Copied in the 5th century, Codex Alexandrinus is one of the three early Greek manuscripts that preserve both the Old and the New Testaments together. Its name (‘Book from Alexandria’) derives from the city of Alexandria in Egypt, where it was preserved before the Greek Patriarch of Alexandria, Cyril Lucar (d. 1638) brought it to Constantinople in 1621. As Greek Orthodox Patriarch, Lucar had close ties to Britain and the Church of England, which supported him in many of his activities. He presented this manuscript as a gift to the ruling monarch, Charles I (r. 1625–1649) in 1627. Arriving in London through the English Ambassador to Istanbul, Codex Alexandrinus became part of the Royal Library. It survived the devastating fire of 1733, when the librarian Richard Bentley (d. 1742) rescued it himself from the flames. It subsequently entered the British Museum and then the British Library.

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