This manuscript from the library of the Capuchin monastery of Sion contains the Manipulus curatorum, a handbook of moral and pastoral theology for use by priests that was written in the early 1330s by Guy de Montrocher. The work was widely used in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Capuchin monastery library owns a second old copy of the Manipulus, which, however, is printed: RCap 110, an incunable from 1485 (Rom, Eucharius Silber: Hain 8192). In RCap 14, the Manipulus curatorum is followed by an endpaper, which contains a list, perhaps of dioceses, especially Italian and German dioceses. The flyleaves are parchment; they are two documents issued in Geneva in 1452, which mention, among others, a Johannes Brochuti, canon at Sion.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This manuscript from the library of the Capuchin monastery of Sion is divided into three parts, which were executed by three different copyists. The first part (ff. 1-113) consists of a treatise on the Inquisition from 1359, the De jurisdictione inquisitorum in et contra christianos demones invocantes (with the chapter De suspicione: beginning on f. 95r) by the Catalan Dominican Nicolau Eymeric, General Inquisitor of Aragon. This first part was produced in Naters in 1460 for Walter Supersaxo (ca. 1402-1482), Bishop of Sion, by the priest Cristoferus in Domo Lapidea (Im/Zum Steinhaus, Steinhauser) of Lalden, rector of the altar at the church in Naters. Three more manuscripts in the Supersaxo library are due to this same scribe, S 96, S 98 and especially S 97, which among other texts contains a second copy of the De jurisdictione inquisitorum, produced in the same year, 1460. The second part (ff. 114-134), with rubricated and partly decorated initials (e.g., on ff. 114r and 127r), contains the Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi (also referred to as The Chronicle of Pseudo-Turpin ; about the middle of the 12th century, sometimes attributed to Aimery Picaud), a tale about fictional wars conducted by Charlemagne in Spain and France. This work of propaganda for the Spanish Crusade and for the Pilgrimage to Compostela, which was particularly inspired by the Chanson de Roland, experienced great success in the Middle Ages. The third part (ff. 135-157) contains synodal statutes issued by Walter Supersaxo in 1460; another copy thereof is preserved in the archives of the Cathedral Chapter of Sion (drawer 3, number 67/5). An note of ownership on the flyleaf f. V1r indicates a certain Johannes Huser of Selkingen as the owner of RCap 73; he is attested in Sion between 1532 and 1561 as rector of two altars.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This portable Latin-Bible contains the Old (ff. 5v-344v) and the New Testament (ff. 346r-435v), preceded by St. Jerome's prologues to the whole Bible and to the Pentateuch (ff. 4r-5v) and followed by the interpretation of Hebrew names (ff. 436r-471v). There are illuminated initials (ff. 5v, 190v, 364v und 377v), and gilded ones and initials decorated with pen flourishes in red and blue. Some leaves (2, 3, 345, 357, 472) are missing or were cropped. As we come to know from the explicit on f. 471v, this manuscript was copied in 1440 by Jean Comte (Comitis) of Warmarens (Vuarmarens, FR), parish priest in Billens (FR). RCap 243 is from the library of the Capuchin monastery of Sion, an order present in the city since the 17th century. A handwritten note of ownership on the front pastedown indicates that in 1785 this Bible was owned by the Capuchin Josef Alexius [Eggo] von Leuk (1761-1840; guardian in Saint Maurice from 1805 to 1808, in Sion from 1808 to 1811 and from 1819 to 1822).
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This Latin Bible contains the Books of the Old Testament (Octateuch, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Job and Maccabees). They are preceded by Jerome's prologue to the whole of the Bible (in logical order: ff. 11, then 13-14r; the beginning is incomplete), by an excerpt from De doctrina christiana 2, 8-9 by Saint Augustine (f. 14) and by Jerome's prologue to the Pentateuch (in the order: f. 14v then f. 9). Several leaves at the beginning have been lost or were not bound correctly; the manuscript currently begins with Genesis 19.26. The incomplete text of Genesis should be read in this order: ff. 9v-10, 15-16, 12 (Gn 10.30-19.26 are missing), 1-8 (Gn 31.28-36.19 are missing), 17-26r. Similarly there are defects at the end of the manuscript: the text is interrupted on f. 379v at 2 Maccabees 14.6. There are several errors in the modern foliation: 3 leaves between ff. 161 and 162 were not counted; the foliation jumps from f. 188 to f. 190, and there is a f. 256a. RIKB 8 has a blue initial with red pen flourishes (f. 9v), as well as several simple initials in red, in part with geometrical motifs (e.g. on ff. 69r or 112r). As we learn from the explicit on f. 227v, this manuscript was transcribed in 1433. It belonged to the Swiss entrepreneur Kurt Bösch (*1907 in Augsburg - † 2000 in Augsburg), bibliophile, collector and patron of the arts, who notably founded l‘Institut Universitaire Kurt Bösch (IUKB) in Brämis/Sion (VS). In 2012, the UIKB donated several valuable books, including this manuscript, to the Médiathèque Valais.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
Volume S 51 from the library of Walter Supersaxo (ca. 1402-1482), Bishop of Sion, and of his son Georg (ca. 1450-1529) contains two collections of Latin fables, the first printed, the second handwritten. The first part, printed around 1475 by Michael Wenssler in Basel (GW 7890), contains the Speculum sapientiae, which had erroneously been attributed to the holy bishop Cyril. This collection of 95 fables in Latin prose was probably compiled around 1337-1347 by the Italian Dominican Bongiovanni da Messina. The second part contains Aesop's fables in a Latin version in verse called “Fables by Anonymus Neveleti“ (after the name of the first publisher, Isaac Nicolas Nevelet, in the year 1610), which eventually were attributed to Gualterus Anglicus (12th century). This second, handwritten part was produced around 1474 by Georg Supersaxo's anonymous scribe. It is comparable to other copies that were produced for Georg Supersaxo around 1472-1474, at the time that the young man studied law in Basel. This group of manuscripts includes the classical writers (Terence, Sallust …) as well as texts known only to scholars (Augustinus Datus, Gasparinus Barzizius …). Glued to the pastedowns of S 51, there are parchment fragments with Latin excerpts from Aristotle's Physics (Book IV, in the translation of James of Venice).
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This volume, S 56, from the library of Walter Supersaxo (ca. 1402-1482), Bishop of Sion, and of his son Georg (ca. 1450-1529) in five parts brings together various Latin texts, classical texts as well as works by Italian humanists; the first two parts are printed (with initials in red and green), the latter three are handwritten. The first part, printed around 1472 by Michael Wenssler and Friedrich Biel in Basel (GW 3676), contains the Epistolae by the humanist and professor of rhetoric Gasparino Barzizza from Bergamo (ca. 1360-1431). This is followed by The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, also from the workshop of Michael Wenssler in Basel from about 1473-1474 (GW 4514). Next is the first handwritten text (incomplete, with marginal and interlinear glosses), Jesuida seu De passione Christi by the humanist and physician Girolamo della Valle from Padua († ca. 1458 or 1494). This work, written in hexameter and dedicated to Pietro Donato, Bishop of Padua from 1428 until 1447, was most likely copied from the edition of about 1474 that was printed by Michael Wenssler in Basel (GW M49385) and that also served as model for the lay-out. The fourth part contains the Catiline conspiracy by Sallust. At the end of the volume, the fifth part is made up of three works by two authors (with marginal and interlinear glosses; initials in red and green); due to a bookbinder's error, the order of the quires is mixed up. This fifth part contains the Elegantiolae (the order for reading would be: ff. 1r-10v, 27r-38v, 11r-20r) by the humanist and professor of rhetoric Agostino Dati from Siena (*1420 or 1428, †1478), as well as two treatises by Gasparino Barzizza, which are already included in the printed part, the Praeceptorum summula (ff. 20r-21v) and the Modus orandi (ff. 21v-26v, 39r-43r). The three handwritten parts of the volume were produced by different hands, among them that of the anonymous scribe of Georg Supersaxo. S 56 therefore is comparable to the other manuscripts (S 51, S 101, S 105) that were made for Georg Supersaxo at the time when the young man studied law in Basel (around 1472-1474). Among the annotations on the flyleaves one can recognize a note of ownership by his father Walter Supersaxon, Bishop of Sion (f. N2r).
