Medieval Manuscripts and Incunabula

Script for video: https://youtu.be/3a7qkEcrLdg on concept of "manuscript" from codicological point of view. It is part of the series, "Deciphering secrets: the Illuminated Manuscript of Medieval Europe", offered from 15-7-2016 in www.coursera.org.

Dans un ultime effort pour s’adapter et survivre à la révolution édito- riale que fut l’invention de l’imprimerie, nombre d’enlumineurs pari- siens et des anciens Pays-Bas bourguignons (Picardie, Artois, Flandre) ont tenté d’imiter les premiers livres typographiés de luxe en puisant leurs modèles dans la gravure. Deux phénomènes ont permis la diffu- sion de ces modèles à partir des années 1430 : d’une part, le déve- loppement progressif de l’imprimerie et de la gravure, d’abord sur bois, puis sur métal; de l’autre, la diffusion des images dévotionnelles imprimées, produites à des centaines d’exemplaires.

Early printed books of hours are distinguished by their extensive border schemes, executed in text and images, which have hitherto scarcely been studied. They are, however, integral components of these prayerbooks, and offer insights to their readers into complex interconnections of salvation history. In the following reflections it is argued that the prints can only be understood when all of their component parts are considered together in their interplay. If this is undertaken systematically, they can provide insights into the practice of prayer in their age.

The English version of an exploration of Armenian manuscript art for a vast exhibition catalogue on the occasion the 500th anniversary of Armenian printing, 1512-2012.  The exhibit was held in the famous Correr Museum in the Piazzo San Marco using book items from its rich collection with loans from the Mekhitarist Brotherhood collection at San Lazzaro in the Venice lagoon and from various collections in Yerevan, Armenia.  The French version is posted below.

"The “Memoria” recovered: C. Umhauser, Artificiosa memoria, [Speyer], C. Hist, [1499-1500]

Christian Umhauser is a minor figure in fifteenth-century German literature in Latin, the author of a treatise entitled Artificiosa memoria. The essay examines a hitherto unknown copy (the only one thought to survive) of one of the three recorded editions of the work, recently discovered in the Biblioteca Trivulziana in Milan."

For an audio-video animation of the manuscript with the modern transcription see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO56v7qltNo

An edition of the anonymous labyrinthine ballade on three canons, "En la maison Dedalus" (In the House of Dedalus) from the Berkeley Manuscript.

This edition includes a modern transcription of the music, the original manuscript excerpted, poetic and literal translations of the text, reconstruction of the 11-tier labyrinth upon which the music is overlain, and pedagogical materials/explanations of the musical and poetic medieval Ballade forme-fixe.

Die Westrose der Pariser Sainte-Chapelle, gestaltet um 1490 im Auftrag von  König Charles VIII., ist in vielerlei Hinsicht eine rätselhafte Schöpfung. Sie repräsentiert ein Werk der Glaskunst des ausgehenden 15. Jahrhundert, in einem ansonsten stilreinen Bauwerk aus der Zeit Ludwigs des Heiligen (1214-1270). Andererseits stellt sie ein Thema dar, dem man in der Glasmalerei nur selten begegnet: eine Apokalypse. Die Offenbarung des Johannes ist hingegen sehr stark vertreten in der frühen Buchmalerei, und wird, seit Albrecht Dürer 1498 seine Holzschnitt-Apokalypse publizierte, auch zunehmend im gedruckten Buch populär. Der anonyme Künstler der Pariser Apokalypsenrose, der seinen Notnamen diesem monumentalen Werk verdankt, war ein besonders aktiver Illustrator in der Pariser Buchwelt um 1500. Er illuminierte Handschriften und schuf Holz- wie Metallschnitte für Inkunabeln. Sein vielfältiges Werk wird in der vorliegenden Studie vorgestellt.

In 2021, the Italian Minister of Culture acquired Umberto Eco’s private library, whose collection of 1.200 early printed and rare books was placed in the Biblioteca Braidense in Milan. It includes 36 incunabula which
are the subject of the present study.

"La rappresentazione del lettore nelle illustrazioni xilografiche di alcune edizioni a stampa del XV secolo: iniziali figurate con lettori in uso nell'officina veneziana dei fratelli Giovanni e Gregorio de Gregori.

Lo scopo del contributo è di introdurre al tema della raffigurazione del lettore nelle illustrazioni xilografiche presenti nei primi libri a stampa, attraverso una ricognizione della presenza di alcune specifiche xilografie, adattate a rappresentare anonimi lettori (o lettori identificati con nome e cognome) e il loro spazio di lettura.

