The world's oldest book in a private collection, and one of the earliest books in existence, sold at auction in London on Tuesday for more than £3 million. The Crosby-Schoyen Codex was previously owned by the Norwegian businessman and rare book collector Martin Schoyen, and contains the earliest complete copies of two texts from the Bible -- the book of Jonah and Peter's first epistle. Bidding for the text at Christie's auction house started at £1.7 million for a mix of enthusiastic online and in-person bidders. That surpassed the $30.8 million that Microsoft founder Bill Gates paid in 1994 for Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester manuscript. The most expensive historical document remains one of the first prints of the US Constitution, which Sotheby's sold for $43 million in November 2021.str/phz/js

Source: The Times June 11, 2024 21:22 UTC