On 6 July, John Hodgson from the John Rylands Library attended the Christie’s auction where we were successful in our bid to acquire the ‘missing’ seventh volume of the Colonna Missal, a magnificent service-book made for use in the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
“It was an exciting but nail-biting experience, as the bids went up by leaps and bounds.”
The manuscript finally fetched a total of £188,750, a little more than the original £1,500 Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford paid for the other 6 volumes in 1868.
The volume has now arrived at Deansgate and joins the six other volumes that have been in the Rylands collections since 1901. It’s on display in the Historic Reading Room until 23 August.
Funding support for the purchase was generously provided by the Art Fund, the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, the Friends of the John Rylands, the B.H. Breslauer Foundation, and the Friends of the National Libraries.
