Welcome Additions

Title

Welcome Additions

Description

This exhibition highlights fifty rare books, manuscripts, broadsides, prints, and letters that were acquired by Bridwell Library Special Collections between 2008 and 2014.

Source

Bridwell Library Special Collections

Publisher

SMU Libraries

Date

Originally exhibited September 9 – December 12, 2014

Collection Items

BRMS 122
This large folding triptych is a cartagloria, an illuminated manuscript bearing essential Latin texts for the Mass ceremony. The central miniature of the triptych replicates Leonardo da Vinci's fresco of the Last Supper at the Dominican Convent of…

07066
First missal printed for Dominican Use and is an early example of Venetian music publishing. This copy of the Dominican Missal was owned by the Dominicans of Frankfurt am Main in Germany.

BRB0228
This richly illustrated Pontificale, a liturgical book that contains services to be conducted by Catholic bishops, was published by Luca Antonio de Giunta (1457–1538), the son of a Florentine printer.

BRMS 114
Written mainly in Latin, but with Spanish rubrics (headings) in red ink, this manuscript Formulario contains the prayers and oaths used in the ceremony in which female novices made their profession as nuns and received the monastic vestments that…

BRB1086
This Swedish Lutheran hymnal offers important evidence of the gradual transition to worship in the vernacular. In this hymnal, plainchants in Latin and Swedish are provided for use by both the clergy and the laity.

BRB0930
This rare hymnal in Armenian was compiled by Grigor Gapasak'alean, a priest and musicologist at Constantinople who also wrote a treatise on traditional Armenian musical notation. Printed on paper with a light blue tint, this hymnal is decorated with…

BRB1454
"Pocket" edition of the book of Psalms. They were published by Daniel Bomberg (d. 1549), a Christian who specialized in the printing of Hebrew books with the assistance of Baruch Adelkind, an orthodox Jew.

BRB1494
The first Bible publisehd by a woman, Yolanda Bonhomme (ca. 1490–1557), the widow of Thielman Kerver. This Bible features four woodcuts inherited from Kerver's stock.

BRB1015
In this picture Bible by Johann Buno, a Lutheran school teacher in Leburg, the fifty-four engravings illustrate virtually every chapter of the scriptures. Within each engraving, the individual pictorial elements represent particular chapters, while…

BRB1447/A-B
These Gospels of Matthew and John were the first editions of Christian scripture to be published in literary Mongolian. These copies of the Gospels of Matthew and John were bound together by the publisher, the Russian Bible Society, the insignia of…

BRB1413
As a child William Moon contracted scarlet fever, which eventually caused him to lose his sight. Dissatisfied with early reading systems produced for the blind, which were difficult to comprehend through touch, Moon devised a simplified alphabetical…

BRMS 113
In the Bulla aurea ("Golden Bull") of 1479, Pope Sixtus IV granted indulgences to all who made donations to the Franciscan Order and to the Poor Clares, all visitors to Franciscan churches, and all who contributed money or work to the maintenance of…

BRMS 137
Comprised primarily of Latin prayers to the Virgin Mary, this Italian manuscript ends with a transcription of an indulgence that was promulgated by Pope Leo X on February 18, 1516. This indulgence granted remission of sins to those who recited the…

BRMS 118
Written in German for an unidentified Catholic woman in 1774, this illuminated prayer book begins with a morning prayer to the Trinity. This is followed by a series of prayers for Mass, Confession, and Communion, and devotions to the Trinity, the…

BRMS 117
The title of this German prayer manuscript, intended for the Catholic laity, translates loosely as "the spiritual alarm clock." There are prayers accompanied by illuminations.

07044
Three Christian tracts issued together as a single publication by Ulrich Zel (fl. 1465–1503). The first is a sermon on the Lord's Prayer, the second title is on Christian symbolism, and the last is about drunkenness. They were all attributed falsely…

07062
Peter of Blois' letters to numerous heads of church and state were collected and printed for the first time by the Brethren of the Common Life, whose press at the Nazareth Cloister in Brussels was the first press established in that city. Rubricated…

07061
This is the first edition of a collection of eleven sermons composed by St. Bernardino of Siena in praise of the Virgin Mary. An immensely popular preacher and Franciscan missionary, St. Bernardino came to be regarded as the "Apostle of Italy." The…

07060
This publication contains three short theological treatises in Dutch: Spiegel der volcomenheit ("Mirror of Perfection"), Devotio moderna, and two works on the Holy Sacrament by Simon van Venlo.

07064
This Sammelband of four fifteenth-century publications is preserved in its original monastic binding. The selection of books bound together here is entirely logical: four tracts by a single author, Johannes Trithemusm published and sold in the same…

07071/A-C
Three Latin dictionaries comprise this fifteenth-century Sammelband, still preserved in its original binding. The first of the three dictionaries, by Johannes Melber of Heidelberg, was intended for unschooled preachers and therefore includes…

07073/A-E
The texts bound together here include works by (or attributed to) three Doctors of the Church, two from the Western tradition (St. Isidore of Seville and St. Augustine) and one from the Eastern Church (St. John Chrysostom). As a group these texts…

07067
First edition of the Imitatio Christi in German and the first printing of the text in any vernacular language.

07069
One of four copies of this French translation of the Imitatio Christi. This edition rearranges the order of the four individual books of the Imitatio Christi and omits the final book, on the Eucharist, which was intended mainly for the clergy.

BRB1418
This Spanish translation of the Imitatio Christi bears the title Contemptus mundi ("contempt for the world"). Many early editions of the Imitiatio Christi, such as this one, were attributed to Jean Gerson (1363–1429).
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