Manuscript facts for kids

Christ Pantocrator seated in a capital "U" in a manuscript from the Badische Landesbibliothek, Germany.

A manuscript is any document that is written by hand, not printed or made in some other way. The early history of writing is intimately connected with the history of writing materials, of which the manuscript is one. Early printing made use of many ideas which developed in the era of manuscripts.

Images for kids

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  Inside the letter is a picture of a master in cathedra expounding on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates. Initial "V" rendered as "U" of "Vita brevis, ars vero longa", or "Life is short, but the art is long". "Isagoge", fol. 15b. HMD Collection, MS E 78.

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  Manuscript, Codex Manesse. Most manuscripts were ruled with horizontal lines that served as the baselines on which the text was entered.

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  10th-century minuscule manuscript of Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War

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  First page of Satie's Sports et divertissements (published as a facsimile in 1923)

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  The Isha Upanishad manuscript

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  Gharib al-Hadith, by Abu 'Ubaid al-Qasim ibn Sallam al-Harawi (d. 837 AD). The oldest known dated Arabic manuscript on paper in Leiden University Library, dated 319 AH (931 AD)

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  Armenian manuscript

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  After plummeting in the Early Middle Ages, the high and late medieval period witnessed a sharp increase of manuscript production.

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  Lectionary 183

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  The Pentecost, from an illuminated Catholic liturgical manuscript, c.1310–1320