Bern, Burgerbibliothek
The Burgerbibliothek Bern is a cultural institute of the Burgergemeinde Berne, a Civic Community. The Burgerbibliothek in its current state was established in 1951 when the town and university library was transformed into a foundation. Today the Burgerbibliothek is open to the public. Its scientific archives hold and preserve numerous important and internationally renowned manuscripts, records and photographic files. Among the best known collections are those of the medieval manuscripts, the Bongarsiana-Codices, documents concerning Swiss and Bernese history as well as bequests of important people such as Albrecht von Haller or Jeremias Gotthelf. The Burgerbibliothek also acts in an archival capacity for the Burgergemeinde (Civic Community), the guilds and the Burger’s societies. As a scientific institute, the Burgerbibliothek is of service to researchers and is also open to the interested public. Its collection is accessible in a beautiful reading room and conveyed through publications, guided tours and exhibitions.
The Sefer ha-Yashar is one of two Bible commentaries by the great R. Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089/92-1164/67). Written in Lucca, Italy ca. 1142-45, this work attained great recognition and popularity during the Middle Ages and has been preserved in numerous manuscripts and printed books. This 15th century Italian copy is of particular interest since it belonged, at some point during the 16th century, to Theodore de Bèze (1519-1605), the famous Genevan Calvinist theologian and Professor, who then gave it to one of his disciples and colleagues, Antoine Chevalier (1507-1572), the first Professor of Hebrew language at the Académie de Genève.
Online Since: 06/13/2019
A catalog of the Greek manuscripts in the library of Jean Hurant de Boistaillé (†1572), which he collected between 1561 and 1564, while serving in Venice as the ambassador of the King of France. For the purpose of assembling and cataloging this collection, Jean Hurault employed the services of Zacharias Scordylios (second half of the 16th century), a Greek theologian, priest, book printer and publisher, who lived in Venice. Although this catalog has been published several times, reference back to the original is necessary in the case of certain entries.
Online Since: 08/12/2010
One of the earliest and most famous manuscripts of Valerius Maximus; its importance lies in the autograph reworkings by Lupus of Ferrières. Lupus himself wrote the Exempla and the comment on the sometime "flyleaves" (f. II-III), repeatedly collated the main text, added supplements from the parallel transmission of Iulius Paris (an abbreviator of Valerius Maximus) and also its accompanying text (Gaius Titius Probus: De praenominibus; f. 158va-159r). In making the fresh description a hitherto unnoticed letter- or charter-like text was discovered on the last page (f. 159v).
Online Since: 06/23/2016
This manuscript, which was probably produced in Reims, consists of two parts that contain only the scholia on Lucan, but not the actual text. The first part (up to f. 125v) contains the scholia known as the Commenta Bernensia, which are preserved only in this codex. The text is interspersed with 21 simple schemata in color, geographic representations as well as plans of cities and of battles. The second, unfortunately incomplete part contains a collection of non-illustrated glosses (Adnotationes) for books 1 to 4 as well as 9 and 10 (beginning). As becomes clear from the content, the original plan of merging the Commenta and the Adnotationes into a single text was apparently abandoned in the middle of the first book of the Commenta, and the Adnotationes were copied separately in the last third of the manuscript (from f. 125v).
Online Since: 03/29/2019
This composite manuscript consists of three parts and was probably written in Picardy. The manuscript contains a rare legend of St. John, the Prophecies of Merlin, and the Tale of the Seven Sages of Rome; it was probably written for private use. Once owned by Isabel d'Esch, a member of one of the most important families of Metz, as can be determined from notes of ownership, the volume came to Bern in 1632 from the holdings of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
Late 13th century songbook from Lorraine (Metz?); the manuscript has empty staves throughout. It contains 524 trouvère songs by anonymous as well as by named authors and includes various genres, religious texts and many songs that are transmitted only in this source.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
Sometime during the last 20 years of the 15th century, this manuscript was copied and annotated by the humanist and well-known professor of Aristotelian philosophy in Padua, Nicolaus Leonicus Thomaeus (1456-1531). (He should not be confused with his contemporary Leoniceno Niccolò [1428-1524], a physician, philosopher and professor in Ferrara.) This manuscript has a key role in cultural history, as the texts by Theoprastus and most of the Aristotelian texts it contains served as the basis for the Aldine edition of 1497. Similarly, it served as the basis for the translation of Aristotle's Mechanica published by the manuscript's owner in 1525 in Venice. In the margin of the manuscript one can see the efforts of Nicolaus Thomaeus to devise figures to illustrate the translation.
