Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The Most Expensive

Posted on Friday 9 February 2007

The World’s most expensive book makes a rare appearance.

The book, Prince Henry the Lion’s Gospels, displayed only six weeks per year due to its fragility, can now be viewed by the public until March 18 2007. When Prince Henry the Lion’s Gospels were auctioned for 16 million euros at Sotheby’s in London 1983, the hand-written medieval masterpiece was hailed as the most expensive book in the world.

At that time, Germany's federal government, the state governments of Lower Saxony and Bavaria, the Foundation of Prussian Cultural Heritage and private donors pooled their funds to bring the fully intact book back to Germany for safe keeping. Still to this day nobody knows who managed to conjure up the 16 million euros asked for. But with 800 years of history between its pages, the added mystery is quite fitting.

Henry, prince of Saxony and Bavaria, commissioned the book in 1188 for the consecration of the altar at St. Mary’s in Braunschweig.

Still wholly intact except for minor wear, the text includes all four of the Bible’s Holy Gospels on 226 parchment pages. Fifty of these pages are colourful, elaborate pictures with gold leaf. The book’s high liturgical purpose was the reason for its ornate design and distinction: passages were read from it during each mass.

After Prince Henry’s reign, the book’s course is less clear. The parchments managed to make it to England, though the how and why remain questionable, and they were auctioned at Sotheby’s in 1983. Since that time, the Gospels have been housed in a special climate-control safe at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel just outside of Braunschweig in Lower Saxony. And that is where they will return to after March 18.

http://www.rarebookreview.com/2007/02/09/the-most-expensive/
http://most-expensive-books.blogspot.com/

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