Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek Darmstadt, Hs 2505

This delightful manuscript on parchment was written ca.1360. It contains seventy-one leaves, 35 × 20 cm., and thirty-four chapters with pictures painted in vivid washes. The archives of Dortmund reveal that it belonged to L. Kleppingk from 1372 to 1388/89 and hence it is known as the Cleppinck Speculum . According to an entry at the end of the text it was in the Cloister of Clarissa in Clarenberg, Westphalia, in about 1400. The manuscript is incomplete, lacking many leaves but ending with Chapter XL, so that it was probably copied as the abbreviated version. The miniatures are placed in an unusual way, with the four illustrations for each chapter on facing pages without text (Plates II-1 and II-2). The images are in two compartments in vertical sequence and are of formal dramatic design. The typological pattern of the Speculum is followed, but with extremely unusual interpretations in the miniatures. The rhymed text is inscribed in single columns on the tall narrow pages following the openings containing the miniatures.^[23]