These are the clamshell boxes that BYU's conservator made for the Vulgate Bible "Bibila Sacra" and the Breviary - which is a book of religious devotions, prayers, things a religoius person should do and repeat.
This was page from the Breviary - this is all written and decorated by hand. It's absolutely stunning. This letter is called an Historiated Letter.
This past week I made an appointment with a curator of the BYU special collections to go see a few manuscripts that were created in the 14th and 15th centuries. I was a little bit nervous too ask if I, a mere mortal, could view such precious items stowed away in the BYU vaults, but I realized "Wait, I am a Masters student in library science - I have some book cred!".
Anyway, I had an assignment for my "History of Books and Libraries" class (which is blowing my mind) to look at a manuscript prior to 1500 and discuss some things regarding it's physical description, history and context, etc.
Max can verify that I almost cried several times. I'm out of control, I know. It was really an amazing thing. I'll post more about it later (because I'm slacking on my homework right now) but here is a link to the wiki I made for my assignment.
The Mr. let me take pictures, which was also amazing. I looked at "Breviary, Toledo 1400", "Polychronicon (1342)", and a Vulgate Bible from the 1300's.
I told Max afterward that I was pretty sure I wanted to go to book conservatory school. We'll see how that goes.
This is the breviary with it's original binding of Moroccan leather. Amazing.
3 comments:
Ooo, I'm so jealous! I've always wanted to see what's hidden in the vaults!
Wow, that is very, very cool. It blows my mind to think about what these books have been through, what a life! Thanks for posting the pics, those books are incredible!
I'm with Marinda... I like to think about where the book has been, who has read from it, What the 6th person who read from it had for dinner, where it has travelled, what sorts of things stressed out the 14th reader of the book.
The pages are beautiful. What hobbies do you suppose the fellow who scribed the pages had? Did he like to jog? Did he have other talents that brought him joy?
Fascinating.
Post a Comment