Online Since: 03/22/2018
At once a travel memoir and a geography book, the Voyages by John Mandeville, probably written around 1355-1357, were a great success in the Middle Ages. Numerous handwritten copies make it possible to distinguish three different versions of the French text, which gave rise to translations into Latin and into the vernacular languages. The oldest German translation, going back to about 1393-1399, is by Michel Velser, a member of the von Völs family (Völs, South Tyrol). This copy, S 94 from the library of Walter Supersaxo (ca. 1402-1482), Bishop of Sion, and of his son Georges (ca. 1450-1529), contains numerous ornamental initials, some zoomorphic or anthropomorphic. The endpapers are parchment. Based on the language, the manuscript should be from Northern Switzerland. An ownership note on f. 120v mentions an uncle “G”, which may suggest Georges Supersaxo himself. In the binding, there was a fragment of a papal document that can without doubt be dated to the middle of the 13th century, from a Pope Innocent and addressed to the Abbot of Kempten. Ms. S 94 can be compared to another manuscript from the Supersaxo library, namely with S 99, which contains a French version of the Voyages.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This manuscript unites three moral treatises from different epochs. It begins with the mirror for princes by the Dominican William Peraldus, De eruditione principum, written around 1265. This is followed by a short philosophical text by the Franciscan John of Wales, Breviloquium, from the second half of the 13th century, and then a moral treatise by Martin of Braga, Formula vitae honestae, a 6th century work that was widely distributed in the Middle Ages and that was attributed to Seneca for a long time. Intended for the Bishop of Sion Walter Supersaxo (ca. 1402-1482), this manuscript was copied in 1463 by the priest Cristoferus in Domo Lapidea (Im/Zum Steinhaus, Steinhauser) of Lalden (parish of Visp), rector of the altar at the Church of St. Mauritius in Naters (fol. 214v und 220r). The copy was made on paper with a watermark (fol. 180r), also used for S 97 (fol. 129r), one of the three manuscripts, together with S98 and Rcap 73, that were made by the same scribe for the library of Walter Supersaxo.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This manuscript from the library of Walter Supersaxo (ca. 1402-1482), Bishop of Sion, and of his son Georg (ca. 1450-1529) contains two works in Latin. The first (ff. 1r-126r) is a treatise on the Inquisition, written in Girona in 1359 by the Catalan Dominican Nicolau Eymeric, Grand Inquisitor of Aragon (before 1320-1399). The version in S 97 contains the chapter De suspicione (beginning on f. 104v), which is sometimes considered a separate work; the table of contents was written on parchment (f. 1). In the second part of the manuscript (ff. 132r-214r), there is a version of the Gesta Romanorum in 31 chapters, a famous collection of fables and moralizing tales that was probably written in Germany or England before 1342. The first part of manuscript S 97 was copied in 1460, the second part in 1465. The copyist was the priest Cristoferus in Domo Lapidea (Im/Zum Steinhaus, Steinhauser) of Lalden, rector of the altar of St. Fabian and St. Sebastian at the Church of S. Mauritius in Naters. This same scribe is also responsible for two more manuscripts in the Supersaxo library, S 96 and S 98, which contain theological and moral works. In addition, in 1460, the same year as S 97, this scribe transcribed the De jurisdictione inquisitorum a second time; this version can be found in the first part of a composite manuscript in the library of the Capuchin monastery of Sion, in RCap 73 (former shelfmark W 34).
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This manuscript from the library of Walter Supersaxo (ca. 1402-1482), Bishop of Sion, and of his son Georg (ca. 1450-1529) is a collection of literary French texts with moralizing tendencies; it contains the romance Pontus and Sidonia as well as 15th century texts in verse. The major part of the manuscript (ff. 1r-122r; initial in red, yellow and black on f. 1r) is taken up by Pontus and Sidonia, a work that experienced great success in the 15th and 16th century. This prose version of the Anglo-Norman romance Horn, sometimes attributed to Geoffroy de la Tour Landry, was written towards the end of the 14th century or the beginning of the 15th century in France. It is followed by two texts by Alain Chartier (*1385-1395, †1430), secretary and ambassador for the kings Charles VI and especially Charles VII: on ff. 122r-131r is the famous Bréviaire des nobles (ca. 1422-1426) and on ff. 131r-136v is the Lay de paix (ca. 1424-1426). The following part (ff. 136v-145r) contains a less-known work, the Songe de la Pucelle by an unknown author. At the end, on ff. 145v-149r, are six anonymous ballads a pleysance et de bon advis. This manuscript was transcribed in Martigny in 1474 (at least the first part, the romance of Pontus and Sidonia) by Claude Grobanet, whom one also finds as the copyist of two more manuscripts in the Supersaxo library, S 99 (Voyages by Mandeville) and S 100 (Statutes of Savoy). Grobanet was in the service of Antoine Grossi Du Châtelard, Lord of Isérables (†1495). In the beginning of the 16th century, the family of Antoine Du Châtelard apparently fell into financial difficulties; their property - and presumably the three manuscripts as well - passed into the hands of Georg Supersaxo.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
At once a travel memoir and a geography book, the Voyages by John Mandeville, probably written around 1355-1357, were a great success in the Middle Ages. There are three versions of the French text; manuscript S 99 is related to the “continental” version. As in other manuscripts based on this version, the Voyages (ff. 1r-122v, with an explicit on f. 123v and an addendum on ff. 124r-125r) are followed by the Preservacion de Epidimie (ff. 122v-123v). The actual identity of the two authors is unresolved and may even have been confounded. In copy S 99 from the library of Walter Supersaxo (ca. 1402-1482), Bishop of Sion, and of his son Georges (ca. 1450-1529), the upper margins are covered with ornaments of ascending bars, some of which turn into into zoomorphic or anthropomorphic motifs. The Supersaxo library owns another version of the Voyages, namely S 94, in the German translation by Michel Velser. Like two other manuscripts from this same library, S 97bis (composite manuscript with the romance of Pontus and Sidonia) and S 100 (statutes of Savoy), S 99 was copied by Claude Grobanet, who was mentioned in a 1474 document in Martigny, where he served Antoine Grossi Du Châtelard, Lord of Isérables († 1495). In the beginning of the 16th century, the family of Antoine Du Châtelard apparently came into financial difficulties; their property - and probably the three manuscripts as well - passed into the hands of Georges Supersaxo. The incomplete parchment document, which makes up the rear flyleaf, mentions, among others, Martigny, 147[3] and a seigneur d'Ys[érables (?)].
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This manuscript from the library of Walter Supersaxo (ca. 1402-1482), Bishop of Sion, and of his son Georges (ca. 1450-1529), contains a compendium of the statutes of Savoy, a legal code issued in 1430 by Amadeus VIII, the first Duke of Savoy and the future antipope Felix V. The compendium was printed for the first time in 1477 in Turin by Johannes Fabri (Hain 14050, GW M43623). Until 1475, this region of the canton of Valais below the river Morge of Conthey was ruled by the Dukes of Savoy. This manuscript, S 100, can be compared with two other manuscripts from the Supersaxo library, namely with S 97bis (composite manuscript with the romance of Pontus and Sidonia) and S 99 (John Mandeville, Voyages). All three manuscripts were copied by Claude Grobanet, who was mentioned in a 1474 document in Martigny, where he served Antoine Grossi Du Châtelard, Lord of Isérables († 1495). In the beginning of the 16th century, the family of Antoine Du Châtelard apparently came into financial difficulties; their property - and probably the three manuscripts as well - then passed into the hands of Georges Supersaxo.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This manuscript from the library of the Bishop of Sion Walter Supersaxo (ca. 1402-1482) and his son Georg (ca. 1450-1529) contains five of the six comedies by Terence, although the last one, Hecyra, abruptly ends in the middle of the text. This codex is part of a group of manuscripts (S 51, S 56, S 105) that Georg Supersaxo himself made or had made during his studies in Basel (beginning in 1472). In this group, Terence's comedies are contained in the present manuscript as well as in codex S 105. These two manuscripts are very similar to one another regarding text and formatting. However, in contrast to codex S 105, which is written carefully and regularly and which is decorated with more elaborate initials, codex S 101 definitely is a manuscript for regular use. The initials and the rubrication soon discontinue. The binding is from the same workshop as that of codex S 51. Both have identical stamping, and the fragments, which were used to reinforce the inside cover, are from the same manuscript. They contain excerpts from the Physica by Aristotle in the translation by James of Venice.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This manuscript from the library of Walter Supersaxo (ca. 1402-1482), Bishop of Sion, and of his son Georges (ca. 1450-1529), contains Terence's six comedies, each of which begins with an ornamental initial: Andria (f. 5r), Eunuchus (f. 19v), Heautontimoroumenos (f. 35v), Adelphoe (f. 52r), Hecyra (f. 66v), Phormio (f. 78r). The manuscript is part of a bundle of copies which were made, if not by Georges Supersaxo himself, then by a scribe in his service. At the time, the young man was a law student in Basel. This group of manuscripts includes classical pieces (Terrence, Sallust…), but also texts that would be familiar only to scholars (Augustinus Datus, Gasparinus, Barzizius,…). Terence's comedies take a special place in the collection, since they were recopied into another manuscript in this group, S 101, which remains incomplete.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This parchment manuscript produced in 1438/39 was commissioned by Solothurn mayor Henmann von Spiegelberg and his wife Margarethe von Spins as a Mass book for use on the St. George's altar in their chapel in the Cathedral of St. Ursen. The missal was probably produced in Solothurn. The Roman Missal (First printed in Milan in 1474 under the title Missale secundum consuetudinem Romane Curie still lacking the Rubricae generales and Ritus servandus) follows the Missale curiae, i.e., the Mass book created in about 1220 for the chapel of the papal palace.
