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Illuminated manuscripts

 Subject

Staff Only
Subject Source: Art & Architecture Thesaurus

Found in 197 Collections and/or Records:

Excerpt - Folio 19
Excerpt - Folio 19

Western Medieval Manuscripts

 Collection
Identifier: MS
Scope and Contents This collection contains 275 medieval manuscript books and c. 45 fragments which have been donated to, and purchased by the University in the course of its history. These are all books and fragments written by hand, from the early 11th to the 16th centuries. Many are finely illuminated and decorated. The collection is mainly composed of bibles and liturgical texts, books of hours, treatises of theology and philosophy, legal and medical works, examples of pre-Reformation Scottish music,...
Dates: early 11th-16th centuries
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections

Works by Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II), late 15th century

 Item
Identifier: MS 191
Contents MS 191 contains two texts by the fifteenth-century Italian, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II from 1458-1464). The volume is divided into two parts, the first containing letters by Piccolimini, and the second, the text De miseria curialium. These will be described separately, under 'MS 191/ff. 1-97' and 'MS 191/ff. 99-115'. Writing A fine, uniform minuscule, written on fine vellum, with wide margins....
Dates: late 15th century
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Western Medieval Manuscripts

ʾArdǝʾt (‘The Disciples’); a protective scroll, undated (c. 19th-20th cent. C.E.)

 Item
Identifier: E.Or Ms 686
Scope and Contents

An Ethiopic codex and scroll, together in a small leather pouch.

The codex contains ʾArdǝʾt (‘The Disciples’) a magico-apocryphal text. This is the Christian recension (as opposed to the Beta ʾƎsrāʾel/Ethiopian Jewish recension).


The second item is a protective scroll.

Dates: undated (c. 19th-20th cent. C.E.)
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Ethiopic Manuscripts Collection

أنوار التنزيل وأسرار التأويل Anwār al-tanzīl wa asrār al-taʼwīl, undated (extant by 16th cent. C.E.)

 Item
Identifier: Or Ms 155
Scope and Contents

A complete copy of the well-known commentary upon the Qur'an of al-Bayḍāwī (Naṣīr al-Dīn ‘Abd-Allāh b. ‘Umar). This copy has numerous notes transcribed on the margins. The names of the surahs (chapters) are written on the left top corner of each page.


Frontispiece illuminated with gold.

Dates: undated (extant by 16th cent. C.E.)
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Manuscripts of the Islamicate World and South Asia

أنوار التنزیل وأسرار التأویل Anwār al-tanzīl wa-asrār al-ta'wīl, undated

 Item
Identifier: Or Ms 1
Scope and Contents

A well-known commentary on the Qur'ān. The name of the author does not appear, but the commentary is known to have been compiled by Nāṣir al-Dīn 'Abd-allāh b. 'Umar al-Bayḍawī whose death date is commonly given as c. 1286 C.E. However, accordīng to the notice of his life in Kitāb al-Aqālīm, written at Tabriz 716 A.H. (1316 C.E.), Hamd-allāh Mustawfī, a contemporary, says he died in 710 A.H. (1310 C.E.).

The text of the Qur'ān is written in red ink.

Dates: undated
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Manuscripts of the Islamicate World and South Asia

احیاء علوم الدیّن Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, 781 A.H., 1379 C.E.

 Item
Identifier: Or Ms 394
Scope and Contents The famous Arabic work on ethics by the great Shafi'ite Imām Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad bin Muḥammad al-Ghazzālī of Ṭūs 450-505 A.H. (1058-1111 C.E.), whose honorific title was Ḥujjat-al-Islām "The Proof of Islam”, with a lacuna of six leaves (according to the Arabic pagination) between fols. 169 and 170. It is divided into four quarters or sections, each subdivided into ten books.The present copy is 30 cm by 18.5 cm and has 505 folios, it is written in excellent old Naskh, fully...
Dates: 781 A.H.; 1379 C.E.
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Manuscripts of the Islamicate World and South Asia
[Please click twice to see the full volume]
[Please click twice to see the full volume...

الآثار الباقيه عن القرون الخاليه al-Āthār al-bāqiyah ‘an al-qurūn al-khāliyah, 707 A.H., 1307 C.E.

 Item
Identifier: Or Ms 161
Scope and Contents This important work by the Persian polymath Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, who is better known as Abū Rayḥān "al-Bīrūnī" al-Khwārazmī (d. 440 A.H., 1048 C.E.) was written originally in circa 390 A.H. (1000 A.D.). The manuscript has a distinct multi-ethnic and multi-confessional flavour. Al-Bīrūnī, who calculated on the basis of measurements he took in the Punjab plain that the world was round, describes the systems of calculating time used by the known races of the world, and their associated...
Dates: 707 A.H.; 1307 C.E.
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Manuscripts of the Islamicate World and South Asia

الجامع الصحيح al-Jāmi‘ al-ṣaḥīḥ, undated copy (original text composed 9th cent. C.E.)

 Item
Identifier: Or Ms 156
Scope and Contents

A copy of the famous collection of ḥadīth (reports of the sayings and deeds of Prophet Muḥammad) by Abū ‘Abd-Allāh Muḥammad b. Ismā‘īl al-Bukhārī, (d. 256 A.H., 869 C.E.).


Four frontispieces illuminated with gold.

Dates: undated copy (original text composed 9th cent. C.E.)
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Manuscripts of the Islamicate World and South Asia

القرآن al-Qur'an, undated

 Item
Identifier: Or Ms 148
Scope and Contents A complete copy of the Qur'an from Sulṭān Tippū-Ṣāḥib's (d. 1799 C.E.) library.Tippū was born in 1165 A.H., 1749 C.E. and succeeded his father, Ḥaydar ‘Alī, as Sulṭān of Mysore in 1197 A.H., 1782 C.E. He was killed in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, while defending his city Seringapatam against the British and their allies, the Niz̤ām and the Marhattas in 1214 A.H., 1799 C.E.The titles of the sūrahs (chapters) are in large characters in...
Dates: undated
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Manuscripts of the Islamicate World and South Asia

القرآن al-Qur’ān, undated (extant by 18th cent. C.E.)

 Item
Identifier: Or Ms 149
Scope and Contents

A complete copy of a 30-leafed, or sī-varaqī, Qur'an. The sī-varaqī was a popular Qur'an manuscript format in South Asia from the seventeenth-century onwards.


The first two pages are richly illuminated with gold, and pages are gold-lined round the margins throughout. The periods are also gold-filled, and the binding includes gold-lined stamps.

Dates: undated (extant by 18th cent. C.E.)
Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections / Manuscripts of the Islamicate World and South Asia