I’ve been thinking a lot about “old books” lately. The kind of book that someone mentions and you think, “Wow, I totally forgot about that book!“.

But then, there are the truly old books. The ones that you can’t take home and put on your shelf. The ones that you need white gloves and a chaperone to handle. Illuminated manuscripts, ancient bindings … books that are really art objects.

Of the many highlights from my trips to Ireland were the glimpses of the Book of Kells in Trinity College library. But really, it’s not that easy to get close to these early books. Until now.

UCLA has a website devoted to early texts, called the Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts. The site links to other sites around the world that host images of these important books. Some of the sites have very sophisticated functionality, so that you can zoom in very close to see the work.

Images on this page are from a Gospel of St. John that was presented to Charlemagne upon his coronation. It’s housed in the Abbey of St. Galen in Switzerland. I’ve spent the past hour just clicking through from page to page and zooming in.

Enjoy!