Vilnius (dpa/lby) - A masterpiece exhibited in Lithuania from the library of the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) has met with great public interest. More than 27,000 people - including the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda - visited the special show "Spiritual Shield" with the prayer book of the Lithuanian Grand Chancellor Albertus Gastold in the Grand Duke's Palace in Vilnius. This made it one of the most popular exhibitions with a single exhibit, as a museum spokeswoman told the German Press Agency on Wednesday. Accordingly, an exhibition is usually considered successful if it attracts around 20,000 visitors.
In the special show, the original prayer book was presented for the first time outside of Munich. The exhibition, which opened on June 27 and was extended by two weeks to September 16, formed part of the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of the city of Vilnius. Patrons were the Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte and the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder.
The prayer book was once created by the prominent Polish artist and Cistercian monk Stanisław Samostrzelnik. Albertus Gastold (around 1480-1539) commissioned the work, which was written in Kraków in 1528 and provided with a foreword in Latin. As Grand Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Gastold was one of the most influential people in what is now the Baltic EU country.
According to the exhibition organizers, the manuscript came to Bavaria as part of the rich dowry of the Princess of Poland and Lithuania, Anna Katharina Konstanze Wasa (1619-1651), who in 1642 gave the Count Palatine and Duke of Palatinate-Neuburg Philipp Wilhelm (1615 -1690) married. It came into the possession of the university library at the beginning of the 18th century.
