The near-complete Hebrew Bible edged out a volume by Leonardo da Vinci as the most expensive sold at auction ever.
(May 17, 2023 / JNS) First, there was the possibility that Renaissance man par excellence Leonardo da Vinci was Jewish. Now, the oldest near-complete Hebrew Bible, Codex Sassoon, which dates to around the year 900, beat da Vinci’s Codex Leicester as the most expensive book ever sold at auction.
Business magnate Bill Gates bought the latter for $30.8 million in 1994.
On May 17, Tel Aviv’s ANU–Museum of the Jewish People bought Codex Sassoon for $33.5 million at Sotheby’s auction house in New York. (Although the Hebrew volume is a higher price, the da Vinci manuscript is pricier when adjusted for inflation; with the buyer’s premium, a charge in addition to the hammer price, the sale totaled $38.1 million.)
“Very pleased that Codex Sassoon. which sold for $33.5 million at Sotheby’s today, will go to the Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv. Thank you to Alfred Moses and his family for making this happen,” tweeted Haim Gottschalk, Judaica librarian at the Library of Congress.
A donation from Moses, a former U.S. ambassador to Romania, reportedly helped support the purchase.