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Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies

Established in 2016, Manuscript Studies is a journal that embraces the full complexity of global manuscript studies in the digital age. The journal was conceived with four main goals in mind. First, to bridge the gaps between material and digital manuscript research; second, to break down the walls which often separate print and digital publication and serve as barriers between academics, professionals in the cultural heritage field, and citizen scholars; third, to serve as a forum for scholarship encompassing many pre-modern manuscripts cultures—not just those of Europe; and finally to showcase methods and techniques of analysis in manuscript studies that can be applied across different subject areas.

The journal appears in print and online twice annually, in May and in November, and is published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Each issue includes peer-reviewed articles, shorter annotations, and book reviews.

For more information and to subscribe, visit Penn Press.

Call for Papers for the Journal
We are seeking submissions for Manuscript Studies on a continuing basis. The journal is open to contributions that rely on both traditional methodologies of manuscript study and those that explore the potential of new ones. Submissions should engage in a larger conversation on manuscript culture and its continued relevance in today’s world and highlight the value of manuscript evidence in understanding our shared cultural and intellectual heritage. Studies that incorporate digital methodologies to further understanding of the physical and conceptual structures of the manuscript book are encouraged. A separate section, entitled Annotations, features research in progress and digital project reports. Book, digital project, and exhibition reviews will also be included.

For more information on submissions, visit Penn Press Manuscript Studies.

Book cover of Making the Renaissance Manuscript, featuring an colorful border of leaves and flowers from a manuscript.

by Nicholas Herman

This exhibition catalogue examines the making of the hand-written and hand-illuminated book during a time of great political, religious, and technological transformation in Europe. Through approximately forty loans from ten regional institutions, as well another forty items from Penn’s own collections, the exhibition examines the full intellectual and artistic depth of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries through a varied selection of extraordinary manuscripts, cuttings, and incunables, many of which have never before been exhibited.

The catalogue opens with a Foreword by Constantina Constantinou and Will Noel and an Introduction, “To Hold the Renaissance in Our Hands,” by curator Nicholas Herman. An essay, “Material Present Collecting Late Medieval and Early Modern Objects in (and around) Philadelphia,” provides a detailed look at the history of the collections represented in the exhibition.

The first section of the exhibition catalogue, “Crafting the Codex,” introduces the reader to the patrons and collectors who were so often the genesis of these books, while conveying the role of humanist scribes and decorators in establishing aesthetic conventions that continue to this day. A middle section, “Showcasing Salvation,” vividly demonstrates the astonishing variety of artistic and codicological solutions devised to illustrate the increasingly complex rituals of private and public devotion. The final and largest section, entitled “Transmitting Knowledge,” showcases the intellectual world of the Renaissance by examining the rebirth of classical scholarship, the rise of a liberal arts curriculum, the growth of the mercantile class, and the exploration of new geographic frontiers.

The exhibition and catalogue showcase the wonderfully diverse collections of Philadelphia institutions, as well as the research discoveries made during the course of the Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis regional cataloguing and digitization project.

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Edited by Dot Porter

Catalog from the 2016 exhibition curated by Dot Porter. This publication explores
the many and varied ways that people have reacted to, and acted upon, manuscripts from the Middle Ages up to today. 108 pages, paperback.

For more information and to order, visit Penn Alumni Library Publications. 

Edited by Emily Steiner and Lynn Ransom

The essays in Taxonomies of Knowledge examine how medieval manuscripts functioned taxonomically, as systems through which knowledge was organized, classified, and used. From the place of the medieval library in manuscript culture to the rise and fall of the twelfth-century commentary tradition, from the employment of maps and diagrams to the complexities of devotional practice, and from the role of poetics in manuscript design to the organization and use of encyclopedias and lexicons, the contributors argue that how information was presented was nearly as important as the information itself. By exploring the relationship between medieval knowledge and its transmission, the volume sheds lights on how the past shapes our understanding of information culture today.

For more information and to order, visit Penn Press.

Edited by Justin Thomas McDaniel and Lynn Ransom

Asian manuscripts, as the contributors to From Mulberry Leaves to Silk Scrolls demonstrate, contain much more than the semantic meaning of the words they reproduce. The ten essays collected here look closely at a wide variety of manuscript traditions with a special focus on both their history and the ways in they can be studied through digital technology to make the cataloguing, comparative analysis, and aesthetic appreciation of them more accessible to scholars and students.

For more information and to order, visit Penn Press.

By Lynn Ransom

This handlist (PDF format) provides quick reference to all of the manuscripts in the Schoenberg Collection. Each item is listed with its LJS number. Items marked with an * appear in the 2013 exhibition A Legacy Inscribed: The Schoenberg Collection of Manuscripts.

An updated version of the checklist, compiled by Amey Hutchins and Nicholas Herman, was released in 2018.

By Crofton Black

A catalog, with color plates and descriptions, of the manuscripts in the Schoenberg collection. Text written by Lawrence J. Schoenberg, edited by Crofton black, with a preface by Christopher De Hamel. 160 pages, paperback.

For more information and to order, visit Transformation Knowledge Manuscripts Collection Schoenberg.

