Medieval Manuscripts from the National Museum Library

In 2022, the Ethnographic Museum and Gallery in Česká Lípa digitised six manuscripts from the period between the late 17th and the early 19th century from its collections. Two volumes contain personal records. These include an account of a trip to Rome undertaken in 1750–1751 by Count Franz Karl Rudolf von Swéerts-Sporck, his wife Anna Kateřina and son Jan Kristián (the account was compiled by their housekeeper and servant Franz Girtler and is recorded in RK 34) and a diary of the surgeon and obstetrician Ignatz Loringer from the turn of the 19th century (RK 78). Liturgical manuscripts are represented by a breviary with the feasts of Bohemian saints (RK 6) and a German book of hours (RK 29). The codex RK 30 contains a handwritten copy of Pantheon Augustinianum and RK 61 is a German collection of recipes, proverbs and various other texts.

The Music Department of the National Library of the Czech Republic provided access to 29 more shelf marks from its collections in 2022. Most of them come from the collection of the Capuchin monk Barnabas Weiss and were copied between the end of the 18th century and the end of the 19th century; in addition to collective volumes by various composers, they include copies of works by Michael and Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and František Xaver Brixi. Several other manuscripts contain copies of concertos for piano and orchestra by Jan Nepomuk Kaňka. The latest digitised document is the autograph score of Kantáta o posledních věcech člověka [Cantata of the Last Things of Man] by Ladislav Vycpálek (59 R 521). An item different in character from the rest is a manuscript thematic catalogue of the library of František Hnilička, director of the choir in Ústí nad Orlicí, made in the second quarter of the 19th century (59 Rm 21).

In 2022, the Museum of Bohemian Paradise in Turnov digitised a large collection of confectionery recipes and instructions compiled by Ladislav Jína after 1963 (shelf mark R 228). The text is based on earlier sources and is supplemented with drawings and indices.

The Regional Museum and Gallery in Most has provided access to a medieval collection of Austrian origin, parts of which were copied in 1419 and 1420, with Bruck an der Mur in Styria listed as the place of completion for one of them. The authors of the various theological texts copied were Honorius Augustodunensis, Pope Gregory I, Isidore of Seville, Augustine of Ancona and Richard of Saint Victor.

In 2022, the Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians at Strahov – the Strahov Library provided access to another 29 modern manuscripts placed under the shelf marks DA IV and DA V. The oldest of these is a set of sermons by the Strahov abbot and Doksany provost Ondřej Werner from the second half of the 16th century in the codex DA IV. In terms of content, the digitised manuscripts contain two large groups of texts. The first is formed by meditative writings, collections of prayers and other works related to personal piety (shelf mark DA IV), including, for example, texts by the Jesuit Mikołaj Łęczycki / Nicolaus Lancicius (DA IV 56 and DA IV 60). The manuscript DA IV 54 is supplemented by a number of pasted or inserted engravings. The second extensive group consists of handwritten copies of lectures, both from the Prague Archbishop’s Seminary and from the university of Prague (most of the digitised manuscripts under the shelf mark DA V); nevertheless, some copies also come from studies abroad (DA V 6). The scribes of the individual study codices included i.a. the later abbots of the Strahov monastery Vincenc Makarius Frank and František Michael Daller.

The Regional Museum in Mikulov digitised seven manuscripts in 2022. The earliest of them comes from the turn of the 15th century and contains sermons and theological texts (MIK 6389). Two medieval codices were written approximately in the 1470s. The first of them has Walter Burley’s incomplete commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (MIK 6378), whereas the second includes the first part of the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas and other, mainly legal texts (MIK 6372). Modern manuscripts comprise library catalogues for Mikulov collections, incomplete disputations (questiones) for Aristotle’s books on natural philosophy, and Spanish-language discussions about human nature written by Joachim de Vincis for Maximilian, Prince of Dietrichstein.

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.