Basel, Universitätsbibliothek
This volume contains the so-called Wörterbuch des alten Schulmeisters (old schoolmaster’s dictionary). This is an independent adaptation of the more widely used Vocabularius ex quo. In contrast to the more original version, in the old schoolmaster's edition the German explanations take a back seat to the purely Latin ones. The original pastedowns, which were detached from the cover during a restoration in 1974, also contain excerpts from a Latin translation of Aristotle's De anima and other pieces of related content. The fact that the text on the rear pastedown directly continues the text from the front pastedown shows that, in their original context, the pastedowns must have been two successive pages of one manuscript.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
Probably written in Schongau and later acquired by the Carthusian Monastery of Basel, this volume is part of the vast tradition in manuscript and in print form of the so-called Vocabularius Ex quo. This alphabetically ordered dictionary was intended as a resource for users with limited knowledge of Latin and remained enormously popular in the German-speaking region until the end of the 16th century.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
This manuscript transmits various Latin-German vocabularies, among them the Mammotrectus by the Italian Franciscan John Marchesinus, which was written around 1300. This manuscript, written around 1400 by a certain Ulrich Wachter, was purchased for the Carthusian monastery of Basel in 1430.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This French manuscript from the third quarter of the 15th century contains two works from ancient times. Nonius Marcellus (4th/5th century) offers linguistic and factual explanations on Latin authors mainly from the time of the Republic, partly in alphabetically-ordered lemmas; M. Terentius Varro († 27 BC) addresses linguistic questions concerning the Latin language.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
Various Aristotelian writings in the Latin translation of Boethius as well as treatises by Boethius, written in a small 13th century script; they were bound together with two 15th century additions, probably for the scholar Johannes Heynlin from Basel, who bequeathed the volume to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel. Noteworthy for codicological reasons are the back pastedown and flyleaf, a parchment leaf that had been prepared for a prayer book. It consists of two bifolios with upside down text that should have been folded before binding, as was usual for printed sheets. However, the two bifolios were excluded and were not used in the prayer book; therefore there are no pinholes in the fold.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This small-format, almost square 14th century Ovid manuscript contains the Heroides accompanied by the commentary of William of Orléans (Guilelmus Aurelianensis, around 1200). An older erased note of ownership suggests a French origin; Johannes Heynlin bequeathed this manuscript to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
The manuscript contains various Aristotelian texts, including works by Aristotle as well as commentaries on his texts. The volume came very early in the history of the University Library from the estate of the Basel Professor of Theology Johannes Syber de Wangen (d. 1502). It is still conserved in its original binding, which probably dates from the fourteenth century and was originally a chained volume.
Online Since: 04/03/2025
Pierre d’Ailly (Latin: Petrus de Alliaco) was a scholar, church politician and productive writer. His geographic work Imago mundi became famous; Christopher Columbus used it in order to plan his voyages of discovery. This Basel exemplar belonged to the city physician of Basel, Heinrich Amici († 1451), who bequeathed it to his city’s Carthusian monastery.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
This composite manuscript from the Basel Dominican Convent, one of several from the estate of Johannes Tagstern, was rebound in 1952 and contains texts on optics and geometry, such as the Dietrich of Freiburg’s treatise on rainbows, with several clear, compass-and-ruler-drawn schemata. The first part was written on parchment in the fourteenth century, while the other, newer parts can be dated more precisely on the basis of the watermarks of the paper used to the end of the fourteenth century or to the beginning of the fifteenth century, that is, to the period in which the previous owner, Tagstern, is attested on the last page (f. 157v) as a member of the Dominican Convent.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This manuscript, transferred from the Dominican Convent of Basel to the University Library in 1559, was put together from three parts by a learned Dominican friar, Berthold von Moosburg. In his hand are also glosses on Macrobius’ commentary on Cicero’s Dream of Scipio, which have recently attracted interest, as well as some additions: recipes against kidney stones and epilepsy, as well as a fragment of a text by Dietrich of Freiberg. Otherwise, the manuscript mainly contains texts by Proclus in Latin, thus a book for Neoplatonists.
