Scientific or magical text in an unidentified language, in cipher, apparently based on Roman minuscule characters; the text is believed by some scholars to be the work of Roger Bacon since the themes of the illustrations seem to represent topics known to have interested Bacon (see also Provenance below.) A history of the numerous attempts to decipher the manuscript can be found in a volume edited by R. S. Brumbaugh, The Most Mysterious Manuscript: The Voynich "Roger Bacon" Cipher Manuscript (Carbondale, Illinois, 1978). Although several scholars have claimed decipherments of the manuscript, for the most part the text remains an unsolved puzzle
Alternative Title:
Voynich manuscript
Description:
In unidentified cipher., Decoration: Almost every page contains botanical and scientific drawings, many full-page, of a provincial but lively character, in ink with washes in various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue and red., and Binding: Modern (18th-19th centuries).
Manuscript on paper of 1) Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, Epistolae, translated into Latin by Iohannes Sarracenus (?). 2) Commentary by Albertus Magnus (here ascribed to Thomas Aquinas) on art. 1. 3) Commentary on a poem on Book I of the Sentences of Peter the Lombard. 4) Commentary on a poem on Book II, Distinctiones 1-6 of the Sentences of Peter the Lombard
Description:
In Latin., Script: Art. 1-2 written by a single scribe in two variants of Humanistic script: art. 1 (the text) in Humanistica Textualis, art. 2 (the commentary) after some hesitation in a very similar form of Humanistica Cursiva. Art. 3-4 written by a single scribe in Gothica Hybrida Libraria under Humanistic influence, of greasy appearance; a larger size is used for the poetical parts., The majuscules in art. 1-2 are heightened in dark yellow. Headings in red. Red calligraphic initials throughout the manuscript by the same hand (3 lines in artt. 1-2, 2 lines in artt. 3-4). At the opening of art. 1 a 9-line blue Renaissance initial with white vinestem decoration without background. At the opening of art. 3 a red (?) 3-line initial with some flourishing., The book is excessively trimmed; especially in artt. 3-4 the lower margins are extremely narrow. The paper is badly damaged by the acidity of the ink., and Binding: Seventeenth century (?). Limp vellum. At the top of the front cover: "M.S." in ink. Spine with three raised bands. In the second compartment the title in ink "S. Dionis. Epistol@".
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite.
Subject (Topic):
Didactic literature, Latin (Medieval and modern), Manuscripts, Medieval, Scholasticism, and Theology, Doctrinal
Manuscript on parchment of Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae. With Excerpts from the commentary of Nicolas Trevet (in margins) on Boethius, Book I.1.1 - II.5.34.
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written by two scribes in an ornate and elegant gothic bookhand. 1) ff. 1v-154v; 2) ff. 155r-210v. The marginal commentary is in a neat informal batarde (ink paler than that used for text)., Plain initial, 3-line, in blue at beginning of text; other initials, 2-line, in red throughout text to mark the beginning of poetry and prose sections. Title page (f. 1v): alternating lines of blue and gold., Grease stain in margins at end of codex; bottom of f. 81 trimmed., and Binding: Nineteenth century. Brown sheepskin, blind-tooled. Repaired.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Boethius, -524. and Trivet, Nicholas, 1258?-1328.
Subject (Topic):
Consolation, Dialogues, Latin, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Scholia
Manuscript on parchment (trimmed in a very irregular manner) of Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae. With Short notes (in Latin and English) on medical recipes, including "Medicyn for the Colyk".
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written by three scribes in informal gothic scripts. 1) ff. 1r-33v, with running titles, in red, on f. 4v and 28r; this is the only section of the text with rubrication. 2) ff. 34r-60v, 112v-169r, in a style of writing verging on Anglicana. 3) ff. 60v-112v, many erasures and corrections by 2. Marginal and interlinear glosses in several contemporary hands, one of which added the notes on ff. 170v-171r., First initial in red penwork, 4-line, with crude portrait of Boethius. Simple red initials to mark sections of text., and Binding: Fifteenth century. Possibly German or Dutch. "Girdle-book." Although early, it is not the original binding. Resewn on three narrow, tawed, double thongs. The endbands do not seem to have laced cores, but a primary sewing may have been sewn to the head and tail of the chemise, underneath the braided secondary endbands. The thongs are laced into grooves in beech boards, the pattern reversed; one horizontal above one V lacing on the upper board and a V above a horizontal on the lower. The thongs are pegged. The outer wrapper of tawed skin, now grey, is sewn to a tawed, pink, inner chemise around the outer edges of the boards. The wrapper extends about 130 mm. to a Turk's head knot at the tail, about 25 mm. at the head, and has an overlap of about 50 mm. on the upper board. The edges of the wrapper are turned in and hemmed. The book hung upside down when attached to the girdle by having the knot slipped under it, but was right side up when picked up (still attached to the girdle) to be read. A strap-and-pin fastening, the pin on the upper board, consists of a thick, brown leather strap nailed to the lower board and tacketed to the cover with a leather thong ending in an anthropomorphic brass clasp, the head of which catches on the pin. A glued repair was made before, a sewn one after 1973.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Boethius, -524.
