Album Amicorum Alchemy Anthologies & Miscellanies Astronomy Bibles & Bible Commentaries Biographies Books of Hours Breviaries Calligraphy & Writing Manuals Carthusians Chivalric Orders Chronicles Church Fathers Cistercians Devotio Moderna Dictionaries Documents & Charters Dominicans Drama & Theatre Fables & Bestiaries Franciscans Games Gastronomy Grammar & Rhetoric Heraldry & Genealogy Herbals Horses & Veterinary Sciences Humanism Hybrid Liturgy Magic Mathematics Miniature Books Missals Pharmacology Poetry Prints Psalters Reformation Religious Orders Romances Saint Lives Scholasticism Sermons Travel & Voyages Women Studies     16 manuscripts   HENRICUS HOSTIENSIS (DE SEGUSIO), Summa super titulis decretalium [Summa aurea or Summa Hostiensis] In Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment Italy, Bologna?, c. 1300-1325     These surviving leaves come from what must have been quite a grand and refined manuscript, containing a copy of the very popular and well-respected Summa Hostiensis, the standard text for the study of canon law in the later Middle Ages. The present leaves include many special paleographic and codicological details, the study of which reveals some of the procedures of manuscript-making and using, including guide words, leaf signatures, and contemporary annotations.       [POPE CLEMENT V] Papal Bull and Briefs confirming Pacts between Venice and Ferrara In Latin, manuscript on parchment Italy, Venice (?), slightly after 1313     With early marginal annotations, this manuscript joins together the papal bulls and briefs issued by Pope Clement V in 1313, reinstating those economic rights and privileges withdrawn during the papal crusade against Venice from 1308 to 1310. The early provenance explains its unusual makeup--an inscription indicates that it survived the fire in Venice in 1385 of the archives of a member of the “Magistrato del Cattaver,” the office that advised the Doge on financial matters and for which the text would therefore have had special import.       BARTHOLOMEUS DE SANCTO CONCORDIO [Bartolomeus Pisanus], Summa de casibus conscientiae In Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment France, Avignon?, c. 1380-1400     This is a large, neatly written copy on parchment of one of the most popular casuistic texts of the later Middle Ages, Bartholomeus de Sancto Concordio's "Little Pisan Summa," which belongs to the new generation of penitential writings that were much impregnated by canon law. Extremely popular, existing in hundreds of manuscripts, the majority of which are of Italian origin, the text is relatively rare in France, and it evidently exists in fewer than a dozen copies in North American collections. The work has surprisingly never been the subject of a modern critical edition.       PETRUS DE UBALDIS IUNIOR [PETRUS DE PERUSIO], attr. [Commentarium super Decretales Gregorii IX or Lectura super quibusdam titulis lib. II. Decretalium Gregorii IX] In Latin, manuscript on paper Northern Italy, perhaps Perugia?, first quarter of the 15th c.     Unrecorded and unedited copy of a commentary on Book II of the Decretals of Gregory IX, attributed by Petrus de Perusio, most likely Petrus de Ubaldis Junior from an important Perugian family of canonists. The commentary on the successive casi taken from Book II of the Decretals is attributed to Petrus de Perusio at the foot of a significant number of columns. Further study of the relationship of the manuscript to other commentaries by the same author, as well as those by his presumed father (Petrus de Ubaldis Senior) and uncle (Baldus de Ubaldis), would help disentangle the manuscript tradition of these interrelated glosses.       ALBERTUS DE SAXONIA [ALBERT VON SACHSEN], Quaestiones super Libros Posteriorum Aristotelis [Commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics] In Latin, manuscript on parchment and paper Italy, likely Tuscany [Siena?], c. 1400-1425     Unedited commentary on one of Aristotle’s works on logic, originally written in the milieu of the University of Paris by a near-contemporary of John Buridan, here penned by an unrecorded scribe, Peter of Poland, and including the contemporary ex-libris of a Cistercian monk near Siena. There is no modern critical edition, nor is there an accurate recension of the extant manuscripts. None of the recorded copies is found in North American collections. Further study of the present manuscript in the manuscript tradition would shed new light on the reception of Aristotelian logic in monastic circles outside France.       GONÇALES DE VEGA, Gonçalo [Notario de Avila] In Spanish and Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Spain, Avila, dated August 1415]     An interesting historical document, intact, in its original attractive green-dyed binding, and of relatively luxurious composition, with gold leaf illumination. Recording in extensive detail a land dispute and penned by a royal secretary, the codex has considerable linguistic interest (the language is Castilian Spanish) and legal import for the region of Avila under the reign of King Ferdinand I.       Frederick III of Hapsburg, Letters Patent for Hans Zscheggenbürlin In German, manuscript on parchment Austria, [Wiener] Neustadt, May 28, 1456     This is an excellent example of a type of document that originates in the fourteenth century and became more common in later centuries, a letters patent, granting nobility or heraldry (in this case heraldry) to an individual favored by the imperial court. Not all such documents are as skillfully illuminated as the present example. The recipient of this document was an important and colorful personage at a critical moment in the history of Basel.       