The facsimile edition of the 1523 printed Psalterium Strigoniense, a Choir Psalter of the medieval Esztergom archbishopric was published by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich and the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2015. The valuable copy of the print used for the edition is preserved in Munich (BSB, Res/2 Liturg. 380), and it had been the property of Nicolaus Olahus (Oláh Miklós), an archbishop of Esztergom between 1553 and 1568. This copy, the so called Oláh Psalter is of utmost importance in the musical history of medieval Hungary as it reveals an almost entirely notated Hymnal of the Esztergom tradition, including chants not known from other medieval Office sources.
After the introduction a detailed bibliographical description of the print and the available copies can first be read followed by the presentation of the archbishop’s church music activities and the thorough musical analysis of his Psalter.
The facsimile edition offers the reader the Munich copy of the printed Psalterium Strigoniense of 1523 in a reconstructed form. The facsimile itself is not available here, it can be ordered via e-mail (zti@btk.mta.hu).  However, the digitized version of the Munich copy can be downloaded from the digital collection of BSB Munich: http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0008/bsb00084911/images/
The edition has been made for purposes of musicological and liturgy historical research in the first place but intends to give an insight into Hungarian erudition in the Middle Ages at the same time with the aim Miklós Oláh also put into words: ad laudem et gloriam Dei optimi maximi.

An unpublished archival source allows us to discover the library of  the rector of a small Roman parish. The ways and phases in which this library - made up of some thirty, mainly printed and legal works - was formed over a thirty years period in the fifteenth century are taken up here. A well-known printer and several copyists, along with some foreigners who owned other, philosophical, texts, presumably in manuscripts, lived in the rector's house. The presence of such a varied group of people under the same roof offers an opportunity to reflect on the reciprocal relations between cultural worlds which are apparently far apart.

The different facets of reconstructive linguistic research, demonstrated in this vo- lume by the Moscow Germanic philologist Catherine Squires, are not only of interest to the academic professional, but will fascinate every reader with an inquisitive mind. In her research on unknown German medieval and early modern manuscripts and in- cunabula, hosted by Russian institutions, the author was often faced with complicated problems; a number of truly detective stories, covering three decades of her work, are brought together here. The striking solutions and sometimes even discoveries that re- sulted prove that philological methods can indeed be quite exact.
456 p., 79 colour plates

Книга российского филолога-германиста Е. Р. Сквайрс знакомит с различ- ными сторонами научной работы, которые будут интересны не только для ученых коллег, но смогут увлечь каждого любознательного читателя. Занятия неизучен- ными немецкими рукописями Средневековья и раннего Нового времени и старо- печатными изданиями, находящимися в библиотеках и архивах России, нередко ставили перед исследовательницей сложные задачи. В книге собраны поистине детективные сюжеты из трех десятилетий ее научной работы, в которых неожиданные решения и даже открытия были достигнуты различными методами, которыми располагает филологическая наука — несправедливо, как показывает автор, считающаяся неточной.

https://www.gnosisbooks.ru/books/filologiya/opyty_filologicheskikh_rekonstruktsiy/

Екатерина Ричардовна Сквайрспрофессор филологического факультета Московского государственного университета имени М. В. Ломоносова, главный научный сотрудник Российской государственной библиотеки, изучает и преподает историю германских языков (немецкого, нижненемецкого и нидерландского), в течение многих лет занимается исследованием рукописей и старопечатных книг на этих языках, в особенности находящихся в собраниях России. Балтика, 1990-е гг.

Volume containing contrubutions both in English and French.
In 2006, 500 years after his death, the Royal Library of Belgium organised an exhibition (curated by Bernard Bousmanne and Hanno Wijsman) revealing treasures from the era of Philip the Fair (1478-1506), last duke of Burgundy. This volume reunites most of the papers delivered at a conference held during the exhibition, increased with four new chapters. Ten specialists from Belgium, the Netherlands and the United States discuss the book market and its place in society in this transitional period when manuscripts and printed books were produced and used next to one another. The various chapters are illustrated with more than 70 reproductions, most of which formerly unpublished. The contributions are organised around five topics: Philip the Fair and his books, art in books, music in books, politics in books, and the book market. Contributions by: Renaud Adam, Jean-Marie Cauchies, Marieke van Delft, Lieve De Kesel, Samuel Mareel, Zoe Saunders, Susie Speakman Sutch, Herman Pleij, Rob Wegman, and Hanno Wijsman.

