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Egerton MS 1900
- Record Id:
- 032-001982815
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001982815
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000053.0x00010f
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100132823932.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Egerton MS 1900
- Title:
-
German translation of Niccolò da Poggibonsi’s Libro d’Oltramare; itinerary of a trip from Europe to the Holy Land and back; instructions for pilgrims to Jerusalem.
- Scope & Content:
-
The main text of this manuscript recounts a first-person account of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Mount Sinai. Because of the contemporary note on one of the original flyleaves (f. 156r, copied in 17th century on f. 1v) stating that Gabriel Muffel (d. 1498), third son of the Nuremburg patrician Nicholas Muffel (b. c. 1409-1410, d. 1469), went on such a trip to the Holy Land in 1465, it was long assumed that Gabriel Muffel was also the author of the text, though it is not written in his hand. However, it is actually a German translation of the Libro d’Oltramare (Book of Outremer), originally written in Italian by the Franciscan friar Niccolò da Poggibonsi (fl. 1345-1350) following his voyage to the Holy Land in the years 1345–50 (see Cossar, The German Translation of Niccolò da Poggibonsi’s ’Libro d’oltramare’).
It is the only known illustrated manuscript of the German translation to survive, but it is unlikely to be the original text of the translation. There are several references in the text that suggest a close knowledge of the city of Passau, but it was most likely copied in Nuremburg from a Bavarian exemplar (see Cossar, German Translation, pp. i, 4). However, this manuscript is younger than at least two of the four extant illustrated manuscript copies of the original Italian text, all made in Italy (see Moore, ‘The Disappearance of an Author’, pp. 367-368), so it is possible that the illustrations were based on one or more of the illustrated Italian copies of the Libro d’Oltramare.
ff. 2r-151r: Anonymous, translation of Niccolò da Poggibonsi’s Libro d’Oltramare into German.
ff. 151v-153v: An itinerary, giving the distances of a journey from Prague to the Holy Lands (via London and Edinburgh), and back via Constantinople and Scandinavia.
ff. 154r-v: A list of instructions for prospective pilgrims to the Holy Land, with the heading: ‘Nota ditz Regimen auf dieser Walfart’.
ff. 155r-v: List of the 72 languages that God imposed on the people of the Tower of Babel, with the header: ‘Das sein dije LXXII sporch vnd zungen die der almechtig got gabe vnd verhennget vber die menschen die den hohen turn pauent in Babilonia’.
[f. 83r is blank].
Decoration:
148 miniatures, 17 of which are full-page, of tinted drawings in multiple colours illustrating the narrative of the pilgrimage journey. The majority of the miniatures are of architecture, holy sites or shrines encountered during the journey, but there are also several that depict local animals and trees. Notable examples include: a chapel at the foot of Monte Calvario (f. 18v); ‘David’s Palace’, i.e. the Tower of David, in Jerusalem (f. 29v); the place in the Valley of Josaphat where Judas hung himself (f. 40v); the Golden Gate, Jerusalem (f. 51r); St John in the stone (f. 65v); view of Tiberias from the Sea of Galilee (f. 78r); a giraffe (f. 110v); four Egyptian pyramids (described as ‘kornkasten’, or granaries, of the Pharaohs, f. 116v); the burning bush (f. 126v); Mt. Saint Catherine, where the incorrupt body of St Catherine of Alexandria was found (f. 132v); a date-palm (f. 139v). Small initials in plain red throughout.
The subjects of the full-page miniatures are:
f. 4r: The city of Venice.
f. 7v: The ancient Judean cities of Ramah and Modi'in.
f. 9v: The city of Jerusalem.
f. 12v: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
f. 20v: Chapel of Saint Helena, Jerusalem.
f. 26r: The bell tower of the Church of Jerusalem.
f. 30v: The place where St James the Great was beheaded, i.e. the Chapel of St. James the Great.
f. 52r: Solomon’s temple, Temple Mount.
f. 52v: Dome of the Rock, Temple Mount.
f. 54r: 'The Pool of the Sheep', i.e. the Pool of Bethesda.
f. 99v: The city of ’Barruthi’ [Beirut].
f. 101v: The port of ’Tenesi’ [Tanis].
f. 103r: The port of Alexandria.
f. 106r: The cities of Cairo and Babylon.
f. 110r: Elephant with a tower full of soldiers on its back.
f. 130v: Buldings on the summit of Mount Sinai.
f. 145r: The port of ‘Parentza’ [modern-day Poreč, Croatia?].
