Katz Center Library Acquires Collection of Rare Medieval Manuscripts

The library recently purchased a collection of Hebrew manuscript fragments from the former collection of Marvin L. Colker, professor of Classics at the University of Virginia. As manuscript cataloger at Trinity College, Dublin, he published the catalogue Trinity College Dublin Library: Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval and Renaissance Latin Manuscripts (Dublin, 1991).

In the Margins of a Medieval Jewish Prayer Book: The New SIMS-Katz MOOC

In Penn’s Libraries, one can find a particular battle-scarred volume. It is a large folio, rebound in old leather, damaged by fire, with margins cut, pages torn out, others stolen but then replaced, marked by a few clever patches to the parchment. There are marginal notes in a variety of inks and handwritings representing many generations of readers and amenders. It is a late thirteenth–early fourteenth-century Mahzor, or Jewish prayer book for the high holidays, originating from the German Rhineland. (CAJS Rare MS 382).