This miscellany with saints' lives, sermons, and a small collection of Marian miracles was produced at the end of the fourteenth century in the eastern-Alemannic linguistic area. Most of the legends come from the German-language version that has been ascribed to the Zürich Dominican Marquard Biberli (ca. 1265 - ca. 1330), and which is otherwise only transmitted by the manuscript S 451 of Solothurn. In the fifteenth century at the latest, the volume was bound from two originally independent units, each of which was produced by a single, different, scribe. The medieval provenance of the volume is unknown; in the eighteenth century, it belonged to the “Bibliotheca Bruckeriana” (probably Johann Heinrich Brucker, 1725-1754) and was purchased by the University Library in 1808.
Online Since: 12/11/2025
This medical miscellany contains among other things a copy of the Antidotarium Magnum, an extensive compendium of medical recipes that was produced in Monte Cassino at the initative of Constantine the African. This copy has particularly unusual decoration, with 22 large-format, ornamented and historiated initials.
Online Since: 12/11/2025
The manuscript, which contains among other things a Plenarium in German as well as the treatise “Gegen den Eigenbesitz im Kloster” by Henry of Langenstein, was probably bound towards the end of the fifteenth century at the Basel Charterhouse and kept in the lay brothers' library. All parts of the manuscript were written in the Alemannic linguistic area; part 2 was probably copied in Alsace. The manuscript contains annotations of the charterhouse's barber-surgeon, a lay brother named Melcher, who wrote down, among other things, notes on a planned but never executed cycle of paintings of the Apostles.
Online Since: 12/11/2025
This manuscript contains Ps.-Boethius, De disciplina scolarium and John of Garland, De compositis verbis, both with commentaries and additions. Both were written in the second half of the fifteenth century, and one part is dated to 1498. The book was used by many owners, who contributed many annotations and corrections, including also simply pen-drawings, verse exercises, and the names of students. In the early sixteenth century the volume belonged to the library of the Basel Charterhouse, whence it came to the University Library of Basel after the Reformation.
Online Since: 12/11/2025
This richly illustrated parchment manuscript, a German-language private prayer book, was produced in 1489 in the Lake Constance area. The patron, identified as “H.M.” (78v) is most likely Hugo XV. zu Rothenfels und Wasserburg (ca. 1460-1519), his wife, Countess Anna von Montfort-Wasserburg-Rothenfels (ca. 1470-1531) is the addressee and owner, and she also gives the manuscript its current name. In 1977, the manuscript came to the University Library from the estate of the Basel collector August Meyer (1903-1977). In 2024, the manuscript was extensively restored and rebound.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The manuscript contains the German-language chronicle of Jakob Twinger von Königshofen, an appendix with the chronicle of Röttel, as well as additions concerning events from 1487 to 1497. Since the additions have various connections to the Basel convent of Augustinian Canonesses of Klingental, it is likely that the codex was in their possession. The convent was dissolved in 1557. The manuscript probably remained there and was found by the chronicler Christian Wurstisen (1544-1588), who moved into the empty convent a few years later. Wurstisen used the volume as one of the sources for his own chronicle.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The red-painted shelfmark and the binding suggest that this Priscian manuscript, from the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century, belonged to the small remaining collection of the Basel Cordeliers. It contains the Institutiones maiores (books 1-16 of the widely copied grammar book, without books 17, Syntax, or 18, the Ars minor) and some interesting fragments that likewise pertain to grammar and rhetoric and thus to the higher education of a good popular preacher. On the front pastedown is a note on the previous owners and the price of the book as part of a larger transaction, as well as a pen trial in German concerning a horse trade.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The calendar was produced in the Basel Charterhouse around 1424–1428. It contains 36 pages with various texts, tables, zodiac signs, lunar and solar eclipses, as well as information on day lengths and bloodletting times. Prior Heinrich Arnoldi made numerous additions and corrections, the last-mentioned date in the text is 1478. The volume is composed of paper, is rubricated, shows signs of wear and tear, and is bound with a limp parchment binding made from charters.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The manuscript was produced in the second half of the thirteenth century and contains 92 parchment leaves with decoration and illuminations. It transmits Emperor Justinian's Institutiones with its standard gloss (Glossa Ordinaria) and is richly decorated with, among others, vignettes, marginal drawings, and historical notes. The work was in the possession of Arnold zum Lufft, who gave it to the Basel Cordeliers. In addition to its juridical content the book includes heavily erased notes and illustrations that depict humoral theory.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The current convolute was likely bound together in the seventeenth century. In all likelihood, the leaves inside were originally part of a larger volume; they belonged to the library of the Basel Charterhouse. In terms of content, they transmit the Paradisus animae by Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, copied in the middle of the fifteenth century.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
