Thanks to a request from a member of staff in Classics, we currently have trial access to Brill’s Codices Vossiani Latini Online which publishes all 363 codices which form the world-famous Latin part of Isaac Vossius’ manuscript collection held at Leiden University Library.

You can access this resource via the E-resources trials page. Access is available both on and off-campus.

Trial access ends 27th September 2017.

Screenshot from VLQ 079 – Aratea, c. 850.

Isaac Vossius (1618-1689) was a Dutch scholar and collector of manuscripts, maps, atlases and printed works, who for a few years was also the court librarian to Queen Christina of Sweden. According to contemporaries Vossius’s extensive library was the best in Europe, if not the world, and after he died his library of books and manuscripts was sold to the University of Leiden.

Screenshot from VLQ 094 – Lucretius, First half 9th c.

The Codices Vossiani Latini include a large number of early medieval manuscripts including major sources of many classic texts and 76 Carolingian manuscripts dating from before 900.

Highlights from the collection include the earliest sources of Lucretius’ De rerum natura and the oldest preserved illustrated herbarium in Latin (dating from around 600). The works also include the so-called ‘Leidse Aratea’, a Carolingian codex (dating from around 840) with 39 beautiful miniatures of constellations based on examples from classical antiquity.

Screenshot from VLQ 013 – Ps.-Hippocrates, Ps.-Antonius Musa, Ps.-Apuleius, Iuridica Ecclesiastica, Liturgica, Oliverus Paderbornensis, Gothofridus Viterbiensis, Provinciale Eccles. Roman., Persius. Early 11th c. (1r-3r, 3*v-6v, 6v-14v), Second half 10th c. (15r-30v), Beginning 13th c. (31r-38v), Second half 13th c. (39r-45v), c. 1200 (46r-52v).

Access Codices Vossiani Latini via e-resources trials.
Access available until 27th September 2017.
Feedback welcome.

Access is only available to current students and staff at University of Edinburgh.

Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for History, Classics and Archaeology