It has been called the Irish equivalent of the Sistine Chapel, and the analogy is not ridiculous. The Book of Kells is not merely the greatest work of Irish visual art, it belongs among the great creations of Western art.

One big difference between the Book of Kells and the Sistine Chapel, however, is that the manuscript is also funny and playful and combines its grand religious vision with a homely humanity. Everywhere there are touches of comedy: a letter extended to form a monk’;s tonsure, a word broken in two by the paw of a cat. This is not to say that the task of making the book was anything but serious. It required the skin of 185 calves to make the vellum pages. The range of pigments used for its colours - orpiment, vermilion, verdigris, woad and, perhaps, folium - is far greater than that of other contemporary books. There may have been one guiding visionary leading the team of monks, as it is clear that on many pages the script and the images were created by the same hand.

There have long been arguments about where the book was made, with suggestions ranging from Spain to (more plausibly) the great monastery at Lindisfarne, in Northumbria. The consensus is that it was probably made on the island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, whose heavily Irish monastery was founded by St Colmcille in 563. It may well have been intended to honour his memory: from early on it was known as ‘the great book of Columcille’;. Iona was raided by Vikings in 802 and 806, and many of its monks retreated to a new base at Kells. The probability is that they brought at least the bulk of the book with them: some subsequent work on it may have been done in this new monastery in Co. Meath.

Whatever its precise history, the book can be securely placed within Irish culture. The contorted animals, highly stylised humans and fabulously ornate initial lettering are rooted in the La Tène tradition of ‘Celtic’; art that by the ninth century had been alive in Ireland for 1,000 years. Many of the animal and bird images are comparable to those created by the great Irish metal workers, but, in a way that is also typically Irish, the book is fed by many cultural streams, from Pictish sculpture in Scotland to Visigothic and Carolingian design in Spain and France, and even to the Coptic art of the North African church.

It seems that the monks who created the book paid more attention to the sumptuous visual art that decorates it than to the sacred text: there are numerous spelling mistakes, and at one point a whole page is repeated. This suggests that the book was never intended for practical use in readings at Mass, but rather was regarded from the beginning as an extraordinary object. The book’;s richness lies in what art historian Roger Stalley has called: the constant humour and vitality of the ornament, the freshness of the pigments, the unwavering beauty of the script and the haunting ambiguity of the religious imagery. Its genius is that it is sacred but never solemn. The vividness, vibrancy and constant, joyful invention make it seem almost a living thing.

• The Book of Kells / Described by Sir Edward Sullivan, with 24 colour reprod. from the original pages (London & N.Y.: Studio Publications, 1914), iii-v, ill. [24 lvs. col. pls.], 34x26cm.; Do. [2nd edn.] (London: The Studio Ltd. 1920), vii, 48pp., ill. [xxiv pls.]); Do. (London: Studio 1924, 1925 [3rd Edn.] 1927), viii [xvi], 48pp. ill, [xxiv mounted col. pl., 29cm.; and Do. [another edn.], with a Foreword by J. H. Holden [5th edn.] (London: Studio 1952), xvii, 18-108pp, ill. [23 pls.; col. facs.; 29cm.], and Do. [another edn.] (Studio 1955), 111pp., ill., 4° [30cm.].
• The Book of Kells / described by Sir Edward Sullivan, Bart., with additional commentary from An enquiry into the art of the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages by Johan Adolf Bruun. [rep. of 2nd edn.] (London: Studio Editions 1986), xiv, 138pp., ill. [24 col. plates; Each plate accompanied by leaf with descriptive letterpress; 29 cm.];
  

• The Book of Kells: Forty-eight pages and details in color from the manuscript in Trinity College, Dublin, ed. Peter Brown [Librarian] (London: Thames & Hudson 1980; rep. 1989); Do. (NY: Knopf 1980)
[indentical cover]
• The Book of Kells [identical to above; facs. rep. of 2nd edn., 1920; styled 3rd edn.] (London: Bracken Books 1988), xiv, 138pp., ill. [24 lvs. of plates; 28cm.; t.p. verso: ‘This is a facsimile reprint of The Book of Kells, second edition, originally published by The Studio Ltd., 1920, with additional material [...]’
• The Book of Kells, [ed.,] Bernard Meehan (London: Thames & Hudson 1994), 95pp., ill. [117 pls., 110 in col.]
• The Book of Kells (Parkgate Books 1997).

• The Book of Kells: An Album of Thirty-six Colour Slides, with an introductor note by William O’Sullivan (Trinity College, Dublin 1967) [red octavo box with 12° booklet, 8pp.; green plastic leatherette slide album.
• The Book of Kells: Reproductions from the Manuscript in Trinity College Dublin [w]ith a study of the Manuscript by Françoise Henry (London: Thames & Hudson 1974) 230pp., ill. [126 col. pls.; 75 b7w ills.; boxed, with book and box in full tan cloth and gilt title on box and spine. [£350]
• The Book of Kells. with accompanying vol. of commentary ed. Peter Fox; contribs. Gearóid MacNiocaill, Patrick McGurk, Bernard Meehan & Anthony Cains [Fine Art Facsimile] (Faksimile Verlag Luzern 1990), 383pp. [reproducing 680pp. of orig. TCD Lib. MS 54], ill. 14 colour pls.; ltd. edn. of 1480 copies, Bound in half-kid, linen boards, leather presentation box with silver-plated miniatures; gold embossing [slipcase]; fully stitched on double cords by Burkhwilt Bookbinders; specialist photography by Heinz Bigler Atelier.

• George Otto Simms, Exploring the Book of Kells (Dublin: The O’Brien Press 1988), ill. David Rooney.