The manuscript comes from the last quarter of the fifteenth century and is divided into two parts. The first part contains Latin sermons by Johannes von Gmunden (1380–1442) and others, while the second part has predominantly Latin tools for Biblical exegesis by Bindus Senensis († 1390) and Alexander de Villa Dei (1170–1250). Jacobus Brun owned the manuscript in the fifteenth/sixteenth century; in the sixteenth century, it belonged to U. or V. Knoll, probably Ulrich Knoll of St. Gallen, chaplain in Zurich, as well as to Rudolf Hofmann, chaplain in Zurich, Bremgarten, and Baden. (ron)

Part two (New Testament) of an illuminated three-volume bible (of which MsWettF 1 and MsWettF 2 remain), probably bequeathed to the cloister of Wettingen by Rudolph Schwerz, choirmaster of the Grossmunster Cathedral of Zurich and pastor of Altdorf. The origin of the Biblia Sacra is not documented, but it is assumed that it originated in the Zurich art circle. There is some text loss because certain initials have been cut out. (wue)

This manuscript assembles about 700 documents from the years 814-1242, which concern the administration of the Chapter and the Cathedral of Lausanne. The compilation of the cartulary began around 1202 and was completed in 1242; 5 files, dated 1250-1294, were added later. The material structure of the manuscript is very complex because of numerous additions to the original core, which corresponds to the Livre censier du Chapitre cathédral de Lausanne of about 1202. The manuscript contains various texts: the Annals of Lausanne, a topographic cartulary, a chronological register, two chronicles, an urbarium, the Chronicle of the Bishops of Lausanne and the Cathedral's necrology. The author of this valuable collection is Conon d'Estavayer (before 1200-1243/1244), who became Dean of the Cathedral in 1202. From 1216 until 1242, he directly supervised the editing of the manuscript and the organization of the documents. (tog)

Copied in the 13th century, probably in the north of France, this Latin Bible unifies in one volume the books of the Old- and New Testaments, most of them preceded by prologues. It transmits the standard Vulgate text, called the Paris version, with the chapter divisions attributed to Stephen Langton, and its last thirty pages provide a glossary of Hebrew names. Historiated initials open the various biblical books and give the volume its structure. A smaller script than usual in this volume has been used on fol. 1 for the Commentary on the Tree of Consanguinity, a text usually transmitted in juridical works, augmented here by an illustration of such a tree. (mes)

This 14th century Italian manuscript, probably from Bologna, contains the Digestum Vetus, a fundamental work which attests to the 14th century's interest in the history of Roman law. It comprises various reference texts, which are systematically accompanied by the Glossa ordinaria, the so-called "Magna glossa" by Franciscus Accursius, an interlinear gloss and the gloss of the Gloss, which are works of explanation and instruction for the use of the text. Many manicules or fists (lat manicula, ae: small hands) testify to the assiduous labor which a large number of readers have performed on this dry text. This manuscript contains numerous pecia marks. A detached page (f. 37bis) contains a poem to the reader by the Italian jurist Angelus Boncambius (about 1450). (fmb)

This Rituale from the Diocese of Constance was produced after 1479 and contains the Benediction of Water and Salt as well as an extensive ordo concerning visitations of the sick and their unction. The manuscript, carefully presented with Textualis formata, two-color Lombards, and red liturgical instructions was written in a fifteenth-century hand. Fragments of letters in the binding as well as the names of saints provide indication of the dating (after 1479) and the area of production (Lake Constance Area). (glo)

This large-format Franciscan-use Psalter, probably from the Bern region, can be dated to the last quarter of the fifteenth century. The rich book decoration includes blue-red initials with pen-flourishes as well as black cadel-style initials with red-lipped faces with profiles. The fifteenth-century wooden-board binding covered with white leather was restored in 1998-2000 by Father Otho Raymann. (cam)

Dated 1465, this paper manuscript contains Old Testament texts. It was in Pfäfers Abbey since at least the seventeenth/eighteenth century. After the Bible manuscript has been inserted a six-leaf gathering from the sixteenth century, which transmits the Apologia ostendens Beatum Dionysium by the Carthusian Johannes Novius, a refutation of Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus' views on Dionysius the Areopagite. The Apologia was first published in Dietrich Loher, D. Dionysii Carthusiani eruditissima simul et utilissima super omnes S. Dionysii, Areopagitae libros commentaria, Cologne: Quentel, 1536, f. 51v-53v. (kur)