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This composite manuscript consists of an incunable from Freiburg i. Br. from 1494 and two parts in manuscript, which were copied in 1498 and 1499 by Brother Johannes Bengel, Conventual at Alpirsbach Abbey in the Black Forest. The three texts on scholastic logic are by Peter of Spain and by Petrus Tartaretus, a contemporaneous Parisian philosopher whose mnemonic device, a logical figure called pons asinorum has also been copied.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
Postil on Kings and Esther, written in 1400-1401 by the Freiburg priest Rüdiger Schopf, decorated with 52 single-column, partly colored pen and ink drawings. This manuscript is part of a multi-volume, richly illustrated copy of the Bible commentary Postilla super totam Bibliam by Nicholas of Lyra, which the secular priest Rüdiger Schopf from Memmingen created for the Carthusian Monastery of Freiburg between 1392 and 1415. In 1430 the work, to which A II 1-3, 5-6 and 10-13 belong as well, was sold to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
Postil on Isaiah and the Twelve Minor Prophets, probably written between 1393 and 1396 by the Freiburg priest Rüdiger Schopf, decorated with two schematic drawings of the sun dial that illustrates the miracle of the healing of Hezekiah, This manuscript is part of a multi-volume, richly illustrated copy of the Bible commentary Postilla super totam Bibliam by Nicholas of Lyra, which the secular priest Rüdiger Schopf from Memmingen created for the Carthusian Monastery of Freiburg between 1392 and 1415. In 1430 the work, to which A II 1-5 and 10-13 belong as well, was sold to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This late medieval book of devotion and prayer is named for its first owner, Margret Zschampi, Dominican at Klingental Convent in Basel. It is a typical manuscript for edification, in German, as they were customarily used and written at the end of the Middle Ages for private devotion, especially in women's convents and in lay communities. Margret Zschampi donated the manuscript to the Carthusian monastery of Basel, where it became part of the library for lay brothers. As part of this Carthusian library, the devotional book reached the university library of Basel in 1590. This is the only completely preserved known manuscript from the Dominican Convent of Klingental.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
This manuscript from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel consists primarily of the best-known works by the Roman historian Sallust – De coniuratione Catilinae and De bello Iugurthino. In addition, it contains various short texts and fragments of known (Isidore, Publilius Syrus, Ps.-Serviolus) and unknown authorship (rules for syllabification, arithmetical riddles) and a drawing of a labyrinth. The manuscript contains numerous interlinear and marginal glosses by various hands.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
This manuscript, produced in the first half of the 9th century in Fulda, contains two astronomical texts: several excerpts of the Aratus latinus and the Aratea by Germanicus with explanatory scholia, illustrations of the 34 constellations and a (now removed) drawing of the entire night sky. The Aratea, based on the astronomical didactic poem by Aratus of Soli, served as illustrative source for the astronomical background knowledge required for teaching the computus (calculating the date of Easter) at the school of the Fulda Monastery.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This manuscript, a collection of theological texts, from the Dominican Monastery of Basel, consists of various parts; it alone transmits the complete Latin translation of Fließenden Lichts der Gottheit by Mechthild of Magdeburg. The manuscript is remarkable not only because of its age (around or shortly before 1350), but also because of the numerous marginal notes, which reveal knowledge of the German version of the text, with which this copy of the Latin translation of Das fließende Licht was being compared.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
This volume, written in littera parisiensis in the middle of the 13th century, contains Avicenna's De anima in a translation by John of Seville, as well as parts from the Metaphysica, translated by Dominicus Gundissalinus. It also contains the first two books from part 2 of Al-Gazali's libri metaphysicae et physicae, also in a translation by Dominicus Gundissalinus. This manuscript came to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel as part of the book collection of Johannes Heynlin, who had purchased the manuscript in 1461.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
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
Isidore of Seville's “Etimologies” combine an outline of all knowledge with a description of the world. In the beginning, this Basel manuscript differs from the usual text structure. Instead of a division into books, each of the texts about the seven liberal arts Artes liberales is introduced with its own title. The manuscript originated in France and used to belong to the Fulda Monastery, until it came to Basel in the 16th century.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
One of the Isidore codices from the Monastery of Fulda; the codex escaped destruction because it reached Basel during the 16th century, before the abduction and destruction of the library during the Thirty Years' War. There it apparently was to serve as a textual source for a planned edition of Isidore's works. This codex was created in Fulda at the end of the 9th century and still retains its Carolingian binding in a parchment cover. In addition to the works of Isidore, it contains the oldest catalog of the Fulda library, the so-called Basel recipes in Old High German, and an astronomic-computistic cycle of illustrations.
