I am wishing extra hard for a lottery win this week, nothing too greedy, just a few thousand pounds so that I can buy a copy of the Chinon parchment that the Vatican is producing. It is a facsimile of the details of the Fourteenth Century investigation into and trial in Rome of the Knights Templar that has been discovered in a box in the Vatican, described in this BBC story yesterday. It's in Latin and would take me ages to translate with my very rusty GCSE Latin skills but I really want one of this very limited edition.
Better still would be if someone else would translate it and publish a reasonably priced version. I have an obsession with all things Templar, which goes back many years and is nothing to do with Dan Brown; to see what the Vatican actually thought of this Order and get more of an insight into the reasoning behind its persecution would be fascinating.
Can you imagine anything as wonderful as discovering something like this at work? This is from the news story about the Vatican historian who found it:
'She says she stumbled across the document in a box containing other papers five years ago, having been lost for centuries after it was wrongly catalogued.'
Sadly, I'm unlikely to come across anything so interesting in my office.
I listened to the second episode of Mrs Lirriper via the BBC website last night (it will be there for a few more days), it is lovely and the book is definitely on my Christmas list.
This episode even included a ghost story! It is one I know well as it is often included in anthologies of classic stories, The Phantom Coach by Amelia Edwards, but it was very enjoyable to hear it told well. It is the atmospheric story of a man who loses himself on the dark moor in the snow and his attempt to be picked up by the mail coach.
Tuesday, 16 October 2007
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3 comments:
i hadn't heard about this and I too would like to read it. I'm fascinated by all things Templar and have quite a few books. I've just ordered a new one by Sharan Newman The truth about the Templars.i can hardly wait for its arrival.Daphne
Be patient. I'm sure they'll release a paperback edition for £1,999 next year.
I hadn't heard about the Sharan Newman book, another for my wish list, thanks Daphne.
You may well be right Rob, I'd better start saving my coppers!
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