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Egerton Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-001982815", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Egerton MS 1900: German translation of Niccolò da Poggibonsi’s Libro d’Oltramare; itinerary of a trip from Europe to the Holy Land and back;…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001982815
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-001982815
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- A paper codex
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100132823932.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- German
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1460
- End Date:
- 1470
- Date Range:
- c 1465
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper, and 2 parchment leaves (f. 1 and f. 156).
Watermark: an ox-head, cf. Piccard’s Abteilung XI, Typ 212 (G. Piccard, Die Ochsenkopf-Wasserzeichen, Die Wasserzeichenkartei Piccard im Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, 2, 3 vols (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1966), I: p. 173, III: p. 542).
Dimensions: 215 x 155 mm (written area: 150 x 100 mm).
Foliation: ff. 156 (+ 4 modern unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end); f. 1 and f. 156 are contemporary parchment flyleaves.
Script: Gothic cursive
Binding: British Museum in-house: brown gold-tooled leather with Egerton’s bookplate gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers; marbled endpapers; the spine inscribed in gold at the British Museum: ‘REISE NACH JERUSALEM VON G. MUFFEL, 1465.’.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: ?Nuremberg, Southern Germany
Provenance:
Gabriel Muffel (d. 1498), Patrician of Nuremburg: likely that it was originally made for him, based on the following: a contemporary note mentioning him (f. 156r): ‘Anno 1465 die octavo decembris iuit ad terram sanctam Gabriel Muffel filius tertius Nicolai Muffell’; the dialect of German used (see Cossar, German Translation, pp. 1, 4), and the watermark (an ox-head, Piccard’s Abteilung XI Typ 212) demonstrates that the paper was made in Northern Italy but used in Nuremberg in the mid-15th century (see G. Piccard, Die Ochsenkopf-Wasserzeichen, Die Wasserzeichenkartei Piccard im Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, 2, 3 vols (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1966), I: p. 173, III: p. 542).
Unidentified owner (Muffel family?), 17th century: inscribed with a copy and short explanation of the contemporary note on f. 156r, in a 17th-century hand (f. 1v): ‘Anno 1465 die octavo decembris iuit ad terram sanctam Gabriel Muffel filius tertius Nicolai Muffell, ut patet retro, ex antiquo scripto.’
Bought by the British Museum, using the Bridgewater fund (£12,000 bequeathed in 1829 by Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (b. 1756, d. 1829), from Henri Tross together with Egerton MS 1901 for £34 on 9 February 1861; note (f. [iv]recto): ‘Purchd of H. Tross, 9 Feb. 1861.’.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts/.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1853-1875 (London: British Museum, 1877), p. 907.
Deutsche Handschriften in England, ed. by Robert Priebsch, 2 vols in 1 vol (Hildesheim: Olms, 1979, first publ. Erlangen: Junge, 1896-1901), II: Das British Museum mit einem anhang über die Guildhall-Bibliothek, pp. 75-76.
C. D. M. Cossar, The German Translation of Niccolò da Poggibonsi’s ’Libro d’oltramare’, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 452 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1985) [based on this manuscript, with additional bibliography].
John Lowden, 'Treasures Known and Unknown in the British Library', Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts Virtual Exhibitions, (2007) [accessed 22 January 2020].
Kathryn Blair Moore, ‘Seeing through Text: the Visualization of Holy Land Architecture in Niccolò da Poggibonsi's Libro d'oltramare, 14th–15th centuries’, Word & Image, 25, 402-15 (pp. 402-03, 405).
Kathryn Blair Moore, ‘The Disappearance of an Author and the Emergence of a Genre: Niccolò da Poggibonsi and Pilgrimage Guidebooks between Manuscript and Print', Renaissance Quarterly, 66 (2013), 357-411 (pp. 367-68, 371-72, 381-84, 398).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)