Online Since: 06/22/2017
This composite manuscript of content related to astronomy consists of three independently created parts with leaves of different sizes and varying layouts. They were produced by several scribes in the 13th and 14th centuries. The texts describe instruments for observing the sky and treat the planetary orbits, which are also represented in astronomical drawings. This composite manuscript belonged to the chained library of the Dominican Convent of Basel.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
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
Composite manuscript of philosophical content, owned by Jakob Lauber and even partially written by him. Jakob Lauber from Lindau studied at the then newly founded University of Basel from 1466 until 1475, first in the Faculty of Arts, then canon law in the Faculty of Law. After serving as rector for a short period, he entered the Carthusian Monastery of Basel in 1477; as its prior from 1480 on, he expanded it significantly and reorganized its library. When he entered the monastery, Lauber's library became the property of the monastery.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This worn paper manuscript from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel contains several treatises (in part with commentaries) for calculating the annual calendar, in particular for determining the movable holidays, such as the Computus chirometralis of Johannes of Erfurt or the Computus Nerembergensis. In addition, the volume contains a series of Old Frisian and Low German texts: sermons for weddings, recipes, a Latin-German glossary, as well as a short version of the “niederdeutsche Apokalypse”.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
This miscellany, compiled in 15th century Ashkenaz, is a handbook chiefly composed of a plethora of texts on astronomy, astrology, prognoses, popular medicine and medical-astrology, related to illnesses and bloodletting, to which are appended other texts on a variety of subjects: calendrical tables and treatises, ethical and liturgical poems, 13th century halakhic and scholastic philosophical material translated into Hebrew. Furthermore, a small but significant discovery in the manuscript helps to pinpoint the city of Cologne or its surroundings, as a possible location for the production this miscellany.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
The Liber de laudibus Sanctae Crucis (Veneration of the Holy Cross) consists of Carmina figurata by Abbot Hrabanus Maurus of Fulda. This exemplar, most likely produced in 831, is arranged to display an image portraying each episode on the left (23 of the 28 Figures are included), with the corresponding prose portrayal on the right. The second portion, also a prose text, is missing.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
This medieval Hebrew lexicographical and scientific miscellany dates back to 1290 and encloses three highly important texts, used as the base for published editions and studies. These are: the Maḥberet Menahem by Menahem ben Jacob Ibn Saruq (died c. 970); an anonymous Hebrew prose translation of the very popular Old French version of the lapidary by Marbode of Rennes (12th c.) and lastly, an anonymous abridged version of the talmudic and midrashic lexicon entitled Sefer ha-Arukh by Natan ben Yehiel Anav of Rome (1035-1110), called the Berner Kleiner Arukh. The particularity of this copy is the presence of Old West Yiddish and Old French glosses. Furthermore, among the numerous later notes, there are more significant additions which abound in the blank pages and margins of the manuscript, the most unusual of which is a charm in Middle High German in Hebrew characters, relative to Hulda, a German goddess comparable to Venus, taken from the Tannhäuserlied. Moreover, this manuscript belonged to several famous Jewish and Christians owners, whose scriptural witness testifies to the manuscript's remarkable stature as a treasured source of knowledge from the time it was compiled at the end of the 13th century, to its possession by Christian Hebraists in Switzerland during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Online Since: 12/12/2019
This codex consists of two parts that were united in the 9th century already. The first part, written in Mainz (ff. 1-110), contains the second book of Cassiodorus' Institutiones, which is devoted to secular knowledge; since the 9th century, it has been preserved in several manuscripts in an interpolated version that contains Cassiodorus' remarks on grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy, supplemented with excerpts from Quintilian, Boethius, Augustine and others. The second part, written in Mainz or in Saint-Amand (ff. 111–126), contains the picture poems of Optatianus Porphyrius as well as some from the beginning of the reign of Charlemagne. A note in Jacques Bongars' own hand indicates that the manuscript - like many others - came into his possession from the chapter library of Strasbourg Cathedral.
Online Since: 06/13/2019
Extraordinary compilation of various texts by Isidore on secular (Etymologiae, De natura rerum) and ecclesiastic topics (Prooemia biblica, De ortu et obitu patrum; Allegoriae), as well as pieces on the Latin language (Differentia, Synonyma, Glossaria). This composite manuscript contains three full-page family trees as well as astronomical and geometric figures. Originally written in the scriptorium of Bishop Theodulf of Orléans, probably in Saint-Mesmin-de-Micy, this volume was soon held in Strasbourg, as attested by various Formulae iuris as well as a glossary of herbs and an incantation. From the holdings of Jacques Bongars, the volume came to Bern in 1632; here the original early 8th century flyleaves (Bern Burgerbibliothek, Cod. A 91.8) were removed around 1870.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This compilation of various legal texts, also known as Breviarium Alarici, probably is from the Upper Rhine area; it is preceded by two excerpts from Isidore's Etymologiae, which also pertain to laws, and by two full-page family trees. At the end there is a Latin-Hebrew-Greek glossary. This is an exceptionally colorful manuscript that gives the impression of being antique; it has a splendid title page, and it served as model for Johannes Sichard's edition of the Breviarium Alarici (which he considered to be the Codex Theodosianus), published by Heinrich Petri in Basel in 1528. The volume came to Bern in 1632 from the holdings of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This manuscript, which was probably produced in Reims, consists of two parts that contain only the scholia on Lucan, but not the actual text. The first part (up to f. 125v) contains the scholia known as the Commenta Bernensia, which are preserved only in this codex. The text is interspersed with 21 simple schemata in color, geographic representations as well as plans of cities and of battles. The second, unfortunately incomplete part contains a collection of non-illustrated glosses (Adnotationes) for books 1 to 4 as well as 9 and 10 (beginning). As becomes clear from the content, the original plan of merging the Commenta and the Adnotationes into a single text was apparently abandoned in the middle of the first book of the Commenta, and the Adnotationes were copied separately in the last third of the manuscript (from f. 125v).
