ROMA (ITALPRESS) – After 555 years, the Bible of Borso d’Este returns to the Vatican. At the end of the exhibition hosted by the Library of the Senate and before returning to Modena, the “most beautiful book in the world” has made a short stop in the Holy See, accompanied by the President of the Senate Ignazio La Russo who, with the Secretary General Federico Toniato and the director of the Galleries Estensi Alessandra Necci, has so wanted to personally thank Pope Leo XIV for his visit to the Senate on 18 December. After Paul II, Pius IX and John Paul II, Pope Leo XIV is thus the fourth Pontiff to have had in his own hands the original. But he is also the first Pope to receive him in the Vatican after 555 years. The work was carried out on the commission of Borso d’Este and from these carried to Pope Paul II in 1471 on the occasion of the conferment of the title of Duke. The manuscript is considered the absolute masterpiece of miniature art.
The realization began in 1455, just in the year when Gutenberg finished printing copies of his Bible. The exhibition in the Library was inaugurated on 14 November, organized on the occasion of the Jubilee 2025 thanks to the collaboration between the Senate of the Republic, Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Ministry of Culture, Estensi Galleries, Extraordinary Commissioner of Government for the Jubilee, Institute of Encyclopedia Treccani and Dicastery for the Evangelisation of the Holy See. The closure, initially planned for 16 January, was then extended to 4 February following the great interest shown by visitors. The bible of Borso d’Este now returns to the Estensi Galleries of Modena where it will be exceptionally exposed to the public from 7 to 9 February, in the Campori Hall of the Estense Universitaria Library, its historical headquarters.
– Senate press office photos –
(ITALPRESS).
