Coffee With a Codex on Monday, November 8, featured Schoenberg Curator of Manuscripts Nick Herman with Ms. Codex 2032, a book of prayers for a lay reader’s private use during the Mass. Unlike a book of hours, which was designed for private contemplation, this book was made to be taken to Mass so the user could follow along with the service.
This is an aesthetically pleasing manuscript, written in a neat italic script and decorated with watercolor and gold.
The iconography featured in Ms. Codex 2032 is drawn primarily from the Passion cycle used for the Hours of the Cross. A full-page miniature of the Adoration of the Magi appears on f. 2v, just before the introductory prayer.
Small watercolor paintings introduce the titles for each section, several of which are pictured here.
There are also eight cartouches in watercolor with gold at section endings, including this one illustrating the Holy Spirit, on f. 60r, at the end of Au dernier evangile.
The binding of Ms. Codex 2032 is 18th-century ox-blood morocco, gilt-stamped with unidentified coats of arms on covers (ducal coronet above a double coat of arms enclosed by a cordon, in front of crossed maces) and flowers in corners.
Find out more about this manuscript by viewing the digitized version and reading the full catalog record on Colenda.
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The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies 