Treasures from the Morgan’s Collections

The Saint of Bleecker Street Autograph manuscript, 1954,
Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007)

No visit to the Morgan Library & Museum feels complete without spending time in Pierpont Morgan’s magnificent study and the Library (East Room), where the splendor of the institution itself is as memorable as the objects it preserves.

The Collections Spotlight, Summer 2026 exhibition offered a reminder of the extraordinary breadth of the Morgan’s holdings. Among the many highlights were a document signed by Queen Maria I of Portugal, a manuscript notebook of Henry David Thoreau, a 1483 edition of Ulrich von Richental’s Das Concilium bůch geschehen zů Costencz, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Zur Farbenlehre (On the Theory of Colors), and Gian Carlo Menotti’s autograph manuscript for The Saint of Bleecker Street, an opera rooted in the faith and traditions of New York’s Little Italy. Few museums bring together such a remarkable cross-section of European history, literature, music, and art under one roof.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli

Book of Hours, in Latin, begun by Georges Trubert and the Master
of the della Rovere Missals, completed by a follower of
Jean Bourdichon France, Avignon, ca. 1485-90

Das Concilium buch geschehen zu Costencz, Augsburg: Anton Sorg,
September 2, 1483, Ulrich von Richental (ca. 1365-1437[?])

On the Course of the Heavens and the Stars, in German,
attributed to Caspar Engelsüss and Michael Scot Germany,
Rhineland, second half of the fifteenth century

Life of St. Benedict, in Italian, Italy, Padua or Bergamo, ca. 1450

Zur Farbenlehre (On the theory of colors) Tübingen: In der J. G. Cotta'schen buchhandlung, 1810, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Manuscript notebook, Cambridge and Concord, ca.
February-October 1852, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

(L) Bust of Alfonso II d’Avalos (1502-1546), Marquis of Pescara and Vasto, Bronze, by Annibale Fontana (1540-1587). (R) Portrait of a Knight of Malta, 1499, tempera and oil on panel, Gian Giacomo D'Alladio, called Macrino D'Alba

(L) Running Eros, Holding a Torch, Bronze, Italy, Boscoreale, second
or first century B.C. (R) Life mask of George Washington,
1785, plaster, Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828)

A peek into the West Room Vault