Sub-project: Fragmenta Bongarsiana
Start: March 2018
Status: In progress
Financed by: Burgerbibliothek Bern, swissuniversities, SNF
Description: Together with the Burgerbibliothek Bern, we have facilitated the digitization of approximately 150 fragments of parchment. Most of these are from the collection of Jacques Bongars (1554-1612), who had a philological interest in rare texts, as did Pierre Pithou (1539-1596) and especially Pierre Daniel (1530-1603), with whom Bongars was closely associated. Jacques Bongars and Pierre Daniel are among the earliest scholars to have shown an interest in fragments. The Bernese fragment collection is unique because it contains not only manuscript waste, but also a large number of manuscripts that have been transmitted in incomplete form, for example, with only a single quire or a part thereof to have survived. In the course of making these texts accessible through e-codices, many fragments were identified for the first time. Most of these were known texts or authors, but some spectacular new discoveries were made of previously unknown texts on biblical exegesis from the Carolingian epoch. In the coming years, the collection will be published in parallel in e-codices and in Fragmentarium.
All Libraries and Collections
Composite manuscript consisting of two different parts that probably came to Bern in 1632 as part of the property of Jacques Bongars. Part A comes from an extensive collection of lives of the saints for the liturgy of Fleury, various of which have been preserved in the Vatican Library: Reg. lat. 274, f. 95–102; Reg. lat. 318, f. 1–79, 80–146, 147–258; Reg. lat. 585, f. 13–27; Reg. lat. 711.II, f. 11–18; 67–76. Part B contains fragments from Isidore’s grammatical writings and probably was written in Eastern France.
Online Since: 10/10/2019
The only textual witness for certain letters by Salvianus of Marseille, the complement of which is preserved in Paris BN lat. 2174, f. 113–115. This non-illuminated fragment probably came to Bern in 1632 as part of the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 10/10/2019
Fragment of the Boethius' On Arithmetic, containing numerous schematic drawings; it probably came to Bern in 1632 as part of the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 10/10/2019
Two bifolia from an Isidore manuscript that was probably produced in the Loire region. The fragment contains, among others, a carefully sketched wind rose as well as astronomical texts at the end that, in the context of the Aratea, are known as the “Scholia Bernensia”. It probably came to Bern in 1632 as part of the collection of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 10/10/2019
Fragment of a manuscript in uncial script containing medical texts; it was probably written in Spain and came to the library of Chartres Cathedral perhaps via Italy. The remaining parts are preserved in Paris BN lat. 10233. Based on an entry by the Bernese librarian Samuel Hortin, the fragment in all likelihood came to Bern in 1632 as part of the Bongarsiana collection.
Online Since: 10/10/2019
Remnants of an Alcuin's Bible from the Dominican Monastery of Bern, which were used around 1495 by the bookbinder Johannes Vatter as pastedowns for various incunables that are currently held in Bern and Solothurn. After the secularization of the monastery in 1528, the host volume (MUE Inc. I.20) perhaps as part of a bequest of books by the Venner [standard bearer] Jürg Schöni in 1534, became part of the Bern library. Reunification of the fragments: [sine loco], codices restituti, Cod. 5 (Biblia latina).
Online Since: 12/12/2019
Remnants of an Alcuin's Bible from the Dominican Monastery of Bern, which were used around 1495 by the bookbinder Johannes Vatter as pastedowns for various incunables that are currently held in Bern and Solothurn. After the secularization of the monastery in 1528, the host volume reached Solothurn; it was first held in the library of the St. Ursus Monastery, after its secularization in the cantonal library, one of the predecessors of the current Solothurn Central Library. Reunification of the fragments: [sine loco], codices restituti, Cod. 5 (Biblia latina).
Online Since: 12/12/2019