Our exhibits

The main focus of our original project was the creation of a gallery-style exhibit that would display all of the available leaves of FOL 47 in their approximate original order.  This exhibit can be found under the title "Reconstructing Ege FOL 47". 

For the most part, the whereabouts of the separated leaves of FOL 47 remain unknown.  At present, our exhibit inclues 22 leaves out of the original 159, and it may be possible to add images of 7 more that have been identified but not digitized. Given that so much of the codex remains missing, the sequence we present must be considered provisional.  For example, the one available leaf of the prayer "Obsecro te" is currently placed directly before the Hours of the Virgin, since this text commonly appears in that location.  However, this order is hardly invariable, and it is not possible to be certain without additional information.

Students also created companion exhibits on specific areas of interest that emerged from our study of FOL 47.  For example, the exhibit "Who Used FOL 47?" explains what the manuscript can tell us about its first owner.  

Our research also made it possible to identify FOL 47 as a specific manuscript in the historical record: a Book of Hours that Otto Ege acquired in November of 1936, at the New York sale of a private collection belonging to Mrs. Milton (Estelle Cohn) Getz. This analysis is presented in the exhibit entitled "Provenance", with a summary version in "Who Used FOL 47?"

An assessment of the border illustrations and other artistic aspects of FOL 47 is available in the exhibit "Decoration".

Katherine Bonamo Philbin
March 2016
Our exhibits