This catalogue, written by Frank-Joachim Stewing, was published as an accompanying volume to the exhibition curated by Sandra Kästner in 2018 at the Heimatmuseum Duderstadt. Adressed to the visitors of the exhibition and people interested in medieval book culture, describes it selected manuscripts and incunabula from the library of the Church of St. Cyriac in Duderstadt, supplemented by a survey of the history of the church library at St. Cyriac in the later Middle Ages and an index of incunabula in Duderstadt collections. For further informations on the incunabula collections in Duderstadt see the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke.

Primer volumen en la serie Estudios de música antigua, coordinada por Maricarmen Gómez. En la historia de la teoría musical, el Renacimiento español temprano representa una etapa crucial en la que se centra el estudio del presente volumen. A lo largo suyo son tres los puntos de vista que se entrecruzan: la relación de los teóricos españoles con el resto de sus colegas contemporáneos, la proliferación de tratados teóricos publicados en lengua castellana a finales del siglo XV y los aspectos de la práctica musical relativos a la teoría que se expone en ellos.
Presentamos aquí la primera edición crítica de la Sumula de canto de organo de Domingo Marcos, el primer tratado sobre polifonía impreso en español, brindando al lector la oportunidad de profundizar en el pensamiento de los músicos de la época, ejecutantes prácticos capaces tanto de improvisar contrapunto como de leer la polifonía al uso. Además y por vez primera, se aportan los datos necesarios para comprender las características de la producción teórica española del momento y así colocarla en justa correspondencia con la que se gestaba en paralelo en el entorno cultural europeo.

Reworking and review of my PhD Thesis. First volume in the series Studies on Early Music, edited by Maricarmen Gómez. In the history of musical theory, the early Spanish Renaissance represents a crucial stage in which the study of the present volume focuses. Throughout this work, there are three points of view that intersect: the relationship of Spanish theorists with the rest of their contemporary colleagues, the proliferation of theoretical treatises published in the Castilian language at the end of the 15th century and the aspects of musical practice related to the theory that is exposed in them.
We present here the first critical edition of the Domingo Marcos Sumula de Canto de Organo, the first treatise on polyphony printed in Spanish, giving the reader the opportunity to deepen the thought of the musicians of the time, practical performers capable of improvising counterpoint as well as to read polyphony. In addition and for the first time, the necessary data are provided to understand the characteristics of the Spanish theoretical production of the moment and thus place it in fair correspondence with that which was developed in parallel in the European cultural environment.

The poems of Catullus were first printed in Venice 1472; by 1500 there appeared fourteen other editions of part or all of the text. The article seeks to locate these fifteen editions within the textual transmission of Catullus by determining their lines of descent and identifying the manuscripts that descend from them.

Note: the final version of this paper appeared in "Paideia" 73 (2018), 2151-2174.

Božidar Ljubavić – Goraždanin’s hieratikon, stored in the Zvornik and Tuzla diocesan library, has not yet been the subject of scientific research and is unrecognized in the literature reviews on ancient Serbian printing. This book is currently the only known preserved example of the Goražde hieratikon in the territory of Republika Srpska and the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Comparing the texts of the Goražde hieratikon sample preserved in Bijeljina and the reprint edition prepared in 2008; we have found several differences in the printed text. Presenting those discrepancies in this study, we have indicated the existance of the completely unknown typographic variations of Goražde hieratikon. In the first quarter of the seventeenth century, the book was amended and supplemented with manuscripts whose text differs from the Goraždan edition. Along with adding the missing sheets, the scribe also added to the book block eleven sheets with Easter gospels that are not originally part of the Goraždan edition. Comparing the manuscripts with the corresponding sheets of the first Serbian printed hieratikons, we have determined that the scribe has used the printed edition of Božidar Vuković – Podgoričanin’s hieratikon from 1520 (1519?) or its transcript as a template for repairing and supplementing this sample of Božidar Ljubavić – Goraždanin’s hieratikon. This study presents a basic archeographic analysis with an emphasis on the book as a whole, as well as on language and paleographic features of the manuscripts.
Key words: Goražde printing house, Božidar Ljubavić Goraždanin, hieratikon, Church Slavonic of the Serbian recension printed books, typographic variations, manuscript, Zvornik and Tuzla diocesan library
Кључне ријечи: Горажданска штампарија, Божидар Љубавић - Горажданин, служабник, српскословенске штампане књиге, типографске варијанте, рукопис, Библиотека Епархије зворничко-тузланске

Even though the printing of books in Armenian began in Venice in 1511/12, just six decades after Gutenberg's invention, the hand copying of texts continued into the nineteenth century. This traditional method of creating books was carried out in
monasteries where the free labour of the monk as scribe was more economical than the
purchase of mass-produced printed books. The fear often expressed in the West that
printing would put scribes and copyists out of work was also echoed among Armenians. Nevertheless, Armenian printing spread from Venice to Rome and Amsterdam and other European centres, rapidly moving east to Constantinople, Iran, and India. The print revolution, however, did not engender the parallel development of a mechanically driven process for binding the ‘new’ books.