ABBA MARI BEN MOSES ASTRUC OF LUNEL, Minhat Kenaot [Jealous Offering] In Hebrew, manuscript on paper [Northern Italy, Sermide [Mantua], signed and dated 6 Tammuz 5218 [1458]]     One of only five manuscripts of a collection of letters and pamphlets in the important medieval controversy over the philosophy of Maimonides, the only manuscript of the small group that is dated and bears a colophon, the latter by a scribe who may also have been a wealthy Jewish patron in Mantua. The present manuscript differs significantly from the Pressburg edition and also from two of the other four manuscripts, which present variants.       Register Brevium [Register of Original Writs] In Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on parchment [England, London, c.1470]     This Register brevium is a deluxe, illuminated example of a manual of procedure law. Originating in the twelfth century, these writs protect every private right and interest, and later copies, like this one, offer a complete guide to medieval common law. The present example, including blank folios for the insertion of later writs as is typical, belongs with a clearly recognizable group of manuscripts associated with the Inns of Court.       [Augustinian Canons Regular]. Constitutio in ordine canonicorum regularium ordinis sancti Augustini [Pontifical Constitution for Augustinian Canons Regular promulgated by Benedict XII in 1339] In Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment Northern France, likely Noyon, second half of 15th c., perhaps c. 1475     This manuscript survives as a copy of a surprisingly rare text (four recorded manuscripts), elegantly written by a named French notary public. Its text regulated the daily lives and yearly routine of one of the most important medieval religious orders, detailing the profession of new canons, their singing of the Divine Office in choir, clothing, education within the community, studies at the universities, expenses and other details in the clerical life, and the general discipline in the cloister.       Commentary on PETER LOMBARD’S First Book of the Sentences, related to PAULUS VENETUS, Super primum sententiarum Johannis de Ripa Lecturae Abbreviatio In Latin, decorated manuscript on paper and parchment Northern Italy, 1479 (?)     This is an important manuscript, one that opens up complex textual issues warranting further study. The manuscript presents an abbreviated version of the lengthy commentary on the Sentences of Peter the Lombard by the fourteenth-century Franciscan theologian, Johannes de Ripa. In fact, our text corresponds most closely with the version of Ripa by Paul of Venice, written shortly before 1402 at Padua and known in a single manuscript, which was the basis of the modern edition.       BARTOLOMEUS BOLOGNINUS, Commentary on the Imperial Constitution “Authentica Habita” (1154-1155) [Repetita commentatio super Autentica Constitutione Habita] In Latin, decorated manuscript on paper Italy, Bologna, dated 12 January 1492     This the only known manuscript of a legal commentary on the Imperial Constitution promulgated in 1155 by Frederick Barbarossa in a dedication copy to Giovanni II Bentivoglio dated 1492. Considered a landmark for the development of medieval universities, the Constitution ensured juridical privileges, rights, and protection to students and masters of Bologna. Unedited and written in the hand of a little-studied author Bartolomeo Bolognini, the commentary merits fuller study in the light of the debates that animated the school of law in fifteenth-century Bologna.       [Commonplace Book of Romain Lenon] In Latin, manuscript on paper Castres, France; 1499 or later [early 16th century]     A fascinating “ledger-format” pocket-sized Commonplace Book, signed numerous times by the scribe and owner Romain Lenon of Péronne, a monk of the Celestine monastery of St. Peter’s, Castres, whose two main texts are surprising bedfellows (one legal, the Decretals, the other theological, Gregory’s commentary on Ezekiel), and whose numerous additional texts reveal Romain’s interest in recent French history, romance, and elephants, among other subjects.       ABRAHAM IBN EZRA, et al, attributed to, [Miscellany on Geomancy] In Hebrew, illustrated manuscript on paper Italy (northern?), c. 1550-75     This is a small, neatly written manuscript on divination, or geomancy, including three texts often attributed to the great poet, philosopher, and astronomer, Abraham Ibn Ezra. Although treatises on divination in Hebrew are not rare (300 to 350 manuscripts are extant), none of the works in the present manuscript are published, and they appear to relate to the early manuscript tradition that predates the occasional printed editions and are also preserved in three manuscripts all in institutions.       Hamburgisches Stadtrecht von 1497 [Hamburg Code of Municipal Law]; Langer Rezess [Long Ordinance] (1529); Hermann Röver, List of Councilors from the year 1190 to 1670 In German (Middle Low-German) and Latin, illuminated manuscript on paper Northern Germany, Lower Saxony, 1570-1573 with additions until 1670     Although some 50 manuscripts are extant of the Hamburg Code of Municipal Law, this deluxe copy is distinguished from most of the other, more ordinary, working copies by its illumination and contemporary binding. It shares similarities with the original illuminated manuscript of the Code, dated 1497, from which it nevertheless deviates by the inclusion of later texts, critical to the later governing of the city. Perhaps the manuscript documents the local conflict between the citizens and the governing body that was resolved shortly before the date of the present manuscript.       Vaticinium Severi et Leonis Imperatorum [Oracles of Leo the Wise] In Latin and Spanish (title page only), illustrated manuscript on paper [Spain or Italy, dated 1701]     Although a copy of a printed book, the present manuscript contains a series of 16 finely executed drawings and testifies besides to the persistent interest in the sibylline prophecies concerning Byzantium, reinterpreted here in the context of the fall of the Ottoman Empire to show that the reign of Muslim domination has effectively passed.