By: Menachum Wecker – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org
The near-complete Hebrew Bible edged out a volume by Leonardo da Vinci as the most expensive sold at auction ever.
First, there was the possibility that Renaissance man par excellence Leonardo da Vinci was Jewish. Now, the oldest near-complete Hebrew Bible, Codex Sassoon, which dates to around the year 900, beat da Vinci’s Codex Leicester as the most expensive book ever sold at auction.
Business magnate Bill Gates bought the latter for $30.8 million in 1994.
On May 17, Tel Aviv’s ANU–Museum of the Jewish People bought Codex Sassoon for $33.5 million at Sotheby’s auction house in New York. (Although the Hebrew volume is a higher price, the da Vinci manuscript is pricier when adjusted for inflation; with the buyer’s premium, a charge in addition to the hammer price, the sale totaled $38.1 million.)
Alfred H. Moses, a former U.S. ambassador to Romania and active member of the Georgetown Jewish community, and his family purchased the Hebrew manuscript on behalf of the American Friends of ANU and gifted it to the museum, according to a press release from the auction house. Moses is chair of the museum’s international board of governors.
cont’d…
https://www.jns.org/tel-aviv-anu-museum-of-the-jewish-people-buys-codex-sassoon-for-38-1-million/