Jonas Clark Rare Book Collection
Digitized selections and photographs showcasing the Jonas Clark Rare Book Collection from Clark University's Special Collections.
Retiring from business at the age of forty-five, university founder Jonas Clark devoted his leisure to travel and books, amassing an enormous collection of around 10,000 volumes. Following his death in 1900, he left approximately 2,500 of those books to the University. Many of these books were purchased by Jonas Clark for their binding, as appearance played a key role in the cultivation of an 18th century home library. Many of these bindings are irreplaceable today.
While decorative value holds a central place in the Jonas Clark Rare Book Collection, there are also many unique holdings, including a sizable collection of incunabula -- books printed between 1455 and 1500. The collection also contains examples of hand lettered manuscripts done before 1455, the only kinds of books available before moveable type printing was introduced.
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![Book of Hours [Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis cum Calendariis] by Catholic Church](https://commons.clarku.edu/scmanuscripts/1000/thumbnail.jpg "Book of Hours [Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis cum Calendariis] by Catholic Church")
Book of Hours [Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis cum Calendariis]
Catholic Church
This Book of Hours, dated approximately 1420, is the oldest book in the Jonas Clark Rare Book Collection. Written on vellum in calligraphy, it measures 5.43 x 3.81 inches.
The text consists of parchment leaves, which have been gathered into sections and sewn through the fold. Some pages contain decorative floral borders and historiated initials in raised red, blue, orange, green, white, and gold pigment. Entries are in black ink, rubricated in red, with initials decorated in blue, red, white and gold. The page edges were trimmed during an earlier rebinding (prior to its most recent binding which took place in 1969), resulting in some losses to the decorated borders. A Jonas Clark Library ink stamp is found throughout the book.
This volume was digitized by the Northeast Document Conservation Center.
