Medieval Manuscripts from Museum of the Brno Region

Most of the recently digitised manuscripts from the National Library of the Czech Republic come from the Czech lands in the Middle Ages. In terms of content, the collection is varied, with a larger share of grammar texts and textbooks and their sets (V.H.1, V.H.8, V.H.10, V.H.15, V.H.21, V.H.24, V.H.28, V.H.32) as well as philosophical texts and commentaries used in the instruction at the Faculty of Arts of the university of Prague, both in the period before the Hussite wars and during the major resumption of its activities around the middle of the 15th century (V.H.5, V.H.9, V.H.14, V.H.18, V.H.22, V.H.30). Other manuscripts contain, for example, works of ecclesiastical law (the collection of decretals Liber Extra in V.H.34; Summa de casibus conscientiae, called Summa Pisana, in VI.A.13b), Biblical exegeses (a part of the Postilla litteralis of Nicholas of Lyra in VI.A.1; an interpretation of the Gospel of Luke in VI.A.16; a commentary by John of Wales on the Book of Revelation in VI.B.18) and collections of patristic homilies (VI.A.3, VI.B.8) and of high medieval sermons (including i.a. texts by Matthew of Cracow in VI.A.8, by Bertold of Regensburg in VI.A.20, by Jacobus de Voragine in VI.B.1, Conrad of Brundelsheim in VI.C.8 and others).

In 2021, the National Library of the Czech Republic – Slavonic Library provided access to six manuscripts and printed books from the 17th–19th centuries from its collections. The printed books are represented by the edition of the Kyiv-Pechersk Paterik (a collection of texts about the monks of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra) from 1661. The manuscripts comprise texts in Croatian (the play Akile/Achilles by the Croatian playwright Junije Palmotić and a poem by Petar Kanavelić written on the occasion of the mission of the ambassador of Dubrovnik to Constantinople) and in Church Slavonic (a collection of various works, A 2, as well as liturgical and paraliturgical texts).

In 2021, the Czech Pharmaceutical Museum in Kuks (a centre of Charles University – the Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové) provided access to two manuscripts from the end of the 17th century from its collections. The earlier of them contains records of the pharmacists from the Rajhrad monastery from 1676–1685 (shelf mark HK-SR-4); the other is a recipe book of Georg Philipp Parth, originating in the area of present-day Germany and probably created in 1697 (HK-SR-3).

The National Library of Medicine in Prague digitised in 2021 three documents, including one manuscript and two printed books. The manuscript (shelf mark T 468) was copied in 1819 and contains a collection of recipes and advice on the treatment of specific diseases, bloodletting, the effects of particular medical preparations, etc. The collection Scriptorum Latinorum de aneurysmatibus collectio (T 139), edited by Thomas Lauth, was printed in Strasbourg in 1785, whereas Dissertatio inauguralis medica sistens tentamen historiae medicinae by František Sazyma (D 312) comes from the Prague printing workshop of František Jeřábek from 1814.

In 2021, the Olomouc Research Library digitised a Greek manuscript from the second half of the 15th century, probably of Italian origin (shelf mark M I 79). The codex contains Hesiod’s works Opera et dies and Theogonia with commentaries, Pseudo-Hesiodic Scutum Herculis, and other shorter texts.

The collection library of the Regional Museum in Olomouc has provided access to the hymnbook referred to as the Bzenec Hymnal according to its place of use (shelf mark K-24087). Most of this codex was written in the second half of the 17th century, perhaps in the 1660s, but the blank pages continued to be filled with other songs even in the 18th century and the manuscript also contains occasional records of contemporary events. The division of the manuscript corresponds to other hymnbooks: it begins with morning hymns, which are followed by hymns for movable feasts of the liturgical year, hymns for Sundays, holidays and other occasions, commune sanctorum, feasts of the saints and the Virgin Mary, and it is concluded by evening hymns.

In 2021, the National Technical Library provided access to eleven early printed books and their binder’s volumes. The oldest of them is shelf mark A 19, which contains two Nuremberg editions from 1538 and 1540 – Albrecht Dürer’s Unterweisung der Messung mit dem Zirkel und Richtscheit and Jean Pèlerin’s Von der Kunst Perspectiva. Other printed books come from the 16th–18th centuries from the Czech lands, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. They mainly concern architecture and seafaring.

In 2021, the Museum of the Brno Region provided access to another two medieval manuscripts from the collections of the library of the Benedictine Abbey in Rajhrad. Codex R 353 contains an incomplete Latin Bible from the first half of the 15th century with several Czech glosses. The collection of German texts R 360 was copied in 1424 and contains Henry Suso’s Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit, a translation of the apocryphal letters about St Jerome made by the bishop of Litomyšl and Olomouc John of Neumarkt, and a translation of the work Vitaspatrum, which mainly includes the lives and teachings of Old Christian hermits.

The Museum of the Jindřichův Hradec Region has provided access to an incunabulum of the Kutná Hora Bible, published by the printer Martin of Tišnov in 1489 (shelf mark S 2746). This incunabulum was printed in two editions. This is a mixed type of the first and second editions (also referred to as the third type), where the missing bifolios of the second edition were added from the remains of the first edition and, after the printed supply was exhausted, the missing leaves were filled in by hand. The printed book was supplemented with coloured initials and, in a few cases, with decorated borders.

In 2021, the Military History Institute Prague provided access to 28 manuscripts, mostly from the 19th century. In terms of content, the texts are quite varied, consisting of personal notes and memoirs (shelf mark IIR B 2233, IIR B 2325, IIR C 16910, IIR C 3749), short encomiastic poems and texts, works on various military operations and campaigns or on military construction, manuals especially on firearms and artillery (including a work on gunpowder by Carl Heinrich Riegel in IIR F 1627), treatises on cavalry exercises compiled by Franz Philipp von Lamberg and Ignaz Ludwig Paul von Lederer, and others. Historiographical works are represented e.g. by a copy of the Latin biography of Albrecht von Wallenstein by Václav Vojtěch Červenka of Věžnov (IIR F 526) and the history of the Austrian Dragoon Regiment Prinz Eugen von Savoyen by Friedrich La Croix de Laval (IIR F 546). Some of the writings are accompanied by illustrations. The pictorial component predominates in IIR B 2326 (depicting the facings and uniforms of Austrian soldiers) and in IIR B 3827 (depicting naval flags).