Catalogues of manuscripts for an institution
More general subjects:
Filter :
Content type
Publication Date
Language
Publisher
Book Series
Authors
La Bibbia a Montecassino / The Bible at Montecassino
For manuscript historians the Bible in the form of a codex represents a handcrafted object of the utmost importance: it was the sacred text par excellence and served as a vital reference point in the lives of medieval monks. In addition it functioned as an indispensable tool for daily liturgical celebration and as a study text and individual reading book for the purpose of moral edification. The manuscript collection of the Montecassino Abbey presents an exemplary case study both for the total number of biblical manuscripts it preserves (just under a hundred) and for the diversity of types (complete ‘monolithic’ Bibles Old and/ or New Testament sequences of varying size and physiognomy and individual glossed books with commentary beside the text) as well as for the presence of a significant group of codices in Beneventan minuscule produced for internal use within the same Abbey or in its dependencies in a period centered around the eleventh century (with sporadic extensions into the twelfth and thirteenth). The present catalogue aims to deepen our current knowledge of the presence transmission and reception of the Bible in one of the most important and emblematic medieval Benedictine monasteries.
The Library of the Abbey of La Trappe
A Study of its History from the Twelfth Century to the French Revolution, with an Annotated Edition of the 1752 Catalogue
This volume presents a study of the library of the Cistercian abbey of La Trappe in Normandy from the twelfth century to the French Revolution together with an annotated edition of the library catalogue of 1752. The abbey was founded as a Savigniac house became Cistercian in 1147 and is inseparably linked with the name of Armand-Jean de Rancé the great monastic reformer and founder of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance. When he became abbot of La Trappe in 1664 he brought with him many of his own books and had a new library built to house the monastic collection. Rancé died in 1700. Other books were then added over time until in 1752 the abbey possessed about 4300 volumes. The detailed catalogue is divided into two parts. The first part lists the books by subject beginning as might be expected with bibles; the second part lists the same books by author. The information presented in this study of the abbey and its library is of first importance not only for understanding the nature and development of Cistercian intellectual and spiritual life but also for the history of early modern libraries and the development of library cataloguing.