His holiness the Pope is visiting the UK at the moment and he is reported (also here) to have given a nice present to the Queen - a facsimile of a Bible manuscript, the Lorsch Gospels (perhaps one of these, or buy one here for $250). These are the best sort of presents in my opinion, nothing beats a nice facsimile for a birthday, Christmas, or special visit (you can remember that when it is my birthday). The manuscript is an illuminated Latin Gospel text with an interesting back story - the front cover (pictured here) is in London (at the Victoria and Albert Museum), while the back cover is in the Vatican (the text is also divided). I don't know anything about its textual value. For more information you can try Wikipedia (already inaccurately up-dated), for some pictures see here.On the covers anyway there is some bibliography: Margaret H. Longhurst and Charles Rufus Morey, 'The Covers of the Lorsch Gospels' Speculum 3 (1928), 64-74 (on the Vatican cover - JSTOR) and 4 (1929), 411-429 (on the London cover - JSTOR).
Now if he had really wanted to promote unity between the two communions, he could have symbolised a lot by bringing the other section of the manuscript itself.
ReplyDeleteI guess from the Pope's perspective unity would come from the broken pieces coming (back) to Rome.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the idea of a facsimile making a good Christmas present. Unfortuately I let my wife peek a this blog;).
ReplyDeleteBTW the $250 version you pointed out is now gone;).
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