Online Since: 04/03/2025
This volume contains texts that are related to late medieval, early humanistic school practice; i.e. on the one hand, works intended for school practice (grammars, word lists) and on the other hand, theoretical treatises of didactic-pedagogical content. This volume, bound at the Carthusian monastery of Basel, brings together several originally independent parts. The first part, the prose version of Alexander of Villedieu’s versified grammar, is from the Carthusian monastery of Mainz and was donated to the Carthusian monastery of Basel. The last part, the grammar of Giovanni Sulpizio, here in a version printed by Johannes Amerbach, came to the monastery library as a gift from the printer.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
In his extensive Tractatus de moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis, the oldest description of playing cards known in Europe, Johannes von Rheinfelden explains not only the rules of play, but in addition he explicates the characters of the figures as well as the entire social order, based on the relation of the cards to one another. Konrad Schlatter, since 1428 confessor and later prior of the cloister of the Dominican nuns St. Maria Magdalena “in den Steinen”, left this treatise to the sisters for their moral edification.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This manuscript contains the French text of the heroic epic (chanson de geste) Ami et Amile. The scribe gives the period of the creation of this copy (from 16 May to 23 June 1425) in a colophon. The text is written in a Gothic cursive and is punctuated by numerous rubricated initials that mark the beginning of each verse. The modern cardboard binding is covered by a parchment fragment from a 15th century missal. An inscription on the flyleaf indicates that this volume was a gift to the writer Anne de Graville (1490-1540). Later it was part of the collection belonging to her son-in-law, the bibliophile Claude d'Urfé (1501-1558). In the 19th century, the work came into the possession of the philologist Wilhelm Wackernagel (1806-1869), who donated it to the University Library Basel in 1843.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
The calendar was produced in the Basel Charterhouse around 1424–1428. It contains 36 pages with various texts, tables, zodiac signs, lunar and solar eclipses, as well as information on day lengths and bloodletting times. Prior Heinrich Arnoldi made numerous additions and corrections, the last-mentioned date in the text is 1478. The volume is composed of paper, is rubricated, shows signs of wear and tear, and is bound with a limp parchment binding made from charters.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
This large-format 11th century manuscript by Martianus Capella transmits the first two books of his work De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, one of the most widely-read books of the Middle Ages, together with Remigius of Auxerre’s commentary, which was written for instruction. Noteworthy is the contemporaneous original binding: the quires are attached to the parchment cover with thin strips of parchment (cf. Szirmai).
Online Since: 03/19/2015
The surviving parts of Diodorus Siculus’ universal history were translated from Greek into Latin in the 15th century. This manuscript containing Books 11 to 13 was written in 1453; probably it is the autograph of the translator Iacobus de Sancto Cassiano Cremonensis, in fact, a revised fair copy which transitions into a working manuscript towards the end.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
The oldest manuscript of Sedulius Scottus' commentaries on the common introductions to the Gospels. In the 16th century, the manuscript apparently came from Fulda to Basel, a center for printing. This brief work, which has survived in only a handful of codices, is still awaiting a critical edition.
Online Since: 03/29/2019
The current convolute was likely bound together in the seventeenth century. In all likelihood, the leaves inside were originally part of a larger volume; they belonged to the library of the Basel Charterhouse. In terms of content, they transmit the Paradisus animae by Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, copied in the middle of the fifteenth century.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
This volume contains two commentaries on Aristotle’s Libri physicorum; the authors are Friedrich von Nürnberg and Johannes Buridanus. They were copied in 1439 by Albrecht Löffler from Rheinfelden during his studies at the University of Heidelberg. Later he joined the Dominican Order and left this manuscript to the Dominican Convent of Basel, where it became part of the chained library.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
This manuscript contains exercises and Quaestiones on Aristotle’s works De anima and De physica by the reform theologian Johann von Wesel (1425-1481). This volume is from the Carthusian monastery of Basel; based on a comparative study of the script, it can be assumed that the scribe of the first part is Jakob Louber. Numerous annotations in the margins and on slips of paper attest that the manuscript was heavily used.
Online Since: 03/22/2018