# 85 NOVEMBER 21 st , 2016
to write it seems to reveal that the client had to be a high rank dignitary of the Byzantine clergy or aristocracy , who came to Rossano in the seventh century , probably to escape the iconoclastic fights erupted in the empire .
The restoration ended last year has added new information about the history of this authentic wonder .
Originally , it had to be a document of circa 400 pages , and not 188 as it is now : therefore ,
it much probably included also the two missing Gospels .
The purple color of the pages is not due to the extract of the murex , a mollusc used by Greeks and Romans to paint of red color their clothes , but to cudbear , coloring of plant origin widely used during the Renaissance .
Despite the early twentieth-century restoration that unfortunately altered the images , it is still possible to define that all thumbnails are coeval to the sixth century , and there was no one added later .
The code was completely bound and provided with a swing device that ensures both the consultation and the preservation . Finally , from July 2016 it is possible to admire this treasure in the renovated Diocesan Museum of Rossano : it is not often that we can see a testimony of fourteen hundred years ago .
24 | WE THE ITALIANS www . wetheitalians . com