Police Recover 17th Vellum Book A Century After It Went Missing
Spanish Police have recovered a rare 17th-century manuscript that disappeared from Valencia’s College of the Major Art of Silk more than a century ago after discovering it listed in an online sales catalgue for €71,900.
The book is made on green vellum, bound in velvet of the same colour and decorated with bronze fittings.
The ordinances of the Gremi de Velluters, or velvet guild, were approved on 16 February 1479 and officially ratified on 13 October that year by Ferdinand the Catholic. The manuscript also includes statutes of the Brotherhood of San Jerónimo, founded in 1483.
The book is made on green vellum, bound in velvet of the same colour and decorated with bronze fittings. It contains 26 chapters from the 1479 ordinances and the Brotherhood statutes.
Officers from the Heritage Group of the National Police Unit assigned to the Valencian Community found the document during routine monitoring of online sales of cultural goods, police said in a statement.
The seller told investigators he did not know the document’s origin and said his father acquired it in the 1970s. The archive confirmed the manuscript disappeared between 1907 and 1909 and was never officially sold.
The owner’s father microfilmed the book in 1992, although it was never registered as protected cultural heritage, police said.
No criminal proceedings are proceeding and the precious artefact will remain the property of its current owner, although it will now be registeted officially and conserved.
