Hedes & Dekes: Rare Manuscripts of Latin Text Re-discovered

On the recent death of his father, Joseph Sisto led the FBI to his father’s home to inspect his estate. Seem odd? Sisto knew that his father’s collection housed more than 1,600 rare manuscripts, and that most of these manuscripts had originally been stolen. (His father had paid for them, but they had once been pilfered from Italy and elsewhere in Europe.) The FBI will be working with the manuscripts’ country of origin to try to have these national treasures returned to their rightful owners.

But the discovery has significant implications for literary historians and museum curators around the world. Many of these manuscripts are the only exact copy of their text, and reside only within this collection. The items in Sisto’s collection will likely help to complete other collections in other museums. Also, Sisto’s translation work will prove invaluable to those interested in learning more about the content of these manuscripts – John Sisto (Joseph’s father) learned Latin in order to translate many of the text, and had worked through approximately 1,100 translations at the time of his death. [Via NPR]

-Rachel Frier

Photo by M. Spencer Green