The very exciting digitisation process at the Vatican Library is going ahead at full speed, and the Library has made available online two manuscripts from the famous Bibliotheca Corviniana, the library of King Matthias Corvinus (1458-1490). The manuscripts are the following:
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms. Urb. lat. 110
The Missal of Matthias Corvinus, 1488-1489
The manuscript was made for King Matthias in the Buda workshop. The coat of arms of Matthias and his wife Beatrice of Aragon can be found on several pages.
It is a richly illustrated volume, with stylistic connections to Lombardy.
See also the catalogue page with bibliographic references.
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
Missale fratrum minorum secundum consuetudinem Romanae curiae
This is a Franciscan Missal commissioned by King Matthias, and given to a Franciscan friar named Thomas (so technically, this is not a Corvinian manuscript, as it was not part of the Biblioteca Corviniana). The book was illuminated by an Austrian painter active in Vienna.
With the two books above, the number of Corvinian manuscripts online now exceeds 100. On this occassion, I decided to move my checklist of digitised manuscripts over to this blog - you can reach it any time from the menu above. The version on my website is now obsolete - links have been checked and fixed on the version here in the blog. I also added links to two manuscripts digitised at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna.
Matthias Corvinus must have been rather amazing, whatever people thought about his politico/military exploits. His cultural learning and patronage seemed to have shaped by the Italian Renaissance which always sounded good to me :)
ReplyDeleteThe manuscripts are so rich, the decoration looks like jewels.
The history of manuscript writing was unclear to me.But reading this i got a lot of info about this.This was really a pretty to have this blog.
ReplyDeletePlease keep it up!.Great tips, I would like to join your blog anyway.Waiting for some more review. Thank you. net worth
ReplyDeleteSo, I was in the mid of law essay writing when I found about the corvinian manuscripts because my sister next to me was reading an article about it, and I became so curious and here I am finding the most amazing yet the most brutal manuscripts. Looking back at civilization really makes me question that how we have managed to come this far. We literally evolved in the best way possible or have we?
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