<P> The 12th - century writer Gerald of Wales, in his Topographia Hibernica, described seeing a great Gospel Book in Kildare which many have since assumed was the Book of Kells . The description certainly matches Kells: </P> <P> This book contains the harmony of the Four Evangelists according to Jerome, where for almost every page there are different designs, distinguished by varied colours . Here you may see the face of majesty, divinely drawn, here the mystic symbols of the Evangelists, each with wings, now six, now four, now two; here the eagle, there the calf, here the man and there the lion, and other forms almost infinite . Look at them superficially with the ordinary glance, and you would think it is an erasure, and not tracery . Fine craftsmanship is all about you, but you might not notice it . Look more keenly at it and you will penetrate to the very shrine of art . You will make out intricacies, so delicate and so subtle, so full of knots and links, with colours so fresh and vivid, that you might say that all this were the work of an angel, and not of a man . </P> <P> Since Gerald claims to have seen this book in Kildare, he may have seen another, now lost, book equal in quality to the Book of Kells, or he may have misstated his location . </P> <P> The Book of Kells remained in Kells until 1654 . In that year, Cromwell's cavalry was quartered in the church at Kells, and the governor of the town sent the book to Dublin for safekeeping . Henry Jones, who later became bishop of Meath after the Restoration, presented the manuscript to Trinity College in Dublin in 1661, and it has remained there ever since, except for brief loans to other libraries and museums . It has been on display to the public in the Old Library at Trinity since the 19th century . </P>

Chi rho page of the book of kells