The unique Codex Gigas known also as the Devil’s Bible, which has returned to the Czech Republic after many hundreds of years just for an exhibition can stay a bit longer. The famous book is exposed in the National Library, Klementinum, and because of an enormous interest from the side of the public, the exposition was prolonged until the March 9th 2008. The number of visitors is limited due to a high protection and only sixty persons in an hour can see this biggest hand written book in the world.
The Bible has its origins probably in the year 1229. It was made in a small Benedictine monastery in Bohemia but at the end of the thirty-year old war (1618-1648) the manuscript as many other art pieces was taken by the Swedes as a war plunder for their queen. Since that time it has left Sweden only twice: in 1970 was introduced in the U.S. and eight years ago in Berlin. It got the unusual knick-name: the Devil’s Bible because according to a legend a monk in order to make such a piece of art made a pact with devil who helped him to create it but the he had to put a devil’s picture inside
The manuscript is unusually large even for today’s parameters. No doubts that in the middle age it belonged to the seven wonders of the world. Codex Gigas weights 75 kilos and measures 900 x 505 x 220 mm. It contains 312 of vellum sheets which is 624 pages. The historians estimate that a scribe monk had to dedicate at least 20 years to create such a piece of art. The Codex includes the entire Latin Bible in a pre-Vulgate version, encyclopedia Etymologiae, Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, Cosmas of Prague's Chronicle of Bohemia, and many others. The entire document is written in Latin.
The Bible has its origins probably in the year 1229. It was made in a small Benedictine monastery in Bohemia but at the end of the thirty-year old war (1618-1648) the manuscript as many other art pieces was taken by the Swedes as a war plunder for their queen. Since that time it has left Sweden only twice: in 1970 was introduced in the U.S. and eight years ago in Berlin. It got the unusual knick-name: the Devil’s Bible because according to a legend a monk in order to make such a piece of art made a pact with devil who helped him to create it but the he had to put a devil’s picture inside
The manuscript is unusually large even for today’s parameters. No doubts that in the middle age it belonged to the seven wonders of the world. Codex Gigas weights 75 kilos and measures 900 x 505 x 220 mm. It contains 312 of vellum sheets which is 624 pages. The historians estimate that a scribe monk had to dedicate at least 20 years to create such a piece of art. The Codex includes the entire Latin Bible in a pre-Vulgate version, encyclopedia Etymologiae, Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, Cosmas of Prague's Chronicle of Bohemia, and many others. The entire document is written in Latin.
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