The Most Beautiful Book in Scotland and the Oldest Scottish Manuscript?

Ms39BookReader01
The new Ms 39 Book of Hours available in LUNA Book Reader

We are delighted to announce that 2 manuscripts have been added to our growing collection of Book Readers in LUNA!

The first is Ms 39, an amazing early 15th century Book of Hours, with rich gold work, detailed miniatures and vibrant colours. See http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/d4wx22 for the Book Reader. A note in the front of the book claims this is the most beautiful book in Scotland, what do you think? What are the other contender’s?

Breviarium St. Katherine.
f.35r from Ms 39

Most of the high res versions of the pages from Ms 39 can be found here http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/2747kj – the remainder will be added shortly. I’d like to thank our volunteer Kylie Hardie, for all her hard work preparing these images for the Book Reader- it is fantastic to finally see the results of this long running ‘spare time’ project available for all.

Ms56BookReader01
Ms 56, the Celtic Psalter available in LUNA Book Reader

The second manuscript is Ms 56, the Celtic Psalter. See http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/5df6n0 for the Book Reader or http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/9aki32 for full sized pages. Thought to be 11th century, this could well be one of Scotland’s earliest surviving manuscripts. Yet despite its millennia, the orange and purple colours and bold graphics appear almost modern.

Throughout the manuscript are many charming details, such as those below. Preparing this was a real team effort- in a bid to make it available for a talk given by the Head of Special Collections, Joe Marshall, we were all roped in for cropping duty! Many thanks to all the DIU team, Gavin Willshaw and to Scott Renton for getting the Book Readers up online.

Enjoy!

Susan Pettigrew, Photographer

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