Medieval Manuscripts from the National Library of the Czech Republic

The Royal Collegiate Chapter of Saints Peter and Paul has provided access to an important source on the history of the reconstruction and completion of the Vyšehrad Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul at the turn of the 20th century. The manuscript Ms 001/2024 contains records of income and expenditure related to the reconstruction, but it also provides information on the work carried out and its progress, as well as the associated festivities.

In 2024, the Olomouc Research Library digitised the manuscript M I 11, which dates to the first half of the 15th century. It contains the ascetic-mystical treatise Stimulus amoris , whose text is known from several redactions and was translated into vernacular languages as well.The earliest German translation comes from the 14th century, and the Olomouc manuscript is one of only three known complete copies. Its binding, decorated with blind stamping and metal ornaments, is also medieval; the front lifted paste down is formed by a leaf with a pen-and-ink drawing of the Resurrection of Christ.

In 2024, the Museum of the Jindřichův Hradec Region provided access to a thematically homogeneous collection of seven Czech- and German-language prayer books from the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. The German-language codices are handwritten copies of widely printed collections compiled by the Capuchin priest Martin of Cochem. The manuscripts are partly decorated with coloured drawings with floral or architectural motifs; some of them also have small engravings attached.

The books digitized during 2024 from the Slavonic Library date from the 17th and 18th centuries. They originated from regions in present-day Dalmatia, Eastern Europe and Northern Russia. The oldest volume digitized in 2024 was a Cyrillic liturgical book for Lent (Tripesnec alternatively Triodion or Triod, 1608) and is of East European origin (shelf mark T 9774). The marginalia in this book reveal that it was originally located in Subcarpathia, specifically in the village of Velykyi Bereznyi (Ukraine). The following is a copy of the religious poem Mandaljena pokornica (The Penitent Magdalene, 1714) by Ivan Bunić-Vučić (1591–1658), a Croatian Baroque politician and poet (shelf mark T 4161). The 18th century is represented by a story about King Apollonius of Tyre (Povest’ ob Apollonii, korole Tirskom). This is from the A. D. Grigorev’s collection of North Russian manuscripts (shelf mark A 10).

Three modern manuscripts from the collections of the Regional Museum in Teplice were digitised in 2024. The oldest of them (shelf mark MS 21) contains diplomatic reports of the Venetian envoy to Mantua from part of 1629. The manuscript R 2022/36 records church ceremonies for various occasions and was written in the first quarter of the 18th century for Benedict Simon Littwerig, the abbot of the Osek monastery, the vicar general of Bohemian Cistercian monasteries and visitor. The codex MS 29 contains the impressions of Franz Wenzel Tobisch of his journey from Naples to Teplice, which he undertook in 1819–1820 as a tutor to Edmund of Clary-Aldringen.

Thirty-seven documents from the Music Department of the National Library of the Czech Republic were digitised in 2024. Most of them come from the collection of the Strachota family of cantors from Panenský Týnec, a smaller part from a similar collection of the Hübner family from Dlouhý Most. The handwritten copies mostly come from the last quarter of the 18th century and the first third of the 19th century. The composers include František Xaver Brixi, Jan Křtitel Vaňhal, Vinzenz Maschek, Jiří Ignác Linek and Václav Pichl. In addition to scores, the digitised documents also comprise theoretical manuals and textbooks.

The very first digitised manuscript from the Hussite Museum in Tábor is a volume from the first half of the 15th century (shelf mark V-M 017), mainly containing parts of various collections of sermons of Jacob of Mies (Jacobellus de Misa). Another short text, written at the beginning of the codex, is associated with the elected bishop of the Taborites, Mikuláš (Biskupec) of Pelhřimov, whereas the treatise De quadruplici sensu sacrae scripturae is sometimes attributed to John Hus.

The Town Museum and Gallery Polička has provided access to an extensive collection of handwritten copies of Protestant printed books accompanied by church songs. The individual works were copied between 1814 and 1817. Most of them are copies of the writings and sermons of the Protestant pastor Havel Phaëthon Žalanský, printed in the 1610s.

In 2024, the National Museum Library provided access to four medieval manuscripts of Czech origin. Illuminated codices are represented by two missals of the Prague diocese, XVI B 12 from around 1330 and XIV A 1 from the beginning of the 15th century. The manuscript XVII E 2 from the turn of the 15th century contains the travelogue of Odoric of Pordenone and the treatise of Guillaume (William) Durand Rationale divinorum officiorum, whereas XVIII A 40 from 1398 includes Postilla studencium sancte universitatis Pragensis, the Latin version of the Postil of the Students of the Prague University by Conrad Waldhauser.

The digitisation of the Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians at Strahov – the Strahov Library continued with a group of 18 modern manuscripts from the DB II shelf-mark section. Most of these volumes are of Czech origin and come from the period between the first half of the 16th century and the beginning of the 19th century. In terms of content, most of them are legal texts and collections (DB II 9, DB II 10, DB II 11, DB II 13, DB II 15, DB II 16), including a Czech translation of the Institutiones of Emperor Justinian, copied in 1562 (DB II 14). An important work of the Czech literature of the early 17th century is Město duchovní jménem Rozkoš duše [The Spiritual City Called the Delight of the Soul] by Václav Porcius Vodňanský (DB II 4). Moreover, the digitised manuscripts comprise notes from the university of Prague, specifically from the lectures of Bernard Bolzano (DB II 19, DB II 20), further prayer books (DB II 22, DB II 23) and Czech sermons (DB II 5, DB II 7).