Online Since: 08/12/2010
This textual witness of the Rhetorica ad Herennium, erroneously attributed to Cicero, was produced in the Loire area. The manuscript gained great attention in the 19th century already because it contains a short library catalog from the 11th/12th century, which probably refers to books from the Abbey of Saint-Mesmin de Micy. The claim that the manuscript originated in Fleury, proposed by many earlier authors, is uncertain and has been rejected several times in recent times. This volume came to Bern in 1632 from the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
One of the oldest and most important manuscripts of the Alexander story by Curtius Rufus; it probably was copied on the initiative of Lupus of Ferrières at the local abbey. A quire bound in the front contains a collection of excerpts from the Pseudo-Isidorian papal letters (= false decretals) which has been preserved only here. This collection is larger than the related partial collection by Hinkmar of Laon and most probably stems from the common 'legal invention', which was thought to have been lost. The final pages of the manuscript contain a geographical index of the late Roman administration and notes on the city of Rome. This volume came into the possession of Pierre Daniel, who annotated it extensively; in 1632 the manuscript came to Bern as part of Jacques Bongars' collection.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
A manuscript consisting of three production units. The first dates back to the second half of the 16th century and was made by Jakobus Diassorinos (†1563), a Greek copyist from Rhodes who was then working in the library of Fontainebleau. The second was copied, probably in 1552, in Padua by the young Parisian humanist Henri Estienne (ca. 1531-1598), whose signature in Greek is found at the bottom of fol. 47r. The third part still has not revealed the secret of the circumstances of its production.
Online Since: 08/12/2010
A manuscript containing the Byzantine chronicle in modern Greek, generally known as the Anonymum Byzantinum chronicon, still unedited. At the end of the 19th century Karl Praechter (1858-1933), an instructor and later, from 1889 to 1907, a professor at the University of Berne, used this manuscript to retrieve the Chronicle from its previously shadowy existence.
Online Since: 08/12/2010
This Merovingian composite manuscript, which was created in Bourges, originally consisted of six independent parts, which were written by different, often not very practiced hands in various phases. Most of the close to thirty individual pieces are texts from grammatical, patristic, computistic and medical works. The longer pieces are interspersed with further excerpts, partly written in Tironian notes. One quaternio from the only partially preserved third part is today held in Paris (BN lat. 10756). Noteworthy is the palimpsest in the fifth part, whose undertexts were probably written in Italy in the 7th century and in the second half of the 5th century respectively.
Online Since: 03/17/2016
A manuscript consistiting of three production units. The first two were copied in Paris, probably around the end of the 15th century, by the famous professor of Greek, Georgius Hermonymus of Sparta (†1511-1516). They contain prayers and liturgical pieces, particularly from the Abbey of Saint Denis in France, including an as yet apparently unpublished translation of a Mass formula for Saints Dionysius, Rusticus and Elutherius into Greek. The last part, an addition to the others, is the work of a single hand, very similar in appearance to that of Hermonymous, perhaps that of one of his pupils.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
A "small medicine book for poor people", probably written in the region of Venice/Northern Adriatic Sea; the work, written in Arabic in Hebrewscript, was completed on May 19, 1413, according to the date note. The manuscript was later probably part of a Jewish library that cannot be located more precisely; it was transferred to the Bernese Library at the end of the 18th/beginning of the 19th century, where it was evaluated by the Bernese theology professor Gottlieb Studer (1801-1889).
Online Since: 06/18/2020
10th/11th century fragment of unknown origin, containing parts of the Mainz continuation (up to the year 887) of the so-called Annales Fuldenses with entries for the years 871, 872 and 876. Based on the reading of the text, this exemplar belongs to a group of manuscripts that also contain the so-called Bavarian continuation of the Annals for the years 882 to 901.
Online Since: 09/23/2014
Remnants of a manuscript of the Summarium Heinrici as well as of the glossary of plants appended thereto, with interlinear glosses in German. Prior to 1875, Hermann Hagen detached them from three book bindings from the Stadtbibliothek of Bern. Other parts are located in the Zentralbibliothek of Zurich and the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek of Bonn.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
Folium from a manuscript of the Collectanea rerum memorabilium by Gaius Julius Solinus; it contains parts of the Descriptio Indiae. Prior to 1875, Hermann Hagen detached it from a host volume from the Stadtbibliothek of Bern.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
Fragment of a manuscript that originated in Fulda around the second quarter of the 9th century, containing Cetius Faventinus’ (late 3rd/early 4th century) extracts from Vitruvius’ De Architectura. It cannot be determined when the codex left Fulda. Two Fulda library catalogs from the beginning and the middle of the 16th century still list a Faventinus manuscript.
Online Since: 09/23/2014
Bifolium from a manuscript of the Viaticus by Constantinus Africanus, from a handbook for traveling doctors, translated from Arabic. Prior to 1875, Hermann Hagen detached it from a host volume from the Stadtbibliothek of Bern.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
A love letter in Middle High German, which came to the Burgerbibliothek Bern from the estate of Dr. Friedrich Emil Welti.
Online Since: 06/14/2018