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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

Names
Spain. Sovereign (1556-1598 : Philip II) (Author)
Philip II, King of Spain, 1527-1598 (Author)
Gallego, Alonso, active 16th century (Patron)
Dates / Origin
Date Created: 1592
Place: Granada, Spain
Library locations
Spencer Collection
Shelf locator: Spencer Coll. MS. 163
Topics
Letters patent -- Spain -- Granada -- 16th century
Illumination of books and manuscripts
Manuscripts, Spanish (Medieval and modern) -- New York (State) -- New York
Manuscripts, Spanish -- Spain -- Granada
Nobility
Spain -- Politics and government -- 1516-1700
Genres
Manuscripts
Illuminations
decorated initials
legal documents
Documents
Miniatures (Illuminations)
Notes
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.
Citation/reference: New York Public Library. Spencer Collection. Dictionary catalog and shelf list, vol. II, p. 909.
Content: f. 51v End of main hand, with date and name "Alonso Gallego". Also signatures and note hands.
Date: Dated by scribe: 1592; dated on f. 51v to 1592
Preferred citation: NYPL. Spencer Collection MS. 163
Physical Description
Extent: 53 leaves, bound : parchment, ink, manuscript, illuminations ; 301 x 214 mm
Layout: Written in 34 long lines per page, ruled in blue/purple ink. Occasional pricking visible; possible quire signatures in upper left of ff. 25 and 37.
Decoration: 2 full-page miniatures and one historiated initial. 9-line gold initials on multi-colored fields. Pen flourishes in borders. Full borders around miniatures.
Parchment pastedowns, front and back, of which the latter is ruled like the rest of the manuscript; f. i is also parchment.
16th century Spanish leather and gold-tooled binding
Vellum (parchment)
Gothic?
Type of Resource
Text
Still image
Identifiers
RLIN/OCLC: 1347751721
NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b22884195
Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 17d8db40-c622-012f-0bc0-58d385a7bc34
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