theconversation.com/when-europes-monastic-libraries-were-looted-britains-richest-book-collectors-went-hunting-290690 When Europe’s monastic libraries were looted, Britain’s richest book collectors went hunting
A bookseller sold Earl Spencer a Gutenberg Bible for £370 in 1790, then rebound it in blue goatskin, erasing clues to its past. Multispectral imaging has now traced it back to French friars whose library was being dismantled in the revolution, part of a wider pattern of Europe's monastic treasures feeding Britain's bibliomania.
— via The Conversation — History, Kelsey Williams, Associate Professor of English, University of Stirling
