Today's manuscript is a copy of the Calendarium and Ephemerides as published by Regiomontanus in 1474. The Calendarium, for 1475-1530, gives information on lunar and solar eclipses, the length of days, and the signs of the zodiac and planets. #medievalsky 🔗 https://bit.ly/44BxXxN

Today's manuscript is a 15th c. copy of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, translated by Leonardo Bruni Aretino with introduction and dedication. The original first two leaves are missing and the text was later replaced on an added bifolium. (UPenn Ms. Codex 760) #medievalsky 🔗 https://bit.ly/3TeMiO2

Today's manuscript is a carta executoria issued in Valladolid, Spain, August 1564 in the name of Philip II in favor of Juan Ximenez de Angulo of Sancto Domingo in response to his pleito de hidalguia (litigation to establish noble status). (UPenn Ms. Codex 74) #medievalsky 🔗 https://bit.ly/4wddhYV

Here we have a leaf from a Persian manuscript of uncertain date and origin, with an illumination overpainted in the 20th century to mimic Mughal style, likely in India for the tourist trade. (UPenn LJS 196) Link to record: https://bit.ly/44Nzb9j Video Orientation: https://bit.ly/44NzVLD

A delightful copy of the Seven Penitential Psalms (Les sept pseaumes penitentiaux) written in France in 1681. We looked at it in #CoffeeWithACodex, and here's a snippet, focusing on the embroidered binding (UPenn Ms. Codex 1564) Catalog record: bit.ly/4c0KGg5 Full CWAC video: https://bit.ly/4vYoUCZ

A gray birb gazes up from the bottom margin of Ms. Codex 724 f. 327r, a 13th century illuminated Bible. #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/4deNkzU

The Spring 2026 issue of Manuscript Studies (vol. 11.1) is now available in Open Access! We are pleased to announce the latest issue of Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies. The journal is published semi-annually by SIMS and the U. of Pennsylvania Press.

Here we have the first part of a four-part poem in octaves on the monarchy of Portugal, with allusions to astrology, alchemy, and cabala. It contains handwritten copies of two different printed versions of the text, and several other texts too. (UPenn Ms. Codex 1646) 🔗: https://bit.ly/4eVQWJc

Here is Ms. Codex 1566, a 14th century book of hours from Metz, France: a brief look inside, at the calendar, and then a miniature of the Virgin and Child, nursing - typical of use of Metz - at the opening of Matins. #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/4kJdOex

A couple of weird little guys are chilling out in the bottom margin of Ms. Codex 724 f. 326v, a 13th century illuminated Bible. #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/4deNkzU

Welcome to June! Every month in 2026 we give you the gift of calendar pages from several of Penn's books of hours - illustrating the variety of books we have in our collection. Enjoy! #medievalsky

Leaf from a hand-illuminated book of hours printed in France, probably Paris, in the late 15th century. The text on the leaf is from the Penitential Psalms, Psalm 101 (verse 6 to the end) and the first two verses of Psalm 129. (UPenn Ms. Coll. 591 Folder 48) #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/413GfNi

Today we're looking at this 18th-century copy of a technical treatise on the painting of miniatures, in print from 1673. Includes information on the reduction of images and mixes of pigments for landscapes, flowers, faces, drapery, and jewels. (UPenn Ms. Codex 1645) 🔗: https://bit.ly/4tMVt57

Next in our #SIMSseries on LJS 26, a 13th c. astronomical and mathematical manuscript, what we’ve all been waiting for: diagrams! There are several, a couple illustrating eclipses, and diagrams of an astrolabe and a quadrant. Written in Italy. #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/41EAKFa

Although this page has several illuminations identified as St. John, the animal in the top margin appears to be a ram. Definitely not an eagle (which is the animal that John is associated with). This is is Ms. Codex 724 f. 326v, a 13th c. illuminated Bible. #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/4deNkzU

By popular demand (it's us, we're demanding!), here is the inside view of LJS 361, a 14th century manuscript in its original binding, written in Italy. Contains sections of astronomical and astrological tables and commentaries on gospel and epistle readings. #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/4dtCOpJ

Next in our #SIMSseries on LJS 26, a 13th century astronomical and mathematical manuscript written in Italy: At some point somebody added a new bifolium. It’s clearly different from the rest of the manuscript, written in a later hand, and the parchment sheet is smaller. 🔗: https://bit.ly/41EAKFa

Next in our #SIMSseries on LJS 26, a 13th century astronomical and mathematical manuscript written in Italy:: How do scribes deal with a hole in the parchment? This 13th century scribe outlined the hole in red on one side, and simply wrote around it. 🔗: https://bit.ly/41EAKFa

Over the next week or so, we’ll be doing a #SIMSseries on this 13th century Italian copy of works on arithmetic and cosmology by Johannes de Sacro Bosco (UPenn LJS 26). The first view of LJS 26 is surprising! The binding is modern, but the manuscript definitely is not. 🔗: https://bit.ly/41EAKFa

A bird. Rabbit? Bird. Pretty sure it's a bird (or a rabbit). Whatever it is, it confounds us in the bottom margin of Ms. Codex 724 f. 326r, a 13th century illuminated Bible. #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/3OowRAL

Today’s we're looking at a document, formerly with seals, from inquest held in Snayth (Snaith, East Riding of Yorkshire) on 28 October 1410 (twelfth regnal year of Henry IV) concerning two deaths. (Ms. Coll 591, folder 49) #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/4u7AkmC

Welcome to May! Every month in 2026 we give you the gift of calendar pages from several of Penn's books of hours - illustrating the variety of books we have in our collection. Enjoy! #medievalsky

A little bit of bling on f. 89r of our 14th century book of hours from Metz, France. It's a decorated funeral miniature at the start of the Office of the Dead. (UPenn Ms. Codex 1566) 🔗: https://bit.ly/4kJdOex

Check out this little manuscript of music and prayers! It mostly contains brief chants for the liturgical cycle, but it ends with a diagram of a Guidonian hand, a tool for teaching sight-singing attributed to the 11th-century musical theorist Guido d'Arezzo #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/4t2ZDpW

A lean, mean good boy with a curling tail begs for pets in the bottom margin of Ms. Codex 724 f. 325v, a 13th century illuminated Bible. #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/3OowRAL

Sometimes manuscripts only survive in pieces. Here is an example: a 15th c. breviary used to make collages in the 1800s. An interesting historical example, but not something you would want to to today! (UPenn Ms. Coll. 713) 🔗: https://bit.ly/4mdY3P2

This is Ms. Codex 1057, a Ferial Psalter - that is, it contains prayers in addition to psalms. It was copied in Italy, probably Trento, around 1350, although the binding is not original - it’s a late 16th-century blind-stamped pigskin with two brass clasps. 🔗: https://bit.ly/40BoBzJ

But who among us hasn’t spent hours watching the light play off of an illuminated initial? Ms. Codex 1056 is a Book of Hours for the use of Rouen, and this initial O on fol. 18v is a particularly good example of the kinds of decorative labor that went into it. #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/4m0SpP7

He rocks in the treetops all day long! No treetop? Our rockin' robin* will accept the bottom margin of Ms. Codex 724 f. 324v, a 13th century illuminated Bible. #medievalsky *probably not actually a robin 🔗: https://bit.ly/4tvVpqu

How to make learning math fun? Frame your arithmetical tables with ornamental borders! In this 16th c. handbook of commercial arithmetic, written in Lombardy, the charts include addition, subtraction, and four different methods of multiplication. (UPenn Ms. Codex 468) 🔗: https://bit.ly/3OcBSfA