nat4b
nat4b
24 May 2023, 08:04

Codex Sassoon: about the record sale at the Sotheby's auction, the history of the edition and transfer to the museum

Codex Sassoon: about the record sale at the Sotheby's auction, the history of the edition and transfer to the museum
The record sum paid recently at the Sotheby's auction for the oldest extant copy of Sassoon's Codex is impressive, and it amounted to $38.1 million.

The buyer of the ancient edition, dated to the 9th century. AD, became an American diplomat named Alfred Moses. And among the immediate plans of Mozes is the transfer of the book to the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.

The record winning bid made Sassoon's Codex one of the most expensive books in written history. The list of his "colleagues" includes the "Lester Code", which Bill Gates bought in 1994 for $30.8 million, and the first edition of the US Constitution, for which billionaire Ken Griffith paid $43.2 million in 2021.

The name of the codex is directly related to the name of the collector whose collection it was part of. It was David Solomon Sassoon, a tireless collector of Judaica, who was born in Bombay in 1880. In his travels, the entrepreneur and philanthropist paid special attention to the acquisition of Jewish books, and his collection was considered the best among private ones.

For almost 600 years, this edition was considered lost. Until it was purchased by Sassoon in Frankfurt in 1929 for £350. It has 400 pages, about 100 skins were used for the parchment. All the work was done by one copyist.

  The Sassoon Codex is written mostly in Hebrew, but also contains ancient Greek and Aramaic passages. The edition is in exceptionally good condition: it contains all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, with only twelve pages missing.

Scientists believe that this codex is a priceless monument of Jewish civilization.

Source: tah.de

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