This was the description of the Great Gospel book stolen from Kells in 1007 (and later recovered). Produced two centuries after the saint’s death, this is an illuminated work, a series of icons, some textual, some portraits, intended to assist the understanding and imagination by commentary upon the scriptural texts, by making associations, through the use of style, colour, and, most of all, the pattern of the liturgical year. Sometimes the detail is extraordinary, and purposeful, and it is only in recent years that the full extent of the artistry and its guiding theology is being understood again. In this talk, Dr Rosemary Power takes us through some of the illuminations, as an introduction to an intensely rich and integrated work of art.