The Book of Kells is a manuscript of the four Gospels in Latin, the books that tell the life of Jesus under the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Monks copied and painted it by hand on calfskin around the year 800, and none of their names has come down to us.
Those monks belonged to the community of Saint Columba, an Irish monk of the sixth century. Most scholars think the work began in his monastery on Iona, a small Scottish island in the Inner Hebrides, and was perhaps finished at Kells, the Irish town that gave the book its name. No record settles the question.
It is famous for the amount and finesse of its decoration, with whole pages turned into knots, spirals, animals and figures. Trinity College Dublin has owned it since 1661 and shows it in the college's Old Library.
Cool Stories About Art is a newsletter to learn art the fun way.
Join 200,000+ readers and get:
10 new art stories / month
The entire archive of content (140+ articles)
Comment, ask questions, and chat with other readers
What does the Book of Kells show?
At the foot of the most famous page, under a giant X, two cats hold two mice by the tail, and the mice grip something small and round between their teeth…
What You'll Discover
Why moths and an otter hide among the letters
Where the oldest picture of its kind sits
The yellow that was made from arsenic
What the thieves of 1007 left on top
How Trinity's own librarian made it vanish
Why seeing every page would take decades