Tea at Trianon: The ‘Mona Lisa Bible’

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, November 16, 2025

The ‘Mona Lisa Bible’

The Borso D'Este Bible

The ‘Mona Lisa Bible’ goes on display in Rome

From Euro News:

Rarely seen in public, the two-volume manuscript is now on display in Rome – as part of the Vatican’s Holy Year celebrations, a tradition held every quarter century and which draws tens of millions of pilgrims to Rome. A 15th-century Bible illustrated with gold and Afghan lapis lazuli has been unveiled in Rome, as part of the Vatican’s Holy Year celebrations. Typically stowed away in Modena, the two-volume manuscript is considered one of the most spectacular examples of Renaissance illuminated manuscripts and said to be one of the most expensive books of its time.
The Bible, commissioned by Duke Borso D’Este, was created between 1455 and 1461 by calligrapher Pietro Paolo Marone and illustrators Taddeo Crivelli and Franco dei Russi. The manuscript followed the Este family from Ferrara to Modena, where it remained until the family lost control of the city in 1859 and the last duke fled to Vienna. The Bible stayed among noble European families until Austria’s last empress sold it to a Parisian antique collector in 1922. Italian industrialist Giovanni Treccani donated the Bible to the Italian state after purchasing it in 1923 for 3.3m French francs. (Read more.)