Gospel Lectionary

Collection History

The New York Public Library possesses one of the largest and finest collections of medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts in North America, yet its manuscript holdings are scarcely known to scholars, much less to a wide public audience. Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts are vehicles of the collective memory of western European culture, and provide a material connection between the scribes, illuminators, and patrons who produced these works and the audiences who view them today.

The works represent diverse genres, from Bibles and missals to romance literature and science texts. Dating from the turn of the 10th century until well into the period of the Renaissance, these works give vivid testimony to the creative impulses of the often nameless craftsmen who continually discovered new ways of animating the contents of hand-produced books through inventive and sometimes exuberant manipulations of all the elements of the book: form and format, layout, script, decoration, illustration, and binding.

Drawn from the Library's Spencer Collection and the Manuscripts and Archives Division, these works focus on the 9th through the 16th centuries -- seven hundred years of profound political, ecclesiastical, social, and intellectual change in Western Europe and the world. Among these rare items are a 10th-century Ottonian manuscript, with its imitation of Byzantine textile with gold decoration; the Towneley Lectionary, illuminated by Giulio Clovio (once praised as the "Michelangelo of small works"), which originated in Rome and probably belonged to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese; and a late 15th-century Book of Hours, which represents the leading style of illumination from Besançon, one of the French Regional Schools.

Background

"The Digital Scriptorium" originated in the mid-1990s as an image database, intended to unite scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research. NYPL curators have augmented the Digital Scriptorium's primary documentation of NYPL's contribution of 259 manuscript parts with images of the works' most significant illuminations. Some works in this digital presentation also appeared in the exhibition, "The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library," held October 21, 2005 - February 12, 2006 in the Library's D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman Exhibition Hall.

- Collection History and Background text excerpted from the press release and exhibition catalog descriptions for "The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library."

Related Resources

Alexander, Jonathan J. G., James H. Marrow, and Lucy Freeman Sandler. The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library. (2005)

NYPL. "The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library." (2005-2006) <http://www.nypl.org/research/calendar/exhib/hssl/hsslexhibdesc.cfm?id=354>

University of California, Berkeley. "The Digital Scriptorium." (c1996-2004) <http://www.digital-scriptorium.org>

Collection Data

Names
Pius II, Pope, 1405-1464 (Former owner)
Dates / Origin
Date Created: 1401 - 1500 (Approximate)
Place: Italy
Library locations
Spencer Collection
Shelf locator: Spencer Coll. MS. 29
Genres
Manuscripts
Illuminations
Notes
Ownership: Owned by Cardinal Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (afterwards Pope Pius II, died 1464). Earl of Ashburnham collection. Henry Yates Thompson (sale, 1920). Sir Arthur Chester Beatty; sale by Sotheby's, May 9, 1933, Part II, 128-9 for Spencer.
Content: 2-line and 4-line gold initials on red/blue fields; larger blue and red initials on gold fields. 1-line red and blue initials with opposing color penwork. Border designs, rubrics, sentence markers, pale yellow daubs as placemarkers. Coats of arms.
Content: 22 long lines per page, ruled in pencil, catchwords visible. Collation: 10 quinternions, followed by one gathering of 4 folios.
Citation/reference: De Ricci, 1341. Above, plus library dossier. Chart by Dr. G.B. Guest. Listed in Digital Scriptorium, University of California, Berkeley.
Content: Dr. Guest and NYPL catalogue date this to ca. 1420; Sotheby's catalog dates it to ca. 1450.
Content: Four historiated initials; angels flank cardinal's arms f. 1.
Biographical/historical: Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts are vehicles of the collective memory of western European culture, and provide a material connection between the scribes, illuminators, and patrons who produced these works and the audiences who view them today. The works represent diverse genres, from Bibles and missals to romance literature and science texts. Dating from the turn of the 10th century until well into the period of the Renaissance, these works give vivid testimony to the creative impulses of the often nameless craftsmen who continually discovered new ways of animating the contents of hand-produced books through inventive and sometimes exuberant manipulations of all the elements of the book: form and format, layout, script, decoration, illustration, and binding. Drawn from the Spencer Collection and the Manuscripts and Archives Division, the New York Public Library’s collections of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts focus on the 9th through the 16th centuries -- seven hundred years of political, ecclesiastical, social, and intellectual change in Western Europe and the world.
Physical Description
Extent: Ff. ii + 114 + ii, 358 x 266 mm.
Parchment
Type of Resource
Still image
Text
Identifiers
NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b22829019
Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): ee767ae0-c617-012f-47ed-58d385a7bc34
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