The Pilgrimage of the soul

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
Guillaume, de Deguileville, 14th cent. (Author)
Dates / Origin
Date Created: 1430 (Approximate)
Place: England
Library locations
Spencer Collection
Shelf locator: Spencer Coll. MS. 19
Topics
Illumination of books and manuscripts, English
Manuscripts, English (Middle)
Genres
Illuminations
Manuscripts
Notes
Ownership: Owned by Sir Thomas Cumberworth, who bequeathed it (1450) to his chaplain. Given ca. 1500 to nunnery of Marrick by widow of Sir Richard Radcliffe. John Cowper; Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland; Lord Leconfield; acquired for Spencer, 1928.
Citation/reference: De Ricci, 1339. Dictionary Catalog, 901. Scott entry. Library dossier. Listed in Digital Scriptorium, University of California, Berkeley.
Content: Rubrics, red and blue placemarkers. 1-line red and blue initials. 2-line and 3-line blue initials with red penwork. 2-line gold initials. 6-line and 7-line colord initials on gold fields with full border decorated with flowers, leaves etc.
Content: Spencer Master
Date: This manuscript dated between 1413, when the text was translated into English, and 1450, when Thomas Cumberworth bequeathed it; most likely date ca. 1430. B.L. Egerton 615 and Lansdowne 204 are stylistically and decoratively related to this manuscript.
Conservation history: Text is part 2 of a French trilogy in verse by Cistercian Guillaume Deguileville; composed in several stages mid-14th century. Middle English prose adaptation 1413 (see f. 136). 10 full ms. copies survive of pt. 2, all using same translation as source.
Content: 35-6 long lines per page, ruled in faded ink. Catchwords and quire signatures visible. Quaternions are the norm.
Content: Parchment
Content: 26 one-third page miniatures.
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
Parchment
Extent: Ff. 1-140v : 267 x 190 mm.
Type of Resource
Text
Still image
Identifiers
NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b22824612
Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 6ba85c70-c6cf-012f-d0da-58d385a7bc34
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