The Statutes of the Collegium Sapientiae of Freiburg University is the most extensively illustrated early modern book of its kind. Created in Augsburg around 1500, it is one of two copies of the statutes made around the time the college was founded by Johannes Kerer (1430-1507), one of the first masters of the university and the suffragan bishop of Augsburg. Its miniatures provide a unique insight into early modern college life. It opens with three full-page frontispieces, and the regulations are illustrated with seventy-six miniatures and one bas-de-page-scene.
The statutes, composed by Kerer in 1497, provide details concerning the admission of students, administration of the house, codes of moral and quotidian behavior for the students, and courses of study.
The Founder, the Papal Legate, and the Archduke
The three full-page frontispieces depict the college's founder kneeling before the Virgin and Child (fol. 1v); Cardinal Raimond Pérault (1435-1505), papal legate at the time of the college's foundation (fol. 2r); and Albrecht VI (1418-1463), Archduke of Austria, who had founded the university in 1457 (fol. 2v).
The backgrounds of the dedication image and the portrait of Albrecht VI are of gold leaf, and all three miniatures impart grandeur to their subjects. The painted vine stems that occupy the margins of the pages with the frontispieces and the first page of the text are typical of Augsburg manuscript illumination of the time.
Campus Life
Most of the manuscript's paintings illustrate the statutes themselves, very often in scenes of proscribed behaviors. For example, the section concerning violence is preceded by a miniature of two students with swords, meant to illustrate that students were not to bear arms (fol. 23r).
The statute dictating that Latin is to be spoken if both interlocutors know the language is accompanied by a miniature showing two students discoursing, their hands raised in gestures of speech, while a third holds a scroll that reads (in Latin) "Latin is preferred" (fol. 36v).
Instructions for the Illuminator
Most of the miniatures feature frames in gold leaf. Traces of instructions for the subjects of the paintings in German can be seen through the painting of some miniatures, although none is clear enough to be deciphered.
Drolleries in Pen-Flourished Initials
The text comprises short articles on aspects of the administration of and life in the college—including the daily making of beds and table manners—as well as the settling of accounts and academic concerns. Each article is preceded by a rubric written in red ink and opens with a pen-flourished initial, alternating between red initials with black flourishing and blue initials with violet flourishing. The flourishes often include human faces within the bodies of letters and human profile heads.
A Treasure of the University Archive
The manuscript of the Statutes of the Collegium Sapientiae is among the oldest documents in the collection of the Universitätsarchiv of the (since 1820) Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.
We have 1 facsimile edition of the manuscript "Statutes of the Collegium Sapientiae": Statuta Collegii Sapientiae facsimile edition, published by J. Thorbecke, 1957
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