Se analiza la problemática de los impresos sine notis de la imprenta incunable salmantina asignados tradicionalmente a talleres anónimos, que, en unos casos, forman parte de una única oficina regentada por distintos miembros de la misma familia, y, en otros, deben ser adscritos a otras imprentas, hasta el momento poco documentadas, establecidas en Salamanca en el siglo xv. Igualmente, el estudio de elementos paratextuales, como los colofones, ha dado lugar a cambios en las dataciones de algunos incunables. Finalmente, se muestran las tipografías y las ilustraciones xilográficas características de cada imprenta, como signos de identidad de las mismas, dentro de las corrientes estéticas europeas =

The problem of the sine notis printed of the Salamanca incunable printing press traditionally assigned to anonymous workshops is analyzed, which, in some cases, they have been printed in the same office run by different members of the same family, and in others, they must be ascribed to other printing presses, until now little documented, established in Salamanca in the 15th century. Likewise, the study of paratextual elements, such as colophons, has resulted in changes in the dates of some incunabula. Finally, characteristic typographies and woodcut illustrations of each printing press are shown as signs of their identity, within the European aesthetic currents.

Separata de: Patrimonio textual y humanidades digitales VII: Libros, imprenta y censura en la Europa meridional del siglo XV al XVII. Salamanca:  IEMYRhd : La SEMYR, 2020,  págs. 169-186.

Questo volume contiene la descrizione di 73 incunaboli conservati in biblioteche pubbliche o aperte al pubblico e in una privata dei comuni di Ispica, Modica, Ragusa e Scicli, molti dei quali – non compresi nello Incunabula Short Title Catalogue – erano ignoti ai ricercatori.

Come già per i volumi dedicati agli incunaboli di Siracusa (2015) e alla provincia di Catania (2018), gli esemplari sono descritti con particolare attenzione a tutti i dettagli che accompagnano il testo stampato e ne fanno dei testimoni unici dell’uso, della circolazione e del commercio del libro antico.

Una serie di immagini accompagna la registrazione dei nomi degli individui e delle istituzioni, soprattutto religiose, che hanno posseduto nel tempo gli esemplari, di ciascuno dei quali si precisa con grande accuratezza lo stato di conservazione.

UN CANCIONERO INCUNABLE VALENCIANO:
DESCRIPCIÓN BIBLIOGRÁFICA, ESTRUCTURA Y CONTEXTOS

Los tres cancioneros incunables con poesía catalana provienen en todos los casos de certámenes poéticos valencianos. Este trabajo se centra en el estudio material y bibliográfico de la tercera y más peculiar de estas colecciones, con poemas tan sólo en catalán, a diferencia de los otros dos, que incluyen puntualmente textos en castellano y en toscano. Se trata del impreso titulado Obra a llaors del benaventurat lo senyor sant Christòfol, salido de las prensas del librero Pere Trincher en 1489, seis meses después de la celebración del certamen correspondiente, en agosto de 1488. Este trabajo ofrece una completa descripción externa interna e interna de este incunable, así como un estudio sobre su historia, a través de los bibliófilos que lo poseyeron, desde el siglo XVIII hasta su llegada a la BNE en 1892.

PALABRAS CLAVE: incunable, cancionero, hagiografía, certamen poético, san Cristóbal.


The three incunabula cancioneros with Catalan poems all come from poetry competitions held in Valencia. This work focuses on the material and bibliographic study of the third and rarest of these collections, with poems only in Catalan, unlike the other two, which occasionally include texts in Castilian and Tuscan. This work is entitled Obra a llaors del benaventurat lo senyor sant Christòfol, issued at the presses of the bookseller Pere Trincher in 1489, six months after the conclusion of the corresponding event in August 1488. This article provides a comprehensive internal and external description of this incunabulum, as well as a study of its history, through the bibliophiles who owned it since the eighteenth century until its arrival at the National Library of Spain in 1892.

KEYWORDS: incunabula, cancionero, hagiography, poetry competition, saint Christopher.

-“Un cancionero incunable valenciano: descripción bibliográfica, estructura y contextos”, en La literatura medieval hispánica en la imprenta (1475-1600), ed. María Jesús Lacarra, València, Universitat de València, 2016, pp. 173-189. ISBN: 978-84-370-9998-9.

