints. The names in the litanies indicate a Benedictine origin. The manuscript was written in 1421 by Othmar Ortwin. In 1839 it was purchased by the Einsiedeln monk and librarian P. Gallus Morell from the Cistercian Wurmsbach Abbey on Lake Zürich.
Online Since: 03/17/2016
This manuscript containing the Legenda aurea by Jacobus de Voragine is the second-oldest manuscript copy of this work, written within the lifetime of the author; it is dated 1288. The codex also contains the first known transmission of the so-called Provincia or Purgatory addendum. The proposal by A. Bruckner that the Abbey of Rheinau is the location of origin is not supported by any indications in the codex itself. It was most likely written in the southern German region (within the community of Augustinian hermits).
Online Since: 11/04/2010
This very small manuscript contains treatises on music by various Italian and French authors, among them Marchettus of Padua (f. 1-44), Johannes de Muris (f. 83-104v), and Prosdocimus of Beldomandi (f. 51-55, 75-82). It was written in Northern Italy at the beginning of the 15th century.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
Christus und die Minnende Seele ("Christ and the Courting (or wooing) Soul"); Henry Suso, life and works. This manuscript was a gift from a married couple, Ehlinger-von Kappel (Constance) to the Dominican convent of St. Peter in Constance, and from there it probably came to Einsiedeln via the Rheinau Abbey after its dissolution.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
This codex contains over a hundred lives of the saints and acts of the martyrs, most of them accompanied by rubricated initials and incipits. Aside from a few decorated initials, also red, there is no book decoration. The layout of the manuscript and the careful preparation of the parchment with artful colored needlework express the tradition of the scriptorium under Abbot Frowin (1143-1178). The staid script in black ink, often interrupted by another finer hand, sets this volume apart from the others from Frowin's library; it is therefore also possible that this codex was made under Frowin's successor, Berchtold (1178-1197).
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This first part of the three-volume Engelberg Bible (together with Cod. 4 and Cod. 5) contains the Pentatuch and the books of the Prophets. The captioned pen sketch with verse of dedication on fol. 1v portrays Abbot Frowin (1143-1178) presenting the codex to Mary, the patroness of the Cloister. This large-format volume was, according to the colophon on 281v, written by Richene, the only scribe from Frowin's time that we know by name. The careful preparation of the parchment with decorative needlework and the staid style of script and initials in limited colors are characteristic of the recognizable works of Frowin's library.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This second volume of the three-part Engelberger Bible contains the books of the Old Testament remaining after Cod. 3. On 1v, the codex is dedicated in verse by Abbot Frowin (1143-1178) to Mary, the patron saint of the monastery. The codex's structure and organization reflect the simple but elegant style of Frowin's library. The colophon on 213r identifies the copyist as Richene, whose hand is also responsible for the other two volumes of the Engelberger Bible (Cod. 3 and Cod. 5); the illuminations and titles are the work of the so-called Engelberger Master. 69v contains a full-page colour depiction of Christ and the Church.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This third volume of the three-part Engelberg Bible contains the New Testament. The codex originally consisted of 204 folios. On one of the leaves that have been cut out, now cataloged as D 126 at the Stiftsarchiv Engelberg, a five-line verse identifies the scribe as Richene, who also completed the volumes containing the Old Testament (Cod. 3 and Cod. 4). Abbot Frowin (1143-1178) and his scribe Richene are also shown in a full-page illustration on 1r. Also portrayed at full-page size are the Evangelists with their attributes, each labeled with a descriptive verse (108v, 134v, 153v, 181r). On 103r through 105v are canonical tables. The manuscript contains some incomplete initials, spaces reserved for decorations, and completely empty pages.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This codex contains Augustine's commentary on the Psalms, written in a small, extremely fine script. The verse on 1r names Abbot Frowin (1143-1178) as creator of the volume. In addition to simple red initials, the manuscript also includes individual extremely artful initials by the Engelberg Master in brown and red ink. The portrayal of Christ as grape-treader on 101r is particularly noteworthy; like several other sections, it is on a erased section. Beside and beneath the attachments one occasionally finds fine sketches for initials, designs, or figures.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
The scriptorium of Engelberg made this codex containing Augustine's commentary on the Psalms, along with a whole series of works of the Church Fathers (Cod. 12-18, 87-88 and 138). A two-line poem on 1r shows that the codex came to be during the time of Abbot Frowin (1143-1178). The text is written in a small, careful and clean script. The codex contains scattered figure initials with vinescrolls and bulb motifs typical of Frowin's time. Otherwise, lightly decorated initials in red ink divide the text.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This manuscript contains the 15 books of St. Augustine's On the Trinity. On 1v, under the Capitula a pen-drawing depicts Augustine with his three adversaries. The codex has been decorated in a particularly artistic manner by the so-called Engelberg Master. A large initial with figurative motifs in red-brown and blank ink begins each book; in the text that follows, intermediate initials are smaller, monochromatically red, and richly ornamented. In verse on 1r, the copyist describes in detail the circumstances of the production of the volume: it was begun under Abbot Berchtold of Engelberg (1178-1197), who died shortly after the copying was underway; his successor Heinrich (1197-1223) supervised the completion of the work.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This codex contains Augustine's exposition on the Gospel of John. According to the dedicatory poem on 1r the manuscript was produced under Abbot Frowin (1143-1178) of Engelberg. The layout, script and illustration – a few initials with vinescroll- and bulb patterns (2v, 5v, 136v) alternate with more simple rubricated capitals in dividing the sections – are closely related to Cod. 13.