Two Metaphysics from the library of the Basel Charterhouse: Aristotle's Metaphysics in the thirteenth century Greek-Latin translation by William of Moerbeke, copied personally by the previous owner of the manuscript Johannes Heynlin von Stein, and the so-called Metaphysica by Avicenna/Ibn-Sīnā, in the twelfth-century Arabic-Latin translation produced at Toledo, copied by an otherwise unknown Wilhelm Hartung von Offenburg, probably on commission from Heynlin. The paper in both parts is the same; the different watermarks support the hypothesis that the manuscript was produced at Paris in the third quarter of the fifteenth century and came to Basel with Heynlin, but it is likely was first bound after his entry into the Basel Charterhouse.
Online Since: 12/11/2024
This Aristotle manuscript from the library of the Basel Charterhouse contains the Organon along with Porphyrius' introduction and the usual supplements, translated into Latin, mostly by Boethius. Four of the five parts were copied personally by the manuscript's owner Johannes Heynlin von Stein, almost certainly from another, older exemplar from the rich collection of books, in different scripts, that he acquired in Paris. The last part, probably not copied by him, is dated at the end to 1463 (f. 482r). The paper comes from French mills, and is largely identical to that used by Heynlin for his personal copy of the Metaphysics (F I 4, part 2).
Online Since: 12/11/2024
The composite manuscript of works by or ascribed to William of Ockham, written a few decades before the production of this copy, has been extensively studied and nearly entirely edited. It is also the only known witness of one of his works. Its origin has not been definitely established; similar bindings come from the Dominican convent of Basel, but the Franciscan convent has already been suggested as its place of origin.
Online Since: 12/11/2024
This manuscript from the Basel Charterhouse contains the Novus Grecismus: an encyclopedic grammar that was written by Konrad von Mure (1210-1281), canon and teacher at the Zürich Grossmünster. The manuscript was bound in the Basel Charterhouse and was in its library already at the time of Prior Heinrich Arnoldi (1407-1487, prior 1449-1480). Probably in 1590, it came to the University Library, along with the rest of the collection of the Charterhouse.
Online Since: 12/11/2024
The composite manuscript transmits, alongside the first volume of Hermann Joseph of Steinfeld's (1150-1241) Revelationum seu imaginationum de undecim milibus virginum, Elisabeth of Schönau's (1129-1164) Liber revelationum, and Johannes Brugmanus' (1400-1475) Vita Lidwinae de Schiedamensis, numerous exempla, including some by Cesarius of Heisterbach (1180-1240) and by Thomas de Cantimpré (1201-1272). This volume was probably copied in the Strasbourg Charterhouse and, shortly after its production, given by Antonius Reuchlin, prior of the Strasbourg Charterhouse between 1439 and 1449 and between 1455 and 1466, to the Basel Charterhouse.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This paper manuscript, transferred from the Basel Charterhouse to the University Library in 1590 contains (from f. 15r) a complete annual cycle of sermons, which begin with a biblical passage (the pericope) as a theme, which first has an extensive, literal explanation, and then follows, in a second ‘spiritual' part, with a heavily Neoplatonic, mystical-contemplative reading. The Latin text, more suitable for advanced self-study, occasionally contains interspersed German: translations of specific terms, probably for further use in popular sermons.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This Greek manuscript, dating primarily from the tenth century, contains the letters of Paul along with chains of commentaries. It shares similarities with the manuscripts of the so-called “scriptorium of Ephrem” of Constantinople. In that same city, in the fifteenth century, John of Ragusa, legate of the Council of Basel, bought the codex, which he then bequeathed after his death to the Dominicans of Basel. Erasmus used it for his text of the Pauline Epistles as part of his first edition of the Greek New Testament (1516). Erasmus' printer, Johannes Froben, left annotations on the pages.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This richly illuminated manuscript is a Greek Tetravangelion of Italo-Byzantine origin copied in the eighth or ninth century in a biblical uncial script. Some scholars have connected the uncommon style of its decoration with, on the one hand, Byzantine art of the Iconoclastic Period, and on the other hand, with the aesthetic of churches and artefacts from the period of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna. In the fifteenth century, John of Ragusa, legate of the Council of Basel, bought the codex in Constantinople, and then bequeathed it on his death to the Dominicans of Basel.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This Greek Tetravangelium from the twelfth century was acquired in the fifteenth century, perhaps in Basel, by the Dominican theologian John of Ragusa, who bequeathed it on his death to the Basel Dominicans. Later, Erasmus borrowed it from the Dominicans to use it for his first edition of the Greek New Testament (1516). During his editorial work, the humanist made in the margins numerous additions and corrections to the text. He then entrusted the codex to the Basel printer Johannes Froben, who left many annotations on the pages.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
In this twelfth-century Greek manuscript of the New Testament, divided in two parts (without the Apocalypse), the Epistles and Acts were surprisingly placed before the Gospels. Magnificently illuminated, this codex has initials that represent the epistolographers of the New Testament; one miniature depicts John the Evangelist and Christ's descent into Hell (f. 265v). In the fifteenth-century, John of Ragusa, a delegate from the Council of Basel, bought the codex in Constantinople; he then bequeathed it on his death to the Dominicans of Basel. The codex passed into the hands of Johannes Reuchlin, as well as those of Erasmus for his first edition of the Greek New Testament (1516).
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This Greek manuscript contains the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. The main hand, rushed and cursive, very often distances itself from the archaicizing forms of the traditional minuscule used in Byzantine copies of the Bible. The codex received its current Byzantine binding perhaps from the monastery of Saint John Prodromos of Petra in Constantinople and was purchased in that city in the fifteenth century by John of Ragusa, delegate from the Council of Basel. John bequeathed the volume on his death to the Dominicans of Basel. Erasmus used it for his first edition of the Greek New Testament (1516).
