The Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts
The Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts advances learning and inspires discovery in Penn's community and around the world. The goals of the Kislak Center align with those of the Penn Libraries as a whole: to make our collections accessible; to use technology in innovative and meaningful ways; to enhance teaching and research; and to preserve our cultural resources for future generations. To learn more about the Kislak Center, visit our website.
- A.S.W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography
- Collection Materials
- Henry Charles Lea Lectures
- Kislak Papers: Studies From the Collections of The University of Pennsylvania Libraries
- Lorraine Beitler Collection of the Dreyfus Affair Distinguished Lecture Series
- Manuscript Studies
- Penn Judaica
- Penn Manuscript Collective
- Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS)
- The Library Chronicle
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Publication Penn Library's Ms. Codex 1666 - Ars logicae : in Aristotelis Logicam Quaestiones (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's Ms. Codex 1666, commentaries on Aristotelian logic divided into six sections. Written in Italy in the 18th century. Record on Franklin (link to digitized copy): https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9962934853503681Publication Penn Library's Ms. Codex 1665 - [Alchemical compilation]. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's Ms. Codex 1665, a collection of treatises on Hermetic works, the philosopher's stone, with instructions for the transmutation of metals, creating artificial diamonds, and alchemical recipes for powders, elixirs, and occasional medicinal remedies. Includes a table of contents (p. iii-x). Written in France(?), between 1750 and 1799. Record on Franklin (link to digitized copy): https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9962934963503681Publication Penn Library's Ms. Codex 1669 - [Works on spirits and their sigils]. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's Ms. Codex 1669, a collection of works primarily focused on spirits and their sigils that includes numerous tables, drawings, and diagrams of magical symbols and their properties. Also includes additional sections on making rings of invisibility (f. 40r) and for uncovering thefts (f. 44r). Written in France[?] in the second half of the 18th century.Publication Penn Library's LJS 501 - [Bifolium from Liber completus...]. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's LJS 501, a bifolium from a 14th-century manuscript copied in England of the mid-13th-century Latin translation by Aegidius de Thebaldis (assisted by Petrus de Regio) of the Old Castilian translation of an 11th-century Arabic treatise on astrology. The text on the bifolium is from Book 5 and Book 6 of the work, which are in the section concerning nativities. The bifolium has been bound in reverse so that the leaf with the end of Book 5 and the beginning of Book 6 (and the historiated initial marking the division) are on the first leaf, followed by the originally earlier leaf containing material from Chapter 14 of Book 5. Two marginal section headings (f. 2r) in the same hand as the text; a few brief marginal annotations. Written in England in approximately 1320.Publication Penn Library's LJS 500 - Liber mirabilium. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's LJS 500, an alchemical and medical compendium containing recipes and texts from a variety of sources, many of which appear with traditional (now suspect) attributions in other manuscripts, with an alphabetical index to recipes at the beginning of the volume. Occasional manicules and annotations added by readers. Written in Piran (then under the control of the Republic of Venice, in modern Slovenia), between 1452 (f. 1r) and 1455 (f. 98v). The date 1451 also appears in the manuscript (f. 99v).Publication Penn Library's LJS 499 - [Igeret orḥot ʻolam] ... [etc.]. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's LJS 499, a geographical treatise on the locations of all dispersed Jewish peoples, including the first mention of the New World in Hebrew, a diagram representing the sky over the New World, and accounts of the coasts of Africa, India, and the Far East, followed by a copy of a brief 15th-century treatise on chess. Written in northern Italy, probably Ferrara, after 1525 (Edna Engel).Publication Penn Library's LJS 498 - [Tsurat ha-arets] ... [etc.]. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's LJS 498, a collection of astronomical texts in Hebrew from source texts ranging from the 11th to the 16th centuries. Subjects include geography, the Ptolemaic model of the universe, solar and lunar eclipses, and the astrolabe. Frequent marginal notes and glosses, some from copied from known commentaries to these works. Possibly written in Gratz, in the second half of the 16th century, after the first edition of Erasmus Reinhold's Theoricae novae planetarum Georgii Purbacchii Germani in 1542, some of which is copied alongside the Hebrew translation of Peurbach (f. 188r-196v), on paper with watermarks similar to those on paper produced in Gratz in the 1580s and 1590s (Les Enluminures).Publication Penn Library's LJS 496- Treatise on practical mathematical calculation (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's LJS 496, beginning of a survey of practical applications of mathematics (abacho), algebra (alghorismo), and geometry (fighura) for commercial purposes such as banking or trade, in a larger format than most commercial mathematical manuscripts; missing leaves at end. Spaces left for initials ranging from 3 to 8 lines in height. Written in Italy in the last quarter of the 15th century (Sotheby's).Publication Penn Library's LJS 494 - [Marʼeh ha-ofanim] ... [etc.]. (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's LJS 494, a Hebrew translation of a fundamental treatise on medieval astronomy and cosmology that describes and illustrates the Ptolemaic model of a spherical earth divided into climactic zones at the center of the concentric spheres of the universe. Followed by Ruaḥ ha-ḥen, a 13th-century philosophical work that was a popular introduction to science, here attributed to Yehudah ibn Tibon. It has also been attributed to Jacob ben Abba Mari ben Samson Anatoli and Zeraḥyah ha-Yeṿani. Occasional marginal notes. Final page contains Hebrew notes and pen trials by various hands (f. 22v). Written in northern Italy in the second quarter of the 15th century (based on watermark information). Record on Franklin, with link to a digital copy: https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9959630913503681 Record on Internet Archive, with a link to PDF: https://archive.org/details/ljs494Publication Penn Library's Library's LJS 495 - [Kharīdat al-ʻajāʼib wa farīḍat ...] (Video Orientation)Porter, DotVideo Orientation to the University of Pennsylvania Library's LJS 495, a cosmography containing a compendium of place names, seas, and mountains; information on flora and fauna; and a brief explanation of the game of chess. This text has also been attributed to the 14th-century author Zayn al-Dīn ʻUmar ibn al-Muẓaffar ibn al-Wardī. The item is undated, though it was possibly produced in the mid-to-late 15th or early 16th century. The colophon has been partially pasted over.