Rare and ornate 14th-century Bible sells at auction for £5.3m

A rare, ornate, talismanic and mystical Hebrew Bible that was written by an illustrious rabbi in 14th century Spain, and whose gilded and colourful pages blend Jewish, Christian, and Islamic artistic traditions, is to go on public display after being bought at auction for $6.9m (£5.3m).

The Shem Tov Bible, which was completed by Rabbi Shem Tov Ibn Gaon in the northern Spanish city of Soria in 1312, has led a peripatetic and almost miraculous existence, surviving countless wars and upheavals on its travels to Jerusalem, Baghdad, Tripoli, London and Geneva over the course of seven centuries.

On Tuesday evening, the richly decorated Bible – described as “a tour de force of biblical and kabbalistic scholarship and a precious witness to the medieval tradition of Sephardic book art” – sold near the top end of its estimate of $5m-$7m at Sotheby’s in New York.

Sharon Liberman Mintz, Sotheby’s international senior Judaica specialist for books and manuscripts, said the 800-page Bible’s mix of profound scholarship, mystical lettering, and inter-cultural artistic influences made it unique.

Not only does the Shem Tov Bible frequently cite the Hilleli codex , a legendary, lost ancient Hebrew Bible, it also contains about 2,000 painstakingly marked “anomalous” letters, which are smaller or larger letters imbued with a special, secret meaning, according to the traditions of Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism .

Its most visually arresting feature is its mix of three different artistic and architectural traditions.

“This was written in Christian Spain in 1312, but the Christians and the Jews are living with all this Islamicate mudéjar [Moorish] architecture and they’re seeing all of the cultural aesthetics of Islamic Spain around them still,” said Liberman Mintz.

“The book melds and employs all three artistic expressions: you see the Jewish scribal penmanship in the artwork; the delicate flourishes of purple and red ink work marking off the different parts of the Bible.”

There are also gothic arches inspired by the architecture of northern Europe – “but if you turn a few pages over, you’ll see a poly-lobed Islamicate archway … so the architectural features mirror the mudéjar art of the time, while at the same time using artistic vocabulary from French gothic”.

Other people have claimed the Shem Tov Bible serves practical as well as aesthetic purposes. A reference to the Bible from the late 1860s mentions that its owners were reluctant to part with it “because, aside from being a truly precious object, it is a tried and true talisman, for a woman experiencing a difficult labour will be saved from her birth pains when the book enters her home”.

The book occupied a central place in the affections of David Solomon Sassoon , the world’s pre-eminent collector of Hebrew manuscripts, who acquired it in the first decade of the 20th century. Shortly before he died in the summer of 1942, he asked his son to go and speak to his Torah scrolls and to the Shem Tov Bible and to tell them: “We will return to you, and you will return to us; we will not forget you, neither in this world nor in the world to come.”

After being in private hands for so long, the Bible will be shared with the public.

“It was bought by private individuals who, understanding its supreme importance, are looking forward to making it available to the public,” said Liberman Mintz.

She added: “I think anybody who purchases a book of this magnitude understands that it needs to be made available to the widest audience possible and is not going to bury it in some small library.”

Despite the Bible’s rarity, its mystic import and its immense historical, artistic and financial value, Liberman Mintz is most struck by its travels and by the very fact of its survival.

After completing his astonishing feat of scholarship in 1312, Ibn Gaon felt that what the Sotheby’s expert calls his “Bible for the ages” ought to be taken to the Holy Land, even though, as Liberman Mintz said: “That wasn’t a simply undertaken jaunt at that time.”

And, although the rabbi died around 1330 in the city of Safed in Galilee, his creation’s travels were just beginning.

“I think the journey is so exciting because it’s out of Spain by 1315, so it escapes the riots and massacres of 1391 and then the expulsion [of the Jews] from Spain in 1492 , when many books were lost,” said Liberman Mintz. Those lost volumes include the Hilleli codex.

“Then it gets to Israel, which is overrun by the crusaders … [and] it manages to escape that. It goes to Baghdad, and we know that the Jewish community of Baghdad witnessed all kinds of upheavals. It somehow makes its way to Tripoli. It’s in London during the second world war – or probably in Letchworth – and it survives the war. It’s had a miraculous journey of survival.”