Fifty-two discoveries from the BiblioPhilly project, No. 46/52
Pierre Mésenge, Journal de sainct voyage pour visiter le sainct sepulcre, Bryn Mawr, Bryn Mawr College Library, MS 13, fol. 1r
The title of this post refers to a statement made by Lois A. Reed in the Report of the President to the Board of Directors of Bryn Mawr College in 1942, when the manuscript that is the subject of the present post, a copy of Pierre Mésenge of Rouen’s itinerary to the Holy Land, was presented to the institution by Howard Lehman Goodhart (1884–1951).1 H. L. Goodhart was a renowned collector of antiquarian books and a lifelong enthusiastic supporter of his daughter, college alumna and noted Renaissance historian Phyllis Goodhart Gordan (BMC ’35).2 While Bryn Mawr’s holdings of European pre-modern manuscripts now number some 53 items (all fully digitized and freely available via the BiblioPhilly interface and OPenn), this was, apparently, the first codex to be illuminated by the glow of the Lantern, so to speak.