Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève
This incomplete liturgical psalter was made between 1335 and 1350 in Naples. The unusual decorations are the work of the artist Christoforo Orimina. Because the manuscript contains three different coats of arms, the original owner (a member of the Angevin court in Naples) can not be definitively named. After changing hands many times during the 19th and 20th centuries, the manuscript was acquired in 1968 by the owner of the collection "Comites Latentes" ("Hidden Friends") held by the Bibliothèque de Genève.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
This elegant pocket-size book of hours was illuminated in Tours around 1480 by the Maître des camaïeux d’or Le Bigot, who was active in the circle of the painter Jean Bourdichon. The sixteen tiny historiated initials in camaïeu d’or that are contained in the manuscript succeed the usual repertoire with an original cycle dedicated to the seven days of Creation. The artist demonstrates his exceptional technical mastery by lending the body of the initials an especially attractive evanescent character. The subtle arrangement of the surrounding letters should invite the anonymous patron to appreciate the meticulous combination of gold and colors in detail.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This precious book of hours was made in Florence around 1470-1480. Its rich and elegant illumination is due to the close circle of the most famous florentine miniaturist of his time, Francesco d’Antonio del Chierico. The same hand is responsible for the major illuminations at the beginning of the various sections as well the initials in the text. The flourished initials are of great elegance. A partly erased coat of arms on the opening leaf indicates that the book of hours was made for the wedding of a male member of the Serristori family. The manuscript entered in the collection of the present owner in 1970 and it was deposited at the Bibliothèque de Genève as part of Comites Latentes.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
This handwritten Haggadah Comites Latentes 69 was created in Vienna in 1756. It is decorated with black ink and masterfully imitates copper engraving. The author is the famous scribe and illustrator Simmel ben Moses from Polna (active between 1714 and 1756), who produced about thirty dated manuscripts that have survived until today, of which, however, only 17, including CL 69, are autographs. His works of art are among the most remarkable examples of Hebrew manuscript decoration in 18th century Central Europe. The Song of Solomon, copied by later hands, concludes this magnificent manuscript.
Online Since: 06/22/2017
This manuscript is a hagiographic compilation in French prose which recounts the lives of the apostles, martyrs, confessors and saints. Some of the accounts are attributed to Wauchier de Denain. The manuscript is dated to the first quarter of the 14th century; it was decorated by the Papeleu Master and the illuminator Mahiet and notably contains more than eighty historiated initials.
Online Since: 03/17/2016
This richly decorated book of hours was illuminated in Tours in about 1500, for an owner from Toulouse. In the 15th century, the city of Tours and the Loire valley region were home to the court of the kings of France. This manuscript is closely connected to that glorious past era. The name of court painter Jean Bourdichon (ca. 1457-1521) is associated with two of the miniatures in this book of hours. The other 35 miniatures were painted by three book painters from the atelier of Jean Poyer (+ before 1504), also well-established in Tours.
Online Since: 07/04/2012
The greater part of the manuscript (pp. 21-598) is a compendium by Joseph b. Elijah Tirshom titled Sefer Shoshan Yesod Olam that includes 2174 numbered paragraphs, containing, inter alia, a book of magic called Harba de-Moshe (Sword of Moses) and other texts. Copied in the Ottoman empire in a 15th century Byzantine script with additions in later hands.
Online Since: 06/09/2011
One of the earliest manuscript exemplars of the version of the Tanhuma midrash text known among scholars as the "printed text" (first printed in Constantinople, 1520-22), as distinguished from the version first edited and printed by Solomon Buber in Vilnius, 1885. Copied probably somewhere in the Orient around the 14th century, the Hebrewscript is Oriental semi-cursive.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
This legal manuscript with the title Sefer Ḥokhmat Nashim is part of a vernacular literary genre for women that was widely read in Ashkenazic and Italian communities since the Renaissance. This manual of prescriptions in Judeo-Italian is said to have been copied by the famous Italian kabbalist and preacher Mordechai ben Juda Dato during the second half of the 16th century.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
This text contains an adaptation of several narrative parts of the Bible in Old French. The poem in alexandrine verse (en laisses d’alexandrins) was composed in the 12th century by an author of the continent and became one of the most successful religious works in Old French. This manuscript preserves one of the oldest and most complete exemplars of this work; it is the only one to contain almost the entire text from the Anglo-Norman branch of the text tradition. Because the text probably is of insular origin, this manuscript proves the almost simultaneous dissemination of the text in England.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
This volume is a collection of letters, made in 1467 and 1468 in Naples for Roberto da Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, contains letters by Diogenes of Sinope, Brutus and Hippocrates, who were regarded during the middle ages as the true authors of these letters. They were translated into Latin by Francesco Griffolini Aretino and Ranuccio of Arezzo. This book was presented for sale several times during the 20th century and passed through the hands of prestigious collectors.
