HAVE YOU EVER SEEN SUCH BEAUTIFUL ARTWORK?On the third day of Av of 5236 of the Creation (24 July 1476), in the city of A Coruña (Galicia, NW Spain), the scribe Moses Ibn Zabarah completes a Hebrew Bible, magnificently illustrated by Joseph Ibn Hayyim. This information is in the last page, written in anthropo/zoomorphic letters. The manuscript tells us that it was commissioned for young Isaac, son of the deceased honorable and loved Don Salomon de Braga.Sixteen years later Spain’s Jews were ordered by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to convert or leave, and this precious Bible left with the family to continue a long exile.In 1770, biblical scholar and Librarian of Oxford’s Radcliffe Library, informed the trustees that a Hebrew bible manuscript had been placed in his hands by the Earl of Panmure, to whom it had been entrusted by its owner, Patrick Chalmers, a Scottish merchant, who had purchased it in Gibraltar. He said that this ‘very elegant and finely illuminated piece’ was for sale and recommended to add it to their collection. In 1872 it was transferred to the Bodleian Library in Oxford. In 2019 the Kennicott Bible (as it is known by) was on temporary display at the Gaiás Centre Museum in Santiago de Compostela (capital of Galicia). As you can imagine many claim that it should remain in the land where it was created.Thanks to Digital Bodleian we can delve into its pages. As I had expressed in other occasions, I would rather see these objects circulate and stay within the community, as mentioned in the dedication of this book: “The blessed Lord grant that he studies it, he and his children and his children’s children throughout all generations”. https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/8c264b23-f6cc-4f18-98cf-9d75f7175b54/