Horae

Collection History

The New York Public Library possesses one of the largest and finest collections of medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts in North America, yet its manuscript holdings are scarcely known to scholars, much less to a wide public audience. Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts are vehicles of the collective memory of western European culture, and provide a material connection between the scribes, illuminators, and patrons who produced these works and the audiences who view them today.

The works represent diverse genres, from Bibles and missals to romance literature and science texts. Dating from the turn of the 10th century until well into the period of the Renaissance, these works give vivid testimony to the creative impulses of the often nameless craftsmen who continually discovered new ways of animating the contents of hand-produced books through inventive and sometimes exuberant manipulations of all the elements of the book: form and format, layout, script, decoration, illustration, and binding.

Drawn from the Library's Spencer Collection and the Manuscripts and Archives Division, these works focus on the 9th through the 16th centuries -- seven hundred years of profound political, ecclesiastical, social, and intellectual change in Western Europe and the world. Among these rare items are a 10th-century Ottonian manuscript, with its imitation of Byzantine textile with gold decoration; the Towneley Lectionary, illuminated by Giulio Clovio (once praised as the "Michelangelo of small works"), which originated in Rome and probably belonged to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese; and a late 15th-century Book of Hours, which represents the leading style of illumination from Besançon, one of the French Regional Schools.

Background

"The Digital Scriptorium" originated in the mid-1990s as an image database, intended to unite scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research. NYPL curators have augmented the Digital Scriptorium's primary documentation of NYPL's contribution of 259 manuscript parts with images of the works' most significant illuminations. Some works in this digital presentation also appeared in the exhibition, "The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library," held October 21, 2005 - February 12, 2006 in the Library's D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman Exhibition Hall.

- Collection History and Background text excerpted from the press release and exhibition catalog descriptions for "The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library."

Related Resources

Alexander, Jonathan J. G., James H. Marrow, and Lucy Freeman Sandler. The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library. (2005)

NYPL. "The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library." (2005-2006) <http://www.nypl.org/research/calendar/exhib/hssl/hsslexhibdesc.cfm?id=354>

University of California, Berkeley. "The Digital Scriptorium." (c1996-2004) <http://www.digital-scriptorium.org>

Collection Data

Dates / Origin
Date Created: 1344 (Approximate)
Library locations
Spencer Collection
Shelf locator: Spencer Coll. MS. 56
Topics
Books of hours
Genres
Manuscripts
Illuminations
Miniatures (Illuminations)
Notes
Ownership: Made for a woman named Blanche, connected with the French royal house. Delisle argued for Blanche de France, others Blanche de Bourgogne. Owned by von Bulow family at Beiernauburg. Bought by C. Zeiberg for Wernigerode. Acquired for Spencer, 1948.
Citation/reference: Delisle, L. Les Heures de Blanche de France, duchesse d'Orléans. Bibliothèque de l'Ècole des chartes. Année 1905, 66, pp. 489-539. Persée website. Accessed 11 September, 2019. De Ricci, Supplement, 334. Library dossier.
Content: Pencil foliation followed in this description begins in upper right corners and ends in lower right corners of rectos; foliations is incorrect, going only to 423, because of duplication of number "243."
Content: 20 lines per page in two columns, ruled in black ink.
Content: Parchment
Content: 31 historiated initials (Delisle's list misses ff. 65 and 339).
Content: 1-line blue and gold initials with penwork. 2-line blue and red initials on gold, blue and red fields. 3-line and larger gold initials on red and blue fields. Rubrics, linefillers, border designs, red daubs as placemarkers.
Citation/reference: Maciot
Content: According to Delisle, ff. 7-30, 390-423 were added late 14th c., and the calendar early 15th. MS dated by Delisle to ca.1350-60, for Blanche, duchess of Orleans. Others propose Blanche de Bourgogne, early 14th c. Artist, Maciot, also in BN, fr. 2090-2.
Biographical/historical: Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts are vehicles of the collective memory of western European culture, and provide a material connection between the scribes, illuminators, and patrons who produced these works and the audiences who view them today. The works represent diverse genres, from Bibles and missals to romance literature and science texts. Dating from the turn of the 10th century until well into the period of the Renaissance, these works give vivid testimony to the creative impulses of the often nameless craftsmen who continually discovered new ways of animating the contents of hand-produced books through inventive and sometimes exuberant manipulations of all the elements of the book: form and format, layout, script, decoration, illustration, and binding. Drawn from the Spencer Collection and the Manuscripts and Archives Division, the New York Public Library’s collections of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts focus on the 9th through the 16th centuries -- seven hundred years of political, ecclesiastical, social, and intellectual change in Western Europe and the world.
Physical Description
Extent: Ff. 1-424v : 166 x 122 mm.
Type of Resource
Text
Still image
Identifiers
NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b22842238
Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 1be9ce60-c629-012f-7386-58d385a7bc34
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