World's Largest Private Manuscript Collection to be sold

A collection described as the world’s largest private collection of rare books and manuscripts is due to be liquidated. The collection, amounting to 135,000 documents from 54 manuscript collections, was acquired by Aristophil, a French company run by Gérard Lhéritier, which has been shut down by French prosecutors. The company was supposedly an investment vehicle, but is accused of fraud and running a ponzi-pyramid-style scheme. Among other interesting features manuscripts would be bought at auction and then revalued as worth more than ten times the purchase price. The manuscripts include “fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls , medieval illuminated manuscripts and the Marquis de Sade’s 120 days of Sodom (1785)”. See here for the most recent report (and here and here for earlier reports).