Rodolfo II, nephew of Felipe II of Spain, was an extravagant character who set out to gather a collection of the great wonders of the world and the rarest objects. He wanted to imitate his uncle, also an inveterate collector, but the result bordered on heresy in many cases. In his collection was present a supposed unicorn horn, stuffed mutant animals, the skeleton of a giant and… his most disturbing piece: ‘The Devil’s Bible’also called ‘Codex Gigas’.
A monstrous book (it weighed 75 kilos) that contains the image of Lucifer and carries the medieval legend that a monk wrote it in a single night with the help of Satan. ‘Codex Gigas’ literally means ‘big book’. Created at the beginning of the 13th century and presumably written in Latin by the monk Germán ‘El Recluso’, this ancient medieval parchment manuscript has exaggerated dimensions: it measures 92 × 50.5 × 22 centimeters, its thickness is 624 pages and its weighing 75 kilograms, making it the largest known medieval manuscript.
The story of this book, between reality and legend, begins in el monasterio de Podlažice (in the current Czech Republic), in the year 1230, when a Benedictine sentenced to death promised to write a book in just one night to redeem himself from his sins, but not just any one: the greatest of his time, containing the Bible in it and all human wisdom.
Benedictine monks were nicknamed black monks, that is, an order that took rigorous vows of obedience, chastity, and had to endure physical punishment, fasting, sleep deprivation, and self-flagellation. It was under this regime that German ‘The Recluse’, an extremely vain monk, was sentenced to death for breaking his vows. As punishment for his sins, he was going to be murdered first thing in the morning the next day, in a brutal way, walled up alive. A pact with the Devil saved him, according to legend.
Written by the Devil
The order’s high command scoffed at the monk’s proposal to write a monumental book in a single night, but they still agreed to let him try on the eve of his execution. The monk wrote page by page until his hand went numb with little progress. so he did a deal with the devil: Satan agreed to write the book in exchange for him being drawn on one of its pages and a curse being printed there.
Beyond this legend, the truth is that very little is known about the genesis of a book that was considered for a time as the “eighth wonder of the world” due to its impressive size. The University of Stockholm, the city that today houses this work, calculates that it would have taken 30 years to write the book if only one person had done it, which is most likely given the uniformity of its style.
Codex Gigas: the opening with the Devil’s portrait.
The most surprising thing about the book is the collection of unusual texts. The ‘Codex Gigas’ contains the Old and New Testaments; two works of Josephus Flavius; ‘Etymologies’ by Isidoro of Seville; the standard textbook for the teaching of medicine in the Middle Ages, known as ‘Ars medicinae’ (‘The Art of Medicine’); “Time.news of the Bohemians” (‘Time.news of the Bohemians’) 12th century, from ‘Cosmas of Prague’; and a calendar.
With the monastery in serious financial difficulties, the Benedictines from Podlažice sold the manuscript to the Cistercians from Sedlec, at the behest of Bishop Gregory of Prague. Legend said that a curse accompanied whoever possessed the book. After ruining the Benedictine monastery, its new owners also suffered the ravages of legend. The cloister where it was kept was hit by a strong epidemic, possibly the bubonic plague.
How did the manuscript come into Rodolfo’s hands?
Faced with the “black monks”, the Cistercians were known as the “white monks”, and it was they who delivered the book to Emperor Rudolf II of Habsburg forced by necessity. After his insistence on obtaining the work (and promising that it was only a personal loan), the “white monks” gave the work to Rudolf, who left the monastery on March 4, 1594. A written note says that he passed the night of March 6 in Nachod at the house of an officer, Hanuš Buchloveckým, arriving on March 16 at Nymburk. Several people also decided to immortalize their names on the journey, thanks to which all these details are known. He incorporated it into his ‘Cabinet of Wonders’ at the end of the 16th century.
The set of the Crown of Rudolf II, with the imperial orb and the scepter of the Empire.
The Emperor incorporated the piece into his ‘Cabinet of Wonders‘ with discretion. In the court of the extravagant Rodolfo, scientists of the category of Johannes Kepler coexisted with a legion of magicians, alchemists and prophets. But even in that wizard environment, the Emperor hid the ‘Codex Gigas’, given the fame of a satanic book that he was dragging. Not even the Emperor could allow the rumor that he was dealing with the Devil. He secretly studied his pages looking for some hidden message.
Not even the Emperor could allow the rumor that he was dealing with the Devil
Jan Huberus Pontanus, secretary to the emperor, noted in 1597 that he enthusiastically examined this book for his imperial majesty. An obsession with the book and other objects from his sinister collection, coupled with little interest in political affairs, pushed Rudolf’s younger brother, Matthias, and the Habsburg family to remove Rudolf from the imperial throne in 1608.
Swedish troops steal the book
A the fall of Rudolf II, part of his collection was transferred from Prague to Vienna, as was the court itself. The objects and pieces that remained in Prague were looted in 1648 by the invading Swedish troops in the context of the 30 Years War. The soldiers only came to control a few neighborhoods in Prague, but among them was the area that gave access to the castle. Thus they took valuable booty and with it, the ‘Codex Gigas’. The soldiers pack the book in a gigantic trunk and begin a journey of 1,500 kilometers to bring the present to their monarch, in Stockholm. Cristina, the “woman king of Europe”, ordered that the book be placed in the library of her castle.
Years later, after converting to Catholicism and abdicating her throne, Cristina brought with her to her stay in Rome countless holy books, among them several bibles, but not the ‘Codex Gigas’. The book apparently did not arouse enough curiosity in the queen, or perhaps she considered it anything but sacred.
Following with the supposed curse, the Codex is almost destroyed in a fire in the castle, on Friday, May 7, 1655. According to a legend, a servant took the gigantic Codex and threw it through a window, falling to the ground without breaking. The truth is that the volume suffered serious damage. In a catalog produced by Magnus of Celse (1709-84), and published in 1751, mentions the importance of the ‘Codex Gigas’ and affirms that it belonged to Martin Luther himself, which is false.
However, the first detailed description of the manuscript did not come until the time of Joseph Dobrowski (1753-1829), a member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Prague and a figure of great importance in the Czech language. In his report, published in 1796, he mentioned that the ‘Codex Gigas’ incorporated important information on the history of the region.
The National Library of Sweden has uploaded on the net in high resolution the ‘Codex Gigas’so anyone can take a look and help find out if there are any hidden codes.