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This hefty volume, written by two hands, is made up of multiple texts having the same, although not entirely uniform, layout with pen-flourished initials in the so-called Upper-Rhine Style, similar to the two volumes of Nicolas of Lyra, B IV 3 und B V 5, which also came from the Basel Dominican Convent, but not from the same workshop. Johannes von Effringen, Prior of the Convent in 1347, was likely the first owner. Gerhardus, the first of the two scribes, copied multiple works of the church father Augustine: his commentary on the Psalms, the Confessions in 13 books, but also other, smaller writings, some of which are no longer ascribed with certainty to Augustine. A corrector worked through these texts and marked the improvements in a small cursive in the margin, so that the scribe could, in a further step, carefully write them neatly and erase the notes, which did not happen throughout. The text of the second, anonymous, scribe is nearly flawless and written more beautifully. It consists in a commentary on Jeremiah by Jerome, the translator of the Bible.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This manuscript was produced in the Upper Rhine Region and was previously owned by Hugo and Johannes Münch of Münchenstein, two priors of the Basel Dominican Convent. It is a copy of the Franciscan Nicolaus of Lyra's Postilla super Psalmos. The dating of 1323 at the end likely refers to the exemplar or to the work itself, and not to this copy. The same scribe produced another volume of Lyra's work (Basel, UB, B V 5), with the same diagnostic pen-flourished initials, with which the same artist decorated some folio volumes from the Cistercian abbey of Pairis currently in the ZHB of Lucerne (P 13 fol.:1, 3 and 4; volume 2 burned in 1513 in St. Urban), which Hugo von Tennach copied in 1338–1340 under commission from a rich canon of the collegial of Basel, Peter von Bebelnheim.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
Copied by the same hand as the Postilla super Psalmos from the same library (B IV 3), this volume, with Nicholas of Lyra's postils on New Testament texts, on the Acts of the Apostles, the Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse, is also decorated with pen-flourished initials in the so-called Upper-Rhine Style, and had the same previous owners, Hugo and Johannes Münch of Münchenstein, members of the Basel Dominican Convent and contemporaries of Nicholas of Lyra. Hugo, attested several times as Prior of the Convent, and Nicholas, probably both died in the same year, 1349, while Johannes, Hugo's younger brother, was still prior in 1365.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This copy of the Summa Logica, produced in Oxford during William of Ockham's lifetime, comes from the remnants of the Franciscan library in Basel. Listed as a previous owner is Otto of Passau, then perhaps a more famous author, but today nearly forgotten. In any case in cypher (f. 121r). After the Franciscan Ockham's Summa of logic, the volume also contains a list of charges against him at the papal curia in Avignon, as well as short reports on the individual points. The text of this manuscript, along with the readings of a second Basel collective volume from the fourteenth century (which probably did not come from the Franciscan convent), which still has its original binding (F II 24), was used in the twentieth century for the critical edition. Its binding was replaced in the nineteenth century.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
The parts of this volume, originally bound separately, were bound together in the Basel Franciscan library. They contain different works of Cicero and the Englishman Geoffroy of Vinsauf's Poetria novella and were produced in Italy. There are many indications of previous owners, but none have been identified with certainty. One of the parts belonged to Niccolò dei Salimbeni – probably not the rich young man in Dante's Inferno, but perhaps one of his descendants in Siena. Another part once cost the father of a certain Nicholaus de Monleone 5 ducats and 30 shillings. Finally, the value of the whole volume was set at 320 Swiss Francs by the Zurich experts, who were assigned to prepare a division of property after the 1833 split of the Canton Basel.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This composite manuscript from the Basel Dominican Convent, one of several from the estate of Johannes Tagstern, was rebound in 1952 and contains texts on optics and geometry, such as the Dietrich of Freiburg's treatise on rainbows, with several clear, compass-and-ruler-drawn schemata. The first part was written on parchment in the fourteenth century, while the other, newer parts can be dated more precisely on the basis of the watermarks of the paper used to the end of the fourteenth century or to the beginning of the fifteenth century, that is, to the period in which the previous owner, Tagstern, is attested on the last page (f. 157v) as a member of the Dominican Convent.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
It is not known how this gradual, produced ca. 1200 in the Cistercian abbey of Altenryf/Hauterive, came to Basel from the Cistercian nunnery of Magerau/Maigrauge. It was probably an anonymous gift received in 1906. But its origin can be quite univocally established on the basis of the script and its decoration with silhouette-initials and palmette pen-flourishes, its peculiarities that can also be found in other manuscripts from the same scriptorium. The notation is French, à petits carrés liés. The double formula for the Trinity is a striking aspect of the content in this songbook, which was followed into the modern period. The binding was once repaired, centuries ago.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This manuscript was copied in the 10th century at the monastic Lavra of Stylos on Mount Latmos in Caria by the scribe “Michael”. It contains Victor of Antioch's commentary on Mark as well as the catena of Andreas on the Catholic Epistles. There are two unfinished miniatures, one representing the Virgin enthroned with the Christ child (V3v), and the other with Christ in glory (V4r). During the Turks' invasion of Caria ca. 1079, Christodoulos of Patmos first transferred the codex to Constantinople, and then to the island of Patmos. During the Renaissance, the manuscript appeared in Worms with Johannes Camerarius, and then in Basel in the possession of Nicolaus Episcopius.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
Ovid's Epistolae ex Ponto came from the Basel Franciscan Library to the renowned Museum Faesch on the Petersplatz. This witness to the text is also important for the history of the editions of these letters from exile. It is all the more interesting that it was long thought to be lost, although this small book, which has the peculiarity of still having the old iron chain with which it would have been attached to a lectern, never actually disappeared.
Online Since: 09/26/2024