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Items Weltchronik

Weltchronik

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LIBRARY DIVISION
Spencer Collection

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Title
Weltchronik
Additional title: Christherre Chronik
Names
Rudolf, von Ems, -approximately 1254 (Author)
Dates / Origin
Date Created: 1402
Place: Bavaria,Germany
Library locations
Spencer Collection
Shelf locator: Spencer Coll. MS. 38
Genres
Books
Manuscripts
Drawings
Notes
Ownership: Unnumbered leaf bears legend: "Graff Torring-Grossfeld"; f.1 has stamped crest of "Graff Torring-Gutenzell." Must have come into this family (in Bavaria) between 1630 and 1800. Bought for Spencer, 1939, from Julius Hess.
Date: 1402
Content: 4:A, ff 1-152v; B, ff 153-236v-col a, 237-238v; C, f 236v-col b; D, ff 239-353v
Content: Date written at end of manuscript is 1402; this is confirmed by the watermark, which dates the paper to 1400-1403. By at least two artists.
Content: De Ricci, Supplement, 332. Salus article. Library dossier. Listed in Digital Scriptorium, University of California, Berkeley.
Content: Ms. is foliated 1-353. According to Salus the leaf before f.1 should also be numbered, with the total number of folios coming to 354. For convenience, the pencil foliations are used here.
Content: Nearly 300 watercolor drawings.
Content: Red initials throughoutt; rubrics.
Biographical/historical: Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts are vehicles of the collective memory of western European culture, and provide a material connection between the scribes, illuminators, and patrons who produced these works and the audiences who view them today. The works represent diverse genres, from Bibles and missals to romance literature and science texts. Dating from the turn of the 10th century until well into the period of the Renaissance, these works give vivid testimony to the creative impulses of the often nameless craftsmen who continually discovered new ways of animating the contents of hand-produced books through inventive and sometimes exuberant manipulations of all the elements of the book: form and format, layout, script, decoration, illustration, and binding. Drawn from the Spencer Collection and the Manuscripts and Archives Division, the New York Public Library’s collections of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts focus on the 9th through the 16th centuries -- seven hundred years of political, ecclesiastical, social, and intellectual change in Western Europe and the world.
Content: COLLECTION HISTORY: The New York Public Library possesses one of the largest and finest collections of medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts in North America, yet its manuscript holdings are scarcely known to scholars, much less to a wide public audience. Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts are vehicles of the collective memory of western European culture, and provide a material connection between the scribes, illuminators, and patrons who produced these works and the audiences who view them today. The works represent diverse genres, from Bibles and missals to romance literature and science texts. Dating from the turn of the 10th century until well into the period of the Renaissance, these works give vivid testimony to the creative impulses of the often nameless craftsmen who continually discovered new ways of animating the contents of hand-produced books through inventive and sometimes exuberant manipulations of all the elements of the book: form and format, layout, script, decoration, illustration, and binding. Drawn from the Library's Spencer Collection and the Manuscripts and Archives Division, these works focus on the 9th through the 16th centuries -- seven hundred years of profound political, ecclesiastical, social, and intellectual change in Western Europe and the world. Among these rare items are a 10th-century Ottonian manuscript, with its imitation of Byzantine textile with gold decoration; the Towneley Lectionary, illuminated by Giulio Clovio (once praised as the "Michelangelo of small works"), which originated in Rome and probably belonged to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese; and a late 15th-century Book of Hours, which represents the leading style of illumination from Besançon, one of the French Regional Schools. (Source: NYPL Digital Gallery)
