Existing comment:
The Giant Bible of Mainz was purchased by Lessing J. Rosenwald and gifted to the Library of Congress on April 4, 1952, five hundred years after the manuscript was begun. The Giant Bible originally belonged to Heinrich von Stockheim, a curator at the Cathedral of Mainz and his inscription appears on the first leaf of the manuscript. It remained in the Cathedral of Mainz until 1631, when the Bible was seized by King Gustavus Adolphus II of Sweden as a prize of war. The King gave the Bible to Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, a member of his military guard who died in 1639. The Bible passed down through members of the duke's family until 1951, when Rosenwald purchased it through the bookseller H.P. Kraus for the Library of Congress. |