Online Since: 06/22/2010
This German language composite manuscript probably was created at the Oetenbach Convent of Dominican nuns in Zurich in the beginning of the 15th century. In addition to the liturgical Psalter (for the monastic Liturgy of the Hours, Psalterium feriatum), it also contains the Cantica of the breviary and the Litany of the Saints in German, as well as a prayer. At least since the 17th century, the manuscript has been in the possession of the collegiate church of St. Ursus in Solothurn.
Online Since: 03/17/2016
This spiritual handbook contains assorted German texts: a translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus and a communion devotion together with Dominican funeral rites and mystic texts about Christ's Passion. The manuscript originated in the third quarter of the 15th century in the area of the Upper Rhine and was originally the property of the Dominican convent in Bern (Inselkloster St. Michael). After the Reformation, at the end of the 16th century, the manuscript was acquired by the Solothurn City Library (Bibliotheca civitatis).
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This illustrated breviary for the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine was produced in 1470/1471 in Lombardy. The elegant script is characteristic of the Abbey of Santa Croce at Mortara. In the 17th century the volume was acquired by the patrician Wagner family of Solothurn, whose books were bequeathed to the city library in 1773.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
TThis southern german manuscript is a collection of medical texts that include, in addition to the Artzneibuch (Book of Nutrition) by Ortolf von Baierland and extracts from the Thesaurus pauperum by Petrus Hispanus,a complete separate text on healing as the Corpus of cloister medicine as well as assorted versions of the Wacholderbeertraktat (Juniper berry tract), extracts from Bartholomeus, the Antidotarium Nicolai and much more. These texts were assembled between 1463 and 1466 by Reichenau physician Hans Stoll. The codex is listed in the first catalog of the Solothurn City Library of 1766/1771.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This substantial composite manuscript contains approximately 2.000 recipes and instructions, principally from art technology, but also other medical, culinary and alchemistic ones. The manuscript had been the property of the Bieler family, residents of Solothurn since the 17th century; the family counted several artisans in its ranks.
Online Since: 10/10/2019
This missal of the Franciscan use contains Sunday and Feast-day masses from the Temporal and the Sanctoral. A possessor's mark from the Franciscan Franz Meyer, from 1587 warden of the Solothurn convent, proves that the manuscript came from that convent. Originally, it may have come, as Schönherr hypothesizes, from the Franciscan convent in Bern, which was dissolved during the Reformation.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
This small volume with the German translation of the Franciscan Rule (“Augsburger Drittordensregel”) comes from the Franciscan convent of Solothurn and is probably connected with the tertiaries or the Beguinage “zum Lämmli” in Solothurn, which was entrusted to the Franciscans for the cure of souls.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
The Küchenmeisterei is one of the most widely known German language cookbooks. The Solothurn manuscript of the Küchenmeisterei is a copy of a printed edition, produced no earlier than 1487.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This manuscript was created in the third quarter of the 15th century, probably in the Upper Rhine area or rather Switzerland, as evidenced by the original binding which is decorated with numerous individual stamps. In addition to the translation of the Psalms with commentary, which had earlier been attributed to Heinrich von Mügeln, the manuscript also contains the Cantica of the breviary in German. The circumstances that brought this volume to Solothurn are not known.
Online Since: 03/17/2016
This manuscript, which was produced in the Upper Rhine area in 1457, contains a remarkably independent translation of the biblical Books of Wisdom, the oldest German translation of several works by Seneca, and a translation, also independent, of the teachings on the ‘cura domestica' by the Pseudo-Bernhard of Clairvaux. It is not known how this volume came to Solothurn, but it has been part of the holdings of the Solothurn City Library since the 18th century already.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
Between 1438 and 1443 the proceedings of the Council of Basel with some interruptions, were recorded at first hand by Council Notary Jakob Hüglin (ca. 1400-1484). Hüglin, a canon lawyer, was provost of the collegiate church of St. Ursus in Solothurn from 1455 until his death in 1484. Thus these original notes on the proceedings, together with other conciliar documents, eventually made their way into the Solothurn City Library.
Online Since: 02/17/2010
The Cantatorium presents selections from the Gradual; it contains music for solo-voice elements of the Mass that are meant to be sung by the cantor. This manuscript from the late 15th century originated in the Abbey of St. Urs at Solothurn and was occasionally used in the parish of Biberist. Particularly noteworthy in this volume are German versions of two hymns.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
The Solothurn history Bible (“Historienbibel”) was created in 1460 in the workshop of Diebold Lauber in Hagenau (Alsace). This prestigious piece of work may have been comissioned by Solothurn City Clerk Hans vom Stall (1419-1499). In 1763 the book was acquired by the Solothurn City Library as a part of the von Staal family library.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
This manuscript, an autograph, contains various writings on the monastic way of life and about monasticism in the past and present. It contains, among others, translations of letters by Saint Jerome and of sermons by Bernard of Clairvaux. These are argumentation aids for disputes with proponents of monasteries and convents.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This late 15th century manuscript contains a chronicled account, written by several authors, of the history of the monastery of St. Gall in the early and high Middle Ages, as well as several theological Quaestiones. The account is preceded by a list of abbots from the founder Otmar up to Berchtold von Falkenstein (1244-1272); a second list of abbots continuing until 1503 is added at the end.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
This voluminous composite manuscript brings together the Casus Sancti Galli, the history of the monastery of St. Gall from the early and high Middle Ages, and about 50 lives of saints in texts of various lengths, among them those of the St. Gall saints Gallus, Otmar and Wiborada. The manuscript was created in the 1450s, when relations between the monastery and the town of St. Gall were sorted out, and the monastery launched extensive reforms.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
This volume produced in 1420 in Florence is among the earliest manuscripts written in Humanist minuscule, and it is possible that this is a direct copy from the model written by Poggio Bracciolini, the inventor of this script. According to the judgment of Berthold Louis Ullman, it is "perhaps the best example of humanistic writing during the first decade of the fifteenth century - except Poggio's."
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This volume is the second of a three-volume set, an edition of Livius written in 1442 and 1143 in Padua. It is of particular interest because the texual model is well-known: the Livius manuscript of Sicco Polentone (1375/76-1446), Chancellor of Padua, today Holkham Hall Library, MS 349. This manuscript is written in an extremely regular semi-Gothic script augmented with exquisite white vine scroll initials.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This unimposing composite manuscript contains six works of differing content types and origins, bound together under the auspices of the librarian of St. Gall in about 1460. The individual elements were produced independently of one another during the 9th or 10th century. Some are incomplete, lacking the beginning, the ending, or both. Nevertheless, this composite manuscript received attention from early on, as some of the component parts are important for the texts they transmit. This volume contains the only early medieval transmissions of the Langobard Chronicle by Andreas Bergamensis and the life of the Irish saint Findan. The "Admonitio ad filium" by the Greek church father Basilius and the "Visio Pauli", an early christian vision of the afterlife, are among the oldest of textual artifacts.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This book of hours is from the workshop of the Master of Gold Scrolls, which was probably located in Bruges and specialized in the production of books of hours. It was likely made for someone in Flanders in the middle of the 15th century. Contrary to the usual sequence of texts, this book of hours features the Office of the Virgin after those of the Cross and of the Holy Spirit. When this book of hours was rebound, a series of cut-out historiated initials were inserted that pick up on the themes of the miniatures. In 1615 the bibliophile St. Gallen merchant Jakob Studer donated this book of hours to the municipal library.
Online Since: 12/10/2020
This two-volume, large format history Bible (“Historienbibel”) is illustrated throughout in an artistic style characteristic of the workshop of Diebold Lauber in Hagenau. This history Bible is traceable to Constance in the third quarter of the 15th century; some defects were repaired in St. Gall in the early 17th century – one of the early conservation efforts undertaken in this city.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This two-volume, large format history Bible (“Historienbibel”) is illustrated throughout in an artistic style characteristic of the workshop of Diebold Lauber in Hagenau. This history Bible is traceable to Constance in the third quarter of the 15th century; some defects were repaired in St. Gallen in the early 17th century – one of the early conservation efforts undertaken in this city.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
The Speculum humanae salvations is a work consisting of texts and illustrations of Biblical content. Each double page of the opened book shows four images, which usually juxtapose one scene from the life of Christ with three prefigurations from the Old Testament. In the present manuscript, this order has not been sustained consistently. The Latin text source has been translated into German verses, which earlier were erroneously attributed to Konrad von Helmsdorf. The Speculum is preserved as a composite manuscript of manuscripts and printed works; several pages are missing in the beginning.
