RSS
Cioroianu: Codex Aureus could be included on UNESCO Heritage List this year
Manager of the National Library of Romania, Adrian Cioroianu, told a conference in central Alba Iulia on Friday that he hopes to be able to announce "not very late in the course of this year" the inclusion of the Codex Aureus - the most famous western medieval illuminated manuscript kept in a collection in Romania - on the UNESCO Heritage List. Cioroianu emphasized that the precious document, which is kept at the Batthyaneum Library in Alba Iulia, has never left Romania.
"I would be happy to be able to break to you, sometime not very late this year, the good news of the Codex Aureus' entry to the UNESCO Heritage List, yet this doesn't depend on us. This inclusion does not presuppose its leaving the country. The file was submitted as per 21st century rules, with a high-definition digital copy attached, that is available to anyone to see," Cioroianu told the audience present on Friday evening on the esplanade of the National Union Museum in Alba Iulia at the conference "Dilemmas and problems of national heritage", organized as part of the Alba Transilvana Book Fair.
Adrian Cioroianu debunked fears about the Codex being sent to Germany, emphasizing that only a virtual copy was submitted as part of the file required for registration, while "the place of the Codex is with the family of Codexes on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and this will happen without it leaving the territory of the country for a moment. I hope we are soon able to break this news."
Codex Aureus, a fragment of a Latin gospel book written on parchment and dating from around 810, is the most famous illuminated medieval western manuscript in the library's collection and is kept in an armored room under special conditions and periodically checked for its state of conservation.
Codex Aureus, or the Lorsch Gospel, is half of a Latin Tetraevangelion on parchment put out at the order of Charlemagne, probably at the Schola Palatina in Aachen. The manuscript written entirely in gold ink is also famous for the exceptional quality of its ornaments: 202 pages decorated with polychrome friezes, 12 pages of illustrated biblical canons, 3 full-page paintings, two of which represent the portraits of evangelists Matthew and Mark, an illuminated frontispiece and two other pages with ornamental writing, as reads the presentation made on the website of the National Library of Romania, where the document can also be digitally browsed.
It is not known when and how the Carolingian manuscript was split in two. The other half, respectively the Gospels according to Luke and John, are at the Vatican. One of the covers is also in Rome, while the second one is in a museum in London.
In the middle of the 18th century, the first part of the manuscript belonged to the library of the Prince-Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Migazzi, from where it became property of Roman Catholic bishop Ignác Batthyany, who bought Migazzi's 8,000-volume library in 1782.
Apart from the Codex, the Batthyaneum houses the most valuable collection of Western medieval manuscripts in Romania, as well as the largest collection of incunabula.
(Photo: http://www.bibnat.ro/Codex-Aureus-s109-expo1-ro.htm)