Biographical/historical: BACKGROUND: "The Digital Scriptorium" originated in the mid-1990s as an image database, intended to unite scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research. NYPL curators have augmented the Digital Scriptorium's primary documentation of NYPL's contribution of 259 manuscript parts with images of the works' most significant illuminations. Some works in this digital presentation also appeared in the exhibition, "The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library," held October 21, 2005 - February 12, 2006 in the Library's D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman Exhibition Hall. - _Collection History_ and _Background_ text excerpted from the press release ‹http://www.nypl.org/research/calendar/exhib/hssl/hsslexhibdesc.cfm?id=354› and exhibition catalog ‹http://www.thelibraryshop.org/splendorexcat.html› descriptions for "The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library." (Source: NYPL Digital Gallery)
Citation/reference: RELATED RESOURCES: Alexander, Jonathan J. G., James H. Marrow, and Lucy Freeman Sandler. _The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library_. (2005); NYPL. "The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library." (2005-2006) ‹http://www.nypl.org/research/calendar/exhib/hssl/hsslexhibdesc.cfm?id=354›>; University of California, Berkeley. "The Digital Scriptorium." (c1996-2004) ‹http://www.digital-scriptorium.org› (Source: NYPL Digital Gallery)
Content: fol. 1r : Opening of text, initial, stamp of Graff Torring-Gutenzell library, hand 1 -- fol. 353v : Explicit of text with colophon, "Hie ist daz puch vollendet worden Anno domini M cccc ii in vigilia Concepcionis marie" -- fol. 244r : The exorcist give Saul bread to eat ; Saul with the exorcist of Endor -- fol. 112r : Spies with Grapes from Canaan -- fol. 28v : Abraham and Sara, Ishmael and Isaac, the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, Hagar, Ishmael and the angel in the desert, Ishmael as archer -- fol. 152v : According to Salus, hand 1 ends on 152v and hand 2 begins on 153 -- fol. 236v : Column a written by hand 2, column b by hand 3 -- fol. 238v : According to Salus, hand 2 wrote 238v and hand 4 wrote 239. Quire signature at bottom of 239 -- fol. 322v : Text with initial, drawings, and catchwords at bottom of page
Physical Description
Watercolors
Extent: ff. ii + 1 + 353 + iii
22-34 lines in two columns, ruled in brown ink. Catchwords and quire signatures visible. For collation see Salus, 109.
Nearly 300 watercolor drawings.
Paper
Description
Poet Rudolf von Ems' "Weltchronik" is an incomplete, rhymed version of the Bible, with supplements from other sources. This ms. had as one exemplar either Heidelberg Cod. pal. germ. 146, or a copy. Covers Ehrismann lines 1416-7173, with some gaps.
Type of Resource
Still image
Text
Languages
German, Middle High (ca.1050-1500)
Identifiers
NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b22811942
NYPL Exhibition ID: TL 18.01.068a
NYPL Exhibition ID: TL 18.01.068b
NYPL Digital Gallery Description: 5895
Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 888419c0-2305-013f-fe0a-0242ac110002
Rights Statement
The New York Public Library believes that this item is in the public domain under the laws of the United States, but did not make a determination as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. This item may not be in the public domain under the laws of other countries. Though not required, if you want to credit us as the source, please use the following statement, "From The New York Public Library," and provide a link back to the item on our Digital Collections site. Doing so helps us track how our collection is used and helps justify freely releasing even more content in the future.

Item timeline of events

  • : Place
  • 1402: Created
  • 2026: Digitized
  • 2026: Found by you!
  • 2027

MLA Format

Spencer Collection, The New York Public Library. "Weltchronik" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1402. https://old-digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b5ef3aa0-623f-0134-1914-00505686a51c

Chicago/Turabian Format

Spencer Collection, The New York Public Library. "Weltchronik" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed September 17, 2026. https://old-digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b5ef3aa0-623f-0134-1914-00505686a51c

APA Format

Spencer Collection, The New York Public Library. (1402). Weltchronik Retrieved from https://old-digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b5ef3aa0-623f-0134-1914-00505686a51c

Wikipedia Citation

<ref name=NYPL>{{cite web | url=https://old-digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/b5ef3aa0-623f-0134-1914-00505686a51c | title= (still image) Weltchronik, (1402)|author=Digital Collections, The New York Public Library |accessdate=September 17, 2026 |publisher=The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations}}</ref>

Weltchronik