Its history is decidedly a romantic one. The volume to which it belongs was once in the possession of Cardinal Giovanni Girolamo Albani, and from him was called the Albani manuscript. He died in 1591, and the manuscript, which tradition says at one time came into the hands of Clement XI., passed on down to the possession of another Cardinal Albani, Giovanni Francesco, at whose death in 1809 it was sold. A small dealer in curiosities obtained it, and Mr. Denistoune, the great collector, saw it in his shop near the Ghetto in Rome, and bought it for 22 scudi, about £5 sterling. Mr. Denistoune brought the book to England, and offered it, so the family story goes, to the British Museum for £250, but failed to persuade the trustees to purchase it; and so ten years afterwards when he returned to Rome he took the manuscript with him. Gregory XVI. had by this time died, and the carelessness which existed in his time as to the purchase of art treasures in Rome had become a thing of the past. The new Pontiff, Pius IX., was much more particular, and he was ably seconded by Count Rossi in his endeavour to retain in the Eternal City its chief artistic treasures. Count Rossi heard of the Albani book, and Mr. Denistoune, alarmed for the safety of his treasure, wrapped it up in paper, addressed it to his bankers in London, and, explaining that it was his bank pass-book, gave it over to a lady friend who was leaving for England, to convey to London. Within three or four days of the lady's departure, the agents of the Vatican called on Mr. Denistoune to demand the surrender of the treasure which had, they declared, been stolen from the Library in the Vatican of Clement XI. Mr. Denistoune declared he had not got the book they wanted and gave them permission to search his house. So accurate had been their information that they went at once to the very place in the bookcase whence the volume had been so lately removed, and, not finding it there, they searched the house from top to bottom.