Online Since: 03/29/2019
Three bifolia of a manuscript probably produced in Fleury, containing musical treatises by Guido of Arezzo and illustrated with various diagrams. This fragment came to Bern in 1632 as part of the bequest of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Two leaves of a manuscript probably produced in the Loire region with Isidore's De natura rerum. The second leaf contains a carefully drawn and illuminated map of the winds with the Latin and Greek names of the winds. The fragment came to Bern in 1632 as part of the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
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
Multiple treatises by Archimedes are brought together in Codex Bodmer 8, notably On the Sphere and Cylinder and The quadrature of the Parabola. This manuscript, which was written in about 1541 on paper, also includes commentaries on the work of the celebrated mathematician by the geometer Eutocius, followed by a treatise on instruments of measurement by Heron of Alexandria.
Online Since: 06/02/2010
Copied in the 13th century, probably in the north of France, this Latin Bible unifies in one volume the books of the Old- and New Testaments, most of them preceded by prologues. It transmits the standard Vulgate text, called the Paris version, with the chapter divisions attributed to Stephen Langton, and its last thirty pages provide a glossary of Hebrew names. Historiated initials open the various biblical books and give the volume its structure. A smaller script than usual in this volume has been used on fol. 1 for the Commentary on the Tree of Consanguinity, a text usually transmitted in juridical works, augmented here by an illustration of such a tree.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
At the beginning of the 17th century, a book of black magic was published, attributed to the mythical Faust and known by the title Höllenzwang. The library in Weimar owned a manuscript of this text, which Goethe was aware of. In 1949 Martin Bodmer was able to purchase a similar manuscript. This document, which is difficult to date, is written in cabalistic signs and, according to a German gloss, contains a series of magic spells for exorcists, which can be used in particular to call up the seven evil spirits.
Online Since: 12/17/2015
This 12th century manuscript from central Italy contains works of music theory by three Latin authors. Among these is Guido Aretinus, a Tuscan monk of the 10th century who is regarded as the inventor of solmisation. Some passages of text in the codex are based on the Institutio musica by Boethius.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
Manuscript CB 88, which combines the Odes, the Epodes, and the Carmen saeculare, a piece interpreted by children's choirs of the Roman nobility during secular performances, is an unusual example of a Horace manuscript from the turn of the 10th to the 11th century. Its many marginal and interlinear glosses, which frequently consist of scholii by Pseudo-Acro, explain the verses and praise their metrical accuracy and verbal virtuosity. The alphabetical tables and the title were added in the 14th century at the end of the volume.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
Raimundus Lullus, who established Catalan as a literary and scholarly language, was born in Majorca, where Christian, Muslim and Jewish cultures are mingled. Manuscript CB 109, produced by several different copyists in the 14th century, collects philosophical and theological works by Catalonian thinkers. It is decorated with pictures and diagrams.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This 10th century parchment manuscript contains a commentary on the Somnium Scipionis by Macrobius, followed by excerpts from the Naturalis historia of Pliny the Elder and from De institutione musica by Boethius. The codex also includes diagrams which portray, for example, the Earth and the constellations.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
The historical-biblical compilation by Peter of Poitiers (around 1130-1205), the Compendium historiae in genealogia Christi, was very widely used during the last centuries of the Middle Ages. Like many other examplars of this text, this copy was written on a parchment scroll, but at an unknown date it was cut into 7 parts. Figurative medallions and schemata, most of them genealogical, cover the entire work and thus represent a continuous line of world history, from the Fall of Man (f. 1) to the Christmas story (f. 5).
Online Since: 10/08/2020
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
This codex can be dated to the 10th century; it contains the Musica enchiriadis (2-27), a 9th century music theory treatise which endeavors to develop a series of rules for polyphonic composition, as well as annotations to the commentary Scolica enchiriadis (27-45, 66-102). Dasian notation is used in order to graphically illustrate the music. For a long time, this treatise was attributed to the monk Hucbald, but today it is considered the work of an anonymous author.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
Boethius is the author of the two treatises preserved in this 10th century manuscript: De geometria (1-22) and De musica (23-145). The two texts are surrounded by numerous sketches and marginal as well as interlinear glosses.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
Boethius (c. 476-c. 525), one of the earliest scholars of late antiquity and most influential of thinkers, in logic as well as in philosphy and theology, is the author of the works reproduced in this codex, De arithmetica et geometria and De musica. Both works were recognized during the middle ages as foundation works of the quadrivium. The manuscript was produced in Einsiedeln in the 10th century.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This Codex contains Jerome's exposition of the Gospels of Matthew (1v-103r) and Mark (103v-128v). It has little decoration, but it has two elaborate, polychromatic initials (5r, 103v). The text, copied in black and dark-brown ink, contains multiple changes of hand. Text divisions such as incipit and explicit, pargraphs and chapter indications are executed in red ink, and one time figuratively decorated (51v). The two-line verse inscription on 1r attests that the codex was produced under Abbot Frowin of Engelberg (1143-1178).