Original exhibition dates: February 10, 2020–May 29, 2020 (closed early due to Covid-19 pandemic), The Goldstein Family Gallery, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Libraries

Drawing on local collections, this exhibition attempts to encompass the broadest possible scope of ideas and material manifestations associated with the European Renaissance. It explores the numerous ways in which the production of hand-written and hand-decorated documents flourished during this period, even as the age of the printing press dawned. The 100 items in the exhibit, drawn from ten local collections, encompass a broad array of ideas and material manifestations associated with the European Renaissance. Curated by Nicholas Herman.

Visit the website.

Online-only exhibition (2020)

This online exhibition “A Liberal Arts Education for the (Middle) Ages: Texts, Translations, and Study,” explores the study of the liberal arts, the texts of Boethius, and the intellectual life of early medieval monasteries through a selection of manuscripts from the collections of the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. Curated by Christine E. Bachman.

Visit the website.

Original exhibition dates: August 23, 2017–December 22, 2017, The Goldstein Family Gallery, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Libraries

An online version of the exhibition from 2017 curated by Benjamin Fleming. This exhibition focuses on Penn Libraries’ manuscripts and printed materials from South, Southeast Asia, and Tibet, which is the largest collection of its kind in North America. The Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain traditions displayed here represent the core of the collection. The exhibit includes examples from Penn’s traditional focus on “classical” Sanskrit materials but also broadens it to include an array of local and vernacular traditions. It also includes objects from the Penn Museum.

Original exhibition dates: August 25, 2016–December 16, 2016, The Goldstein Family Gallery, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Libraries

This exhibition explores the many and varied ways that people have reacted to, and acted upon, manuscripts from the Middle Ages up to today. The theme of “reactions” gives us space to explore the many and varied ways that people have reacted to, and acted upon, manuscripts from the Middle Ages up to today. Reactions exemplified here take many forms. These include the manipulation of physical objects, through marking texts, adding illustrations, disbinding books, or rebinding fragments; and technological approaches to working with manuscripts, in terms of both manuscript conservation and new digital tools such as digital scanning, ink and parchment analysis, and virtual reconstruction. In addition, Reactions tackles how manuscripts have been considered in popular culture over time, in books, games, art, and films.

Original exhibition dates: March 1, 2013–August 16, 2013, The Goldstein Family Gallery, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Libraries

 In 2011, University of Pennsylvania Board members Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg and LawrenceJ. Schoenberg (C'53, WG'56) donated the Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection of Manuscripts to the libraries. The Schoenberg collection brings together many of the great scientific and philosophical traditions of the ancient and medieval worlds. Documenting the extraordinary achievements of scholars, philosophers, and scientists in Europe, Africa and Asia, the collection illuminates the foundations of Penn’s academic traditions.

Each section of the exhibition – Arts and Sciences, Communication, Design, Education, Engineering, Law, the Medical Arts, and Social Policy and Practice – showcases texts, textbooks, documents, and letters that embody the history and mission of the schools that form the University. Often illustrated with complex diagrams and stunning imagery, the manuscripts bring to the present the intellectual legacy of the distant past.

Online-only exhibition (2015, revised 2022)

Likely produced in London in the third quarter of the fifteenth century, the Genealogical Chronicle of the Kings of England, to Edward IV, known as Ms. Roll 1066, is a compilational tour de force of the greatest hits of medieval historians, assimilating the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth, William of Malmesbury, and Ranulf Higden, among others. The roll is an imposing physical presence: a staggering thirty-seven feet and thirteen membranes long; it chronicles the lineage of Yorkist king Edward IV beginning with Adam and Eve and ending with Edward IV (1461). This Chronicle also has a complex illustrative schema containing 174 bust-length portraits in color, five mandorlas with tinted full-length portraits, and eighty roundels containing crowns as well as several classic chronicle type-scenes including the Temptation of Adam, Noah after the Flood, and the city of Jerusalem. The digital project provides a complete transcription of the manuscript, linked to high-resolution images, as well as navigation for membranes and roundels.

Visit the website.

Online-only exhibition (2015)

The Liber Simulationis Litterarum was written by Michael Zopello, and presented to Pope Callixtus III between 1455 and 1458. The book is written in humanist script, in Latin and Italian, with an ornate decoration, including Callixtus’ coat of arms, on the first page. The book contains two systems of code, invented by Zopello himself, to disguise the Papal correspondences. The first code is based on word substitution, while the second uses symbols to stand in for the letters of the alphabet and important terms. Much of the book is taken up by word tables for the code. The aim of this project was to create a transcription and translation of the Liber Simulationis Litterarum, and to publish these digitally. The finished product allows the viewer to see the digital facsimile of the manuscript, the transcription, translation, and a visualization of the encoded message.

Online-only exhibition (2011)

The approximate date of 1100 makes the glossed psalter the oldest codex in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library and places it very early in the development of the glossed Bible, decades before the text of the gloss was standardized. The irregular spacing of the gloss throughout may suggest that the scribe was compiling it himself, rather than copying it from another manuscript, as would later become common practice. Another noteworthy characteristic is the scribe’s method of dealing with psalm lines longer than the width of the main text column: rather than continuing onto a second line, he inserts the remainder of the line at the end of a shorter previous line, marking the beginning of the insertion with a small pennant-shaped symbol. The origin of this technique, the sources of the gloss, and the degree to which this early gloss corresponds to the later glossa ordinaria are all questions open to original research. The digital project includes a full facsimile of the manuscript, and an index to the psalms.

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