Manuscript on paper of an alchemical compilation, apparently the holograph of the original compiler, not identified. Probably the laboratory notes of a practicing alchemist. Includes lists of Flemish names, apparently identifying fellow practitioners in early alchemy; and laboratory procedures, designed primarily to color metals and to carry out other operations with various substances. Leaves inserted and blank pages filled at later dates
Description:
In Latin, with later additions in Latin and German., Watermark: Outstretched hand, the fingerjoints indicated, a four-leafed petal extending from the tip of the third finger, the wrist and cuff of a sleeve also depicted, comparable to Briquet 11423., Script: The original part of the codex (ff. 1-133) written in a very fine, neat, and clear humanistic hand, and using a considerable range of alchemical symbols; the later additions (ff. 134-145) consist of Latin sections written in a neat italic and German passages in flowing cursive, perhaps both by a single German hand of the 18th century., Headings of procedures in red and blue alternating in the original section, and with some capitals stroked red; no color in the additions. No ornament., Though the whole of the manuscript has suffered some marginal water-staining since it was bound, it appears certain that other stains and damage occurred while the separated quires, or groups of them, remained unbound., and Binding: Probably original. Stiff parchment over paper boards, flaps over the fore-edge, probably dating from about 1525, conceivably later, as the manuscript contents do not appear to have been bound at the time of writing in any case; flat spine with modern inscription in brown ink, "Alchemical | Recipes", original blue edges.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Science, Medieval
Manuscript fragment on parchment of an antiphonary containing unidentified chants and Holy Saturday, lauds
Description:
In Latin., Script: written in gothic script (littera textualis formata)., and Decoration: the 4-line initial "U" is in blue and red; some of the sketched flourishes outside of the letter have been traced in red and filled with green; inside the letter a floral pattern has been sketched and partially completed; the 2-line initial "O" is red with sketched flourishes only partially completed and filled with green; rubrics in red in the same script as the text; quadrata notation is in black on a 4-line staff in red; punctuated with the punctus.
Manuscript roll, on parchment, in a single hand, illuminated, containing the "Arma Christi" poem and other prayers, in Dutch, including prayers ascribed to Popes Sixtus IV and Alexander VI. The prayers are preceded by a rubric instructing readers to kneel as they recite the prayers in order to obtain an indulgence
Description:
In Dutch., Layout: single column of text., Script: gothic., Decoration: Rubricated. Initials in red or blue. Large miniature at head of roll containing a bust of Christ wearing a crown of thorns, displaying his stigmata, and surrounded by the "arma Christi" (also known as the Instruments of the Passion). On a blue ground in gold frame. One large decorated initial immediately below miniature. Text accompanied by decorated borders on both sides., and Binding: section of leather sewn to top of scroll. Accompanied by seventeenth-century? fabric case with fabric and metal appliqués.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut, New Haven., and Netherlands
Subject (Name):
Jesus Christ and Catholic Church
Subject (Topic):
Passion, Dutch, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Indulgences, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Religious life and customs
Manuscript fragment on parchment of a book of hours (litanies) including a litany that includes the following saints: Gereon and companions, Cosmas, Damian, Fabian, Sebastian, Gervase, Protase, Crispin, Crispinian, Chrysogonus, Leodegarus, Lambert, Christopher, Thomas, Demetrius, Blaise, Livinus, Firminus, Silvester, Gregory, Leo, Hilary, Martin, Nicholas, Augustine, and Ambrose
Description:
In Latin., Script: written in gothic script (littera fere bastarda)., and Decoration: each line begins with a 1-line initial "S" in gold on alternating grounds of red and blue; the names of the saints are written on the same line as "Or[a pros nobis]" but are separated from it by line fillers or alternating bands of red and blue decoraed with gold penwork; there is no punctuation.
Manuscript fragment on parchment of a book of hours (Office of the Dead).
Description:
In Latin., Script: written in two sizes of gothic script (littera textualis formata), with a larger script for the canticle and Psalm and a smaller script for the chants., and Decoration: the 2-line initial at the beginning of the Psalm and the 1-line initials at the beginning of Psalm verses are in gold on a ground that alternates between red with blue penwork and blue with white penwork; the interior of letters on the red ground are filled with blue and white penwork, and the interiors of those on blue ground are filled with red and blue penwork; 1-line initials at the beginning of chants are in brown; rubrics written in red in the same script as the text; punctuated rarely with the punctus; hyphenation is in the same ink as the text.
