THE DIGITAL WALTERSMENU
Auto
triangle
Prayer book Lewis E 178
Free Library of Philadelphia
Manuscript Overview
References
Binding Images

Abstract

This manuscript is a small but thick mid-fifteenth-century Latin prayer book with numerous prayers to Christ, Mary, and the saints. Twenty rather primitive miniatures depict events or objects from the Gospels and portraits of saints. It was written in Germany in textualis script, with a few prayers in Low German at the end (fols. 259v-261r) in a different hand. Its flyleaves are fragments from an earlier manuscript on paper of Aristotle's Metaphysics, but the volume was rebound in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

Physical Description

Support: Parchment; Extent: i+264+i; 108 x 76 mm bound to 117 x 80 mm; Foliation: Modern foliation in pencil, upper right recto; four folios foliated as 71 bis, 75 bis, 134 bis, 208 bis; flyleaves, which are fragments from another manuscript are labeled as folios, but they are not included in the collation model

Layout

One column of fifteen lines; prickings visible on some leaves; written area: 70 x 48 mm

Script

Gothic--textualis semi-quadrata

Decoration

Twenty miniatures in gold and colors with trilateral floral borders; seven decorative initials with similar borders; capitals, some more elaborate in gold and colors, others in plain gold or red and blue; rubrication in red

For a full list of Decorations in this manuscript please see the Content and Decorations section by clicking on the [i] button in the top left corner of the image viewer above.

Notes

Front and back flyleaves: Fragments from an earlier, possibly 13th-century, manuscript on paper of Aristotle's Metaphysics (modern foliation 1 (Metaphysics Book 15, Chapters 22 and 24) and 262 (Book 7, Chapters 3 and 4))

Small paper manuscript fragments perhaps used as bookmarks now between fols. 217-218 and 253-254 are from the same Aristotle manuscript as the flyleaves and not included in foliation

These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.

Foldout verso (unfolded)

Foldout recto (unfolded)

Spine

Top edge

Bottom edge

Keywords
Prayer book
15th century
Christian
Germany
Heraldry
Woodcuts
Miniature
Gospels
Free Library of Philadelphia

Place of Origin

Cologne?, Germany

Date

Circa 1450

Binding

Late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century vellum over wooden boards stamped with woodcuts by William Harcourt Hooper; two clasps; bound for William Harcourt Hooper

Language

Latin; Low German, Low Saxon

Provenance

Made for a woman named Katherine whose coat-of-arms is at the foot of the Cross in the miniature of the Descent (bend chequered azure and gules, fol. 183v) and whose name is in the prayer beginning on fol. 104v; William Harcourt Hooper sale, Sotheby's, London, July 15, 1912, no. 185; to Lewine; obtained from Voynich by John Frederick Lewis, Philadelphia, 1916; given by his widow, Anne Baker Lewis, to the Free Library of Philadelphia in 1936

return to search Prayer book Lewis E 178

Place of Origin

Cologne?, Germany

Date

Circa 1450

Language

Latin; Low German, Low Saxon

Provenance

Made for a woman named Katherine whose coat-of-arms is at the foot of the Cross in the miniature of the Descent

Manuscript Overview

Abstract

This manuscript is a small but thick mid-fifteenth-century Latin prayer book with numerous prayers to Christ, Mary, and the saints. Twenty rather primitive miniatures depict events or objects from the Gospels and portraits of saints. It was written in Germany in textualis script, with a few prayers in Low German at the end (fols. 259v-261r) in a different hand. Its flyleaves are fragments from an earlier manuscript on paper of Aristotle's Metaphysics, but the volume was rebound in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

Notes

Front and back flyleaves: Fragments from an earlier, possibly 13th-century, manuscript on paper of Aristotle's Metaphysics (modern foliation 1 (Metaphysics Book 15, Chapters 22 and 24) and 262 (Book 7, Chapters 3 and 4))

Small paper manuscript fragments perhaps used as bookmarks now between fols. 217-218 and 253-254 are from the same Aristotle manuscript as the flyleaves and not included in foliation

Script note

Gothic--textualis semi-quadrata

Decoration Note

Twenty miniatures in gold and colors with trilateral floral borders; seven decorative initials with similar borders; capitals, some more elaborate in gold and colors, others in plain gold or red and blue; rubrication in red

For a full list of Decorations in this manuscript please see the Content and Decorations section by clicking on the [i] button in the top left corner of the image viewer above.

References
Binding Images

These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.

Foldout verso (unfolded)

Foldout recto (unfolded)

Spine

Top edge

Bottom edge

Keywords
Prayer book
15th century
Christian
Germany
Heraldry
Woodcuts
Miniature
Gospels
Free Library of Philadelphia
YOUR COLLECTION

Share this Collection

Clear All

Note: This collection feature is in beta, and not yet fully functional. If you're interested in saving your collection to continue using it in the future, please us the share action.
Share Close

Copy and paste one of these options to share this book elsewhere.