Despite there being only one working day in the last week of 2019, the Vatican managed to add 22 new manuscripts. One of the prettier ones is a copy of Agostino Steuco's De Philosophia Perenni, Vat.lat.6377. This is a work of the high Counter-Reformation which tries to prove, in ten books, that ALL of ancient philosophy was actually entirely compatible ...

No new manuscripts this week because of Christmas, so this is a chance to do some end-of-the-year accounting. First the top-line number, there were 2373* manuscripts digitized and added to the Vatican website in 2019, up from 1935** in 2018. Both of these numbers have caveats, however: in 2018, I only started tracking additions at the end of January, so ...

This is probably the last batch of manuscripts for the year, with sixty digitized this week. To the right is the title miniature from Ross.457 found on f.1r. This MS is a mid 14th C. compilation of Latin instructional manuals, translated into French. It contains Le Livre du gouvernment des roys et des princes, a translation of Gilles of Rome's De Regimi...

A busy week with several banner Manuscripts among the 63 that were digizited this week. Vat.lat.5750 is a 6th C Sacramentay thought to be from Bobbio, created as a palimpsest over a series of even older manuscripts. The Vatican provided a series of notes at the beginning of the digitized copy explaining the collation as well as multi-spectral images to ...

Despite it being the first week of Advent, forty-one new manuscripts went online this week. We are getting deeper into the fond Vat.lat with the bulk of the manuscripts in the 6000-7000 range. Of personal interest is the Milanese Book of Hours, Vat.lat.6259. To the right is the start Matins of the Hours of the Virgin, Use of Rome, f.7r. Instead of the ...

First a technological update - The code that drives this site is available for free on GitHub. I've just merged in a rather complex change to create proper shelfmark sorting, fixing things like numbers-stored-as-strings and handling roman numerals. Two problems yet unfixed are Fonds P.I.O, with the middle "I" reading as a roman numeral, and Arch.Cap.S.P...

This was a quiet week for manuscripts, with only 34 new ones added. The BAV was busy photographing their collection of Korean coins, see the border at the bottom composed of Mt.Corea.1, 15, 23, 34, 72. Of the manuscripts added this week, several of them are collections of copies of monumental epigraphic inscriptions, including Vat.lat.6037 and Vat.lat.60...

Thirty-five manuscripts were added this week to the online collection. It was something of a "same-old, same-old" collection, a couple of liturgical works, several commentaries on the Decretals or other works of Canon law and a some patristic works. Vat.lat.6224 and Vat.lat.6225 are an exception to this, a pair of bilingual works, Latin/Greek, on calendar...

Another busy week with 92 manuscripts added to the online archives, though six of them, even though not tagged as "low quality" are microfilm scans. Several MS are continuations of works digitized earlier, such as Vat.lat.5585, the second volume of Nicholas Harpsfield's Historia Ecclesiastica Anglicanae. One volume that's entirely new this week is Vat....

We are back to operating on all cylinders this week, with 119 manuscripts added to the Vatican website. There are several interesting additions, such as a double-volume Hymnal from the Convent of St. Agnes in Bologna, Ross.279 and Ross.280. and three more from the work that was done to document Old St. Peter's before it's replacement, Vat.lat.5408, Vat.l...

No new manuscripts this week, the Vatican has been digitizing Incunables.

Nothing new this week!

Most of the 52 manuscripts added by the Vatican this week represent the Medieval or early Renaissance world, Vat.lat.5360, however, contains an interesting bridge between the scientific worlds of the Classical and Medieval worlds and those of the Early Modern period. f.5v (see right) contains a model of the Aristotelian universe, with the 4 elemental sphe...

Among the 38 manuscripts digitized is a deluxe late-Gothic copy of St. Augustine's On the City of God against the Pagans, which nobody ever calls by its full name. Ross.261 opens with a table of contents and then begins the main text on f.1v with a collection of marginal decorations and the fantastic enhabited initial seen to the right. This letter "G" to...

The most obvious update this week isn't from the BAV, but on this website. I've reworked the individual week pages to include a better, hopefully better, organization of the descriptive text and a thumbnail image for each MS. As part of this work, all parts of the site should work better on mobile browsers. These new designed page cover the 48 manuscrip...

Some musings on the 32 manuscripts added this week to the digital archives of the BAV. They continue to add manuscripts containing sketches or paintings of decorations in Roman churches, some long since lost. Vat.lat.5407 is an example of that, see what must be an Apse and Dome decoration from a Greek church to the right (p. 23). Also added was a necrolo...

In a graduale, such as Ross.231, one of the 33 manuscripts added this week, the two pages that are always decorated, at least a little bit more than the rest are the first page, starting Ad te levavi the Indroit for the first Sunday in Advent, and the page with Resurrexi Et Adhuc, the indroit for Easter Sunday. For this one the decorative "A" on f.1r was...

Vat.lat.5257 is part of a composite hagiographic manuscript containing a legend of St. Clare (Incipit Venerabilis christi sponse deoque dicate virginis clare..., ff.1r-6v) perhaps from the late 14th C, an Infancy Gospel (Incipit: [I]n diebus illis erat uic in Uerusalem, ff. 9r-38v) from no earlier than the mid 15th C, a life of Paul the First Hermit (Inci...

