Recently, the first purchase from the Paul Oskar Kristeller fund at the libraries was made by the Rare Book and Manuscripts Library to acquire a mid-sixteenth century lectionary, on paper, copied for and probably by the Franciscan nuns of S. Lorenzo in Panisperna in Rome.

The manuscript will be on prominent display from April 4th - June 28th in the exhibit, "Celebrating the Liturgy's Books: Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New York City," a city-wide venture with exhibits at Barnard, Columbia, Fordham, the Hispanic Society, the Morgan Library and New York Public Library, in the occasion of the meeting of the Medieval Academy of America.

A virtual exhibition with digital images from exhibiting institutions and related music clips of choral music can be accessed on the web at:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/rare/liturgmss/index.html

Also featured will be materials from the Plimpton collection of medieval manuscripts at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

The 16th century lectionary purchased with Kristeller funds most interestingly, has 56 initials cut out from earlier manuscripts and pasted in to an appropriate letter slot in this much later book. The initials come from a number of sources, including two from the twelfth century, several with historiation, and a woodcut or two.

Consuelo W. Dutschke, Curator, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts said, "The peculiar manufacture of the manuscript must tie in with the notion as to what constituted a 'proper' lectionary in the minds of those who put it together, while at the same time it tells us which manuscripts the nuns felt were cannibalizable."

The Rare Book and Manuscript Library, located on the 6th floor of the Columbia University Butler Library, at 535 West 114th Street, New York, is home to over 600,000 rare books, 28 million manuscripts, 75,000 photographs, and 40,000 prints and watercolors. In addition to printed and manuscript resources, the library contains cuneiform tablets, papyri, maps, works of art, posters, sound recordings and other interesting objects and materials. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/rbml/

For more information:

Consuelo W. Dutschke
Curator, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts
Rare Book and Manuscript Library
(212) 854-4139