Online Since: 06/23/2016
The cosmology of the Lyon physician and astrologer Louis de Lange treats the formation of the world and describes the earth and the stars in the sky. The illustrations of the decans, showing the subdivision of each of the twelve signs of the zodiac into three astrological sections, are worthy of particular attention. Despite the attractive illustration, the work was not very popular; only a few manuscripts are known to exist.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This collection of works was produced during the third quart of the 15th century, under the influence of early humanism, in one of the southwestern German states. It contains German and Latin texts from the late middle ages as well as some interlinear and marginal glosses. The newer works by humanist authors include contributions by Petrarch, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II), Hieronymus de Vallibus and Antonio Barzizza.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
Heinrich Schlüsselfelder's work, Blumen der Tugend, a collection of brief instructive tales, is derived from an Italian model. The author, originally from Nürnberg, translated them into German in 1468 in Italy. The paper is of Italian manufacture; the Lombard initials, the binding stamp and what remains of the fasteners are all of Italian design. For illustrations Schlüsselfelder used early Italian copperplate engravings portraying the cardinal virtues and a unicorn; slightly later he, or a reader, illustrated the text with color-washed pen sketches in the margins.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
Manuscript on paper from the library of the Abbey of Pfäfers, dissolved in 1838, containing the German translation by Otto of Diemeringen, widely disseminated in the late middle ages, of Jean de Mandeville's Travels. The Manuscript is illustrated with richly colored pen and ink drawings, which provide cultural and historical insights into this period.
Online Since: 10/15/2007
Liber Aureus, the Golden Book of Pfäfers, was originally produced in about 1080/90 as an Evangelistary, decorated with artistic portraits of the four evangelists. The free space left between the readings was used in the 14th century for the recording of "Weistümern" (judicial sentences).
Online Since: 06/02/2010
Produced in the thirteenth century, this Psalter shows evidence of heavy use. An “instructions for use” found on the back pastedown calls for the Psalter to be left in the choir so that every sister can read it. Thus, the Psalter came from a convent of women. Since St. Catherine is particularly emphasized in the calendar, it could have belonged to the convent of Dominican women of St. Catherine in St. Gall. Decoration consists of red and blue pen-flourished initials. In addition, the liturgical eight-part division as well as the three-part division of the Psalter are highlighted with larger painted initials, which are partially adorned with silver and gold ink. Following the Psalms, starting on p. 240, are the biblical Cantica, Credo, Te Deum, Symbolum Athanasianum and a litany. A few leaves were replaced in the fifteenth and fourteenth/fifteenth century (pp. 95–98, 257–264). Two quires of a breviary in the same hand as pp. 257–264 are bound to the litany (pp. 269–288). In the same hand, an incomplete calendar (July to December) with names of the month in German precedes the Psalter (pp. 1–12). Originally the calendar probably consisted of two quires, of which only the last leaf of the first quire and the complete second quire remain. On the front pastedown is glued the bookplate of Prince-Abbot Beda Angehrn (abbot 1767-1796).
Online Since: 12/14/2022
This paper manuscript begins with Conrad of Soltau's commentary on the Psalms (pp. 3a-210a). Before becoming bishop of Verden, Conrad of Soltau (v. 1350-1407) studied at Prague, where he became master and professor of theology, then rector of the University (1384/5). The chief sources of his commentary on the Psalms are Nicholas of Lyra and the Glossa Ordinaria. The remainder of the manuscript contains various theological texts: excerpts from the Psalter (pp. 212-216), the Articuli de Passione Christi (pp. 218-244), the first page of a calendar (p. 348), an excerpt from a martyrology (pp. 350-354), Jacobus de Voragine's sermons for Lent (pp. 368a-429b) and the Legenda s. Verena (pp. 464a-477b). Many blank pages interrupt the various texts of this volume, copied by many different hands. The ownership mark on p. 1: Dis Buch ist Anthoni Gaisberg likely signifies Anton Gaisberg, father of Franz (ca. 1465-1529), abbot of St. Gall (1504-1529). It is certainly through Franz, a great lover and patron of manuscripts, that this work entered the Abbey Library of St. Gall.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
The paper manuscript contains several texts copied on two columns by different hands in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It begins with a martyrology (pp. 1a-80a) that was copied in 1434 and signed by the copyist Ulrich Aeppli, plebanus at Sitterdorf in Thurgau (p. 80a). At least five other manuscripts from the Abbey Library of St. Gall are either entirely or partially from his hand (Cod. Sang. 327; Cod. Sang. 709; Cod. Sang. 786; Cod. Sang. 1078; Cod. Sang. 1076). After a few blank pages (pp. 81-95), one of which is stamped with the seal of the library of St. Gall under the abbacy of Diethelm Blarer (p. 81), comes a series of shorter texts copied in the fourteenth century, including sermons (pp. 98a; 98b-100a), the copy of a letter of Pope Gregory VII to Mathilda of Canossa (pp. 100a-101b), and prayers organized according to the order of the liturgical year (pp. 102a-117b), except for the first prayer, dedicated to Saint Brendan (p. 101b). The collection further has a remarkable calendar that advises a diet where each month of the year is associated with the eating of a fish (p. 98a). According to the title on p. 120a, the last text contains St. Augustine's Quaestiones (pp. 120a-141b).
Online Since: 12/20/2023
Two parts make up this manuscript. The first part, somewhat more recent, comes from the early fifteenth century and contains Bernhard de Parentinis's Tractatus de officio missae (pp. 3–178), including the capitulatio (pp. 3–9), dedication (pp. 9–10), prologue (pp. 10–11) and collatio (pp. 11–12). The actual text begins on p. 12. Pages 179–190 are blank. The second, older part, comes from the fourteenth century and contains on pp. 191–254 an anonymous commentary on Isaiah (Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum, No. 8038; the text breaks off in the middle of the commentary on chapter 21) and, on p. 256, the beginning of Peter of Limoges's Tractatus moralis de oculo, Inc. Si diligenter voluerimus in lege domini meditari. This text also breaks off in mid-sentence. The manuscript is bound in a parchment limp-binding that has cloth glued on the inside. The cloth has detached from the inside front cover, such that the text on the parchment can be read, a German-language charter (fourteenth century). Strips, probably from the same charter, serve as quire guards in the middle of gatherings. On p. 268, in the lower margin, appears a purchase note from 1422. According to the ownership mark on p. 3, the manuscript has been in the Abbey of St. Gall since the fifteenth century. Stamps from the abbacy of Diethelm Blarer (1553–1564) can be found on p. 3 and 178.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
This paper manuscript consists of four codicological units, and (contrary to Scherrer) dates to the fifteenth century. The first unit includes blank folios A–F and has an old, fifteenth-century, foliation 182–187. The second unit (f. G and ff. 1–22) first contains a longer, crossed-out table of contents, and, beneath it, an updated, shorter table of contents; both tables come from the fifteenth century. On ff. 1ra–22rb follows the sermon or treatise De passione domini, which is ascribed to Henry of Langenstein both in the manuscript and in the previous catalogues, but ought to be attributed to Henry Totting of Oyta († 1397). According to the rubric comments at the beginning and end of the treatise (f. 1ra, 22rb), this text was copied at the order of the Dominican Conrad Bainli. The third part (ff. 23–81) transmits another sermon or treatise De passione domini, and was produced by a second scribe, who, according to the colophon (f. 74va) made the copy in 1446, also at the behest of Conrad Bainli. The fourth unit (ff. 82–129) contains first on ff. 82ra-116ra the Expositio dominicae passionis by Jordan of Quedlinburg. According to the colophon (f. 116ra) Conrad Bainli, one of the probably two copyists of the Expositio, finished copying the text in 1437. There then follow on ff. 117ra–123ra excerpts from the four Gospels (a Gospel concordance on the Passion?) made by yet another scribe, who, according to the colophon (f. 123ra), also finished the copy in 1437. The binding dates to the fifteenth century and has wooden covers that were already reused.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
The manuscript was produced in the late fourteenth century and shortly after the middle of the fifteenth century. The first half (pp. 17–347) was largely copied by Johannes Schorand (except pp. 17–47) and on p. 123, 303 and 347 is dated 1398. Pages 348–412 are written by several hands from the fifteenth century. The last part (pp. 413–538) comes from the hand of the Dominican friar Cuonradus Bainli and contains several datings: 1455 (p. 470, 475 and 488) and 1458 (p. 538). The manuscript contains predominantly sermons, but also other, chiefly theological, texts. On pp. 17–124 are the Sermones super Pater noster of Godefridus Heriliacensis (from Erlach on Lake Biel), followed by sermons De tempore on pp. 124–303. The explicit on p. 303 (Explicit Jacobus de Foragine) is deceptive; only a few sermons are by Jacobus de Voragine. In fact, the first 58 sermons are identical with the sermon collection of an anonymous Franciscan contained in Oxford, Merton College, MS 236 (15 c.), and referred to by its incipit, "Mendicus". Subsequently, from the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Cod. Sang. 329 has a mixture of material from the “Mendicus”-sermon collection and additional sermons from Jacobus de Voragine's Sermones de tempore. After both sermon collections follow a few shorter texts: pp. 304–347 of the Tractatus de symbolo fidei by Aldobrandinus de Toscanella, pp. 348–353 an Easter sermon from Albertus Patavinus's Expositio evangeliorum dominicalium (Inc. Maria Magdalene et Maria Jacobi et Salome emerunt aromata … Licet magna leticia sit rem desideratam invenire), pp. 355-357 canonical dispositions, pp. 358-360 the chapter De sancto Petro apostolo from Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda aurea, and pp. 363-413 a Tractatus de amore dei, anime. The pages copied by Cuonradus Bainli begin with the Commentarius in decem praecepta by Henry of Friemar (pp. 413–475, with a detailed index pp. 470–475), followed by a Sermo de sacramento corporis Christi (pp. 479–488) and pp. 488–538 a text with the title Biblia virginis Marie, with a detailed index on pp. 488–491. The codex has various contemporary foliations. Johannes Lener owned the manuscript; after he died, it passed to Johannes Engler (cf. the comments in the hand of Johannes Schorand, p. 124 and 347, corrected and expanded by a fifteenth-century hand). Since the mid-sixteenth century at the latest, the manuscript was in the library of the Abbey of St. Gall, (p. 353, the library stamp of Abbot Diethelm Blarer, from 1553–1564).
