Found, after 500 years

Stolen page found after 500 years

Thu Sep 30, 7:33 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A page stolen more than 500 years ago from a celebrated Italian book of prayers has finally been recovered, the British Library says.

Reuters Photo

The illuminated page depicting the occupations of the month of October comes from the Sforza Book of Hours, one of the most lavish books of the Italian Renaissance and a treasured item in the national library's collection.

The devotional book, measuring 9 by 13 centimetres, was commissioned about 1490 for the widow of the Duke of Milan.

But before it had even been completed, some of the main illustrated pages were stolen from the workshop of the artist, Giovan Pietro Birago, a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci.

The book was presented to the British Museum in 1893, and passed to the British Library after its creation in 1973.

The stolen pages were regarded as completely lost until one reached the Museum in 1941. The Library acquired another page, showing the month of May, in 1984, after it was sold by New York dealer and collector Bernard Breslauer.

It was assumed then that no more pages would emerge, but Breslauer had another page, a fact which did not emerge until it he offered it this year to the Library.

With support from the National Art Collections Fund and the Friends of the National Libraries groups, this last page was bought for 191,000 pounds and presented to the British Library.

It is likely to be the last of the missing pages to be recovered, said Scot McKendrick, the library's Head of Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts.

"Given the fame of the book, I'd be pretty astounded if anything else now re-emerged," he told Reuters.