The Gospel of St Mark from the Book of Kells goes on display in the National Gallery of Australia later this week. This is only the fourth time in the book's 1,200-year history that any of it has been shown abroad.
In the Australian capital, Canberra, it will be the centrepiece of an exhibition on the art of the illuminated manuscript.
Because of security fears, the manuscript's departure last Thursday was not publicised, and all arrangements for its transport have been shrouded in secrecy.
It was accompanied by Dr Bernard Meehan, keeper of manuscripts at Trinity College, Dublin, where the Book of Kells is usually on display to the public. The college's librarian, Mr Bill Simpson, and head of conservation, Mr Tony Cairns, have also gone to the National Gallery in Canberra, where the Gospel of St Mark will be on show from next Thursday until May 7th.
The book will be housed in a purpose-built display case. The exhibition is to be opened by the Governor-General of Australia, Sir William Deane.
On March 14th, the Taoiseach, who will be in Canberra as part of a regional tour, will host a reception at the gallery for 600 guests. The gallery is holding a symposium on the Book of Kells and illuminated manuscripts on March 25th and 26th.
The Book of Kells dates from the early ninth century and its surviving 340 folios (680 pages) were written and decorated on vellum - high-quality calfskin. All but two of its pages are decorated. The book was sent overseas for the first time in 1961, when it was shown in London alongside the Anglo-Saxon Lindisfarne Gospels. The book was also sent to the US in the late 1970s and to several European cities in the early 1980s.
Its presence in Canberra may be explained by the fact that the director of the National Gallery of Australia is a Dubliner, Dr Brian Kennedy.
Formerly assistant director of the National Gallery of Ireland, Dr Kennedy took up his present position in September 1997. In a recent article for the Sydney Morning Herald, he remembers visiting Trinity College Library as a child to see the manuscript and writes "It makes me proud to think that Australia, where 38 per cent of people claim Irish ancestry, will have an opportunity to see the Gospel of St Mark from the Book of Kells."
The Irish work will be only one of more than 50 illuminated works on show. All other texts displayed come from Australasian collections and include a gospel book made in Constantinople in the 12th century and a history of the Roman Emperors which once belonged to the Florentine Lorenzo de Medici.
Coinciding with the Canberra exhibition, the Book of Kells makes its debut on CD-ROM on Thursday. The first digitised version of the work to have been authorised by Trinity College, it is a collaboration between the college and Irish multimedia and internet developers X Communications. The CD-ROM includes images of each page with detailed reproductions of the most elaborately illustrated folios.