Online Since: 12/20/2023
Contrary to Scherrer, this missal does not come from the fourteenth century, but rather from the first half of the fifteenth century. In addition to a full-page image of a canon on p. 179, the decoration includes pen-flourished initials (p. 77b, 413a, 434a etc.) as well as outlined, but not completed, zoomorphic and historiated initials. Thus, for example, on p. 12a for Christmas there appears an initial in the form of a dragon enclosing a Nativity scene and, on p. 92a, for the Dedicatio huius monasterii, an initial with a man in a tree. Notable are the numerous sequences that the missal contains. According to the possessor's note on p. 1, Sanctorum Iohannis Baptiste et Evangeliste, the manuscript was held by the Abbey of St. John in Thurtal since at least the eighteenth century.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
Pontifical missal of St. Gall Abbot Ulrich Rösch (1463-1491). The manuscript consists of two parts: the first part (p. 5-102) was written by the Wiblingen conventual Simon Rösch, the second part (p. 103-236) was perhaps not added until after the death of Abbot Ulrich Rösch. Only the prefaces (p. 83-102) have melodies in German plainsong notation ("Hufnagelnotation") on 5 lines. There is also the abbot's coat of arms (p. 5) and an image of the crucifixion with medallions of the four evangelists (p. 70). Several pages have book decorations in the form of borders and initials, sometimes with gold leaf.
Online Since: 10/07/2013
German language lectionary with the Epistles and Gospel readings according to the Church year (Proprium de tempore; Proprium de sanctis and Commune sanctorum) from the Dominican Cloister of St. Katharina in St. Gall, copied in the year 1483 from a model belonging to the Cloister of St. Katherine in Nurnberg by Elisabeth Muntprat, one of the convent's most diligent scribes. Texts from the manuscript were read aloud during the Dominican nuns' meals. Several colored woodcuts are pasted into the manuscript, which came to the Abbey Library of St. Gall around 1780.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
A volume of the Gospels, made to order for an unknown customer in about 1470/1480, possibly in the workshop of the book illustrator Rudolf Stahel of Konstanz. It contains Latin Gospel readings for the most important holy days of the church year. Illustrated by at least two artists with 21 full-page illustrations, including the symbols of the four evangelists and representations of the most important holy days throughout the year. In 1658 the volume was presented by the court official Fidel von Thurn to Abbot Gallus Alt (1654-1687) and decorated by a book illuminator with his crest.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
According to an entry on p. 64, the Goldach necrology was created in 1418 by Syfrid Brüstlin, priest at Hagenwil. The first part (pp. 11-58) is arranged according to the Roman calendar and contains entries by several hands, mainly from the 15th and 16th centuries. Sometimes only the name of the deceased person is mentioned, other entries are more detailed and give information about donations. The second part (pp. 59-80) contains remarks on individual donations. This part is mainly in Brüstlin's hand and continues into the 17th century.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
Breviary consisting of several parts: 1) Capitula and orationes for the period from the first of Advent until the octave of Pentecost as well as for Sundays and weekdays (pp. 3–48). 2) Proprium de tempore (with readings, excerpts from sermons, antiphons, responses and hymns) for the period from the first of Advent until the Saturday after Pentecost (pp. 49–280). The antiphons and responses have neumes. 3) Proprium de sanctis (pp. 281–419), these chants do not have neumes. It begins with St. Andrew (30 November) and ends with St. Petronilla (31 May). 4) Proper for Easter until the second Sunday after the octave of Easter (pp. 421–466). 5) Responses and antiphons De sanctis in pascali tempore (pp. 466–468). 6) Lectiones per totam ebdomadam for weekdays of the third and fourth week after the octave of Easter (pp. 469–484). 7) Capitula for Nocturns, Sext and None at Easter (p. 485). 8) Orationes for Nocturns, Sext and None on weekdays usque ad ascensionem Domini (pp. 486–487). 9) Capitula and orationes for Vespers, Lauds and Sext for the first until the fourth Sunday after the octave of Easter (pp. 488–489). 10) Hymns (and sequence Cantemus cuncti melodum, p. 504) (pp. 502–504 and 506). Parts 1-3 were for the most part written in the 13th century (with numerous additions and corrections on erasure up until the 15th century). Parts 4-6 are from the 14th century, parts 7-10 from the 15th century. Property of the Monastery of St. Gall at least since the 15th century (perhaps 1450, cf. p. 1).
Online Since: 03/17/2016
The manuscript contains principally the chants for the liturgy of the Hours (response and antiphones), and also some chants of the Ordinary (in a part with tropes), hymns, and sequences, and spiritual chants in Latin and German. In all, six chants (p. 87-89, 103, 107) are for two or three voices. In this case, the voices are not noted one under another, but one after another. The spiritual chants are written with a mensural notation, and the other liturgical pieces in German plainsong notation, the so-called German “Hufnagelnotation”.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
This breviary dating from the second half of the 15th century contains assorted offices of the Proprium de sanctis in two parts as well as the text In dedicatione ecclesiae, a short collection of sermons for the celebration of church dedications (Richard of Saint Victor, Augustine, Eusebius ‹Gallicanus›, Bernard of Clairvaux) and the Creed. This manuscript displays the hand of Cordula von Schönau, the Dominican nun from the cloister of St. Katharina in St. Gall, whose hand is also found in codex Wil, Dominikanerinnenkloster St. Katharina, M 3.
Online Since: 12/21/2010
This manuscript probably was written at the behest of St. Gall Abbot Ulrich Rösch (1463-1491). The manuscript's principal part consists of a Psalter with the Psalms in biblical order, as well as several liturgical rubrics, antiphons (partly only with the Initium), and hymns, followed by the Pater noster, the Credo, biblical Cantica, the Te Deum, a litany und more Cantica. The final part, from fol. 135v, consists of a hymnal, which also contains a Sequence (Cantemus cuncti melodum). Antiphons and hymns have melodies in German plainsong notation("Hufnagelnotation") on 4 or 5 lines. Numerous erasures and additions, as well as other signs of usage, attest to intensive use of the manuscript. Several pages have book decorations in the form of initials with vine scrolls; a figure initial can be found on fol. 1v (a man fighting a dragon and a bird of prey).
Online Since: 10/07/2013
This manuscript was written at the behest of St. Gall Abbot Ulrich Rösch (1463-1491) (dating on f. 227r: 1467). Its content corresponds substantially to that of Cod. Sang. 438: a Psalter with the Psalms in biblical order, as well as several liturgical rubrics, antiphons (partly only with the Initium) and hymns are followed from f. 148v by Cantica, and from f. 172v by a hymnal. Antiphons and hymns have melodies in German plainsong notation ("Hufnagelnotation") on 4 or 5 lines. Numerous erasures (sometimes extending over several pages) and additions, as well as other signs of usage, attest to intensive use of the manuscript. Several pages have book decorations in the form of initials with vine scrolls; a figure initial can be found on f. 104v (David with a harp).