Online Since: 10/04/2011
This parchment manuscript contains the mystic text of the Kabbala in cursive script, illustrated with numerous highly colorful drawings with allegorical, cosmological, and liturgical themes.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Philippe Prevost, Lord of Plessis-Sohier-lez-Tours, advisor and Grand Master of King Henry IV, is the author and scribe of this text on the art of war, which is introduced by a dedication to King Henry IV (1591) and a letter to the same monarch. The text is also accompanied by several sonnets and a short treatise on fortifications. In addition, the autograph manuscript contains a short printed text by Philippe Prevost, Himne de la guerre et de la paix, which was published in Tours in 1590. A series of drawings, probably from engravings, and several battle plans illustrate the text of Le Mars. This text was never published, although it seems to have been prepared for this purpose, as attested by numerous erasures, additions and annotations.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
This remarkable manuscript, created in the 9th century in the Rhineland, contains the text of the four Gospels in their Latin version, written in Carolingian minuscule. The manuscript is decorated with, among others, two initials embellished with interlace and with canonical tables presented in arcades in vivid colors.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
This sumptuous manuscript contains the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea translated by St. Jerome and presented in columns, together with continuations by Jerome and Prosper of Aquitaine. It was produced in about 1480 in Padua or Venice and was illuminated by Petrus V…, who created a masterful full-page illustration on Fol. 10r. A binding error unfortunately reduces the overall esthetic appeal of the volume: the first and second fascicles have been placed in inverse order.
Online Since: 04/15/2010
‘Venerable' is the term that comes to mind for describing this manuscript. In fact, it can be considered ‘venerable' due to its age since it is dated circa 825. Furthermore, the author of the main texts copied herein is Beda Venerabilis or the Venerable Bede (672/674, † 735), who was a monk at Jarrow Abbey in England. Copied in the Benedictine Abbey of Massay (France, Cher, near Bourges), the manuscript contains several of the Venerable Bede's scientific works such as the Easter cycle, also known as Bede's cycle, the De natura rerum, the De temporibus and the De temporum ratione. Various other texts were also inserted: the Annales Petaviani and the annals of the Abbey of Massay, calendar, fragments on the computus, letters.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
Cicero's De officiis of is a political work on ethics, used throughout the Middle Ages, from Augustine, to the compilers of his moral sequences, to Christine de Pizan in her Chemin de long estude. Numerous commentaries have been written on this work, as attested by this 15th century paper manuscript. On the last double page (f. 120v-121r) the ethical theme of the Ciceronian text is continued as a schema of virtues. This manuscript was in the possession of the regent of the Collège de Genève, Hugues Lejeune (1634-1707), who donated it to the Bibliothèque de Genève.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
The De Divina Proportione is a mathematical treatise by the Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli (1445-1517). The Italian text is followed by sixty polyhedra, drawn filled or empty, and influenced by Leonardo da Vinci. Of the three copies written during the author's lifetime, only two remain. This copy, held by the Bibliothèque de Genève, is the presentation copy of the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, whose coat of arms and motto adorn the manuscript (fol. Ir and LXIIv).
Online Since: 02/27/2019
This manuscript is a copy of only one of six extant manuscript exemplars and an old print of this work (1743) worldwide. Its author is the famous Bohemian rabbi, astronomer and mathematician R. David ben Salomon Gans (1541-1613). In his 1974 monograph about David Gans, André Neher referred to this copy as the Manuscrit de Genève. A colophon in the manuscript gives the date as 1613, but a current study on the history of the transmission of this work suggests that it is an 18th century copy.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
This missal is from the church of Glatt an der Glatt in Southern Germany, a property of Muri Abbey. It was created in the second half of the 13th century. Numerous marginalia from the 14th-15th century testify that it was intensively used.
Online Since: 12/20/2016
This manuscript of Six âges du monde, created in France at the end of the 14th century or at the very beginning of the 15th century, appears towards the end of the Middle Ages in the library of the Supersaxo family, one of the most important libraries of Valais, which today is held in the Médiathèque Valais-Sion and (this manuscript) in the State Archives of Valais in Sion. The work is remarkable in more ways than one: first, it was created in the rarely-used scroll format, a format reserved for, among others, universal chronicles, a genre to which this manuscript belongs. Second, a complex family tree, showing the descendants of Adam until the birth of Christ, runs the entire length (eight meters) of the manuscript. The columns of text of this impressive graphic document are accompanied by numerous drawings that resemble the style of Parisian works. Finally, this exemplar is not unique, since the municipal library of Reims owns a similar scroll (ms. 61), which certainly was illustrated by the same master.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
This substantial composite manuscript contains approximately 2.000 recipes and instructions, principally from art technology, but also other medical, culinary and alchemistic ones. The manuscript had been the property of the Bieler family, residents of Solothurn since the 17th century; the family counted several artisans in its ranks.
