This article analyses six Northitalian Dominican liturgical codices with musical notation held by the Archbishop Library of the Kroměříž Castle which were bought in Vienna by Theodor Kohn, the archbishop of Olomouc, in 1895. Three of them are antiphonaries, three psalteries which bring evidence of the musical state of liturgy in the Lombardian Dominican Province from the 14th century´s first decennies until the 18th century. Four of them (nrs. 1–4) are valuable documents of the Northitalian illumination of the 14th – 17th centuries of Bononian and Ferrara´s circuits.
This article deals with the ex-Capuchin, chaplain and later parson at the Brno parish church of St James, P. Maurus Simonis (*1740-†1815) and his catalogue of the manuscript library which came into being in the Middle Ages, was permanently maintained at the church and only in 1931 did it become a part of the Brno City Archives. The manuscripts – 125 codices – serve as valuable evidence of book culture in medieval Brno. The definitive catalogue was compiled in 1805, while its first "critical" version, which does not include all manuscripts, dates from 1802. On the evidence of numerous specimens, our paper analyses the way of describing of external features – watermarks, writing, decoration and binding – as well as the content of individual codices, and it compares the work of P. Simonis with the previously unofficial conclusions of the modern catalogue which is currently at the printers.
This article focuses upon the expansion of Italianism into Central Europe in the 14th century in lluminated manuscripts. It deals with selected manscripts of what are known as the Nekcsei Bible, the Anjou Legendary and the Paris fragment of the Latin translation of the Dalimil Chronicle. These illuminated manuscripts are similar in that they may all have been imported to Central Europe from Italy (Bologna) and the possibility arises that their production for the Central European region could somehow have been coordinated. Whereas in the case of the Hungarian orders the clients most probably referred to a single illuminators´ workshop. In the case of the Paris fragment there is only an indirect association with this workshop.
The authors treat a manuscript missal unknown to this day by experts, which is housed at the Scientific Library in Olomouc (M III 106). After having analysed the manuscript in the line of codicology (Š. Kohout), history of arts (J. Hrbačova), and musicology (S. Červenka), they conclude that this codex was intended for the needs of the Benedictine Convent in Opatovice nad Labem. It was created shortly after the year 1354, its illuminations are the work of a Prague workshop associated with the court of King Charles IV, which participated in the production of a series of exclusive manuscripts, e. g. Liber viaticus of the Bishop Johannes Noviforensis. The Viaticus and the missal of Opatovice are on the same line in terms of decoration. The missal was probably ordered by the then Benedictine Abbot Neplach who maintained frequent official contacts with the Bishop occupying the office of chancellor to Charles IV.