Estudio preliminar e edición: 1.- Introducción, 2.- En Monterrei, 3.- A sociedade Pasera e Porras, 4.- Un misal destinado a Ourense, 5.- Descrición e contido do Misal auriense, 6.- Número e distribución, 7.- Bibliografía, 8.- Advertencia a edición, 9.- Facsímil

Der Versuch, den überlieferten Buchbestand der 1803 aufgehobenen Erfurter Kartause zu erfassen und den Verbleib der im mittelalterlichen Standortkatalog verzeichneten Bände zu ermitteln, wurde von Paul Lehmann 1928 zum ersten Mal unternommen. 60 Jahre später präsentierte Sigrid Krämer eine aktualisierte Dokumentation des erhaltenen Buchbestands der Erfurter Kartause, die im ersten Teil des von Krämer erstellten Nachschlagewerks „Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters“ 1989 erschienen ist. Der von diesen beiden Verzeichnissen erfasste Buchbestand bildet den Grundstock der vorliegenden Übersicht, die eine nach Möglichkeit korrigierte, nochmals aktualisierte und bibliographisch fundierte Dokumentation über den Verbleib von Büchern (Handschriften und Inkunabeln) aus der Kartause Erfurt bietet. Die Dokumentation beruht vor allem auf der Auswertung der einschlägigen Forschungsliteratur (Beschreibungskataloge mittelalterlicher Handschriften, Werk- und Autor-orientierte Repertorien, Monographien, Editionen, Aufsätze etc.), berücksichtigt aber auch neuere und ältere Auktionskataloge, von denen der Eislebener Versteigerungskatalog der Bibliothek des Stiftsregierungsrates Friedrich Gottlieb Julius von Bülow (1760–1831) von 1836 besonders hervorzuheben ist.

Beginning with a census of printed liturgical rites of the Middle Ages, this article discusses first the various reasons and circumstances which led to the change of media from manuscript to typescript in the case of the Libri ordinarii, and secondly the consequences of this change for the
texts that had been handed down and for their recipients. The article brings together areas of study that have previously been treated separately: the study of incunabula, and the historical studies of liturgy, music, art and literature. The example of the ordinals from the ecclesiastical province of Magdeburg – which have not yet been edited – is used to demonstrate the methodological challenges faced in the comprehensive examination of the material and the deeper insights that can be expected.

VII Congreso Internacional de La SEMYR: Patrimonio Textual y Humanidades Digitales, celebrado en la Hospedería del Colegio Arzobispo Fonseca. Instituto de Estudios Medievales y Renacentistas y de Humanidades Digitales (IEMYRhd), Universidad de Salamanca, 4-6 de septiembre de 2018.

This article argues that traces of provenance in Hebrew incunabula can provide historical evidence that allows us to study the cultural heritage, reading habits and even the lives of the readers who left them in the margins of those books. Several copies of Hebrew incunabula from Eliezer ben Abraham Alantansi's press at Híjar are studied in order to find out about their owners and readers, as well as to trace the routes they followed in the Sephardic Diaspora

Erstmals liegt hier eine grundständige Analyse der Gattung des gedruckten Heiltumsbuches vor. Heiltumsbücher reflektieren in Bild und Text kostbare Reliquienbehältnisse, wie sie während einer Heiltumsschau den Gläubigen gewiesen wurden. Die Untersuchung widmet sich der spezifischen Medialität und Ästhetik dieser Drucke und ihrer Ausrichtung auf ein größeres Publikum . Darüber hinaus geht sie der besonderen Rolle der Auftraggeber nach sowie deren Einfluss auf Gestalt und Ordnung der Bücher. Das Zusammenwirken von Bild und Text als Präsenz von Wirklichkeit steht dabei im Zentrum der medialen Analyse. Der älteren These, das Heiltumsbuch gattungsgenalogisch als Vorläufer von Sammlungs- und Ausstellungkatalogen aufzufassen, begegnet die Untersuchung mit dem Nachweis, dass hier eher von Gattungsanalogien auszugehen sei.

This study is the first fundamental analysis and synopsis of the printed relic-book genre. Printed relic books represent, both by image and text, precious reliquaries, which were presented to the faithful audience during special liturgical feasts, the display of relics. This study brings into focus the specific aesthetics of these relic books and explores the immense influence that patrons had on figuration as well as on the forms of these books. The analysis focuses on the interaction of image and text as manifestation of authenticity. This book then contributes to clarifying the complex medial role of printing with movable type in its early period and offers a novel interpretation of the cultural significance of artefacts in the Renaissance.
e:

Part of the series Library of the Written Word, Vol: 85; Library of the Written Word - The Handpress World, Vol: 66