Selected Preceding Updates


Manuscriptorium Update 5.05.2010

The vast majority of newly digitised documents come from the holdings of the National Library of the Czech Republic. The codices now made available are frequently illuminated. The range of their content is very extensive ̶ from the Bible and liturgical manuscripts (missals of the Cistercian monasteries and the Prague diocese) to minor books of hours, prayers and psalms (notably the Prayer Book of King Ladislav Pohrobek, Teplá MS.c.87) to theological manuscripts (a number of which come from the library of the Monastery of Augustinian Canonicals in Třeboň) and legal and rhetorical manuscripts. Of considerable importance for the history of Czech literature is the manuscript XVII.B.13, which contains the Czech Sunday Postil of Jan Hus and an anthology of moralistic and medieval “fiction” (XVII.B.6) in which, in addition to further minor works by Jan Hus, the Trojan Chronicle of Guidon de Columna, Barlaam and Josaphat in the translation by Tomáš ze Štítného and the Pseudo-Callisthenic Chronicle of Alexander the Great are recorded. Additionally, scarce balneological prints from the holdings of...

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Manuscriptorium Update 6.01.2010

The most extensive collection of newly digitised documents comes from the holdings of the National Library of the Czech Republic. A large proportion of these comprises illuminated codices. In terms of content, a homogeneous group is the books of hours of French origin from the former Prague Lobkowicz Library. The most highly prized item here is the decoration of the MS XXIII.F.198 dating from around 1420. Further illuminated manuscripts include the Bible or parts of it (Section 72, XXIII.B.1); others are frequently introduced by an initial enclosing an illustration of the author, thus in MS XIII.B.14 we find Bartholomew of Urbino and in Codex VIII.C.3 John Wyclif. One of the oldest Latin fragments is that of a psalter originating in Regensburg at the end of the 8th century (III.F.22). Hebrew MSS are represented by the Cheb Bible (XVIII.F.6) and significant for Czech literary history is an antiphonary recording Bohemian Easter plays (XVII.E.1). The holdings of the Department of Music in the National Library of the Czech Republic contribute mainly liturgical MSS. A further extensive set of...

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Manuscriptorium Update 8.10.2009: illuminated codices with theological and liturgical content, leaflets from the era of the Thirty Years War and more

The greater proportion of the newly digitised documents comprises manuscripts from the holdings of the National Library of the Czech Republic. These are principally codices with theological and liturgical content, many illuminated. From the perspective of the history of book illumination the most interesting of them is the so-called Kutná Hora Gradual (actually an antiphonary: shelf mark XXIII.A.2), and abundant illustrative drawings also complement the work by Tomáš z Cantimpré De natura rerum libri XX (X.A.4). Medieval “recreational” literature is represented by the...

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