The Book of Kells Experience

This guide to the Book of Kells in Dublin traces the manuscript back to monks who fled Iona, a wind-battered island off Scotland, for Kells in County Meath around the year 800, after Viking raiders drove them from their first home. You'll hear about the four scribes and at least three artists who worked on its Latin Gospels, one so precise scholars compare his eye to a goldsmith's, and the pigments layered into initials that seem to writhe on the page. The guide also turns to a night in the year 1007, when a thief slipped into a stone church in Kells after something the book's cover was worth far more than the parchment inside it. Look closely at the page under the glass before you move on.