500-year-old book returns to the Czech Republic after decades
Published: Tuesday, Jan 16th 2024, 17:10
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A 500-year-old book has returned to the Czech Republic after a decades-long odyssey. Representatives of the Italian customs authorities personally handed over the copy to the Catholic Auxiliary Bishop Antonin Basler in Olomouc on Tuesday.
According to the archdiocese there, the religious work entitled "Postilla super epistolas et evangelia" had disappeared from the diocese's holdings at the beginning of the Second World War. Its trail was lost in Austria. It was only two years ago that the Italian authorities discovered it at an auction in the Adriatic port city of Trieste and confiscated it.
The book was reportedly published in Basel in 1518, received a leather binding in Bavaria and arrived in what is now the Czech Republic in the 16th century. It is richly decorated with woodcuts by the Solothurn artist Urs Graf the Elder and contains interpretations of the Sunday and holiday readings from the Gospels, for example as a basis for preparing sermons. At the return ceremony, Auxiliary Bishop Basler spoke of a successful example of European solidarity and cooperation in the preservation of cultural values.
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