The Nekcsei Bible was produced in Hungary in the 14th century. The "Zuleman Document" in the front of the first volume gives evidence that it was still in Hungary in the mid-16th century. After that there was no trace of its whereabouts until 1825, when a wealthy British bibliophile, Henry Perkins, bought it for £74. From whom he bought it is not recorded. The Bible remained in his collection, which was a large and distinguished one, until it was sold at auction in 1873 after his death. At that auction a dealer bought the Bible for the Library of Congress. The archives of the Library do not reveal the price the Library paid, but it was probably around £200. It has remained here ever since. It is one of our top treasures, and of course it is irreplaceable.

We are often asked how much the Nekcsei Bible is "worth," by which is meant: what price would it fetch if it were placed on sale. Because it will never again be sold, the question is moot, though no less fascinating for that. Whatever its monetary value may be, we treat this Bible as a unique work of great cultural and aesthetic importance that we are entrusted to guard and preserve as we have done for well over a hundred years.

The Bible is made up of two volumes. The first volume has 352 vellum leaves and the second has 394. Thus the two volumes together contain 1,492 pages, each of which measures about 32 by 44.5 cm. The two volumes are very large and very heavy. The Bible came to the Library intact except for six leaves and the original binding. The present binding was done for Mr. Perkins and bears his coat of arms. Each volume was bound extremely tight, which has helped to keep volumes in sound condition but has caused a side effect that needs to be described.

You will notice that in the inner margins of certain pages there is a slight foreshortening of the image. That distortion is a consequence of the tight binding. The master photographer at the Library of Congress produced the color transparencies from which the facsimile was prepared. In doing so he made every effort to avoid this occasional distortion, but in certain places an image on the inner margin goes so far into the "gutter" that the foreshortening caused by the curvature of the page could not be overcome. Rather than eliminate those pages from the facsimile because they fell short of perfection in that form, Helikon Kiadó and the Library of Congress decided that it would be better to retain them and to provide this note of explanation.

Both volumes are in extremely good condition. The first two or three pages in the first volume show some signs of wear, but that is about all. Because the Bible is kept out of the light in a stable environment with controlled temperature and humidity, the colors of the illuminations remain as intense and vivid as they were when they were first applied more than six hundred years ago.

For a number of years it was the hope of Helikon Kiadó External (Helikon Publishers) to publish a facsimile edition of the Nekcsei Bible, but the size of the original was daunting. Then in June 1986 the director of Helikon, Mrs. Magda Molnár, visited the Library of Congress and was therefore able to study the original at first hand. She quickly realized that a facsimile of the entire Bible--all 1,492 pages--would be an impossible publishing venture. Instead she came up with the idea of reproducing just those pages with major illuminations, and discussed the idea with us. We shared her enthusiasm for the new plan and agreed to cooperate in the enterprise.

It has been the aim of Helikon Kiadó to reproduce the colors and the details of the original with the greatest possible fidelity. That they have accomplished this aim so well is owed to their joining of thorough craftsmanship with the most modern technology, such as a computerized laser scanner for making the color separations. In the process, the designer of the facsimile, Mr. Tibor Szántó, made a special visit to Washington to compare the first proofs to the original. Such care was taken at every step and it shows in the result.

As custodian of the original, the Library of Congress has been pleased to join with Helikon Kiadó in bringing out this facsimile edition. We rejoice that its publication greatly widens the availability of the artistic essence of the Nekcsei Bible, most particularly in Hungary, its country of origin.

Dana J. Pratt
Director of Publishing
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C.