Monday, December 15, 2008

Codex Gigas (The Devil's Bible) on YouTube

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This weekend Codex Gigas (The Devil's Bible) received a lot of interest in the US. As we reported last week, there was a documentary on the the National Geographic Channel yesterday (and the week before in the UK). Apparently, many viewers searched the web for more information after the program, and it seems as if several websites have linked to this blog (e.g., here). Only today we have had over 1200 visits, which I think is all time high.

For those of us who could not see the program, there are some clips of varying quality on YouTube featuring the spectacular manuscript.

For example, we can sneak a peek from the exhibition in Prague on YouTube here. (It would probably have been impossible for a private person to produe this little home movie at the Royal Library in Stockholm where the codex is normally on exhibit. There is a guard watching the codex all the time.)

There is another clip here showing what appears to be the production of a facsimile. Does anyone understand Czech and can tell us what they are discussing?

Here is a film clip from a TV program in Spanish (TV), on the codex and its temporary transfer to Prague.

And, finally, here a clip showing how a replica for the documentary "The Codex Gigas" was made. I have read that the producers of the documentary were only aloud to turn the pages of the actual MS once.

For more scholarly material on the codex one should visit the Codex Gigas website at the Royal Library here.

Update (TW): This post has been slightly updated on December 16

2 comments

  1. I don't like NG's lurid story full of superstition and exorcistic mumbo jumbo.
    But probably this is necessary to get the money? But money for what?
    I haven't seen any science behind it yet.

    PS: And one shouldn't call it the "Devil's Bible".

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  2. Thanks Wieland for your insightsful comments. I will add a link to the homepage of the codex at the Royal Library web-site where there is more scholarly material.

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