While both parts of this manuscript are more than a thousand years old, they were probably first bound together in the fifteenth century. They come from the monastery of Murbach and could have entered the Basel Franciscan convent with Conrad Pellikan. Like the few other surviving volumes from this convent, this collection of writings by the Church Father St. Augustine is not a typical Franciscan manuscript. Part one contains a copy of the catalogue-like De haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum, written around 429 and introduced by letters on the history of its composition, as well as a Regula ancillarum (Letter 211). Part two is one of the oldest witnesses of the 395 treatise on free choice (De libero arbitrio), although limited to book 1: Unde malum.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
In 1932, this small-format breviary was acquired in an English antiquary shop for the University Library of Basel. There is no medieval possession note, but the calendar and the content permit its definitive localization to the convent of Dominican nuns of St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen. Additional evidence for this provenance can be found in the somewhat later representations of the Passion story added somewhat later in the manuscript, as several of them feature a central depiction of Mary Magdalen with her ointment jar. The artistic full-page illuminations are probably to be understood in the context of the observance movement in medieval women's monasteries. In the seventeenth century some German prayers were added, along with a contemporary possession note that proves that, at that time, the manuscript was still in the possession of the Dominican nuns.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The manuscript contains various Aristotelian texts, including works by Aristotle as well as commentaries on his texts. The volume came very early in the history of the University Library from the estate of the Basel Professor of Theology Johannes Syber de Wangen (d. 1502). It is still conserved in its original binding, which probably dates from the fourteenth century and was originally a chained volume.
Online Since: 04/03/2025
This manuscript, transferred from the Dominican Convent of Basel to the University Library in 1559, was put together from three parts by a learned Dominican friar, Berthold von Moosburg. In his hand are also glosses on Macrobius' commentary on Cicero's Dream of Scipio, which have recently attracted interest, as well as some additions: recipes against kidney stones and epilepsy, as well as a fragment of a text by Dietrich of Freiberg. Otherwise, the manuscript mainly contains texts by Proclus in Latin, thus a book for Neoplatonists.
Online Since: 04/03/2025
This manuscript contains a collection of writings on the Schism and belongs to the oldest collection of the Basel Charterhouse. The four codicological units were produced in the fourteenth and early fifteenth century, probably in part in the Low-German linguistic region. Three of the units likely passed through Winand Steinbeck of Dortmund, the first prior of the Basel Charterhouse. The fourth unit in the composite manuscript contains notes by Johannes Dotzheim, the second prior of the Basel Charterhouse. The codex was first bound in Basel and, in the sixteenth century, was used by Bonifacius Amerbach.
Online Since: 04/03/2025
The volume is composed of three originally separate parts that were copied in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth century. From their various provenances, they came to the Basel Charterhouse and were bound together. The volume contains allegorical expositions of the Old and New Testament, theological texts, poems, sermons, as well as a work on agriculture by Palladius, complemented with glosses, recipes, and additional information.
Online Since: 04/03/2025
This twelfth-century manuscript of the Septuagint contains the Book of Job and the Sapiential Books. The margins contain liturgical notes on reading the writings during the office. The text of Job is also accompanied by excerpts from the catena of Nicetas of Heraclea. In one of the margins appears a drawing of the face of Christ or of a saint. John of Ragusa, the envoy of the Council of Basel, purchased this manuscript in Constantinople between 1435 and 1437, and bequeathed it after his death in 1443 to the Dominican convent in Basel. In 1559 it was transferred from there to the library of the University of Basel.
Online Since: 04/03/2025
The front part of this parchment manuscript was written in the thirteenth century; the back part (from p. CLI) and the index at the front were written in the fifteenth century. In addition to authentic and pseudoepigraphical texts of Bernard of Clairvaux, the codex contains the Stimulus amoris. The older part is decorated with numerous, precisely painted initials with simple ornamentation. In the fifteenth century, the volume belonged to the Basel Charterhouse, when the ownership marks were partially written on top of older, erased entries.
Online Since: 04/03/2025
This very extensive codex with the acts of beginning of the Council of Basel (i.e., the years 1431-1435) was written in large part by two hands. One of the hands has been identified as being of Francesco della Croce (1391-1479), who was an envoy from Milan to the Basel Council, and who, among other things, had participated in writing the Council manuscript E I 8. The volume belonged to the Basel Charterhouse and probably in 1590 was transferred to the University Library along with the rest of the convent's collection.
Online Since: 04/03/2025
This manuscript, which was produced in the second half of the twelfth century, contains a collection of theological texts, commentaries, and poems, that are connected to the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite as well as other important Christian authors of the Middle Ages, and treats various aspects of the celestial hierarchy, divine illumination, and theological reflection. The volume came to the University Library from the Museum Remigius Faesch and was bound in 1910 at the earliest.
Online Since: 04/03/2025