Manuscript Collections
Special Collections maintains a small collection of manuscripts that date from antiquity to the present. The collection is intended to demonstrate the physical characteristics of the book before printing, and it contains a wide variety of scripts and materials from various time periods. From antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, the collection includes:
- Eight cuneiform tablets from the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods
- Around a dozen manuscripts in book form, ranging in date from ca. 1150 to ca. 1600
- Over 200 leaves and fragments, including seventeenth century book collector John Bagford’s manuscript leaves and fragments, Fragmenta Manuscripta, dating from the eighth to the seventeenth century
- A handful of leaves from the Koran, palm leaf manuscripts, and other examples of manuscripts from non-Western cultures
Finding Aids for Manuscript Collections
Cuneiform tablets.
Special Collections holds eight cuneiform tablets whose exact provenance is unknown. Six of the tablets date from the Ur III period (2100-2000 BCE),…
Fragmenta Manuscripta Collection.
Fragmenta Manuscripta is a collection of over 200 manuscript leaves and fragments dating from the eighth to the seventeenth century. Originally…
Literary and Historical Manuscripts
Special Collections holds modern manuscript materials in the form of books, correspondence, and personal papers. These materials were collected at…
Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts.
Special Collections maintains a small collection of European manuscripts intended to demonstrate the physical characteristics of the manuscript books,…
Pages from the Past Collection
Pages from the Past is a collection of original manuscript and rare book leaves compiled and sold by a New York book dealer Alfred W. Stites from 1964…
Selected Items
Fragmenta Manuscripta 016: Psalter, glossed
Condition: Missing 90 X 95 portion in upper left corner.
Instructions to his son
Contents: H. G. Jones, "Peter Idley's Instructions to his son," Neuphilologische Mitteilungen74 (1973) 686-689.
Fragmenta Manuscripta 032: Bible, glossed
Contents: Contains part of the gospel of John with commentary.
Fragmenta Manuscripta 190: Calendrical Information
No formal lines, ruling, or columns.
Contents: Contains columns for the calendar year (1445-1460), the Dominical Letter and the Golden Number, with…
Fragmenta Manuscripta 044: Bible commentary on the gospel of John
Contents: The story of Lazarus; in same hand as Paris, Bibl. Nationale de France, lat. 5411.
Fragmenta Manuscripta 184: Martyrologium
One column visible with 6 visible lines, neither bounding lines nor ruling are visible.
Fragmenta Manuscripta 210: Calendar May, June
Contents: May: line 9, "secundum usum sarum.," line 11, "in festo reliquiarum eiusdem ecclesie sarum." Lessons counted up to nine; the "capitulum" of…