Mystery Australian buys $15m ancient book
The 16th-century artifact known as the Rothschild Prayerbook has landed in Australia and will be seen here for the first time on Seven's Sunday Night.
The mystery buyer and details of its location will also be revealed.
Also known as a Book of Hours the illustrated manuscript is the most expensive of its kind.
It features intricate paintings by the best Renaissance artists of its time, but relatively little is known about it.
"I have a reverence with this book because of what it is and what it stood for. This was a moment in time when the church and civilisation was changing. This was a moment in time when we were just starting to discover that the world was round," the book's new owner said.
It was lost for more than 300 years and earned its modern name after surfacing in the private collection of the world's most famous banking family, the Rothschilds.
It also spent some time in the possession of Adolf Hitler.
Australian art scholar Kate Challis is one of few people alive today who have examined the book.
"It was brought to me and I held it in my hands and I had goose bumps at one moment because I thought, 'Oh my gosh I am holding this book and there are people who lived 500 years ago who held the book exactly the same way as I did,' including probably Hitler himself," Ms Challis said.
It was stolen from the Rothschilds family by Hitler during WWII and took them 60 years to get it back.
Soon after, it was sold and disappeared once again.
The pages are made from animal skin and the borders painted with gold leaf but, mysteriously, four pages are missing.
Experts suspect the book was made for international clientele and members of the Habsburg court in the Netherlands.
"It must have been commissioned for an important member of the court and this is the intriguing thing about it, we don’t really know who it was made for," Renaissance manuscript expert Eugenio Donadoni said.
Full story on Sunday Night at 8:20.
