Very few sacred texts have ever existed with such powerfully sinister associations and connotations as the Codex Gigas, also known as The Devil’s Bible, so called because of the 50-centimeter tall illustration of the Devil, which occupies an entire page within.

Interestingly, the fork-tongued Devil sits opposite a description of the Kingdom of Heaven, suggesting that the artist had an interest in the dichotomy of good and evil.

Famous for its sheer size as well as its many intricate illustrations, the Devil's Bible is a 13th-century manuscript from Bohemia in what is now part of the Czech Republic. 'Codex Gigas' literally means 'giant book,' and it holds the title of the largest extant medieval illustrated manuscript in existence, measuring 92 centimeters in length and around 22 centimeters in thickness, bound with leather and metal.

Its pages demonstrate incredible detail and precision and contain the entire Latin Bible, in addition to various other historical and religious texts and, most disturbingly, directions for exorcism rituals and magic formulas.

The Codex is said to have been created with the intention of storing all of the world’s knowledge in a single book, and some of its contents puzzle historians to this day...