My favourite activity is to touch, smell, and listen to the crackling sound of cows and sheep that have been dead for a thousand years. That’s right, I am talking about medieval parchment, th…
We've posted photos of gorgeous libraries before, but we just can’t get enough of these stunning book repositories. For those of you who share this opinion, here are fifteen of the most beautiful libraries throughout Europe, in no particular order. Trin
This is one of twenty-six known manuscripts by the hand of Luke the Cypriot (active 1583-1625), an accomplished Greek calligrapher who worked after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (1453). He copied it in 1594 at his episcopal see of Buzǎu (in Wallachia, now Romania) and soon took it to Moscow, where it was richly illustrated with New Testament scenes by a team of anonymous Russian artists. The book contains passages taken from the four Gospels and arranged in the order in which they are read out loud in church in the course of the year (hence its name Lectionary, from the Latin "lectio," reading). Short intructions in Slavonic accompany some of the miniatures, offering a glimpse of the painters' working process. To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
With newly renovated rooms and views overlooking the Magnificent Mile, John Hancock tower, Lake Shore Drive AND the Chicago skyline, it's no wonder why the Four Seasons Chicago is considered one of the best hotels to stay in the Windy City. It doesn't just stop at the bird's eye views, the building of the hotel
This list comprises the most famous unsolved mysteries known to man that really defy rational explanation or are just outright strange. Mysteries have been a constantly popular subject on Listverse and searching for "mysteries" will give you a huge number of extra lists to satisfy your curiosity. Use the comments below to tell us what
Reproducción de doce miniaturas persas que representan los doce signos del Zodiaco. Sus originales pertenecen a un tratado de astrología del siglo IX titulado "Kitâb al-Mawalid", de Abû Ma'shar.
The Gmünder Kaiserchronik (or Gmünder Chronik) is a historical work in the German language from the Late Middle Ages, a chronicle of the emperors and kings of Germany, probably from around 1400. Its short version was dedicated to the city of Schwäbisch Gmünd. The chronicle is best known as the second part of the incunabula of Ulm (1485/86).
Explore Walters Art Museum Illuminated Manuscripts’s 10,966 photos on Flickr!
Harley Roll Y 6 – the Guthlac Roll – has been fully digitised, and a new catalogue description and high-resolution images are now available on Digitised Manuscripts. This newest upload takes place, appropriately, on St Guthlac’s own feast day. It also coincides with the conclusion of a two-day conference at...
Last weekend marked the close of another cataloguing project: bringing all of the records for our incunabula collection (pre-1501 printed works) up to a full level of description and to provide fu…
آلة مخطوطة (Machine manuscript)
The Library of the Kremsmünster Abbey There is an intricacy in Baroque architecture that is lost in contemporary architecture, but perhaps architecture is somewhat cyclical and this complexity will be...
Work has now started on the cataloguing of our important collection of nearly 200 incunabula, the earliest printed books held in Cardiff University Library’s Special Collections and Archives.…
We are thrilled to announce the recent upload of one of our best-loved (and most-requested) medieval manuscripts to our Digitised Manuscripts site; Christine de Pizan’s Book of the Queen (Harley MS 4431) is now online! Detail of a miniature of Christine de Pizan in her study at the beginning of...
This psalter was copied in England (probably London) in the first quarter of the fifteenth century. It contains eight large decorated initials each one marking a liturgical division of the psalter. The Beatus initial shown here (Psalm 1) is illuminated with gold. The border contains interlinked stems of trumpet-shaped flowers, stamens and acanthus leaves, with two prancing dragons at the lower edge. Psalters contained the 150 psalms from the Old Testament. They could also include some other standard texts such as a liturgical calendar, a litany, and the canticles (Old Testament songs). The psalter was the most popular type of illuminated book from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. Thereafter the Book of Hours became the most important channel for illuminations. Because psalms played a central role in the performance of the medieval liturgy, psalters were kept at altars and were owned by individual monks and clergy. Psalms were also read extensively for private devotion by both monks and secular clerics. This practice spread to the laity so that, from at least the twelfth century, richly decorated psalters became a form of personal prayer book.
Roman literature often derived from Greek sources, but took Greek models and made them its own. It includes some of the best known classical authors such as Ovid and Virgil, as well as a Roman emperor who found time to write down his philosophical reflections.
This Dutch Book of Hours was made for a female patron, possibly pictured on fol. 109r, in the mid fifteenth century. Originally richly illuminated by the workshop of the Master of Catherine of Cleves, the manuscript now lacks all of its full-page miniatures, although the eight surviving historiated initials speak to its original grandeur. Its rebinding in the seventeenth century resulted in the loss of several folios and the reordering of many of the texts. While the catalog description here remains faithful to the order of the texts as they appear today, an attempt has been made within the individual parts to reconstruct the original layout of the manuscript. To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
This illuminated and illustrated Arabic manuscript of the Gospels by Matthew (Mattá), Mark (Marquṣ), Luke (Lūqā), and John (Yūḥannā) was copied in Egypt by Ilyās Bāsim Khūrī Bazzī Rāhib, who was most likely a Coptic monk, in Anno Mundi 7192 / 1684 CE. The text is written in naskh in black ink with rubrics in red. Painted floral composition ending the preface to the Gospel of Matthew. To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.