Online Since: 10/10/2019
This composite manuscript brings together assorted treatises, mainly computistical and astronomical works (by Jakob Twinger von Königshofen, Johannes Münzinger, Johannes de Sacrobosco and others). It was written between 1388 and 1394 in Strassburg and in Rottweil on the Neckar (Wurttemberg) by Konrad Justinger and by Werner Mardersberger. One of the scribes, Werner Mardersberger was later director of the Solothurn Abbey School. The volume was acquired by the Solothurn Abbey Library in 1504.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
In the works De arithmetica and De institutione musica Boethius transmitted Greek mathematics and music theory to medieval readers. The polychrome schematic illustrations in this 12th century manuscript are particularly carefully made.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This paper manuscript contains a series of alchemistic writings attributed to the Catalan Franciscan Raimundus Lullus. It was copied by the scribe Johannes de Sancta Maria. The text is accompanied by twenty colored plates depicting the alchemistic process of transforming base metals into noble ones. The manuscript is part of a group of works of alchemistic content that was the property of Bartlome Schobinger (1500-1585), a wealthy merchant, book collector and councilman of the city of St. Gall, who left his notes in the manuscript. Schobinger is considered a promoter of alchemy and its studies, an interest that complemented his activities in the metal trade.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
The cosmology of the Lyon physician and astrologer Louis de Lange treats the formation of the world and describes the earth and the stars in the sky. The illustrations of the decans, showing the subdivision of each of the twelve signs of the zodiac into three astrological sections, are worthy of particular attention. Despite the attractive illustration, the work was not very popular; only a few manuscripts are known to exist.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This 6,5 meter long parchment scroll depicts the history of the world, from Adam and Eve up to Christ, as a “Heilsgeschichte” (history of salvation); central events are illustrated with multicolored pen and ink drawings. Representing later epochs up to the middle of the 14th century, tables list the popes up to Innocent IV (elected in 1352) as well as the kings and emperors up to Charles IV.
Online Since: 12/17/2015
A copy of the Pauline Epistles with a miniature of Paul the Apostle, preaching in front of a great number of Jews and pagans, copies of Alcuin's works "De dialectica" and "De rhetorica" and of the work "Peri hermeneias" of Apuleius of Madaura (?), written in the monastery of St. Gall in the second half of the 9th century, with amendments from the 11th century.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
A composite manuscript with two unrelated parts: 1) an incomplete copy of the Somnium Scipionis section of the work De re publica by Marcus Tullius Cicero, written in the Abbey of St. Gall during the 10th century, followed by a 10th century St. Gall copy of the commentary originally written by the Roman author Macrobius of late antiquity in about 430/440 and widely disseminated during the middle ages. A fragment of this manuscript may also be found in Cod. Voss.lat.qu. 33 (fol. 58) in the library of the Rijksuniversiteit in Leiden; 2) a St. Gall copy of the seven Catholic Letters (3 written by John, 2 by Peter, one by James, one by Jude) with a learned scholarly commentary from the 12th century.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This composite manuscript, of particular significance in terms of textual history study, consists of at least four distinct parts, written during the 9th and 10th centuries, primarily in the Cloister of St. Gall. The manuscript volume contains, among other items, a Latin prose narrative about the Trojan war from a Greek point of view (De excidio Troiae historia), generally associated with the pseudonym Dictys Cretensis; the 5th century "Troja-Roman" or Trojan epic (Historia de excidio Troiae) published under the pseudonym Dares Phrygius; a copy of the work De spiritalis historiae gestis by Avitus of Vienna; poems by Salomon, Abbot-Bishop of St. Gall (890-920) dedicated to Dado of Vienna, and the Carmen paschale by the Latin-Christian poet Sedulius (5th century). On page 122 is an illustration of the labyrinth of the Minotaur in Knossos on Crete.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
Cassiodorus' textbook on the seven liberal arts, the Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
Manuscript compilation from the monastery of St. Gall, written out in early Alemanian Minuscule script between 760 and 797 with a wide variety of different texts about synonymy (Isidore of Seville, Differentiae), Exegetics (Eucherius of Lyon, Formulae spiritalis intelligentiae), computation, healing arts, hagiography (for example the oldest version of the life stories of the patron saints of Zürich, Felix and Regula), etc.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
A careful copy of books I to X of the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville († 636), written shortly before the year 900 in the monastery of St. Gall. This manuscript forms a unity with Cod. Sang. 232.
Online Since: 05/24/2007
St. Gall copy of books XI through XX of the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville from the second half of the 9th century. Contains (on page 89) a famous and beautifully drawn early medieval world map (terrae orbis, T-O, or Noachid map) that serves as an illustration for the description of the continents .
