The 4th Earl of Ashburnham was a
bibliophile who amassed an important collection of printed books and
manuscripts and was known as "one of the great collectors of the nineteenth century". His
incunabula included two copies of the
Gutenberg Bible and approximately thirty volumes that had been printed by
William Caxton. Ashburnham's heir, the 5th Earl, sold off the book collection in a series of
auctions in 1897 and 1898, realising a total of £62,712 for the 4075 lots sold. In 1845 Libri offered to sell his collection of manuscripts to the
British Museum.
Frederic Madden, head of the Museum's manuscript department, recommended the purchase but the
Treasury would not grant the necessary funds. Libri then offered the collection to Lord Ashburnham, who purchased it in March 1847 for £8,000. Notable among the manuscripts was a 7th-century illuminated manuscript of the
Pentateuch which Libri had stolen from the library at Tours, where it was known as the Tours Pentateuch. Since its acquisition by Lord Ashburnham it has been called the
Ashburnham Pentateuch. The collection also included manuscripts of
Dante and
Napoleon's correspondence. In 1850 Libri, who had fled to England, was convicted
in absentia of theft by a French court. The French government asked Ashburnham to return the Libri manuscripts, offering to reimburse the amount he had paid, but he refused on the grounds that he believed Libri was innocent and had not received a fair trial. Ashburnham was not accused or suspected of knowingly purchasing stolen goods. He eventually conceded, based on evidence put forward by Paul Meyer and
Léopold Delisle of the Bibliothèque nationale, that some of the Libri and Barrois manuscripts had been stolen but he declined to return them to their rightful owners. ==References==