Details

Standardized Title:

Bible. Latin. Vulgate

Subjects:

Catholic Church -- Liturgy.
Catholic Church.
Liturgics.
Illumination of books and manuscripts -- Specimens.
Illumination of books and manuscripts.

Form/Genre:

Specimens.
Bibles.
Devotional calendars.
Illuminated manuscripts.
Missals.
Codices.
Manuscripts, Latin.
Manuscripts, Medieval.

Language:

Latin.

Summary:

Vulgate Bible with prologues by Jerome and illuminations. The biblical text is prefaced by the Interpretationes nominum hebraicorum (f. 2r-27r), attributed to Jerome in the Middle Ages, and the apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh (f. 27v), attributed to Solomon in its rubric. The Prayer of Manasseh more commonly appeared at the end of 2 Chronicles, where in this Bible a rubric (f. 163r) directs the reader to the prayer's location. The biblical text is followed by a calendar of the Church year (f. 400v-401v), a missal (f. 402v-420v), including the ordinary from the canon through the communion and propers for Sundays and feasts throughout the year, and a breviary (f. 421r-458v), with nine lessons for major feasts, so not for a monastic context. The manuscript also includes a table of Epistle and Gospel incipits (f. 460r-462v), which is a later addition.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from spine.
Collation: Parchment, v (paper) + 462 + vi (paper); a¹³, b¹⁴, c-i¹², k¹²(-2), l-o¹², p¹⁶, q¹²(-1), r-s¹², t-u¹⁴, x¹⁰, y¹⁴(-1), z¹², A-I¹², K-L¹⁰, M-P¹², Q³. There are traces of numbers at the end of some quires, but most of these were lost when the margins were trimmed; modern pencil foliation, lower right recto. Link to collation model at end of record.
Layout: Written in 2 columns of approximately 50 lines, including, unusually, the Interpretationes nominum hebraicorum; ruled in lead; small number of marginal glosses; later table of incipits written in 3 columns.
Script: Written in French Gothic textualis script, probably by more than one hand, though it appears to be the work of a single scriptorium; quire Q is a later addition, written in a hybrid script.
Decoration: Many 6-line historiated initials, some also zoomorphic, particularly at the beginning of books; first leaf of the book of Job has been cut out (between f. 185-186); major historiated zoomorphic initial forming left border at the beginning of Jerome's prologue to Genesis depicting a monk in his scriptorium, and another major zoomorphic initial forming left border at the beginning of Genesis with miniatures of Adam and Eve, Noah's ark, and Abraham and Isaac (f. 30v); the initial I marking the beginning of Esdras may depict Ahasuerus and Esther in error (f. 163v; Esther does not begin with a historiated initial, f. 178r); extensive use of gold in the miniatures, with some flaking; extensive use of red for rubrication and red and blue for headings, chapter numbers, etc; frequent use of green suggests an English influence; some filigree decoration; a few leaves seem to have sections cut out.
Binding: 18th-century French brown morocco, wearing slightly at the hinges; metal clasps; gold leaf on spine; marbled endpapers.
Origin: Written in northern France, probably Paris, 1220s? (Laura Light).
An 8-page typewritten description and analysis of the manuscript is on file in the Library.

Penn Provenance:

James Augustus St. John and S. Vandenyer (cf. letter tipped in, from former to latter, dated 1837[?], acknowledging receipt of the manuscript; T. Edward Ross (bookplate, inside front cover).
Gift of T. Edward Ross, 1947.

Cited in:

Described in Zacour, Norman P. and Hirsch, Rudolf. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania to 1800 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965), p. 5 (Ms. Latin 21).
Described in A Catalogue of the T. Edward Ross Collection of Bibles Presented to The University of Pennsylvania Library (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Library, 1947), p. 19.
Described in Leaves of Gold: Manuscript Illumination from Philadelphia Collections (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001), no. 2 (pp. 27-29).

Publications about:

Light, Laura. "The thirteenth-century pandect and the liturgy: Bibles with Missals." In Form and function in the late medieval Bible. Eyal Poleg and Laura Light, editors. Boston: Brill, 2013, p.185-215.

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 236

Contains:

Jerome, Saint, -419 or 420.
Pseudo-Jerome.
Catholic Church. Missal.
Bible. Apocrypha. Selections
Interpretationes nominum hebraicorum.

OCLC:

1051175815

Web link:

Collation model