Online Since: 12/09/2008
A copy of the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville from the time after 800. Most probably not written in the monastery of St. Gall. In the front, on a page with pen trials, a faded and much studied early medieval map of the world. The encyclopedia written by Isidore of Seville in the early 7th century is one of the most read and most quoted books of the Middle Ages.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
Manuscript collection by Winithar with illustrations (the oldest from St. Gall) of Isidore of Seville's De natura rerum.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
A copy of a collection of texts by Isidore of Seville (d. 636), including De natura rerum, produced in the women's cloister of Chelles on the Marne east of Paris in, or shortly after 800. The copy of the work De natura rerum in this manuscript includes a very simple world map (Mappa mundi) as well as a so-called “Knopfkarte” (a chart composed of multiple connected circles).
Online Since: 07/31/2009
Natural history (scientific) manuscript compilation, written by various scribes, mostly around the year 850, in the area of Laon in northern France. The codex contains, among other items, Boetheus's De arithmetica, a computational treatise incorrectly attributed to the English scholar the Venerable Bede († 735), and De temporum ratione as well as selections from De natura rerum and De temporibus, all true works of the Venerable Bede.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Collection of Astronomical-computistical tables and charts with high-quality pen drawings of the constellations.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
Copies of assorted works of natural history by the Venerable Bede (De natura rerum; De temporum ratione; the closing portion of De temporibus), produced as early as the 9th century in the Cloister of St. Gall. In addition, this codex contains, among other items, computistic and calendar texts and tables, and at the end, schematic diagrams of the organization of the scientific disciplines as well as quill tests.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
Book of hours, composed for an unknown female convent in the diocese of Basel: excellent example of early Gothic book art. With a Calendar, 14 miniatures of the life of Christ and Mary, the Psalter, Canticles and an All Saints' Litany.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
This is a collection of liturgical works from the monastery of Disentis, written in the second half of the 12th century, most likely around 1200. In sequence, the volume contains a calendar (pp. 2-13), a psalter (pp. 15-90) and a hymnary (pp. 91-110), a (mixed) capitulary and collectarium (pp. 116-186), as well as an antiphonary, a lectionary, and a homiliary (pp. 203-638). Highlights from the point of view of manuscript decoration include the initial “B” at the beginning of the psalter (p. 15) and a picture of the crucifixion (p. 89). This breviary is one of the very few surviving medieval manuscripts from the monastery of Disentis. The manuscript came to Kempten around 1300; as early as the 15th century, the Disentis Breviary was held in the Abbey Library of St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
A composite manuscript consisting mainly of calendars and texts with chronological content, produced in the second half of the 10th century and at the beginning of the 11th century, for the most part not at the abbey of St. Gall. The main items are a calendar, possibly of northern Italian origin, and excerpts from the work De temporum ratione by the Venerable Bede († 735).
Online Since: 12/21/2009
Computational/scientific compilation manuscript with numerous tables, schematics, and texts about calendar computation, produced in the monastery of St. Gall around the end of the 9th century and beginning ot the 10th. The volume also includes a St. Gallen calendar and the Annales Sangallenses brevissimi (a short history of St. Gall). Two early medieval maps of the world (terrae orbis or T-O maps) precede the work De temporum ratione by the Venerable Bede.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
An opulently illustrated large-format gradual containing four-part vocal pieces, from the Cloister of St. Gall, written and illuminated in the year 1562. By order of Prince-Bishop Diethelm Blarer, the Italian Manfred Barbarini Lupus from Correggio composed these challenging vocal pieces, Father Heinrich Keller (1518-1567) wrote the text, and the manuscript illustrator Kaspar Härtli from Lindau on the Bodensee illuminated the first pages with the important holy days of the church year. The volume has richly ornamented borders and numerous miniatures, among them five of full-page size, and contains the heraldic shields of St. Gall monks living at that time; the ornamented pages include many depictions of musical instruments of the period (some of which are no longer known).
Online Since: 12/09/2008
This paper manuscript brings together various texts of pastoral theology on the sacraments, and particularly on confession, as well as commentaries on the doctrine of the faith as well as sermons. Among these texts are the Summula de summa Raimundi of Magister Adam [Adamus Alderspacensis] (pp. 99–138) and the Liber Floretus (pp. 139–151), both written in verse. The scribe identifies himself as Johannes in a colophon on p. 138. The manuscript presents numerous annotations from the hand of the learned and wandering St. Gall monk Gallus Kemli (1480/1481).