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This manuscript contains sermons of the Church father Augustine. On 1r, Abbot Frowin of Engelberg (1143-1178) dedicates the codex in verse to the Virgin Mary, the monastery's patron saint. An index on 1v-3r lists the sermons contains in the manuscript. Half of the last folio (221) has been cut out, on the back paste-down, the copyist tested his pen (probacio penne). As with most volumes from Frowin's library, tears and holes in the parchment are carefully stitched up.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This codex contains Augustine's City of God. The manuscript was probably begun under Abbot Frowin of Engelberg (1143-1178) and completed and decorated under his successor Berchtold (1178-1197). The last folio is cut out; it may have had dedicatory verse on it, as was the practice for the Engelberg scriptorium under Frowin and Berchthold. Some of the initials have been erased and reworked.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This codex contains the St. Augustine's Confessions. A two-line poem above the Capitulum on 1r attests that the copying was begun under Abbot Frowin of Engelberg (1143-1178). It is adorned with two figurated initials (1v and 60v) and decorative initials in red ink. Seven rhymed distichs in the hand of the so-called Engelberg Master appear on 123v and these refer to the defense by Frowin's successor Berchtold (1178-1197) against the falsa et damnanda compilatio abbatis Burchardi in turtal.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This manuscript contains on 3v-142v the homilies of Gregory the Great on the prophet Ezechiel. On 1v-3r, in the same hand, appears the tam veteris quam novi testamenti testominia; on 143r-144r follows a short treatise on Grammar written in a different, slightly later hand; the bottom part of 144 has been cut out. On 4r, a line above the text attributes the volume to Abbot Frowin of Engelberg (1143-1178). Places where the parchment has been damaged have been carefully mended with different-coloured thread. Two of the decorative initials appear against a coloured background, in accordance with the later Engelberg style (24v and 76v). A few marginal notes are written in a later hand.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This codex contains the first of four volumes of the Book of Job by Gregory the Great. The subsequent three volumes are in codices 21, 22 and 23. The first volume encompasses the parts one (ff. 6r-99r) and two (99r-193v), each divided into five books. At the front of the volume there was originally 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 monk writing (lower half). On the back, the actual recto side, is a Leonine verse couplet of dedication to Frowin. This leaf was carefully described by P. Karl Stadler in his hand-written catalog of 1787, which 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 belonging to this volume.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This manuscript contains, along with three other volumes (Cod. 20, 22 and 23), Gregory the Great's interpretation of the Book of Job. In two lines of verse on 1r, Abbot Frowin of Engelberg dedicates the volume to the Mary, the patron saint of the monastery. On 89r and 89v a change in the ruling produces markedly larger line spacing. The incipit and explicit are rubricated, and every section begins with a decorative initial and red and brown-black ink with the figurative and vinescrolls motifs typical of Frowin's scriptorium. The layout, script and illustration are closely related to Cod. 20.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
This codex contains Gregory the Great's Moralia in Iob. According to poem on 1r, the manuscript was produced under Abbot Frowin of Engelberg (1143-1178). The individual chapters are introduced by initiales in red and brown-black ink; in comparison to the first two initials (6r and 16v), those later in the book appear incomplete. Explicits are written in red majuscule. Tears and holes in the parchment are partially stitched up, but in a less artistic manner as in other manuscripts of the library of Frowin (e.g., Cod. 16). Between 39 and 40 a strip of parchment has been attached to complete the text.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
Following Cod. 20, 21 and 22, this manuscript constitutes the final volume of the Engelberg series of Pope Gregory the Great's interpretation of the book of Job. The decoration has rubricated incipits and explicits and different sorts of initials: simple ones in red ink (1v, 71r), somewhat larger ones with typical bulb motifs (15r, 49v, 101v) and figurated initials in red and brown ink (3r, 32r, 84r, 113r). Tears in the parchment have been stitched with yellow and red thread. At least some of the sparse marginal notes have been written in the same hand as the text. A note added to the end of 123v indicates that Abbot Frowin commissioned the volume.
Online Since: 10/04/2011
Like Cod. 34 , this manuscript contains 150 sermons by the Cistercian Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153). The appearance of the script, in dark-brown ink, is mostly uniform. The title of the individual sermons have been written with red ink. 97v has been left blank. With regards to decoration, there are many decorative initials with runner- and bulb-motifs on a colorful background and numerous smaller initials, decorated usually in red and blue, occasionally with insular elements (59r, 67v). The manuscript was probably produced under Abbot Berchtold (1178-1197).
Online Since: 10/04/2011
This copy of Cassian's Collationes contains on 1r a two-line ownership note attributing the codex to Abbot Berchtold of Engelberg (1178-1197) as well as the beginning of a dedicatory poem to the Virgin Mary, the monastery's patron saint. Both inscriptions also appear verbatim in the volumes that were written under Berchtold's predecessor Frowin (1143-1178). Decorated initials introduce each of the collationes, and sometimes the chapter-lists; between the collationes the text is divided with red decorated capitals. Tears and holes in the parchment have been artistically sewn up; of particular note are those on 48v and 190v.
Online Since: 10/04/2011
Thin evangelistary, consisting of only 32 parchment leaves containing 27 pericopes. The very carefully produced codex, which has only a leather binding, is decorated with artistic initials in red and black ink. Although it is not dated, based on the script and decoration the codex can be assigned to the abbots Frowin (1143-1178) and Berchtold (1178-1197).
Online Since: 12/17/2015
Tract by the Engelberg Abbot Frowin (1143-1178) about free will, the De laude liberi arbitrii libri septem, from the 12th century. This as-yet unedited work is regarded as an important contribution from the perspective of monastic theology during the early scholastic period.
Online Since: 07/31/2007