“Book of Kells”
by Jerry B. Lincecum
[Note: This article appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on March 29, 1990]

Ireland's famed “Book of Kells,” the Western world's most beautiful illuminated manuscript, is also one of our greatest riddles. Now, thanks to a superb fine art facsimile edition, scholars and students at Texas Christian University and Austin College can study it from cover to cover in search of new answers. Trinity College in Dublin also provides a website.

One copy of the expensive facsimile edition, valued at $18,000 per book and limited to 1,480 copies worldwide, was presented to Austin College in Sherman last night. Another goes to the Texas Christian University library in special ceremonies tonight.

Since the Austin College copy arrived early (two days before St. Patrick's Day!), I have had the privilege of poring over this gorgeous and sacred book. As for the riddles of its origin, I began puzzling over those even before my first visit to Trinity College in Dublin to view the original in 1970.

As best we can determine, the Book of Kells was copied by hand and illuminated by monks around the year 800 A.D. Although it was probably begun on the island of Iona, between Scotland and Ireland, its name is derived from the Abbey of Kells, in the Irish Midlands, where it was kept from at least the 9th century to 1541. One theory has it that portions of the book were made at Kells, after Viking raids on Iona forced the monastery to retreat to the more isolated location, is uncertain.

The book consists of a Latin text of the four Gospels, calligraphed in ornate script and lavishly illustrated in as many as ten colors. Only two of its 680 pages are without color. Not intended for daily use or study, it was a sacred work of art to appear on the altar for very special occasions.

Since 1661 the Book of Kells has been kept in the Library of Trinity College in Dublin. The fact that the preservation of medieval manuscripts requires strict conservation measures was not understood in the 19th century and the book suffered from more than the ravages of time. It suffered damage when it was improperly rebound in ?. Not recognizing that some of the pages varied in size, the binder actually cut off some of the gorgeous illumination in order to standardize the size.

In 1953 the book had to undergo a major process of restoration. At that time it was rebound into four volumes, permitting greater access. In Dublin two volumes of the Book are displayed daily under strictly controlled conditions, while the other two are available to a few privileged scholars. Pages are turned on a regular schedule to allow the public to view different sections of the book. Thousands flock to Trinity College annually to view this sacred book that is also the finest surviving example of the art of illumination and Celtic art.

To make this treasure more accessible, officials at Trinity College decided in 1986 to allow a limited number of high quality facsimiles to be made by a Swiss publisher, Urs Duggelin, whose firm (Faksimile Verlag or Fine Art Facsimile Publishers) specializes in reproduction of rare illuminated manuscripts and has an outstanding reputation. Duggelin considers this project the fulfillment of a lifetime dream, but when he first proposed it, officials at Trinity College said no, unequivocally.

But when he offered to observe unusually strict security and preservation measures, the door opened. The original was not to be removed from Dublin. It could not be unbound (usual practice for photo reproduction), and worst of all, its pages were not to be touched by anyone or anything--not even a glass photographic plate.

Undeterred, Duggelin invested a quarter of a million Swiss francs and two and a half years of work to invent a unique machine that allowed them to photograph the book without touching it. The photography was done over several days in August 1986.

Then the real work began. Master lithographers and craftsmen drew upon computer enhancement as well as their own skill to reproduce a true facsimile (the latin word means "Make it the same!"). Each page traveled an average of five times between Ireland and Switzerland.

The copy recreates faithfully the present-day condition of the original, including some 580 holes made by beetles, weevils, and the aging process. Normal color printing is limited to four colors, but some pages of the Book of Kells had ten colors, so a more complicated and costly process was followed. The books are bound and sewn by hand, following a medieval process that requires great skill.

What do we know about the artists and craftsmen who made the original, almost 1200 years ago? Not very much. No records have come down to us. There is no list of credits, not even an account book. There are some visual clues, however. Experts who have studied the manuscript have been able to identify only four "hands" in the calligraphy. But medieval artists were known to use themselves as models on occasion, and one scholar has posited the theory that the nine apostles who are depicted on page 202 just might be the book's creators.

Four were master-painters and calligraphers. The other five would have kept busy preparing the pages, mixing colors, making tea, and (when their masters backs were turned) taking us the brush and having fund. No doubt some of the amusing little animals and birds that the book is famous for were done by apprentices.

The masters must have been short-sighted, because only when a 10-factor magnifying glass is applied to the figure of St. Luke on page 201 does one see the breathtakingly intricate and exact decoration. There are numerous other examples of this kind of fine detail, and magnifying glasses of that power were not invented until hundreds of years later.

Two of the painters stand out by virtue of their genius and their contrasting style. One was Celtic (either Irish or Scottish). He was exact, orderly and neat, always using black ink made of iron-gall. His exquisite writing alone would make the book a masterpiece. His colors are blue and green. Toward the end of the book are two of his pages, with blue letters on one and the complementary green on the other.

His greatest rival must have been a southerner--an Arab, an Armenian, or an Italian. He knew the art of the Mediterranean world and painted in a style that is bold, even fantastic, and a perfect foil the swirling gracefulness of Celtic art. He will start a section of text in black, throw in a chunk of scandalous scarlet, shift into brown, then return to black. He is forever throwing in wilful little details--sprigs of wild flowers, eccentric dots and diamonds. His is certainly the greatest page of the Book of Kells, the fabulous "Chi Rho" page (so called after the Greek initial letters of Christ's name).

There are enough puzzles and conundrums in this masterpiece, not to mention splendid images and awe-inspiring calligraphy, to intrigue students and scholars at Austin College and Texas Christian University for years to come.

Similar art can be found in the Lindisfarne Gospels.

The Lindisfarne Gospels are one of the treasures of the Christian Church in Northumbria. They were produced in the 7th century at a time which is sometimes called the "Golden Age of Northumbria" when learning and artistic skills were at a peak. This was the age in which the Venerable Bede wrote his "Ecclesiastical History" and in which the great Celtic Saints like Aidan and Cuthbert carried out their missionary work for the conversion of the North.

The Lindisfarne Gospels are currently in the care of the British Library, in London, but the Diocese of Durham hosts some high quality images from sample pages of the gospels. Click on the thumbnail images to fetch the  full size version.

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