A 1,200 year old holy book was found on Thursday, July 20, 2006 in a peat bog in Ireland, and scholars are excited to see what it may reveal.  This leather-bound medieval manuscript with Irish Celtic art has been dated from 800-1,000 AD and contains about twenty illustrated pages on leather vellum.  Currently stored in refrigeration, it will take years of painstaking study before it can be put on public display.   Quick thinking by the landowner who found it certainly saved the manuscript from further deterioration.  When bulldozing his property, he saw the manuscript, recognized what it was, and promptly re-covered it with damp soil preventing it from drying out to preserve it for proper excavation.  This new discovery has been likened to the finding the Dead Sea Scrolls.

VIENNA, Austria Spectacular news for art lovers everywhere is the recovery of the 16th century masterpiece, Saliera of Francis I, a magnificent work of gold and enamel of 1540-43 by Florentine Renaissance/ Mannerist goldsmith, artist extraordinaire, Benvenuto Cellini. 10 inches tall and valued at $65 million, the Saliera (Saltcellar) was buried in a forest near Vienna after it was stolen in 2003 from Vienna's Art History Museum. According to the thief himself, Robert Mang, an alarm specialist, the theft was nothing more than a prank. The work was recovered January 20, 2006, but this prank will cost Austrian Mang four years in prison. The Saltcellar depicts the Greek god of the sea, Neptune, and the goddess of agriculture, Ceres, appropriate culinary images to grace the dining table of the King of France. The importance of the king's guests was revealed by how close they were seated to the Saltcellar. This is the artist's sole remaining authenticated gold work. Cellini's Saliera was compared by the museum to be equivalent to Leonardo's Mona Lisa. Extraordinarily talented, but not particularly modest, Cellini would have agreed with this assessment, as does this author. --Brenda Harness, Art Historian

This fine art work by Italian Renaissance painter, Leonardo da Vinci, was in the private collection of the Duke of Buccleuch in Scotland until it was stolen in 2003…an unfortunate loss for art history and art historians since so few authentic Leonardo paintings exist today. Most likely it was commissioned in 1501 by the Secretary of State for King Louis XII of France, Florimund Robertet. This is a fine art image of the Madonna and Child with the Christ Child looking at a crucifix-shaped yarnwinder. The dark modeling of the Madonna and Child evidences Leonardo’s expert use of his inventive, smoky, sfumato technique to achieve the perception of depth. --Brenda Harness, Art Historian

With the arrival of one of Raphael's most beloved portraits, that of Italian Renaissance writer and courtier Baldassare Castiglione, comes a 3d animated resurrection of said courtier as a museum tour guide. In a three-year partnership, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Louvre in Paris will present a new exhibition called Louvre Atlanta^TM.  The Louvre will send hundreds of art works to the High Museum in an exhibition that will run from October 2006 through 2009.  According to the High's website, the purpose of the partnership will "trace the history and development of the Louvre from the 17th century through the present. The three exhibitions in year one will focus on the genesis of the royal collection of the pre-Revolutionary Régime—the works collected by the Kings before the Louvre was converted from a palace to a museum during the late 18th century and that make up the heart of the Louvre’s collections." It should be interesting. --Brenda Harness, Art Historian