British Library Faces New Claim
for Medieval Italian Manuscript
The British Library is facing a renewed claim for the return of a 12th-century manuscript that appears to have been taken from a cathedral northeast of Naples during World War II, according to the July 3 London Times. The library bought the 290-folio missal from Sotheby’s in 1947, despite suspicions that it had been looted from the chapter library of Benevento after heavy American bombing in 1943. The auction house had obtained the missal from a former British Army officer.
Now the Archbishop of Benevento is planning to make a claim to the Spoliation Advisory Panel, the British committee formed to resolve such disputes. The British Library dismissed a similar request in 1978 on the basis that it should have been made within six years after the loss.
Director of Special Collections Alice Prochaska said the library, in buying the missal, must have been satisfied that the vendor had legal title. She added that return of the manuscript was no longer a library decision but “a question for government policy.”
Posted July 10, 2000.
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