Modern Manuscripts from the Museum and Gallery in Prostějov

In 2016, six partly notated manuscripts from the collections of the Ethnographic Institute of the Moravian Museum have been digitised. The oldest of them is the Hymnal of Martin Bursík from 1736–1737 written in Kuželov (the Hodonín district); the others are of Czech and Moravian origin and come from the 19th century. In terms of content, these are collections of hymns and prayers for various occasions.

In 2016, the North Bohemian Museum in Liberec has digitised five shelf marks. Besides a collection of engravings, these comprise the history of the town of Liberec written by Karl Felgenhauer, a parish priest in Křižany, at the beginning of the 19th century, and an inventory of the church of St Lawrence in Chrastava from 1729 and 1737. The last two sets of loose sheets contain the tracing of the decorated parts of blind-stamped bindings, a result of the collecting activities of a significant scholar, Bohumil Nuska.

In 2016, the Library of the Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians at Strahov has digitised a large collection of modern historiographical sources. These include extensive works (the German version of a part of the Memoirs of Count Vilém Slavata and the volumes of Annales Ferdinandei by Franz Christoph Khevenhüller, important for the study of the development of their final version) as well as sources on individual monasteries (Strahov, Doksany, and Svatý Kopeček near Olomouc).

The set of 109 digitised maps comes from the 18th and 19th centuries. Individual maps and plans cover various parts of Europe, especially Italy, Austria, Hungary, East-Central Europe (Galicia, Poland and Russia) and the lands of the Balkan peninsula. They include geographical as well as special (railway, postal etc.) maps.

The recently digitised medieval manuscripts from the National Library are relatively varied in their content. Apart from the most common theological and preaching texts and liturgical codices, they also comprise ancient literature (VIII H 24), rhetorical (VIII H 22), medical (VIII H 34), historiographical (XIII D 7) or hagiographical (XIV E 8) texts. In the Middle Ages, codices XIII D 7 and XIII F 12 formed part of the library of Charles College of the Prague university. They are included in its earliest library inventory. The manuscripts likewise come from other large medieval institutional libraries: the Augustinian monastery in Třeboň and the Cistercian monastery in Zlatá Koruna. Czech-language manuscripts are represented by three volumes of the Bible, illuminated manuscripts mainly by the prayer book VI G 24.

The first digitised document from the collections of the Museum of the Vysočina Region in Havlíčkův Brod is an evangelical postil by Martin Philadelphus Zámrský, which was printed in Leipzig in 1602. The incompletely preserved early printed book was also restored before the digitisation.

The Museum of the Brno Region Muzeum has provided access to another four medieval manuscripts from the library of the Benedictine monastery in Rajhrad in 2015. The missals R 397 and R 398 as well as the exegesis of the New Testament and Biblical prologues R 18 were created in the second half of the 14th century, the Czech New Testament complemented by other texts R 390 was written in the first half of the 15th century. With the exception of the New Testament, all the manuscripts are decorated to varying degrees.

The newly digitised items from the collections of the Music Department of the National Library of the CR comprise 32 manuscripts and printed items. They mostly include handwritten copies of short scores from the collection of Josef Cyril Strachota, composed by W. A. Mozart, V. Pichl, F. X. Pokorný and J. L. Oehlschlägel. A longer manuscript is placed under the shelf mark XVI H 8 – it contains compositions collected by Franz Eduard Tuna, partly his own works. The printed items come from the 16th and 17th centuries and include collections of polyphonic compositions.

More than four dozen digitised medieval manuscripts can be subdivided into several smaller thematically homogeneous groups. The first includes Czech-language Biblical manuscripts (six volumes under the shelf mark XVII, all from the 15th century). Liturgical manuscripts are represented by codices from St George’s Benedictine Monastery at Prague Castle (the manuscript XII D 11 was written upon the order of the abbess Kunigunde at the beginning of the 14th century; others comprise e.g. XII E 1, XIII C 1b, XIV D 21), but also from other monasteries (XIII C 11 from the Convent of the Poor Clares in Český Krumlov; Břevnov breviaries VI G 11 and XII A 22). Hagiographic literature is mainly represented by several manuscripts of Legenda Aurea by Jacobus de Voragine (XII D 19, XII E 14 and XIII B 11). Collections of sermons are likewise numerous – both by Czech authors (Tomášek of Strakonice, XII E 7a) and e.g. written on the commission of Czech monasteries (sermons of Bertrand de Turre in the manuscript XII D 6, which was ordered by the Chotěšov provost Petr I.). Most of the other codices contain theological literature, but one can also find works on grammar, law, natural sciences, a collection of liturgical formulae by Pietro della Vigna, etc.

The Slavonic Library has digitised several manuscripts and printed books from the 16th–18th centuries varied in both their language and content. Besides Old Church Slavonic, the languages include Polish, Croatian and Italian. One can find not only theological texts but also poems or an accounting book of an unknown Jew from Dubrovnik.