Illuminated manuscript on parchment of a book of hours, use of Sarum, incomplete. May have been produced for a Scottish patron. Contains 1) Prayers in Latin and Middle Scots, f1r-5v; 2) Hours of the Virgin, use of Sarum, with Hours of the Cross and of the Holy Spirit intermixed, f6r-30r; 3) Prayers, including Seven Joys of the Virgin, O intemerata, and Obsecro te, f30v-42v; 4) Seven Penitential Psalms and Litany, f43r-55v
Description:
In Latin; rubrics in Middle Scots., Script: gothic bookhand., Decoration: 5 column-width miniatures, some illuminated; 4-6 line initials with illuminated full borders; 2-line blue initials with red penwork; 1-line initials in alternating red and blue. Rubricated., Layout: single columns of 22 lines., Secundo folio: tuo., Binding: modern limp vellum. Spine title: "Horae ad Usum Sarum" and "MS.", Some annotations in Middle Scots in 15th-century hand., Some full and partial leaves removed throughout., and Bookseller description available.
Manuscript on parchment of a breviary with ferial psalter, various prayers, computistical tables, and a calendar
Description:
In Latin., Script: Copied by five hands in Gothica Hybrida Libraria: scribe A (Arnoldus Guetsen) copied ff. 1r-108v and 246r-268v; B copied f. 110r-v; C copied ff. 111r-206v; D copied ff. 207r-244v; and E copied f. 245r., Decoration: red rubrics, underlining and stroking of majuscules. Alternately red and blue versals; plain initials; and flourished initials or litterae duplices with penwork, which often takes the form of foliage. Gold initials with or without penwork are seen on ff. 111r-125v and 134r-141v. Large initials variously in the trompe-l'oeil style, the dentelle type, in gold and colours with borders, the Renaissance style, and the landscape style of the Ghent-Bruges school. See catralog description for further detail., and Binding: 20th century red morocco over wooden boards, sewn on two thiongs; two braided leather and brass clasps attached to the rear cover. Red, blue or green parchment tabs.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Catholic Church
Subject (Topic):
Liturgy, Breviaries, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Psalters
Manuscript on parchment of a calendar in Latin, one page for each month, based on luni-solar computistical data
Description:
In Latin., Script: Copied in Northern Gothica Textualis Formata using only “box”-a., Decoration: Red rubrics; occasional crossing in red of abbreviations such as “epi”, “mr”, “virg”; occasional yellow heightening of majuscules written in black ink; and “KL”-abbreviations treated as 4-line dentelle initials., and Binding: None.
Manuscript, poorly organized, on paper of Ceremonial for visiting a dying nun and for the burial, which served in a bilingual female community in Belgium (probably southern Flanders), where the priest, the abbess or the prioress was French-speaking. The devotional contains various psalms, litanies, prayers, hymns, and the Athanasian Creed
Description:
Script: Copied by four hands: A) writing in Gothica Hybrida Libraria; B) writing in Gothica Semihybrida Libraria/Currens; C) writing in Gothica Cursiva Libraria/Currens; D) writing in a small Gothica Cursiva Currens. A) and B) are the principal hands. Musical notations are found in nota quadrata on 4-line black staves., Decoration: Appears only in red: hadings, underlining, stroking of majuscules, line-fillers, 1-line versals and 1- to 2-line plain initials., Binding: Original Flemish blind-tooled brown calfskin over wooden boards, sewn on three leather thongs. Both covers have frames of triple fillets. Remnants of a brass clasp are fixed to the front board. Red leather tabs preserved. Seems to have been chained at the lower edge of the front board., and In Latin, French and Dutch.
