Stockholm- The rare Devil's Bible, which Swedish troops took away from Bohemia during the Thirty Years' War and which Czech PM Mirek Topolanek got acquainted with during his visit to Sweden today, will return temporarily to Prague this year and put on display in the National Library.

Stockholm's Royal Library experts told Topolanek that the Devil's Bible (Codex Gigas) is one of the most valuable medieval manuscripts summarizing the period knowledge.

The manuscript, weighing 75 kg, has a wooden cover in white leather of 92x50.5x22 centimetres.

The Bible's digital form will be available as of September. It will be a gift to the Czech Republic, Sara Bengtson from the Stockholm library told CTK.

The Devil's Bible was created on the turn of the 12th and the 13th centuries in the Benedictine monastery in Podlazice, east Bohemia. Later it belonged to the same order's monasteries in Brevnov, then near Prague, and Broumov, east Bohemia, before it ended up in Emperor Rudolph II's collections of art.

At the end of the Thirty Years' War, the Swedes took it away as war loot for their Queen Kristina.

The Bible has left Sweden only twice since. In 1970 it was loaned to the USA and in 1997 to Berlin.

It will be on display in Prague's Klementinum palace, the National Library seat, from this September till January 2008. Afterwards it will return to Sweden.

The Devil's Bible includes 312 parchment sheets, or 624 pages, out of the original 320 ones.

It comprises the Old and New Testaments in Latin translations, along with the text of the oldest Chronicle of Bohemia, written by Cosmas of Prague, and a calendar.

The name of the Devil's Bible is connected with a legend, saying that it was written by a monk repenting of his sins in a cell, who finished the manuscript in one single night with the aid of the devil.

Topolanek's predecessor Jiri Paroubek asked Stockholm to loan the Bible to Prague during his Swedish trip in late 2005. He said that the Czech Republic does not challenge the Swedish ownership of the manuscript.

Apart from the Devil's Bible, Topolanek also saw an exhibition of Alfons Mucha (1860-1939) in Stockholm, the first ever exhibition of this Czech Art Nouveau painter to be held in Sweden.

This is the article from Radio Praha

Devil's Bible returns home but only for few months

[19-04-2007] By Dita Asiedu

The Codex Gigas, also known as the Devil's Bible, is the biggest book in the world. Made at the start of the 13th century in a Bohemian monastery, it was one of the country's most prized works of art. In medieval times, its uniqueness was even put on a par with the wonders of the world. But at the end of the Thirty Years' War, it was taken by the Swedes and has been Swedish property since then. The National Library in Prague has now been allowed to borrow it for an exhibition that opens later this year.

Devil's Bible, photo: CTK

Historians believe that the gigantic book, which has to be carried by two people, was most probably made in 1229 in a small Benedictine monastery in the town of Podlazice. Although the first mention of the book dates to 1295, the writing is thought to be about 65 years older. Its format - font and script - are uniform and it is believed to be the life work of one person, for whom it must have taken some 20 years to write. Zdenek Uhlir is from the National Library in Prague:

Zdenek Uhlir

"It's a parchment book and very huge. It is about 92cm high and about 51cm wide. That means that it's the biggest book in the world. It weighs about 75 kilograms. It's a very typical late-Roman book illumination and the typical colours are red, blue, green and yellow. It's very difficult to read from the pages of this book because the script is very small - in some cases just seven millimetres big."

Why, how and by whom the Devil's Bible was made has remained a mystery until this day. But legend has it that the book was written by a monk, who faced being walled up alive for breaching a monastic code, and promised to create the biggest manuscript in the world in just one night in return for being spared from punishment. But when he realised that he would not be able to deliver on his promise, he asked the devil for help and his prayer was answered. The devil, to which the monk sold his soul, is depicted in the Penitential - a chapter that takes the form of a handbook for priests, listing various sins and the corresponding forms of repentance.

Devil's Bible

"The book contains the Old Testament, the New Testament, a necrology of the Podlazice monastery, a list of Podlazice fraternity members, a script on natural history, the oldest Czech Latin chronicle - there are eleven content items in all."

Devil's Bible

It is estimated that skin from some 160 donkeys had to be used to provide sufficient writing material for the book. Written in Latin, it also includes mystical medical formulae to treat epilepsy and fever but also solve unusual problems like finding a thief, for example. One of the most valuable chapters is the Chronica Bohemorum - a copy of the Bohemian Chronicle, drawn up from 1045 to 1125, that is considered one of the oldest and best transcripts of the Chronicle. The very end of the codex includes a list of the days on which Easter falls in the coming years.

The Devil's Bible will be exhibited at Prague's Klementinum Gallery from September 20th to January 6th next year. Besides the book, the exhibition will also have detailed descriptions of some of its chapters and a travelogue of the bible's journey from the little monastery in east Bohemia to Sweden's National Library.

It is indeed a magnificent work of art.

Even though the Czechs acknowledge Sweden as the rightful owner of the Devil’s Bible, the issue of ownership is not important to me as a Swede.

Two things are much more important concerning all the cultural and historical treasures of Europe, including this one:

1. Basically, their very preservation.

2. Providing the public access to these works. It is of utmost importance that Westerners in general, not only scholars and researchers, get to know their historical and cultural identity, through education, through literature, through traditions and through works of art like this Bible (and naturally, tourists from Asia, Africa etc are also welcome to get to know them in real life).

Less than 20 years ago, few Western Europeans, Americans and other free Westerners were able to experience the cultural treasures of places like Warsaw, Prague and Budapest and simultaneously, people living behind the Iron Curtain stood little chance of visiting cities like Athens, Florence or Paris in Western Europe. The fact that ALL of the Western World (including Russia)now is accessible to ALL Westerners is a great cultural treasure in itself.

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