An informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators.
Coffee with a Codex is open to the public. Everyone is welcome to attend. Note that the Zoom links for Coffee With a Codex are reusable - register once and attend every Thursday at 12pm EDT / 5pm BST.
Join the Coffee with a Codex mailing list for weekly updates.
Watch recordings of previous Coffee With A Codex events on YouTube.
In 1245, Gautier of Metz composed a poetic summary of all knowledge on the creation of the world and man, geography, and astronomy, and Penn has two copies! On September 5, Curator Dot Porter will bring out LJS 264, written in France around 1400, and LJS 55, written in France in the 1290s.
Head of the Otto E. Albrecht Music Library & Eugene Ormandy Music & Media Center Liza Vick will bring out a poetry chapbook by conductor James DePreist, paired with a handwritten letter from DePreist to his aunt, contralto Marian Anderson.
Two of the most popular, frequently copied and translated astronomical texts of the Middle Ages were Joannes de Sacro Bosco's Sphaera mundi and Georg von Peurbach's Theoricae novae planetarum. On September 19, Curator Dot Porter will bring out LJS 42, a 16th century commentary on a Hebrew translation of Sphaera mundi, followed by a commentary on a Hebrew translation of Theoricae novae planetarum.
More information tbd, but on September 26 Louis Meiselman, Judaica Special Collections Cataloging Librarian, will present on a new acquisition: a ritual dagger.
On October 3, Curator Dot Porter will bring out LJS 500, a 15th century alchemical and medical compendium containing recipes and texts from a variety of sources, many of which appear with traditional (now suspect) attributions in other manuscripts, with an alphabetical index to recipes at the beginning of the volume.
On October 10, Schoenberg Curator of Manuscripts Nick Herman will bring out Ms. Codex 2030, a book of hours on parchment with incomplete miniatures, written and illuminated in France, possibly Paris, circa 1500.
On October 17, Curator Dot Porter will bring out Ms. Codex 722, a 14th century French dictionary of grammatical forms and definitions of theological, religious, and secular terms, arranged alphabetically; it includes Latinized Hebrew words and gives equivalents in Old French in various instances.
