Thursday, September 16, 2010

The Pope gives a nice present to the Queen

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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).

4 comments

  1. 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.

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  2. I guess from the Pope's perspective unity would come from the broken pieces coming (back) to Rome.

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  3. I totally agree with the idea of a facsimile making a good Christmas present. Unfortuately I let my wife peek a this blog;).

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  4. BTW the $250 version you pointed out is now gone;).

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