Online Since: 04/15/2010
This rare Judeo-Arabic fragment is from the Kitab al-Hidaya ila Faraiḍ al-Qulub (Guide to the Duties of the Heart ) by Baḥya ben Joseph Ibn Paquda (2nd half of the 11th century). This work is of fundamental importance since it sets out the first Jewish system of ethics. The manuscript tradition of this Judeo-Arabic work is quite fragmentary because few textual witnesses remain today.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
The Bible Historiale is a Bible edition translated by Guyart de Moulins into French prose at the end of the 13th century. It is presented in the form of biblical stories and combines the Vulgata of Jerome with the Historia Scholastica of Peter Comestor. It was quickly supplemented with the second volume of the Bible du XIIIe siècle (“Thirteenth-century Bible”). Because it was widely disseminated during the 14th and 15th centuries, today there are 144 known examples, both complete exemplars and fragments.
Online Since: 03/22/2012
The Bible Historiale is a Bible edition translated by Guyart de Moulins into French prose at the end of the 13th century. It is presented in the form of biblical stories and combines the Vulgata of Jerome with the Historia Scholastica of Peter Comestor. It was quickly supplemented with the second volume of the Bible du XIIIe siècle (“Thirteenth-century Bible”). Because it was widely disseminated during the 14th and 15th centuries, today there are 144 known examples, both complete exemplars and fragments.
Online Since: 03/22/2012
This Bible Historiale is the Bible translated toward the end of the 13th century into French and prose by Guyart des Moulins. Presented in the form of a holy story, it joins Jerome’s Vulgata and Petrus Comestor’s Historia Scholastica. It was quickly completed by the second volume of the Bible du XIIIe siècle. Widely used in the 14th and 15th centuries; today there exist 144 complete or fragmentary exemplars.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
The Bibliothèque de Genève preserves a third copy in two volumes of the Bible Historiale by Guyart des Moulins (besides Ms. fr. 1/1-2 and Ms. fr. 2). Despite the rough execution of his drawings, this copy is remarkable because of its origin. It was copied by Jean Bagnel at the behest of Hugonin Dupont, a merchant and citizen of Geneva; in 1603 it became part of the Bibliothèque de Genève.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
The Bibliothèque de Genève preserves a third copy in two volumes of the Bible Historiale by Guyart des Moulins (besides Ms. fr. 1/1-2 and Ms. fr. 2). Despite the rough execution of his drawings, this copy is remarkable because of its origin. It was copied by Jean Bagnel at the behest of Hugonin Dupont, a merchant and citizen of Geneva; in 1603 it became part of the Bibliothèque de Genève.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
In this work, written at the end of the 14th century in Valencia, the author describes the universe of angels, inspired by Dionysius the Areopagite’s De triplici gerarchia. The text, which was in wide use during the second half of the 15th century, was translated into French and published as a first printed edition in Geneva in the year 1478. The Ms. fr. 5 was illuminated by the Master of the Geneva Boccaccio and contains the coat of arms of Jeanne de Laval, second wife of King René of Anjou.
Online Since: 12/18/2014
In 1389, the Franciscan monk Jean de Souabe translated into French the Horologium sapientiae by the mystic Henry Suso (1295-1366) of the Rhineland. In this moral treatise, wisdom conducts a dialog with a student regarding the spiritual path to be followed, as inspired by the passion of Christ, and invites him to meditate on the passing of time. More than fifty copies of this work are known. This manuscript from the Bibliothèque de Genève, dated 1417, was probably written in the episcopal city.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
The Legenda aurea is one of the most copied texts in all of the medieval Occident. In short texts, it blends sanctoral and temporal celebrations in the course of the year, following the order of the liturgical calendar. Popular not only in Latin but also in the vernacular languages, it had various uses, as a tool for preaching and as a source of moral edification through private reading for the layperson as well as the cleric.
Online Since: 06/25/2015