Manuscripts from the Idda Collection

Bruno’s Correction and Completion of Paterius’ Book of Testimonies, c. 1090-1100

In the middle ages, the Bible was read and studied in the context of commentaries written by revered Church fathers. St. Paterius was a church notary and close associate of Pope Gregory the Great in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. Paterius searched through Gregory’s works, extracting comments on various biblical passages and arranging them in the order of the Bible but he never completed his Book of Testimonies or Liber testimoniorum. Bruno, an otherwise obscure German monk, was one of a number of authors who completed Paterius’ work.

Hugh of Saint Victor’s Dialogue on the Creation of the World and Homilies on the Book of Ecclesiastes, c. 1150-75

With this manuscript, we leave the world of the monastery and enter the world of the 12th-century school. The Abbey of Saint Victor was one of the most important centers of learning in Paris, attracting students from across Europe, and Hugh was one of its most prominent teachers. His writings survive in an estimated 3,000 manuscripts. His approach to learning and the study of scripture can be summarized in his famous words: “Learn everything; you will see afterwards that nothing is superfluous.”

Gospel of Mark from the Vulgate Bible with the Glossa Ordinaria, c. 1150-75

This manuscript has been a treasured possession in the libraries of some of the most important manuscript collectors of the 19^th and 20 centuries, beginning with a Venetian cleric who purchased illuminated choir books and liturgical manuscripts from Napoleonic troops after they looted the Sistine Chapel in 1798, leading to a career acquiring medieval manuscripts for London auction rooms. The text was copied in Northern Italy in the 12^th century, and the chapter numbers that came into use in the 13^th century (and are still in use today) were added later.