Online Since: 10/07/2013
This manuscript consists of two-parts bound together; the first part (pp. 3-26) contains a 15th century ritual with instructions for visits to the sick, for spiritual care for the dying, and for burial (this is cut off in the prayer at the coffin on p. 26). The second part (pp. 27-86) consists of two discourses in defense of polyphonic music, composed by St. Gall monk Mauritius Enck († 1575) at the behest of Abbot Diethelm Blarer (1530-1564). These discourses are meant as prefaces to Manfred Barbarini Lupus' compositions for several voices in Cod. Sang. 542 and 543. Enck defends polyphonic music against widespread criticism, for example for its presumed lascivia (wantonness), and postulates an ideal for church music consisting of a combination with a chorale as the foundation and figural music as embellishment. Thus he describes precisely the compositions of Barbarini Lupus. At the end of the first discourse (pp. 47-48), Enck names the artists who contributed to Cod. Sang. 542 and 543 as well as the time period of their work on the manuscripts (from 1561 to 1563).
Online Since: 09/23/2014
This order of service was probably prepared around 1440 for St. Gall Abbey. It documents the liturgical rite of the reformed Benedictine Monastery of Kastl in the Upper Palatinate (cf. the title on p. 3: Breviarium de divinis officiis et consuetudinibus ecclesiasticis per circulum anni monasterii sancti Petri in Castello ordinis sancti Benedicti), whose monastic impulse of renewal must have been taken up in St. Gall in the late 1430s under Abbot Eglolf Blarer. The determination of the text for St. Gall is the result of adaptation to the veneration of the saints of St. Gall Abbey (e.g., p. 222 annotation regarding the patron saint Wiborada, p. 240 consideration of St. Constantius, venerated in St. Gall on July 3rd).
Online Since: 09/26/2017
Liber Ordinarius from the second quarter of the 15th century with liturgical instructions for the mass of the monks of St. Gall during the presence of reformist monks from the monastery ofHersfeld between 1430 and 1439. The Liber Ordinarius, dated 1432 (p. 36), seems to have been made for the monastery ofSt. Gall following a model from Hersfeld (in the northeast of Hesse); however, some parts are not yet adapted for the monastery ofSt. Gall. The calendar at the beginning of the manuscript can be unambiguously located in St. Gall. Between the various parts of the manuscript, repeatedly there are empty pages.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
This multi-part paper manuscript contains a Latin dictionary, a hymn for St. Nicholas, one for Mary, and one for the Holy Cross, as well as two sequence-commentaries, and finally sequences with glosses and superscript numbers that indicate a simplified phrasing. A single primary hand may have made the copies, which were then completed by one or more other hands. Scarpatetti dated the manuscript to the second half of the 14th century; from a paleographical perspective, a dating to the first half of the 15th century also seems possible. According to the ownership note on p. 194, the manuscript was in the Abbey of St. Gall already in the 15th century.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
This composite codex belonged to Kemli, a monk of St. Gall who had the parts, some of which come from the fourteenth century, bound together and interspersed with blank pages, which he and other writers then filled in. For this reason, the manuscript features numerous different hands and a constantly changing layout. The larger blocks of related text are a collection of sermons (Liber Sagittarius, pp. 3–61), a confessors' manual (pp. 71a–92b), commentaries on hymns and sequences (pp. 118–217b), as well as a collection, apparently assembled by Kemli himself, of ancient historical exempla, which in part are taken from the Gesta romanorum (pp. 226–357). The leather binding dates from the fifteenth century.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
Book of hours of high-quality production and stylistically well-written (pp. 1-193, following four paper flyleaves). The miniature on p. 24, representing St. Veronica with the veil, is particularly noteworthy. Christ's face was later damaged. A full-page miniature on p. 163 is at the beginning of the Office for the Dead. The manuscript's initials are decorated with gold leaf, as well as the pages with miniatures - for example pp. 24, 38, 52 and 132 - containing figural decorative elements such as representations of animals. In the 16th century the manuscript seems to have reached the Eastern Alemannic-speaking area and have come to St. Gall.
Online Since: 06/13/2019
This manuscript of collected items with twelve historiated initials and prayers in the German language was written by Dorothea von Hof (1458-1501), daughter of Heinrich Ehinger and Margarethe von Kappel. The codex contains the Officium parvum BMV as well as assorted prayers (mainly Marian prayers and prayers from the Passion of Christ), the Hundert Betrachtungen ("Hundred Meditations") from the Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit ("Book of Eternal Wisdom") by Henry Suso, and prayers ascribed to Thomas Aquinas. This manuscript on paper, completed in 1483, was presumably owned by the sisters of the Dominican cloister of St. Katharina in St. Gall, of which Dorothea von Hof is listed as a patroness.
Online Since: 12/21/2010
This prayer book contains prayers from the collection of William III, Duke of Bavaria (ff. 1v-16r), prayers to the Virgin Mary (ff. 17r-39r), prayers for Holy Mass and others (ff. 39v-45v) as well as for Communion (ff. 80r-88v). In between are St. Bernard's verses (ff. 46v-50v) and various other texts of blessings and prayers (ff. 51v-78v). According to a colophon on f. 81v, the texts were written and decorated with pen-flourish and Lombard initials by the professional scribe Simon Rösch. On ff. 89 and 90 (glued onto the back cover), another poem was added in a different hand. The language of the prayers is Swabian. Numerous feminine forms of names suggest a female commissioner, probably a convent of nuns in St. Gall.
Online Since: 06/13/2019
A German-language allegory about indulgences (fol. 63v–67v) is inserted into this Latin Officium defunctorum (fol. 1r–104r). Following on fol. 104v–141r are German prayers (partly prayers on indulgences) for the deceased. The copyist, Cordula von Schönau, who is named on fol. 141r, is attested to have been at the St. Katharinen Convent of Dominican nuns from 1492 to 1498.
Online Since: 10/08/2015
Most likely intended for the convent of Dominican nuns of St. Catherine in St. Gall, this tiny psalter (11 x 8 cm) reveals its Dominican use already in the calendar (ff. 2r-7v), which includes Dominican saints, such as Thomas Aquinas and Peter Martyr. Copied in a single column of textualis by a regular hand, the text is punctuated by alternating red and blue initials, sometimes with pen flourishes, and in different sizes according to the textual divisions (psalm, verse). In addition to Latin notes, the margins contain instructions in German on how to recite the Psalms. After the litany of saints and prayers (ff. 151r-159v), a paper quire has been added, dating from the end of the fifteenth century and containing hymns (ff. 160r-170v).
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This small-format prayer book of Franz Gaisberg, who later became Abbot of St. Gall (abbot 1504–1529), only contains prayers in Latin. It begins with a calendar (f. 1r–12v) and a computistic table (f. 13r/v), followed by prayers about the passion (f. 14r–29v), prayers and antiphons to Mary (f. 31r–49r) and other saints (f. 49r–80r), as well as to the Commune sanctorum (f. 81v–83v), various other prayers (f. 83v–107r), as well as the liturgy of the hours for the passion and for the souls of the deceased (f. 107v–140r). There is no decoration except for initials with simple scroll ornamentation in red ink that stretch across two to four lines.
Online Since: 06/13/2019
This tiny psalter, which was written for a Dominican Convent, begins with a fragmentary calendar (ff. Er-Iv; one leaf, containing the months of January and February, has been removed). After the Psalms (ff. 1r-182v) there follows the Old and New Testament Cantica (ff. 183r-193r) and the Athanasian Creed Quicumque vult (ff. 193r–194v) as well as a fifteenth-century addition of a litany (ff. Ur–Wr). Red and blue initials, some with pen-flourishes, make up the book's ornamentation. The flyleaves come from older recycled parchment, and the pastedowns are made up of fragments from a fifteenth-century charter. Since Catherine of Siena does not appear in the calendar, the psalter likely was produced before 1460. The manuscript was in the Abbey Library by the eighteenth century at the latest.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
Small format prayer Book on highest quality parchment with Latin and several French prayers. The coat of arms on p. 3 refers to the Montboissier family from Auvergne as commissioner. In addition to a half-page crucifixion scene (p. 3), the manuscript also contains many tiny initials, most of them with animal heads, as wells as numerous miniatures on pp. 97-146, taking up four lines of text with images of saints.