Manuscript on paper containing 1) Mechthild of Hackeborn, Liber specialis gratiae (excerpts), f1r-5r; 2) Meditations of St Bernard (excerpts), f5v-8r; 3) Thomas à Kempis, Hortulus Rosarum, f8v-36v
Description:
The Liber specialis gratiae records the visions of Mechthild of Hackeborn as told to St. Gertrude Helfta (Gertrude the Great) and another unidentified nun-scribe., In Latin., Title devised by cataloger., Layout: Single columns of 21 lines. Ruled in plummet., Script: gothic bookhand., Decoration: 2-line red initials; rubricated., Binding: Modern gilt full red morocco by Charles de Samblanx (1855-1943). Gilt edges. Marbled endpapers. Spine reads: "Ortulus rosarum" and "Manuscrit du XVe." Marbled slipcase., Secundo folio: lens., and Bookseller description available.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Mechthild, of Hackeborn, 1241 or 1242-1299?
Subject (Topic):
Devotio moderna, Devotional literature, Latin (Medieval and modern), Manuscripts, Medieval, Meditation, Mysticism, Catholic Church, and Women mystics
Manuscript on parchment (hairside yellow and speckled) of Cicero, Epistolae ad familiares. With Extract from Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae III.8.8: Epistula Fabricii et Aemilii consulum ad Pyrrhum regem. The text was copied ca. 1400 and the border decoration added between ca. 1415 and 1431
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written in a neat fere-humanistic hand by a single scribe, below top line., 14 elegant illuminated initials and partial borders at the beginning of each of the 16 books (the opening pages of Books XII and XV have been excised). Initials, 5- to 3-line, blue with white filigree or red with gold filigree on cusped grounds of gold. Most of the illuminated initials filled with bust-length portraits, presumably of Cicero's correspondents, on red, blue or diapered ground. Some initials filled with vine scrolls with trilobe leaves in red with white highlights against gold ground. Partial borders, scrolling vine with trilobe leaves or acanthus in blue, pink, red and gold with white highlights and green, red and blue with gold highlights. Small figures of angels, dressed in green with gold wings in borders or margins, some playing musical instruments, one holding an open book, one holding the cloth of Veronica. Other marginal figures include the "Agnus Dei" and a pelican piercing its breast. The figures are all characterized by white faces, small angled black eyes, and a preference for green and gold, the green with contour lines in gold. Plain initials alternate red and blue. Rubrics throughout., and Binding: Nineteenth century, France (?). Red velvet case with a dark green gold-tooled label: "M. T. Ciceronis Epistolae Ad Familiares MS. in Membranis". Gilt edges.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Cicero, Marcus Tullius.
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Latin letters, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript fragment on parchment of a gradual in Latin with rubrics partially in Dutch containing the Vigil of St. Andrew (29 November) and St. Andrew (30 November).
Description:
In Latin and Dutch., Script: written in gothic script (littera textualis formata)., and Decoration: 4-line historiated initial "D" in blue on a dark red ground bordered with gold; the initial, of workshop quality and badly rubbed and damaged by water, shows Christ standing on the shore with Andrew and Peter in a boat; the extant margins on the recto are decorated with blue and gold vines from which come pink, green, and gold flowers; rubrics written in red in a less formal script than the text; punctuated with the punctus; words and syllables are separated by horizontal strokes in red; the foliation is written in red in the center of the upper margin of the recto.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Catholic Church
Subject (Topic):
Liturgy, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Graduals (Chants).
Manuscript on parchment of a Book of Hours with Calendar (rather empty) and headings in French
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written in formal batarde script; ff. 238r-241v in a different hand than the preceding folios, but probably almost contemporary., Thirteen undistinguished historiated initials (6-, 4-, and 3-line), ca. 1460-70, blue or pink with white highlights on brown grounds with gold highlights. Six other initials (ff. 13r, 17r, 27r, 107r, 155r, and 195r) enclose carefully studied flowers. Scatter and compartmentalized borders of average quality added later, ca. 1480-1500, for the most part to pages with historiated or flower initials, similar to borders in manuscripts of the "Ghent Associates"; the majority with acanthus branches, flowers, and birds, or flowers alone scattered on backgrounds of pink, bright blue, slate blue, gold and/or black, or flowers set within a lattice of twigs, the diamonds so formed alternately pink and blue (f. 123r) or green, pink and blue (f. 238r). Three borders (ff. 27v, 69v, and 136v) with thistles, brown and blue or brown and green, touched with gold, arranged in a wallpaper-like pattern over grounds of slate-blue or red cross-hatched with lines in a darker shade of the same color. In the border on f. 107r, a grotesque with the torso of a man and the hind legs of a large cat; on f. 185r the same, holding a bow., 2-line initials in gold on pink and blue with white highlights, except on ff. 238r-241v, gold on blue and brown with white highlights. 1-line initials in blue with red penwork, or gold with black penwork, or black with a red stroke; a few spaces for such initials have not been filled. In the text, headings and marks for antiphons in red; in the calendar, headings for months, dates, and important feasts also in red. Line-fillers: two oblique lines, blue or gold, with dots attached., and Binding: Eighteenth century. Brown calf. Paste-decorated edges. Rebacked. Spine stamped with gold leaves and the words "GETEY BOEK".
