OSU Libraries Manuscript Collection: Home
Viewing the Manuscripts
Classes and individuals may view the manuscripts by advanced appointment in the Paul Miller Reading Room at the Edmon Low Library. Please contact jj.compton@okstate.edu or Benjamin.Hedges@okstate.edu.
Additional resources, event notices, and exhibit details will be posted to this page as information is available.
Available in the Collection
ANONYMOUS, Excerpts from Midrash Esther Rabbah Chapters 1-5
In Hebrew, manuscript on paper
Ottoman Empire, sixteenth century
This is an attractive manuscript, copied in a beautiful Sephardic script, that contains commentaries on the first five chapters of the book of Esther, the biblical book telling the story of the heroic Queen Esther, one of the seven female prophets of Israel. It contains an extensive prayer of Esther (ff. 20v-22) in the middle of the Midrashic commentary to ch. 5:1. This prayer may be unique and should be studied further with comparison to other extant manuscripts. The text differs from the standard printed editions with numerous spelling variants, and textual variants.
Calendar from a Book of Hours
In Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment
France (likely Paris), c. 1400-1420
Calendars from medieval manuscripts offer an unparalleled glimpse into day-to-day life in the Middle Ages. Without today’s modern devices, they were how people saw what day it was and why it was important: the special feast days throughout the year so important to daily life. Medieval calendars also include tools for figuring out the days of the week, Easter, means of following the Kalends, Ides, and Nones of Roman calendars, ways of finding out when the moon rises and sets, and clues to dark or Egyptian days each month. They are rich sources for anyone who wants to learn about and vicariously experience the medieval world.
Hymnal (Cistercian use?)
In Latin, manuscript on parchment and paper with musical notation
Southern Netherlands (Eastern Flanders), c. 1475-1500, 1564
An attractive liturgical manuscript with musical notation almost certainly made by and for nuns, with a signed and dated addition (1564) by a female scribe or owner. Its beautiful roll-stamped pigskin binding is characteristic of the style, techniques, and iconography of the mid sixteenth-century at the border region of modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. Based on its openwork repairs completed at the parchment-making stage, it was probably made at a convent where women were involved in the entire bookmaking process.
Prayer Book
In Dutch and Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment
Southern Netherlands (Flanders), c. 1500
This prayer book contains seventeen elaborate miniatures with either full or three-quarter borders, created by an anonymous illuminator in the entourage of the Master of Nicholas von Firmian. It is instructive to compare the style of these illuminations with the miniature in the prayer book of Isabel de Zuñiga y Pimentel. This volume was created c. 1500, but there were some further prayers added to blank leaves in the 16th and 17th centuries. The 19th-century binding features the Tree of Jesse on the cover.
Prayer Book of Isabel de Zúñiga y Pimentel
In Spanish, illuminated manuscript on parchment
Spain, Castile, c. 1515-1520 (or perhaps Italy?)
One miniature by an anonymous artist
Manuscripts made on commission for the female nobility are significant witnesses to our understanding women and their books – ownership and readership – in medieval and Renaissance Europe. This attractive illuminated manuscript was made for Isabel de Zuñiga y Pimentel, duchess of Alba, from one of the most prominent families of the Castilian nobility. Prayer Books in Spanish (Old Castilian) are very uncommon; the exclusively Spanish contents of this manuscript, including Psalms and biblical texts, make this manuscript very rare. Beautifully illuminated throughout, it is adorned with an opening miniature by a talented artist inspired by Leonardo da Vinci.