The Vatican was only active one day this week, but that gave us 44 manuscripts. One theme seems to be music, Vat.lat.5322, Vat.lar.5324, and Vat.lat.5320 are all about the theory of music, see the scale diagrams on f.11v of 5320. Other interesting manuscripts include a copy of Andrea Dandalo's Chronicon a pontificatu S. Marci, a history of Venice until 13...

The Vatican Libraries are on their annual August vacation, so no manuscripts have been added this week. The image to the right is from a copy of Gratian's Decretals that was added as part of the large tranche of Archivo Cap. San Pietro manuscripts, Arch.Cap.S.Pietro A.24, f.51v. Like many of the marginalia in this MS, it has nothing to do with the text o...

This week includes part 2 of Arch.Cap.S.Pietro, see Week 32 for part 1. In addition to the usual religious and legal texts, this part of the fond also includes a lot of meta-manuscrips related to St. Peters -- catalogues of manuscripts, lists of relics and other items of religious use, and Minutes of meetings related to the Vatican libraries. Of these an...

It appears I missed the collection Arch.Cap.S.Pietro in my tracking of new manuscripts, so this will be a busy week. I have split the collection between this week and next, but with 470 MSS in total, that means 210 for this week. I will process the remaining 260 for next week. Luckily it is August, and the Vatican is on vacation. Some highlights, brie...

This week saw 43 manuscripts added, including another from the Samaratin holdings. One interesting MS is an unidentified, at least hard to identify, Italian work on rhetoric, Vat.lat.5231. It consists of a series of proto-flow-charts showing how to form an argument. F.6v (to the right) is a representative sample, mapping out The Deliberative Genre, Fina...

Several of the 61 manuscripts that were digitized this week are catalogues of epigraphic inscriptions found within the borders of the Roman world. One of those is Vat.lat.5238, a northern-Italian collection owned, but not written, by ldo Manuzio il Giovane. Here the full monuments, not only the inscriptions, are drawn with a careful hand (see f.6v to the...

In continuing the recent pattern, the 34 manuscripts added this week have several paired sets. Pal.lat.1692 and Pal.lat.1693 both appear to be copies of P. Papinius Statius' Thebais with interlinear glossing by Boccaccio. We also have a matched set of Epistles and Homilies by St Augustine in Ross.192 and Ross.193. Vat.Lat. 1574(formerly microfilm scan) an...

Vat.lat.5148 is a late manuscript that betrays its youth by emulating a printed book. The phenomenon of early printing emulating manuscripts, in both hand and style, is well known, but once print had become dominant, the hand-written manuscript adapted by emulating the new upstart. The large initial M whose ink has burned through f.1r (see image to the ri...

First some sad news - It is with a heavy heart that we learned this week of the passing of Jean-Baptiste Piggin (@jbpiggin), whose MacroTyprography started this work and continued it for more than 4 years. He and his dedication will be missed. One of the manuscripts digitized this week is Ross.156, a glossed Gospel of Matthew with prolog. It was clear...

This week we get a lovely Evangilary in a Beneventan hand, Vat.lat.5100, an autograph copy of Cristobal de Cabrera's In Canticum Canticorum de Divini Verbi incarnatione cantica, and a Vat.lat.2719 Protogothic copy of Priscian's Institutiones with incompletely decorated initials (see f.1r to the right)

Take note this week of an elaborately decorated MS of Ramon Llull's Ars compendiosa inveniendi veritatem, Vat.lat.5112. It's filled with multicolored diagrams like this one on f.4v seen to the right. Also of note is a fantastically extended Q at the beginning of Albert the Great's De viciis contractis in studio Theologiae Vat.lat.5004

There were 34 new manuscripts added this week. From Fonds Rossi comes another gothic bible, Ross.183, this one of Fransiscan origins, identifiable by the friars present throughout the illustrations, including one presenting the manuscript to Mary and Child at the start of Genesis, f.5v to the right. The border at the bottom comes from the left side of Va...

The Library was back at full strength this week with 67 manuscripts added. See the details at Macro Typography. Sadly this is the last week that @JBPiggin was able to update his blog, after completing 212 entries of the project. Several manuscripts this week come from the Beneventan sphere of interest, including Vat.lat.5001 which contains the a catalog ...

A quiet week due to the celebration of the Feast of Ascension, see the details on all 16 manuscripts at Macro Typography

Another week with 39 manuscripts, see all the details at Macro Typography. As far as I can tell Ott.lat.577 is a personal prayer book made for Emperor Maxmillian I, completed on December 30, 1514. It's unclear if this was originally a Book of Hours, it has some of the critical elements, but is missing the Hours of the BVM. One of the things commonly fou...

Thirty-nine manuscripts were added this week, see some details at Macro Typography. On the last folio, f.73v to the right, of Vat.lat.2516, a copy of Bartholomew of Brescia's Casus Decretorum and Historiae decretorum, we find this strange drawing of the Rota Fortuna, Fortune's wheel. Usually this is depicted with the king at the top and a pauper at the ...

