Often we are asked where a piece we carried is now. This question is all the more interesting when these documents reach institutions.
Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript library has acquired from The Raab Collection a rare manuscript religious calendar, likely a 15th century work from the Veneto region, possibly Venice. The unpublished manuscript is noted for the saints and churches mentioned, whose names rarely appear in such calendars, but whose appearance helps locate the source of the manuscript. Among these:
- 20 July – added in the manuscript: Sancti Lucani episcopi et confessoris cuius corpus est in ecclesia cathdrali bellunense (Feast of St. Lucan, bishop and confessor, whose body is in the cathedral church of Belluno)
- 2 Aug – added in the manuscript: Sancti Maximi episcopi et confessoris cuius corpus iacet in ecclesia sancte Iustine de padua (Feast of St. Maximus, bishop and confessor, whose body lies in the church of St. Justina in Padua)
And in the hand of the original scribe:
- 21 Nov – Sanctorum martyrum Tabre et tabrate et sancti theonisti Feast of Sts. Tabra, Tabrata and Theonistus, three saints who are known only as localized to an altar in the church of San Lorenzo in Venice)
This document will join treasures in the Medieval and Renaissance Collections at the University, which are available online on the multi-institutional website, Digital Scriptorium, where you can search on: book of hours (there are lots of them!), a charter of Urraca, Queen of Leon and Castile (early 12th century!), a huge manuscript of Bartholomaeus anglicus in English translation, and so much more! The website currently houses some 8000 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts belonging to some forty American libraries, and it continues to grow.
