[1] The illuminated letters in medieval manuscripts vary in size ... This illuminated initial E is a single page from the original 14th-century volume. The text below the letter reads “Et factum es,” ...

The most valuable collection of historic illuminated manuscripts ever to be offered ... by the importance of the text, exceptional, original condition, and interesting, even highly distinguished ...

What it tells us about the past: The Book of Kells is a large illuminated manuscript — a handwritten and heavily illustrated document ornamented with paints made from gold and silver.

This is not what’s happening, physically, but it makes sense as a metaphor: a medieval manuscript, because it was made by hand, is necessarily an original, even when it is a copy of something else.