24 Jan 2011 01:47:00
For its only U.S. stop, the display of the books with vibrant illustrations complementing liturgical writings opens Sunday at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University.
"The Lost Manuscripts From the Sistine Chapel: An Epic Journey From Rome to Toledo," which was on view at the National Library of Spain in Madrid in the fall, will run through April 23 in Dallas before the books, called codices, go back to their respective archives at three libraries in Spain, away from public view.
The show is the culmination of more than a decade of research that began when Italian scholar Elena De Laurentiis, while doing research in Spain, happened upon several photographs of the books with a papal seal and wondered how they had made their way to Spain.
With a label on the photographs directing her to the Cathedral of Toledo, her research took her to the mountaintop Spanish city that spreads out with a maze of streets. She found that the archbishop of Toledo — Cardinal Francisco Antonio de Lorenzana y Buitron — had taken the books from Rome as Napoleon's armies invaded in 1798. He then donated the works to the cathedral's library, even putting a handwritten note in the books about the rescue.
"There's not a lot known about how he acquired them," she said through a translator. "In order to save them, he sent them to the cathedral."
While 26 of the books remained at the cathedral's library, 11 eventually went to a regional library in Toledo and three went to the National Library of Spain.
"The Lost Manuscripts From the Sistine Chapel: An Epic Journey From Rome to Toledo," which was on view at the National Library of Spain in Madrid in the fall, will run through April 23 in Dallas before the books, called codices, go back to their respective archives at three libraries in Spain, away from public view.
The show is the culmination of more than a decade of research that began when Italian scholar Elena De Laurentiis, while doing research in Spain, happened upon several photographs of the books with a papal seal and wondered how they had made their way to Spain.
With a label on the photographs directing her to the Cathedral of Toledo, her research took her to the mountaintop Spanish city that spreads out with a maze of streets. She found that the archbishop of Toledo — Cardinal Francisco Antonio de Lorenzana y Buitron — had taken the books from Rome as Napoleon's armies invaded in 1798. He then donated the works to the cathedral's library, even putting a handwritten note in the books about the rescue.
"There's not a lot known about how he acquired them," she said through a translator. "In order to save them, he sent them to the cathedral."
While 26 of the books remained at the cathedral's library, 11 eventually went to a regional library in Toledo and three went to the National Library of Spain.
