The aim of Manuscripta.cz is to create a user-friendly online guide to medieval manuscript collections in the Czech Republic. It will provide an overview of all codices from Czech collections written before the year 1500 (and many others written during the 16th century) and will help the scholars to find individual manuscripts according to specific criteria. The portal features a developing database of medieval manuscripts from Czechia, created in collaboration with libraries, archives, and other institutions or private owners. This database integrates information from existing online and printed catalogues and includes many newly added records previously unavailable.
An important feature of the portal is its connection to other related websites, such as the Hyperfontes database, Czech Medieval Sources Online, and the Manuscriptorium portal, which hosts digitized copies of most medieval manuscripts in Czech collections. Users can easily search for manuscripts based on various criteria and access links to their digitized versions and corresponding records from older catalogues, where available.
We are deeply grateful to have been able to build on the published work of numerous scholars and librarians, namely Marie Tošnerová and her colleagues from the Manuscript Inventory and Study Department of the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
The web portal offers a comprehensive overview of manuscript collections preserved in the Czech Republic. If you are searching for a manuscript from any Czech collection, the Search Manuscript tool enables you to explore all repositories and collections, applying filters based on criteria such as language, the presence of illuminations, or musical notation. For those seeking manuscripts from a specific collection or wishing to explore an entire collection in depth, the Browse Repositories and Collections feature is available. This tool allows you to locate collections either alphabetically by repository’s name or geographically by its location.
A repository refers to an institution with a permanent location that maintains its core collection and may house additional collections. These collections are listed on the repository’s page. If the institution also oversees deposited collections owned by third parties (often ecclesiastical institutions), these are listed separately, along with the name of the collection’s owner.
This web portal is currently under development and does not yet claim to be exhaustive.
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