Online Since: 04/25/2023
This paper manuscript contains a commentary on Magister Adam's (Adamus Alderspacensis) Summula de summa Raimundi. A hand from the first half or middle of the fifteenth century prepared this copy in a book cursive script. Occasional pen-drawings decorate the text. Based on the binding, the manuscript has been in the Abbey of St. Gall since 1461 at the latest.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
This extensive manuscript miscellany was written by the secular priest Matthias Bürer. According to the numerous colophons, he finished the copies of the texts in the period from ca. 1448 to 1463 in Kenzingen (Baden-Württemberg) and in many places in Tyrol. The manuscript transmits among other things several theological treatises, a confessors' manual, two mirrors of confession, an ars moriendi (“the art of dying”), the Acts of the Apostles with the Glossa ordinaria, sermons, as well as Books II–IV of Pope Gregory the Great's Dialogues. After the death of Matthias Bürer in 1485, the manuscript went, along with other books, to the Abbey of St. Gall, in accordance with a 1470 agreement.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
The manuscript is composed of various fascicules, of which many carry at the end the ownership mark of Johannes Engler, canon of St. Leonhard (p. 140, 168, 304). After a calendar (pp. 4–24) comes the Summa rudium (pp. 25-140). The next quire (pp. 143–168) contains the synodal decrees of Marquart von Randeck, bishop of Constance (the decrees, and not the copy, date from 1407, p. 165). The remaining quires contain observations, sermons, a Latin-German vocabulary (pp. 290–304), recipes and calendar-related texts, as well as various spiritual and lay short texts. Among the latter are two collections of fables (pp. 141–144 and 266–275). The quires frequently start at the beginning of a text and often have blank pages at the end, a phenomenon that, along with the multiple ownership marks and worn outer leaves of quires, points to the individual quires being used for some time without a binding. Fifteenth-century leather binding, containing several bosses. On the pastedowns, the offset of a German-language charter can be seen.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
Sermons form the bulk of this moral-theological miscellany. It is written by multiple hands. The initials have not been added to the first, fragmentary text, written in a single column (pp. 29–74). The next text, written in two columns, has the title De purificatione written in the top margin, and begins Sanctificavit tabernaculum suum [1 Par 22,1] Altissimus… (pp. 79a–102b). The confessionary De septem viciis, with the incipit Superbia est tumor… (pp. 105–120), is written in one column and illuminated elaborately with six black and red word trees with geometric patterns on the branches (pp. 107, 109, 111, 113, 115 und 120) as well as the ten commandments, circled, along with their contraries on p. 117. This is followed by the didactic poem on virtuous living, Modus vivendi secundum deum, written in a single column (pp. 121-124). There is then a letter from a Master Samuel to a Rabbi Ysaak, allegedly translated by a Spanish friar called Alfonsus Boni Hominis. The text is written in a single column on pp. 125-153. The Sermones de sanctis by the Cistercian Konrad von Brundelsheim (Soccus) that follow are written, frequently corrected and annotated, in an early gothic book cursive on pp. 173-389. The first initial is red, the others either were never added or in brown, some with strapwork inclusions on p. 218, 247 and 323. There is a tab on p. 219 and a manicule on p. 266. Michael of Massa's Tractatus de passione Domini (Version Angeli pacis…) with allegorical introduction and dialogues (pp. 389-470) is the last text. The colophon of the last part dates the work's completion to 8th March 1427 (p. 470). The shelfmark plate “T 17” on the wooden board binding with leather cover and a plaited endband corresponds to the records in the 1461 library catalogue of St. Gallen. It therefore suggests that this volume was likely compiled and bound in the mid-fifteenth century. The St. Gallen librarian Jodokus Metzler glued a table of contents onto the inside front pastedown. Pages 1-8, 17-24 and 169-172 contain only the ruling lines for a two-column commentary with extensive marginal gloss, but no text. Other pages are completely blank, without even a page layout: 9–16, 25–28, 49–54, 75–78, 103–104, 155–168 and 471–483. There is an entry made on p. 484. The leaf pp. 53-54 is loose. There was a loose, reused fragment with a hand drawn onto it between p. 180 and 181.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
This composite volume, written between 1425 and 1425 in the Lake Constance regions, though not at the Abbey of St. Gall, contains Latin versions of a great many computistic/astronomical/cosmographical treatises, including the widely disseminated work De sphaera mundi by John of Sacrobosco and his arithmetical foundation work Tractatus de algorismo. The manuscript, organized according to the calendar, also contains illustrations: the twelve signs of the zodiac, a map of the winds, sketches of the ecliptics of the sun and moon, planets and constellations, a diagrammatic guide for bloodletting, a set of early medieval Terra Orbis-type world maps, and (on pages 265 and 266) twelve simple illustrations for the months with brief rhyming proverbs in German derived from the nature- and landscape-dominated everyday life of the people of the late middle ages.
Online Since: 10/04/2011
A composite manuscript intended for teaching purposes, written in Mainz during the first half of the 11th century, possibly brought to St. Gall by the monk Ekkehart IV. Ekkehart IV. taught intermittently at the cathedral school in Mainz and added a great many glosses to this manuscript. The codex gathers together a number of texts used in school teaching, for example copies of the commentary of Boethius on Aristotle's De interpretatione, Cicero's Topica, the Geometry I by (pseudo?)-Boethius as well as additional works by Boethius, such as De differentiis topicis, De divisione, De syllogismis categoricis and De syllogismis hypotheticis. At the end of the volume are two brief texts by Ekkehart IV. about the Septem Artes Liberales, (on page 488) verses in praise of Boethius and (on page 490) an allegory based on the Septem Artes Liberales in the form of instructions to a goldsmith.
