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.
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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.
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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
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Special Collections holds modern manuscript materials in the form of books, correspondence, and personal papers. These materials were collected at…
Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts.
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Special Collections maintains a small collection of European manuscripts intended to demonstrate the physical characteristics of the manuscript books,…
Pages from the Past Collection
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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
Celestial Hierarchy IX 10, 11, commentary on
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Contents: Companion to Frag. Man. 026, recto of fragment was original verso of codex.
Carleton's almanack, (enlarged and improved) for the year of our Lord ... : calculated for the meridian of Boston ...
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Psalter
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Contents: Fragment contains parts of Pss. 68 and 70 with hierarchy accorded to the psalm "Salvum me fac," implying use in a liturgical context.
Summa theologiae
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Explicit: Frag 072r //vel indirecte et per accidens directe quidem cum per se aliquid operatur . . . quedam vero sunt quibus perfectius//; Frag 072v…
Bible. Latin. [Biblia Latina] 1300.
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Parchment - 184 x 146 mm - 17 quires of 12 leaves each, except for quire 4 (of 10 leaves), quire 10 (of 8 leaves) and quire 16 (of 14 leaves). 2…