A Catalogue of the Pre-1500 Western Manuscript Books at the Newberry Library

A Catalogue of the Pre-1500 Western Manuscript Books at the Newberry Library
Author: Paul Saenger
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 1989-10-15
Genre: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN: 9780226733500

The Newberry Library in Chicago possesses one of the most distinguished collections of medieval and Renaissance manuscript books in North America. Based on two major private collections of the late nineteenth century—those of Henry Probasco and Edward E. Ayer—and scrupulously added to in this century, the holdings include late medieval bibles and breviaries, books of hours and books of homilies, and seminal texts on astronomy. Some of the books, such as those from the libraries of Philip the Good and Anne of Brittany, are beautifully illuminated. But the collection also includes an unusual array of "typical" medieval books, chosen not for their beauty but for their paleographical, codicological, and textual interest. Such codices include an eleventh-century Carthusian monk, and numerous books of hours adapted for feminine use. Paul Saenger has painstakingly identified the text, illumination, physical structure, and provenance for each of the more than 200 books in the collection to provide an exemplary guide to literate culture in the late Middle Ages. This catalogue, carefully researched and handsomely illustrated, will be an invaluable resource for historians, art historians, paleographers, bibliographers, and collectors.

Bat Books

Bat Books
Author: J. P. Gumbert
Publisher:
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2016
Genre: History
ISBN:

This work represents an important contribution to the history of medieval books, providing full scholarly description and discussion of an otherwise very little known category of written artefact in quasi-book form, but one that the 60-odd identified examples suggest was relatively common. This volume will be of interest not only to medieval book-historians and codicologists but also to historians of medieval science and of the liturgy, and of medieval written culture and cultural practice more broadly. Although a large proportion of the volume takes the form of a catalogue, the information and explanatory material presented in the introduction to the catalogue as a whole and to each of the sections into which the catalogue is divided give the volume the coherence and value of a historical and codicological survey of this form of artefact, the kind of texts they contained, and how and by whom they were made and used. The way in which the catalogue is structured in chronological and thematic sections, each with their own introduction, also contributes to enhance this aspect of the volume.