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
Libraries Catalog: Special Collections
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 056: Civil law with gloss
Two columns with 49 lines, grid dimensions 207 X 49, with 10 mm between columns, with bounding lines, ink ruling on recto (flesh)
Fragmenta Manuscripta 026: Celestial Hierarchy IX 10, 11, commentary on
Contents: Original recto (now verso), " (pote)statibus, ubi alii superiores, alii inferiores constituti sunt … et primas, et medias, et ultimas";…
De constructione.
119 1eaves. South Germany, third quarter 12th century manuscript with late 15th or 16th century German pigskin, blind stamped binding. Written in…
Missal
Provenance: John Bagford (1650s-1716) to St. Martin-in-the-Fields; sale 1861 to Sir Thomas Phillipps, n.15758; his sale 22 May, 1913, lot 742; Sir…
Fragmenta Manuscripta 212: Book of Hours
Contents: Contains a long prayer to the Virgin, addressing moments of salvation history, each prefaced by an invocation, "Vera virgo et mater quae…
Fragmenta Manuscripta 206: Part 1: Letter; Part 2: Note
Number of scribes, f. 1r-v: 1.
Script, f. 1r-v: Cursive.
Layout, f. 1r-v: One column with 20 visible lines, no bounding lines or…