Leaf 43. "In general, the Books of Hours produced for the devout layman in the Netherlands at the end of the XVth century were written in Dutch. This particular example, however, is in Latin. The heavy, angular, and closely spaced vertical strokes,…
Leaf 42. "This leaf from the Book of Psalms was written from the Benedictine monastery of St. Stephan in Wurzburg and dated 1499 A.D. The book hand closely resembles the fine early gothic types called lettre de forme and used by Fust and Schoeffer in…
Leaf 41. "This composite text includes the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I (St. Gregory the Great, 540-604 A.D.), which are largely autobriographical, and his writings on the lives and miracles of the early Italian Church Fathers. The book hand used is…
Leaf 40. "This text on the Sententiae of Peter Lombard by St. Thomas Aquinas, the "Angelic Doctor," was the forerunner of the latter's great work Summa Theologica. It is most unusual to find the writings of a Church Father presented in a humanistic…
Leaf 39. "The known part of Livy's great work, the History of Rome, was completed about the year 9 A.D. The finished work consisted of one hundred and forty books, of which only thirty-five are extant" (Ege). "These earlier manuscripts had been…
Leaf 38. "The provenance of this manuscript is clearly designated as Limoges because of the inculsion of certain parts of the masses proper to this diocese, and because of the presence of the coat of arms and obituary records of the noted de Rupe…
Leaf 37. "Epistolaries are among the rarest of liturgical manuscripts. Their text consists of the Epistles and Gospels with lessons from the Old Testament for particular occasions. Sometimes, as in this leaf, they had interlinear neumes in red neumes…
Leaf 36. "Books of Hours, beautifully written, enriched with burnished gold initials, and adorned with miniature paintings, were frequently the most treasured possessions of the devout and wealthy laymen" (Ege). "Books of this small size, two and…
Leaf 35. "Jerome, the father of the Latin Church and translator of the Bible, shows in his writings his active participation in the controversies of his day (c. 332 to 420 A.D.)" (Ege). "This fine book hand, lettre de somme, obtained its name from…
Leaf 34. "This Psalter was written by Carthusian monks. Of all the orders the Carthusian was the smallest and most austere" (Ege). "The rotunda book hand used in this leaf is representative of the general excellence maintained by Italian scribes at…