The book explores the manuscripts written, read, and studied by Franciscan friars from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries in Northern Italy, and specifically Padua, assessing four key aspects: ideal, space, form and readership. The ideal is studied through the regulations that determined what manuscripts should aim for. Space refers to the development and role of Franciscan libraries. The form is revealed by the assessment of the physical configuration of a set of representative manuscripts read, written, and manufactured by the friars. Finally, the study of the readership shows how Franciscans were skilled readers who employed certain forms of the manuscript as a portable, personal library, and as a tool for learning and pastoral care. By comparing the book collections of Padua’s reformed and unreformed medieval Franciscan libraries for the first time, this study reveals new features of the ground-breaking cultural agency of medieval friars.

René Hernández completed his PhD at the IMS of the University of Leeds and has taught at the University of York, and the Universidad Santo Tomás, in Bogotà, Colombia. More recently he has collaborated with the teaching of the History of Medieval Libraries at the DiSSGeA of the University of Padua.

Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Criteria for the transcriptions
Introduction
Franciscans and Manuscripts: An Overview
Franciscans or Dominicans? A Question of Influence
The Franciscan Book: Ideal Models and Perspectives
Franciscans Manuscripts: Elements for a Conception of the Late Medieval Book
The Ideal: Regulations and Franciscan Manuscripts in Padua
Introduction
Learning and the Use of Books: Two Problematic Practices for Franciscans
The Franciscan Rule
The Rule and the Question of Study and Books
The Convent of Sant'Antonio in Padua and the Interpretations of the Rule of the Friars of the Community
The Observant Convent of Padua and the Interpretations of the Rule of the Movements of Franciscan Reform
Franciscan Movements of Reform and Their Views on Study, Books and Libraries
The Franciscan Observance and Study, Books and Libraries
Conclusion
The Space: Libraries and Franciscan Manuscripts in Padua
Introduction
The Medieval Library
Mendicant Orders and their Libraries
Mendicant Libraries at Padua
The Biblioteca Antoniana at Padua
The Book Collection of the Biblioteca Antoniana in the Fifteenth Century
The Organization of the Book Collection in the Biblioteca Antoniana
The Organization of the Books in the Space of the Library
The Library of San Francesco Grande at Padua
The Book Collection of the Convent of San Francesco Grande
Conclusion
The Form: The Manuscripts
Introduction
Manuscripts from the Library of the Convent of Sant'Antonio
A Theological Treatise: The Commentary on the First Book of Sentences by Bonaventure of Bagnoregio
The Collection of Sermons of Luke of Bitonto
Luke of Bitonto and his Controversial Legacy
Manuscripts of Luke of Bitonto in Padua
Manuscripts from the Library of the Convent of San Francesco Grande
A Selection of Treatises on Morality
A Selection of Tools for Confession
A selection of Tools for the Preparation of Sermons
Conclusion
The Readership: Reading Franciscan Manuscripts in Padua
Introduction
Reading and Readers in the Middle Ages
Reading in the Middle Ages
The Reader
The medieval reader
The Reader and the Interpretive Community
Some Important Questions
The Manuscript Evidence
Manuscripts from the Biblioteca Antoniana
Manuscripts from The Library of San Francesco Grande
Conclusion
Conclusions
Appendix 1
Padua, Pontificia Biblioteca Antoniana MS 573, fols 64r-66v (1449)
Appendix 2
The Set of Corrections of the Manuscripts of Bonaventure's Commentary on the First Book of Sentences, Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana MSS 120, 123, 124 and 125
Appendix 3
Manuscript Images
Bibliography