Online Since: 10/13/2016
This breviary was written in bastarda by a single hand, probably belonging to a choir monk of the Abbey of St. Gall. In addition to the usual parts of a full breviary (Calendar, Psalterium feriatum, Proprium de tempore [incomplete], Proprium de sanctis and Commune sanctorum), it also contains Marian prayers, the liturgy for compline and the vigil of the dead, a Cursus B. M. V., suffrages, and further prayers.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
This manuscript, probably from a nuns' convent in St. Gall, contains a cycle of prayers and meditations through the liturgical year, beginning with Advent and on through Christmas, Easter, Pentecost to the Assumption of Mary. The visions of the Nativity of Jesus of Saint Bridget of Sweden and a rosary, among others, are interspersed. This codex is written by a single hand which, along with others, can also be found in the sister manuscript Cod. Sang. 510.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
According to the scribe, this manuscript originally is from the Dominican convent of St. Katharina in St. Gall, later Wil; it contains a cycle of prayers and meditations through the liturgical year, beginning with Advent and on through Christmas, Easter, Pentecost to the Assumption of Mary. The visions of the Nativity of Jesus of Saint Bridget of Sweden and a rosary, among others, are interspersed. One of the scribes of this manuscript also wrote the entire sister manuscript Cod. Sang. 509.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
This small-format prayer book in German contains prayers to Christ, on the Passion and on Communion, to Mary, Mother of God, and to various saints, further prayers on various topics, reflections on the Passion, and devotions according to Johannes Gerson. On f. 38v and 39r there are two full-page miniatures. They depict Christ on the cross with Mary and John (f. 38v) and the Pietà with the instruments of torture (Arma Christi, f. 39r). The manuscript was probably written for a women's convent or for female users, although some male forms also appear in the prayers. According to the ownership note on f. 185r, in the 17th century the book was owned by the Benedictine Convent St. Wiborada in St. Georgen above St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/10/2020
A 14th/15th century folio manuscript, written by several hands on differently-arranged sheets of paper, contains an extensive explanation of the liturgical year (Directorium spirituale, pp. 3–205), followed by sermons (pp. 205b–211, 257–370, 375–414), the Acts of the Apostles with a commentary (pp. 213–255), a computistic table (pp. 372–373) and a few lines of Thomas Aquinas on suffrages. The manuscript is incompletely rubricated and has no ownership marks. A colophon to the Acta apostolorum provides the year 1405 (p. 255). The fifteenth-century binding is lacking clasps.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
Antiphonary for the entire church year, written in German plainsong notation (“Hufnagelnotation”) on four lines. The volume probably originated in a French or Burgundian-Flemish Benedictine monastery; at least since about 1510, it has been part of the library of the Monastery of St. Gall. The book decoration consists of several large initials painted in opaque colors with scrolls and numerous cadels decorated with faces or animal motifs.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
Great collection of St. Gallen tropes and sequences by Father Joachim Cuontz († 1515), compiled for Abbot Franz Gaisberg (1504-1529) shortly before the beatification of the St Gall monk Notker Balbulus († 912) in the year of 1513. Important document of late medieval choral history. Many of the melodies are, for the first time in St. Gall, provided with musical notation on five staves.
Online Since: 05/24/2007
This little booklet brings together in an eighteenth-century half-leather binding two fascicules produced in different centuries and which certainly were not originally connected. The first fascicule (pp. 5–52) contains a single text, the Dominican William Rothwell's treatise on the sacraments. The text, copied in a fourteenth-century hand, is arranged in two columns and is rubricated throughout. Due to water damage, the parchment is heavily rippled. The second fascicule (pp. 53–76) contains the life of St. Bridget of Sweden. The text, laid out in a single column, is written in a fifteenth-century hand, and only the first page is rubricated. The second paper flyleaf at the beginning (p. 3) contains a breviary fragment.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
The bulk of this manuscript is constituted by lives of the Apostles taken from the Elsässische Legenda Aurea, an important Upper German rendition of James of Voragine's Legendary (pp. 1–259, largely identical to the abridged legendary in Cod. Sang. 594). There then follows the mystical treatise Christus und die sieben Laden (pp. 260–277). The last two quires (pp. 281–328) contain a collection of spiritual, mostly mystical excerpts (Meister Eckhart, Jan van Ruusbroec) and, on the final pages, an indulgence prayer intended to be recited before an image of St. Gregory (indulgence promise dated 1456, pp. 326–328). Several pages before this prayer, there is an explicitly-connected accompanying prayer (pp. 319–320). Scarpatetti believes the scribe was Sister Endlin of the Franciscan convent St. Leonard in St. Gall. Later, the manuscript came into the possession of Johannes Kaufmann (ownership marks, p. 1, p. 277, and on the upper piece of the book block), and, even later, it belonged to a lay brother of the monastery of St. Gall (p. 328). Simple red initials provide the only decoration. The binding is red-colored pigskin of the fifteenth century, with clasps and with six of ten original bosses still in place. Some fragments used as quire guards can be seen (e.g., p. 52/53).
Online Since: 09/22/2022
A German language edition of the life history of the St. Gall patron saints Gallus, Magnus, Otmar and Wiborada. Includes color portraits of saints Wiborada and Otmar (the latter bound into the wrong location in the manuscript; the portraits of Gallus and Magnus have been lost). The manuscript also includes a German translation of the Proverbs ("Sprüche der Altväter") as well as some brief spiritual texts for nuns, written down and most likely translated into German by Friedrich Kölner (or Colner), a Reformist monk originally from the cloister of Hersfeld in Hessen, who was a member of the Cloister of St. Gall between 1430 and 1436.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Composite manuscript containing lives of saints in verse and other theological texts: life of St. Gall, in verse (Vita Galli metrice), possibly written by an Irish scholar (Moengal?) around 850 (pp. 3-175); miracles of Mary, in verse (Miracula Marie) (pp. 176-191); Vita sancti Viti, in verse (pp. 192-204); Vita scolastica by Bonvicinus de Ripa, in verse (pp. 205-241); Facetus de vita et moribus (pp. 242-267); Liber floretus by a Pseudo-Bernard (pp. 268-287); Sermones by Peregrine of Opole (pp. 306-352); Sermones by Jacobus de Voragine (pp. 353-363); and Sermones dominicales, pars aestivalis et per totum annum by Peregrine of Opole and Jacobus de Voragine (pp. 368-452).
Online Since: 09/23/2014
The paper manuscript from the second half of the fifteenth century contains three saints' lives in German: St. Benedict (pp. 1-57), St. Gall (pp. 63-294) and St. Otmar (pp. 299-372). While the first of these three lives is the German version taken from the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I, the two that follow resemble, at least partially, the translations of the Benedictine Friedrich Kölner. The texts are carefully copied in a single column by a single scribe and decorated with simple initials painted in red. The brown-leather binding, dating from the fifteenth/sixteenth century, is blind-stamped. At the latest by the sixteenth century, this copy belonged to the community of lay brothers of the abbey of St. Gall (p. 374).
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This German-language manuscript gathers together a series of strongly mystical stories and prayers. The first two thirds (pp. 1–259) are taken up by three translations of texts by Elisabeth of Schönau, all of which have as their object St. Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins. Then follows the legend of St. Cordula (pp. 260–264). The remaining texts, with the exception of an excerpt from Mechtild of Hackeborn (pp. 295–302) are all prayers, mostly addressed to Mary and often with extensive instructions for the prayer. The book is rubricated throughout, and it has two simple pen-flourished initials (p. 1, 162); the rubric on p. 1 is written in a display script. Inside the book can be found a bookmark made of four thin cords knotted at the top. The binding comes from the fifteenth century and is decorated with stamps and decorative lines. In 1794, Ildefons von Arx purchased the manuscript from the collection of the dissolved convent of Poor Clares of St. Dorothea of Freiburg im Breisgau (ownership marks p. 1 and p. 320; purchase note, p. 1).
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This manuscript contains selections from the Elsässischen Legenda Aurea, an important Upper-German rendition of James of Voragine's legendary. The selections are largely limited to the saints of the summer section. The first part of the manuscript (pp. I–64) is written in a hand that copies the legends of John, Peter, and Paul. A second, somewhat less skilled, hand writes the rest, beginning with the only verse text of the manuscript (the Barbara-legend, starting on p. 66). This verse text is the only text that the Baroque label on the spine mentions. Also from the Legenda Aurea is the account of the Einsiedeln Engelweihe (pp. 191–196). Both parts contain rubrics and restrained rubrication in a hand different from those used for the text. The beginning and end of the manuscript are missing; the binding, restored in the nineteenth century, dates from the fifteenth century.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
The paper manuscript was copied in a rapid cursive by Friedrich Kölner during his stay at the monastery of St. Gall between 1430 and 1436. It contains first the lives of the Apostles in the German translation of the summer part of the Golden Legend (pp. 6-269). There then follow, also in German, the sermon Von den Zeichen der Messe, composed by the Franciscan Berthold of Regensburg (pp. 269-284), Die Legende von den Heiligen Drei Königen, composed by Johannes von Hildesheim (pp. 284-389), a Pilatus-Veronika-Legende (pp. 389-400), a Greisenklage (pp. 400-402), and finally the Fünfzehn Vorzeichen des Jüngsten Gerichts (pp. 402-403). According to Cod. Sang. 1285, p. 11, the manuscript entered the possession of the Abbey Library as part of the acquisition of manuscripts by Johann Nepomuk Hauntiger, which took place between 1780 and 1792.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This manuscript contains German-language lives of the saints: the “Lives of the Fathers” (Vitaspatrum) (pp. 5a–482a), the Life of Saint Meinrad (pp. 482a–501b) and the Life of Saint Fridolin, a translation of the Latin Vita of Fridolin written by Balther von Säckingen (pp. 502a–541a). The main scribe of this codex was Johannes Gerster, citizen of Säckingen, who identifies himself on p. 361 and p. 541, each time including a date. Several pen drawings: tree with blossoms and fruit (p. 361), young man in secular clothing (p. 482), sketches of dragons (p. 528 and p. 541), rosette (p. 541). In the 17th century, this manuscript was in the possession of the Convent of the Poor Clares in Freiburg i. Br. (note p. 3); only in the 18th century was it purchased for the Monastery of St. Gall.
