Romania’s oldest manuscript included in UNESCO

The oldest manuscript in Romania is now officially part of the UNESCO heritage list.

The Codex Aureus (Gospels of Mark and Matthew, 9th century), located in the collections of the Alba Iulia’s Batthyaneum Library, has been inscribed in the universal heritage list alongside other Carolingian manuscripts.

The manuscript in Romania is a fragment of a Latin Gospel, written and illuminated with gold and natural ink in the scriptorium of the court school (Schola Palatina) in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) in 810 AD, commissioned by Charlemagne. In Western specialized literature, the manuscript is known as „Das Lorscher Evangeliar” („The Lorsch Gospel”), according to News.ro.

The manuscript appears over time in the inventory under five or six different names, hence the speculation that it was not classified.

The manuscript written entirely in gold ink is also famous for the exceptional quality of the ornamentation: 202 pages decorated with polychrome friezes, 12 pages of illustrated biblical canons, 3 full-page paintings, two of which represent the portraits of the evangelists Matthew and Mark, an illuminated frontispiece and two other pages with ornamental writing. The beautiful manuscript can be digitally browsed on the website of the National Library of Romania.

Along with the Codex, the Batthyaneum houses the most valuable collection of Western medieval manuscripts in Romania, as well as the largest collection of incunabula (books or pamphlets from Europe’s early printing stage).

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