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Catholic Church
Subject (Topic):
Books of hours, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, and Manuscripts, Medieval
In Dutch., Script: Written in gothic bookhand., Four 9- or 8-line historiated initials, blue with white highlights or spiralling acanthus in white and gold, against cusped grounds, with penwork floral sprays in border, tinted red, blue and yellow. Fourteen 5-line initials for the Hours, blue, with leaves in white, filled with flowers or fruit, against gold grounds, square with cusps at corners: each with a three-quarter border, a red, blue and gold bar, some with dragon-head terminals, in outer margin; foliage with flowers, red, blue, green, purple and pink, and animals surrounded by brown and black hair-spray and gold dots. 4 inserted miniatures probably date ca. 1475-85 and differ in style from the manuscript to which they were added. The miniature on f. 55v Angels with Monstrance (Hours of the Eucharist) and most of the overpainted borders around miniatures and pages with historiated initials probably date from ca. 1500-10. The borders consist of pink and/or gold arched frames, cusped in black, with full borders, some compartmentalized, pink, blue and/or gold, with various combinations of gold curling acanthus, red, blue, and green flowers, insects and jewels; one (f. 149v) a damask pattern with jewels and flowers in roundels., Many small initials in red or blue with flourishing in blue or red, often extending the length of the written space. 1-line initials alternating red and blue. Rubrics throughout., and Binding: Seventeenth century. Gold-tooled, green goatskin with a red label and a spine decorated "a la grotesque," possibly by one of the Padeloups, a family active in Paris from ca. 1654 to 1800. Traces of original sewing and paste in gutter and on contemporary parchment flyleaves. Gilt edges.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Catholic Church
Subject (Topic):
Books of hours, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on parchment of a Book of Hours with prayers in Dutch. The manuscript is misbound
Description:
In Dutch and Latin., Script: Written in liturgical gothic bookhand by a single scribe. 3-, 2-, and 1-line initials with very fine penwork: gold with dark blue penwork or blue with red penwork. 1-line initials within the text black with one or two red strokes. Line fillers: blue cables. Rubrics in orange-tinted red., Water damage on ff. 8v, 38v and 39v has obliterated some initials; the text is still legible., and Binding: Date? Bookblock tacked to a vellum folder. The light rectangular patch on the front cover, lower left, was probably left by the removal of a shelf tag.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Catholic Church
Subject (Topic):
Books of hours, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on paper containing 1) Instructions for a nun, addressed as "ma devote fille", by a priest, containing extensive Latin quotations, followed by their French translations, from the Bible, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, Cesarius of Arles, St. Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, Macrobius, Origen, Richard of St. Victor ("ung docteur nommé Richart"), Seneca, Thomas Aquinas. 2) The Passion according to the Gospel of St. John, as read in the office of Good Friday (Jn. 18:1-40; 19:1-42), to be read when a nun is dying, in French translation
Description:
In French., Script: Copied by one hand in Gothica Cursiva Libraria/Currens., Watermark: Crowned Lily, var. Briquet 7252 (mostly 1468-1477)., Written in campo aperto in one column, 20-23 lines., Headings and stroking of majuscules in red., and Binding: Nineteenth century. Blue mottled paper over cardboard.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Didactic literature, French, Manuscripts, Medieval, Women, and Religious life