Subject (Topic):
Consolation, Dialogues, Latin, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Medicine, Medieval
Manuscript on parchment of Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae, translated into French by Renaut de Louhans. As the translator states in the prologue, his work incorporates material from a commentary on Boethius made by another member of the Dominican order (Nicholas Trevet) as well as his own digressions
Description:
In French., Script: Written in batarde by a single scribe., Two intricate penwork initials, 5-line, on ff. 1r and 2r in red and blue; less detailed penwork initials, 3-line, in same colors throughout text; first letter of each verse stroked in red., and Binding: 17th-18th centuries. Brown spattered calf, with peculiarly striped turn-ins. Title, in gold, on spine: BOECE EN VER FRANC.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Boethius, -524., Trivet, Nicholas, 1258?-1328., and Dominicans
Subject (Topic):
Manuscripts, Consolation, French poetry, Literature, Medieval, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Basil, Saint, Bishop of Caesarea, approximately 329-379
Published / Created:
approximately 1200 - approximately 1599
Call Number:
Beinecke MS 532
Image Count:
1416
Resource Type:
text
Abstract:
Manuscript on vellum and paper of Saint Basil of Caesarea, De Legendis Gentilium Libris and various treatises on grammar and rhetoric bound together and Contains St. Basilius, De legendis gentilium libris, fols. 2r-14v, on vellum; Constantinus Lascaris, Grammaticae compendium, fols. 75r-104v, 196r-199r; Georgios Choeroboskos, Grammatica, fols. 107r-129r; Manuel the Rhetorician, Opusculum, fols. 134r-136r; Theodorus Prodromus, Erotemata, fols. 137r-160v; Michael Syncellus, De constructione libellus, fols. 178r-195v; Maximus Planudes, De constructione libellus, fols. 202r-233v; Corinthus, De dialectis, fols. 236r-262r; Phrynichus, Eclogae nominum et verborum Atticorum, fols. 282r-293v; Tryphon, De passionibus dictionum, fols. 296r-297v; Constantinus Lascaris, De pronominibus, fols. 344r-353r; Pythagoras, Aurea carmina, fol. 455r; Hymni Orphici, fols. 455r-460v; Michael Apostolios, Epistolae, fols. 463r-471r; Synesius Cyrenaeus, Epistolae, fols. 473r-574r; Theophylactus Simocatta, Dialogus, fols. 575r-587v; Astronomical Tables, fols. 619r-636v, 651r-664r. Also bound with Porphyrius, Liber Homericarum quaestionum, edited by C. Lascaris (Rome, 1518), which is not foliated and is bound between fols. 454 and 455
Alternative Title:
Address to young men
Description:
In Greek., Decoration: Some sections rubricated; astronomical and astrological tables at end., and Binding: Brown morocco over wooden boards; clasps missing.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Basil, Saint, Bishop of Caesarea, approximately 329-379.
Subject (Topic):
Classical literature, Didactic literature, Latin (Medieval and modern), Fathers of the church, Grammar, Comparative and general, Language and languages, Grammars, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Rhetoric
Manuscript on paper of Konrad von Megenberg (1309-1374), Die deutsche Sphaera, an adaptation in German of Iohannes de Sacrobosco, De sphaera. With 23 verses dealing with the numerical value of the letters of the alphabet, excerpted from Hugutio of Pisa (d. 1212), Liber derivationum
Description:
In German., Script: Copied by one hand in Gothica Cursiva Libraria/Currens., The initials are not executed. Coarsely drawn diagrams; the principal ones are on ff. 2r (Earth in the middle of the circles of the elements, the planets and the heavens), 9v (a quadripartite circular map of the world, three quarters covered with sea and inhabited by fish), 10v (a circular diagram and another with "cauda Draconis" and "caput Draconis"), 11r (two diagrams showing eclipses), 11v (related diagrams)., and Binding: Yellow limp vellum too large for the present manuscript.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Sacro Bosco, Joannes de, fl. 1230.
Subject (Topic):
Astronomy, German poetry, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Literature, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, Numerology, and Science, Medieval
Manuscript on parchment of 1) Joannes de Sacro Bosco, De sphaera. 2) Unidentified Cosmographicae libellus. 3) Nicolas Oresme, Traite de la sphere, in a Latin translation apparently extant only in this manuscript
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written by one person in small fere-humanistic script bordering on cursive, verso., Simple decorative initials, 5- to 2-line, in red. Headings, paragraph marks, strokes on majuscules at beginning of sentences, and marginal notes, in red., Seventeen carefully executed astronomical drawings and two tables, in red, black, yellow and beige, accompany arts. 1 and 3., and Binding: 18th-19th centuries. Limp vellum case. "Tractatus spere" on tail edge.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Sacro Bosco, Joannes de, active 1230.
Subject (Topic):
Astronomy, Medieval, Cosmography, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript, on paper with a table of contents on a single parchment leaf, in a single hand, containing the "Summer" portion of this Dominican-compiled German legendary
Description:
In Middle High German., Bookseller description available., Layout: Double columns of mostly 35 lines., Script: German cursive., Decoration: some rubrication. Three-line and one-line capitals in red., and Binding: tooled and stamped brown leather over wooden boards; four-compartmented spine. Remains of metal clasps with leather straps.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Christian saints, Manuscripts, Medieval, Saints, and Lives and legends