Portolan atlas

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
Agnese, Battista, 16th cent. (Scribe)
Agnese, Battista, active 16th century (Artist)
Dates / Origin
Date Created: 1552 (Approximate)
Place: Venice
Library locations
Spencer Collection
Shelf locator: Spencer Coll. MS. 5
Topics
Manuscripts, Italian -- 16th century
Illumination of books and manuscripts
Manuscripts, Italian -- New York (State) -- New York.
Manuscripts, Latin (Medieval and modern) -- New York (State) -- New York
Morocco bindings (Binding) -- Italy -- 16th century
Gold tooled bindings (Binding) -- Italy -- 16th century
Genres
Maps
Charts
Atlases
Manuscripts
Portolan charts
Notes
Citation/reference: The Splendor of the Word. (ed.) J. G. Alexander, J. H. Marrow, L. F. Sandler (NYPL / Harvey Miller, 2005), n. 78; Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts / Seymour de Ricci. New York, 1937, p. 1336, no. 5.
Content: Various maps and charts -- no single layout.
Content: Animal and human figures sometimes appear in charts and maps.
Date: Henry Wagner dates this mansucript to ca. 1552, written and illuminated in Venice. Wagner draws his date in part from features in maps 1 & 4, including the presence of Baja, CA and the joining of England and Scotland into one land mass.
Content: Incipit: Antiqui cognoverunt quod centrum rotunditatis terre.
Content: Explicit: Et est ambitus concave sphere stelate.
Content: Incipit and explicit are on a single opening, ff. 19v-20r.
Preferred citation: NYPL. Spencer Collection MS. 5
Preferred citation: Perhaps commissioned by German patron. Coat of arms on f. 2 are probably those of the Neunstein branch of the Hohenlohe family, perhaps those of Count Georg von Hohenlohe-Weikersheim (d. 1551). Purchased in 1920 from Josef Baer & Co., Frankfurt.
Ownership: Perhaps commissioned by German patron. Coat of arms on f. 2 are probably those of the Neunstein branch of the Hohenlohe family, perhaps those of Count Georg von Hohenlohe-Weikersheim (d. 1551). Purchased in 1920 from Josef Baer & Co., Frankfurt.
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: 1 volume (20 leaves) : parchment , ink, manuscript, illuminations ; 255 x 179 mm
Decoration: Charts and maps in various colors, rubrics. Occasional animal and human figures in charts and maps; wind heads
Layout: Text on ff. 19v-20 in long lines, ruled in drypoint, some prickmarks visible
Form: Constructed of bifolia, pasted together with the second verso of one bifolium attached to the first recto of the subsequent bifolium.
Humanistic; capitals; cancelleresca.
Incipit and explicit are on a single opening, ff. 19v-20r.
Bound in contemporary red morocco over boards, with gilt decorations and four short leather straps with bronz clasps. Compass sunk into back pastedown.
Vellum (parchment)
Type of Resource
Cartographic
Still image
Text
Identifiers
NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b22818050
Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 7169ac20-c6b5-012f-8550-58d385a7bc34
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