See all the details on the 29 new manuscripts this week on Macro Typography. One of the magic things with digital images is that they can be taken outside the visible spectrum. In the case of Barb.gr.388 each "normal" image has a corresponding one taken with UV light. This reveals the 10th-11th C Evangelion below the main text, complete with ecphonetic...

Twenty-six manuscripts added this week, see the story at Macro Typography. The bulk of my personal research is on Books of Hours and this week we got a lovely example in Ross.118. Based on the illustrations and calendar it was probably made in Rouen in the later 15th Century. To the right you can see the Annunciation miniature at the start of Matins fo...

For details on all 42 manuscripts this week, please see Macro Typography. This week we got a very dramatic addition, Vat.lat.4770 is an early example of a Missal with musical notation (see a sample of the notation below from f.92r below). The start of Vat.lat.4774, a work of unknown content starts with 2 pages defining the date of composition, startin...

See the Macro Typography page for details on the 24 manuscripts digitized this week. Though a light week due to Easter, there were still some interesting manuscripts added. One of note is Vat.lat.2509, a collection of legal texts starting with Bernardus Papiensis' Compilatio with apparatus by Tancred of Bologna. This has roughly the standard layout of...

Forty-One manuscripts were added by the Vatican this week, see all the details at Macro Typography. One of the manuscripts added this week, Vat.lat.4763, is a rare Book of Hours in two classes. German Hours are unusual in general and any Hours pre 1300 is also rare. As a German Hours from the mid 13th C, this is of a class with only a fewf other manuscri...

This was a busy week at the Vatican, 60 new manuscripts were digitized, with all the details at Macro Typography. F-you! For some reason this weeks manuscripts include a large number of Bibles which all start with the preface of Jerome's letter #53, to Paulinus, which begins "Frater Ambrosius". This means that they, along with an unrelated Breviary, all...

See all the details on the 40 manuscripts added this week at Macro Typography. Several of the manuscripts are copies of Gratian's Decretals, one of the foundational works of canon law. These are interesting for having a consistant, but unusual layout - two columns with an inner and an outer block of text on each side. To the right is the prettiest and m...

There were 29 manuscripts added this week, see all the details on Macro Typography. One of them, Vat.lat.4681 is an elaborately decorated copy of Caesar's Gallic Wars. On f.1r there's his entire army within the letter G (to the right), and an unidentified coat of arms within the grisaille border (bottom)

See all the details on the 54 manuscripts added this week over at Macro Typography. This week we have a number of manuscripts in Greek, including a 13th C Evangelary, Gregory-Aland L-134, Barb.gr.416

Thirty manuscripts were added this week, see all the details on Macro Typography. The bottom image is a snippet of a Humanistic Book of Hours on purple parchment from Ross.99, f.160v

Take a look at Macro Typography for the inside details for the 18 manuscripts added this week. The image to the rigth this week is from a style of 16th C manuscript imitating the layout and decorative features of a printed book. Here a hand-drawn initial S imitates an engraving, Urb.lat.1441 f.2r

For all the details on the 36 manuscripts digitized this week see Macro Typography. The image to the right is from the title page of a copy of Cicero's De Officiis from 1440, Vat.lat.4609 f.1r. It's interesting that the large drop cap was either meant to be decorated as a white-vine and left incomplete or was only ever supposed to be tinted with wash

Only seven manuscripts added this week, see all the details on Macro Typography. One of the manuscripts, Vat.lat.4215 is another volume of Nicholas of Lyra's Postilla. This one is interesting in that we know the name of the illuminator Gioacchino di Giovanni and can see his signature green parrots in the manuscript, eg. f.1r to the right

For more details on the 32 manuscripts added this week, please see the blog post from Macro Typography. The image to the right is the title page from a handwritten copy of Petrus Angelus Bargaeus's Commentarius de Obelisco that has been carefully styled to look like a printed book, down to the "Cum privilegio" text at the bottom, Vat.lat.15126 f.1r

There were 29 manuscripts added this week, read all about them on Macro-Typography. The image to the right is a masked ball from Vat.lat.8570 f.111r. This MS is an album of drawings to go with Maximilian I's novel Weisskunig.

For all the juicy details of the 36 manuscripts added this week, see Macro Typography Entry. The image on the right is the start of Mass on the Vigil of St. Andrew, from Vat.lat.5590, f.17r, one of the 5 Missals made for Cardinal Juan Álvarez de Toledo by Vincent Raymond and Apollonio Bonfratelli

We are back to full-strength this week with 66 manuscripts added. Please see the Macro Typography Blog Entry for more details. To the right is the start of a copy of Filippo d’Arezzo's Sermo de conservatione sanitatis, copied for Taddeo Pepoli, lord of Bologne. It is now Vat.lat.4462, f.1r The flourish at the bottom is from the title page to a Missal...

Coming back from vacation with a slow start, only 6 manuscripts were added this week. See Macro Typography for more details. The image at the bottom is part of the highly complex red/blue penwork borders done by Jacquet Maci on f.1 of Ross.259, a collection of the letters of St. Augustine

Nothing new this week, we're still on the New Years Holiday