Online Since: 10/08/2015
German version of the life of Jesus according to the four gospels, in an Alemannic recension. With colorful initials and 21 filled initials, drawn in pen and usually colored. The scribe and probably also first owner, Rudolf Wirt, gives his name at the end of the text on p. 463 as well as the date of the completion of the manuscript on January 9, 1467. The volume originated in one of the women's cloisters of St. Gall and came to the St. Gall Abbey Library between 1780 and 1792.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
The folio-sized volume transmitting a collection of legends from James of Voragine probably comes from the personal collection of Kemli, monk of St. Gall; in any case, it is expanded and corrected in his own hand. The arrangement of the manuscript is therefore not unitary. The older part is copied in two columns by a late fourteenth-century hand; the texts on the leaves inserted and annotated by Kemli are in a single column (pp. 2–20, 164–189, 210–211, 445–462, 471–474). The Legenda sanctorum (pp. 2–452) is supplemented by a Materia de exorcismo et coniurationibus (pp. 456–470) added by Kemli. To this text there are some additions, pp. 463–470, made in an another hand from the second half of the fifteenth century, which in turn were expanded by Kemli (p. 470). On pp. 471–473 follows the final text, written in Kemli's hand, containing a legend of the Eleven Thousand Virgins; before the beginning of the text a half-page leaf was glued. Probably it was the woodcut with the ship of St. Ursula that Ildefons von Arx detached (Kemli-Kat., Nr. 31). The fifteenth-century binding has been repaired several times and has two leather covers and, on the front cover, a title label written by Kemli.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
Legendary of St. Gall: contains, among other items, the German lives of the St. Gallen Saints Gallus, Magnus, Otmar and Wiborada, illustrated with 142 vivid images.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
Collection manuscript, 15th century, from the Dominican convent of St. Katharina in St. Gall. This German-language manuscript is made up of five fascicles and contains a treatise on the Passion of Christ (“Vierzig Myrrhenbüschel vom Leiden Christi‟): the story of the foundation of the Dominican convent of St. Katharinental near Diessenhofen; the "Diessenhofener Schwesternbuch" and the "Tösser Schwesternbuch"; the legends of saints Elizabeth of Hungary, Margaret of Hungary, Ida of Toggenburg and Louis of Toulouse as well as a short excerpt from the Liber specialis gratiae of Mechthild of Hackeborn in German translation.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
The two main components of this manuscript are the lives of the house saints of St. Gall (Gallus, Otmar, Wiborada and Notker Balbulus) and of the apostles and early Christian saints and martyrs, and the Chronicle of the Abbey of St. Gall, from the Casus sancti Galli by Ratpert (612-883) to the Continuatio by Conradus de Fabaria (1204-1234). St. Gall reformer Vadian added marginal notes, some of them quite detailed and critical, to the text describing the history of the cloister. The codex also contains chronicalistic notes about St. Gall and Switzerland (14th/15th centuries), the Reise in das Heilige Land by Steffan Kapfman, and computistic, medical, astronomical and theological texts. On two previously empty pages (pp. 324-325) St. Gall abbey librarian Idelfons von Arx added four recipes for making faded handwriting legible.
Online Since: 06/22/2010
This manuscript, written in the 15th century by a "sehr routinierten und stilsicheren Schreiber" (Scarpatetti, S. 194; "a very practiced and stylistically confident copyist"), contains the first four parts of the great St. Gall historical work Casus sancti Galli: the history of the monastery by the Monk Ratpert (pp. 3-39), the Casus sancti Galli by the Monk Ekkehart IV (pp. 40-257), the Casus sancti Galli by the anonymous continuators for the years 975 to 1203 (pp. 259−301), and the continuation of the history of the monastery of St. Gall by Conradus de Fabaria from 1232/35 (pp. 317−370). The manuscript contains numerous annotations in the hand of the Swiss scholar Aegidius Tschudi (1505−1572), but it is not part of his collection of books, which came to the St. Gall Abbey Library in 1768. Tschudi must have consulted and studied the manuscript during a visit to the Abbey Library of Saint Gall.
Online Since: 10/13/2016
This codex contains Konrad of Würzburg's Trojan War, a tremendous unfinished late work by the German lyric and epic poet, who died in 1287 before completing the work. The author recounts the story of the Trojan War in verse in an expansive construction of historiographic narration, forward and backward references, and encyclopedic digressions. Defective in the beginning and later supplemented with an inserted leaf, the work extends from p. 4 to p. 893. This is followed on pp. 895-897 by a fragment of an anonymous prose retelling of Conrad's Trojan War. The text of Conrad's Trojan War is written by a scribe, who probably is identical to the rubricator responsible for the red Lombard initials, the black Gothic initials and the decorated majuscules at the beginnings of the columns, and who put the date 1471 on p. 893. The prose fragment is from a later hand. The manuscript's place of origin is not known. The codex was found in 1739 at the Haldenburg, a St. Gall fief in the Allgäu, and then became part of the Abbey Library, as indicated by a note on p. 894.
Online Since: 06/13/2019
A copy of the Alexanderroman (Romance of Alexander) by physician, translator and poet Johannes Hartlieb (1468) of Munich. This is the exemplar that Hartlieb had produced for Duke Albrecht III. of Bavaria (1451-1460) and his wife Anna of Braunschweig by calligrapher Johannes Frauendorfer of Thierenstein in the year 1454, using a professional Bastarda script. It is illustrated with 45 six-by-thirteen-line fully colored initials, possibly by the hand of Bavarian miniaturist Hans Rot. Decorations include numerous simple and intricate vine borders with acanthus leaves, in which a wide variety of animals frolic, and in which one can find many of the flowers of the region. The Romance of Alexander remained one of the most popular prose romances in the German language until 1500.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
The largest part of this voluminous manuscript consists of an abbreviated version of the Universal Chronicle of Platterberg/Truchseß, completed in 1459 (pp. 3−796), which in the older literature is also referred to as the “St. Gall Universal Chronicle.” This chronicle also contains the so-called St. Galler Cato (pp. 259−260; Disticha Catonis; Von Catho dem weysen und seinen spruchen), a partial German translation of the work De officiis by Marcus Tullius Cicero (pp. 263−265); as well as more quotations from other works by Cicero (pp. 265−271). Next are a German version of the fictional correspondence between Alexander the Great and Dindimus, King of the Brahmins, written by Meister Wichwolt (pp. 809−815); Cronica Allexandri des grossen konigs), the German version of the History of the Three Kings (Historia trium regum) by John of Hildesheim (pp. 816−854); and the report about Jean de Mandeville's travel to India in the German translation by Otto von Diemeringen (pp. 854−917). At the end (pp. 918−940), the volume contains an incomplete version of the travelogue of Johannes Schiltberger (1380 – after 1427) from Bavaria, who had been taken captive by the Ottomans. The book decoration consists of numerous red and blue Lombard initials. In 1570, the volume was owned by Luzius Rinck von Baldenstein (p. 940), brother-in-law of Prince-Abbot Diethelm-Blarer (1530-1564) of St. Gall; at the latest by the 17th century, the volume became part of the holdings of the monastery library of St. Gall (p. 3: Liber Monasterii S. Galli).
Online Since: 06/23/2016
Manuscript compilation containing a collection of fables (Ulrich Boner's Edelstein), decorated with simple pen drawings, farcical stories – preserved only here – by the so-called "Swiss Anonymous" as well as chronicle notes on the history of Zurich and Glarus.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
The Cantonal Secretary of Schwyz Hans Fründ († 1469), originally from Luzern, wrote a chronicle of the Old Zurich War in about 1447. This carefully written copy illustrated with the flags of the cantons of the Confederation was made by Rorschach chaplain and former Schwyz schoolmaster Melchior Rupp in the year 1476. The manuscript, in the final pages of which are transcribed certain records and documents from the years 1446 through 1450 related to the Old Zurich War, made its way into the possession of Glarus scholar Aegidius Tchudi (1505-1572) and from there, in the year 1768, into the Abbey Library of St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
The oldest copy of the Chronicle of Konstanz by Gebhard Dacher, made between 1458 and 1472 by the author himself and illustrated with a series of colored pen sketches, among them the oldest known view of the city of Konstanz. Obtained by the Abbey Library of St. Gall in the 18th century, at the latest.
Online Since: 07/31/2009