Psalterium

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: 1101 - 1200 (Approximate)
Library locations
Spencer Collection
Shelf locator: Spencer Coll. MS. 11
Genres
Manuscripts
Miniatures (Illuminations)
Notes
Ownership: Given (Aug. 16, 1544) by Magdalena ab Hessburg to "poeta Bruschius" (? the historian Caspar Brusch, 1518-59). Belonged later to the Charterhouse at Buxheim. Graf Hugo von Waldbott-Bassenheim sale (1883). Bought for Spencer from W.M. Voynich, 1922.
Content: 19 long lines per page, ruled in brown ink. Prickmarks and traces of some signatures visible. Collation: one quire of six folios (defective?), followed by 18 quires of eight folios each and one quire of two folios (defective).
Content: 2; later hand, s. XIV ?, writes the prayer on f. 152
Content: De Ricci date this to the 12th century; NYPL catalog and other notes in the dossier place it in the 13th century. The calendar is after 1235 (given inclusion of Elizabeth of Hungary on 19 November), and is on same quire as some of full page miniatures.
Citation/reference: De Ricci, 1337-8. Library dossier. Chart by Dr. G.B. Guest. Listed in Digital Scriptorium, University of California, Berkeley.
Content: On ff. 2-4v, calendar; ff. 5-6v, miniatures; ff. 139-151v, 6 OT canticles + Benedicite, 3 NT canticles, Pater noster, Credo, Te Deum, Nicene Creed. On f. 152 (back pastedown), a prayer in the Rhenish dialect, O himelische konic, libe herre ihesu christe
Content: Rhine School style of illumination
Content: Six full-page miniatures on gold fields. Zodiacal symbols in calendar. Initial with grotesque. Sketch of Christ, f. 152.
Content: The foliation in the manuscript and the notes in the dossier count the back pastedown as f. 152.
Content: Very large initials in blue, red and green on gold fields. 3-line gold initials on blue and red fields. 1-line alternating red and blue initials. Rubrics.
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. 152, 23 x 16 cm.
Parchment
Type of Resource
Still image
Text
Identifiers
NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b22820218
Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): cf58b740-c622-012f-1322-58d385a7bc34
Show filters Hide filters
10 results found