The first full week of Lent yielded fifty-seven manuscripts added to the Vatican website. In what is starting to settle into a new pattern, Vat.lat and Barb.lat contributed the most, with 21 and 18 respectively. Both Ott.lat and Reg.lat contributed five and the rest came from Capp.sist with three, Vat.ar and Vat.turc with two and a single volume from Ross.

Over the last few weeks there has been a slow, but steady trickle of liturgical manuscripts from the Cappella Sistina (Capp.sist). This was the library of the chapter who served the pope privately, starting in the late 15th C. Many of the low-numbered manuscripts which have been digitized are 16th C musical books, both for the Mass and the Office, later donated to the Capp.sist by Pietro Ottoboni in the early 18th C. To the right is the real starting page from one of these, f.4r from Capp.sist.12. This is a Graduale, the service book for the Mass, which almost always start with Advent chants, usually the introit for the first Sunday, Ad te levavi. This book actually starts with a single page prepended to that usual practice, Asperges Me, the ritual for sprinkling the attendees with holy water. The Ad te Levavi has the more elaborate page however, with the massive 9-line initial A, depicting King David lifting up his soul to the Father, who is surrounded by red cherubim.

The line below is from Reg.lat.1434, a late 17th C English to Latin, Greek, French, and German dictionary made for Queen Christiana of Sweden, the source of the Reg.lat collection. This image comes from f.2r, the first page of real text.