A rare document signed by King Louis XIII of France has recently entered the collection of the 'Ion Heliade Radulescu' Dambovita County Library, an acquisition the institution considers one of its most valuable in recent years, head of the library's Public Relations Service Alexandru Stefanescu announced Friday at a press conference.
According to him, the item is an official privilege drafted in 1623 and signed by King Louis XIII, also known as Louis the Just, a historical figure later popularised in Alexandre Dumas' novel The Three Musketeers.
'This parchment, which we are very proud to have acquired, is an official act - a privilege signed by the hand of King Louis XIII of France, Louis the Just, made famous also by Dumas in The Three Musketeers. Written in 1623, it grants a special privilege to the Notre Dame Monastery in the town of La Flèche. It is an important document for French cultural history, preserved to this day because, thanks to this royal intervention, one of France's oldest monasteries was effectively saved and can still be visited today. We also plan to dedicate a study to it based on the information found in this parchment,' Stefanescu said.
Library representatives noted that the document, recently purchased from an antiquarian bookshop in Bucharest, has exceptional historical and cultural value.
'There are not many such parchments. Beyond its historical value, alongside the king's signature is also that of the Secretary of State of the time, Raymond Phélypeaux. It is also a document of early modern French, which made its translation rather difficult, but we have managed most of it. In addition, it is written on a very fine vellum - an expensive parchment used only for royal documents. We are delighted to have in the library's collections such an original act, bearing the signature of one of the most important monarchs of modern Europe,' Stefanescu added.
The parchment is kept in the library's rare-book collection, stored under controlled humidity and temperature conditions and not exposed to light. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Cornelia Dumitru; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi)