Online Since: 04/15/2010
A composite manuscript from the 11th century, possibly written at the Abbey of St. Gall. The main content of the codex consists of commentaries by Boethius on Cicero's Topica and on the Isagoge by the neoplatonic philosopher Porphyrius († after 300), Porphyrius's Isagoge itself and assorted other texts. Among these are, for example, small pieces by Walahfried Strabo (Regulae metricae; a letter with the incipit Domino meo benedictus salus et vita) and by Marius Victorinus, a 4th century Roman scholar (De generatione divina).
Online Since: 04/15/2010
The first part of the manuscript transmits on pp. 3–44 the Canones in motibus caelestium corporum, instructions for use and an explanation of the tables that follow, along with an addition in the same script and gathering on pp. 44–46. In the second part follows on pp. 47–203 the Tabulae Toletanae. These are tables to compare various computations of time, on the calculation of planetary movements and eclipses, on spherical astronomy and with repertories of stars and places. The small script, between a Gothic minuscule and a simplified textualis, dates rather from the second half of the thirteenth century or the first half of the fourteenth century (contrary to Scherrer), and the tendency of the round terminal s to finish below the line suggests Italian origin. On p. 204 there is a Zodiac, the Marian hymn Gaude virgo gratiosa (AH 9, p. 54) and a further, roughly contemporary text. According to the entry N. 102 on p. 3, the manuscript came to the Abbey Library in 1768 as part of the legacy of Ägidius Tschudi (1505–1572). The cardboard binding with leather-reinforced spine and corners, along with the paper bifolia that serve as pastedown and flyleaves (pp. 1/2 and p. 205/206), come from the decades around 1800.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
School manuscript from the monastery of St. Gall, containing Cassiodorus'Institutiones saecularium litterarum (an educational book on the "Septem Artes Liberales").
Online Since: 12/31/2005
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (Lucan, 39-65 AD), "De bello civili" (also known as the "Pharsalia"). Epic poem on the civil war between Pompey and Caesar (48 - 45 BC).
Online Since: 06/12/2006
School manuscript for the St. Gall monastery school, containing the Greek grammar by Dositheus and a prose version of Aratos of Soloi's didactic poem Phainomena which is illustrated with a pen drawing.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
This quarto volume brings together various texts, mostly shorter in length, of which the bulk are spiritual essays and prayers, including: a treatise on the Passion (pp. 4–38), prayers on the Passion (pp. 68–84), prayers for the canonical hours (pp. 88–91), a treatise on the Fall (pp. 92–107), and another on the quattuor gemitus turturis (pp. 112-159); a Biblia pauperum indicates numerous saints and for what emergencies they can be invoked (pp. 160–193). Among the spiritual texts, there are also a few in German (e.g., pp. 218–220, 238). Two letters concern St. Gall: one is addressed to Abbot Eglolf (pp. 40–43), another to monks who have fled to St. Gall (pp. 85–88). Additional texts treat the Council of Constance and monastic reforms; also here there is a reference to St. Gall (pp. 239–250). The last quire is composed of parchment leaves and could have come from the fourteenth century; it contains a grammar and medical texts (pp. 251–266). The manuscript has a limp binding; for guards was used a German-language parchment charter, of which the year 1415 and the name of a ulrichen leman burger ze arbon are still legible.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This manuscript contains an Evronot ("Rules for Calculation of the Calendar"). Many so-called Sifre evoronot ("Books of calculation") emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries. They can be taken as a reaction to the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582. Such manuscripts often depict the biblical Issachar, one of Jacob's sons, on or near a ladder; as an attribute, he holds an hourglass in his hand. This manuscript has two such miniatures; above the first of which there is also an illustration of a waning and a waxing moon with a human face and stars. The title page depicts an ornamental architectural arch. At the end of the book, there is the familiar motif of Moses seated at a table holding the Tablets of the Law.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
This scroll (on five sheets with 13 columns of text) opens with an impressive sun disk surrounded by the signs of the zodiac. The month of Adar is particularly emphasized, since it was in this month under the sign of Pisces that the extermination of the Jews took place. Each column begins, if possible, with the word ha-melech (the king), which designates the king Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther, but is also an allusion to the never explicitly mentioned and yet omnipresent God. The silver case from around 1800 is crowned by a bouquet of flowers and leaves, which can be found in a similar way on Torah finials (rimmonim) and other Judaica metalwork of the Ottoman Empire.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
The so-called "Zürcher Psalter" (Zurich Psalter) or "St. Galler Psalter" (St. Gallen Psalter), written and decorated in the scriptorum of the monastery of St. Gall, with numerous initial capitals as well as with the oldest extant artistically sophisticated miniature found in the St. Gallen manuscripts, from about 820/830. Includes appended All Saints Litany and computational tables and diagrams. Used daily by the monks in the liturgy of the hours.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
Manuscript compilation by the wandering monk of St. Gallen, Gall Kemli († 1481) with a wide variety of copied texts and original compositions in Latin and German languages (Diversarius multarum materiarum), for instance: recipes for medicines, instructions in liturgical song, exorcism, scribal rules, indulgences, etc. Affixed into the manuscript are twelve colored single page prints from the 15th century, which are valuable–in some cases unique–exemplars in the history of European printing.
Online Since: 04/26/2007