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Italy gives world’s oldest illustrated book new display

Following a lengthy restoration project, the world's oldest illustrated book will be put on display in the Calabrian town of Rossano - where it was discovered by chance 240 years ago.

Published: 15 June 2016 13:07 CEST
Italy gives world's oldest illustrated book new display
The book features illustrated scenes from the gospels of Mark and Matthew. Photo: Michele Abastante/Wikimedia

The 1600-year-old book, known as the The Codex Purpureus Rossanensis, tells the life of Jesus according to the gospels of Matthew and Mark.

The book features Greek text written in gold and silver ink on dyed parchment and contains a stunning series of biblical episodes illustrated in Byzantine style.

Following a lengthy three-year restoration project in Rome, the codex will now return to its home city to be given a state-of-the-art display.

“The book is the only one of its kind in the world and is of extraordinary historical, artistic and religious significance,” said Anna Russo, a spokesperson for the diocese of Rossano.

“We are expecting many national and international visitors, making the book's exhibition important not just for our town but for the whole of Calabria.”


An illustration shows Jesus arriving into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Photo: Michele Abastante/Wikimedia

Inside the book's new high-tech display room, air temperature and humidity will be carefully controlled to stop its fragile pages from disintegrating. 

Only 188 of the book's original pages still remain, with the rest having been lost or destroyed over time.

Multimedia installments will tell visitors more about the history of the codex and allow them to explore its detailed illustrations.

Recent studies of the book, which was discovered in Rossano's sacristy in 1876, reveal it was composed in Syria between 400 and 500 AD but little is known of its early history.

The display at the Diocesean Museum of Rossano will open to the public from July 2nd. 

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TODAY IN FRANCE

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

France has paved the way towards paying reparations to more relatives of Algerians who sided with France in their country's independence war but were then interned in French camps.

Published: 16 May 2023 08:29 CEST
France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

More than 200,000 Algerians fought with the French army in the war that pitted Algerian independence fighters against their French colonial masters from 1954 to 1962.

At the end of the war, the French government left the loyalist fighters known as Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier promises it would look after them.

Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the new authorities took revenge.

Thousands of others who fled to France were held in camps, often with their families, in deplorable conditions that an AFP investigation recently found led to the deaths of dozens of children, most of them babies.

READ ALSO Who are the Harkis and why are they still a sore subject in France?

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 asked for “forgiveness” on behalf of his country for abandoning the Harkis and their families after independence.

The following year, a law was passed to recognise the state’s responsibility for the “indignity of the hosting and living conditions on its territory”, which caused “exclusion, suffering and lasting trauma”, and recognised the right to reparations for those who had lived in 89 of the internment camps.

But following a new report, 45 new sites – including military camps, slums and shacks – were added on Monday to that list of places the Harkis and their relatives were forced to live, the government said.

Now “up to 14,000 (more) people could receive compensation after transiting through one of these structures,” it said, signalling possible reparations for both the Harkis and their descendants.

Secretary of state Patricia Miralles said the decision hoped to “make amends for a new injustice, including in regions where until now the prejudices suffered by the Harkis living there were not recognised”.

Macron has spoken out on a number of France’s unresolved colonial legacies, including nuclear testing in Polynesia, its role in the Rwandan genocide and war crimes in Algeria.

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