Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek
The Abbey Library of Einsiedeln is rightfully considered a typical monastery library. Around the Holy Scripture as its center point are arranged the spiritual, theological sciences in an inner circle, around these in an outer circle are arranged all other sciences, from history, philosophy and jurisprudence to the natural sciences and medicine. Such comprehensive breadth was already documented in manuscripts from the early days of the monastery, as well as in ones from the so-called historical collection of the post-Reformation period, and the same remains true today for the modern library. The abbey library’s collection today includes about 1,200 manuscripts (of these about 580 are from before 1500), 1,100 incunabula and early printed works (until 1520), and 230,000 printed volumes from the 16th to the 21st century. Numerous current journals and periodicals offer the most up-to-date research from a large variety of disciplines.
This composite manuscript fromt the 9th/10th century contains the Vita Antigoni, fragments of a so-called Collatio Alexandrini et Dindimi, a falsified letter from Seneca to the apostle Paul and Augustine's Enchiridion: De fide spe et caritate. A copy of the Concordat of Worms from 1122 was added later. Transcription took place in Einsiedeln and the southern German region, possibly in St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This manuscript (9th century) from Disentis contains the Recognitiones of Pope Clement I in the Latin translation of Rufinus of Aquileia. Books IV-VI and individual chapters are missing.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
This composite manuscript was produced during the 10th/11th and the 13th/14th centuries in Einsiedeln and St. Gall. It contains various selections intended for religious education, such as the lives of saints Faustinus, Jovita and Gangolf, the Benedictine Rule, sermons, a liturgical tract and De ratione temporum.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
Mystic treatises in German: Mechthild of Magdeburg's The Flowing Light of Divinity ("Das fliessende Licht der Gottheit") and other mystic works (e.g. selections from Meister Eckhart). The manuscript was a gift, together with Cod. 278(1040), from Heinrich Rumersheim of Basel to the four sister convents in der Au near Einsiedeln at the behest of Margarete zum Goldenen Ring.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
Mystic Treatises in German: Rudolf von Biberach, Meister Eckhart, Johannes von Sterngassen, Albert the Great, etc. The manuscript was a gift, together with Cod. 277(1014), from Heinrich Rumersheim of Basel to the four sister convents in der Au near Einsiedeln at the behest of Margarete zum Goldenen Ring.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
The first part (pp. 1-178) contains ascetic treatises in Rhaetian or Alemannic minuscule, which originally constituted a single volume together with Einsiedeln 199. The other parts were written in Carolingian minuscule. The second part there of (pp. 179-270) can be localized to Switzerland or Northern Italy and the last part (pp. 271-314) to France. The manuscript was held in Einsiedeln in the 14th century already, as attested by numerous maniculae in the hand of Heinrich von Ligerz.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
The devotional book of Abbot Ulrich Rosch of St. Gall contains various prayers, timetables and calendars, is decorated with elaborate initials and was written in the year 1472.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
The first part of this manuscript presents the edition of Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias made by Boethius. The second part presents ten saints' lives, which were probably intended for recitation by a choir.
Online Since: 08/12/2010
Boethius is the author of the two treatises preserved in this 10th century manuscript: De geometria (1-22) and De musica (23-145). The two texts are surrounded by numerous sketches and marginal as well as interlinear glosses.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
The work of Bartholomew de Glanville forms only the first part of this manuscript of collected works, which also includes the following: Albertus Magnus (De compositione hominum et de natura animalium), De Romana Curia, De consecratione Romanorum Imperatorum, Forma iuramenti, Privilegium Constantini, a list of cardinals and their titular churches, De arboribus.
Online Since: 08/12/2010
This codex contains Peri hermeneias Aristotelis Libri V as written by Boethius. However, the beginning and end of the work are missing (and have been since the 14th century). The volume displays the work of numerous hands and marginalia added by Heinrich von Ligerz.
Online Since: 08/12/2010
A composite manuscript composed of two volumes of collected works, written during the 9th and 10th centuries in eastern France or southwest Germany. It includes works by Wandelbertus, Boethius, Ausonius, Gregory, Arator, Prosper, Prudentius, Aldhelmus and Boniface.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
For about twenty years it has been known that this extremely old manuscript contains medical texts by two different authors, whereas the contents of the entire volume had previously been attributed to Galen. The two parts are: 1. Galen's Ad Glauconem de medendi methodo Lib. I-III (which does not, however, follow the correct sequence of that text), and 2. Pelagonius , Ars veterinaria. The beginning and the end of this text are missing.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
This paper manuscript, copied in Bellinzona in the middle of the 15th century, contains a series of decrees issued by the Visconti government for the municipal authorities between 1352 and 1443. At the end of the text, there are blank pages onto which were copied letters of exemption for the people of theVal Mesolcina (a valley in the Swiss Canton of Grisons), which were issued in the years 1498-1499. The manuscript belonged to the Varone family; in 1537 it was bought and restored by the Bellinzona notary Giovanni Giacomo Rusca. In the 17th century, Carlo Bernardino Zacconi donated the manuscript to the library of the Jesuits of Bellinzona, which was later taken over by the Benedictines, and around 1787 the manuscript came to the Abbey Library of Einsiedeln.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
This manuscript contains several works by Prudentius and was written by various scribes. The test is surrounded by mostly interlinear glosses; most of these are in Latin, some are in Alemannic dialect.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
This two-part manuscript contains treatises by Hippocrates as well as his work De urinis and was produced in the first half of the 10th century at St. Gallen.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
This codex contains In Isagogen Porphyrii Commentorum Editio secunda (ed. Brandt 1906). The codex was written by numerous hands, including those of both Cologne and Einsiedeln origins; the nature of the collaboration has not been determined. The same text is found in Cod. 338(1321) I.
Online Since: 08/12/2010
This is an almost square manuscript with wide margins, into which several glosses have been inserted. The manuscript’s main text is the treatise De statu animarum by Claudianus Mamertus, which had been widely disseminated in the Middle Ages. The manuscript was certainly not produced in Einsiedeln, but probably originated in Soissons.
Online Since: 03/17/2016
This composite manuscript is datable to the second half of the 10th century. It contains, among other items, the Annales Einsidlenses, Priscian’s De grammatica, a fragment of a text on the game of chess, and a calendar with obituary entries up to the 16th century.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
A composite manuscript containing various texts related to figuring Easter dates, two datable calendars, the first from 950 to 975 (4-16), the second from the 9th and 10th centuries (29-40), and the Quaestiones morales, which are datable to the 13th century.
Online Since: 12/19/2011