A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts of the University of Notre Dame and St Mary's College by David T. Gura (review)

'This catalogue describes the 288 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts (69 codices and 219 fragments from 86 parent manuscripts) held by repositories in Notre Dame, Indiana' (p. 1). Those repositories are the University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Library (containing the majority of items), the University of Notre Dame Snite Museum of Art, and the Cushwa-Leighton Library at St Mary's College. 'Bound manuscripts, individual leaves, cuttings, and extracted binding fragments written in Western historical Latin scripts are included (and a single twelfth-century leaf in Greek). Charters and other documentary materials, letters, and fragments still in book bindings are excluded' (p. 1). The idea is to update the 1978 catalogue of James A. Corbett. The majority of manuscripts are liturgical (Books of Hours, Psalters, Missals, Graduals, Breviaries, Pontificals, Evangeliaries, Prayer-books, Antiphonaries, sermon collections, and Bibles), but there are also works by Peter Comestor, Cyprian, Boethius, Buridan, Pope Boniface VIII, Catherine of Siena, Isidore of Seville, Giles of Rome, Peter Lombard, and others. Two fragments are from the eleventh century, but the bulk of the items come from the fifteenth century. Italy and England provide the largest number of items; most are in Latin but a few are in Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, or Italian.

There is a list of abbreviations and eight (colour) plates; a fifty-page introduction covering 'Formation of the Collection and Fonds in Use', 'Overview of the Collection', 'Utility of the Collection', 'Method of Citation', 'Format of Entries', 'Arrangement of Entries'. The catalogues of the various institutions themselves follow, and at the end we find Appendix 1 on 'Former and Permanent Hesburgh Library Shelfmarks', Appendix 2 on 'North American Manuscripts by State or Province', and Appendix 3 with 'Tables of Distribution of Watermarks'. There is a bibliography, an 'Index of Manuscripts Cited', an 'Index of Incipits' and a 'General Index'.

David T. Gura is the Curator of Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts in the Hesburgh Library, and concurrent assistant professor in the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame. In the opinion of the present reviewer, the Catalogue is comprehensive, professional, and utterly reliable. The remarks on the uses to which the collection can be put (pp. 41–42) will interest teachers and lecturers at tertiary academies.