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Pannonhalma Abbey was founded in 996, four years before the creation of the Kingdom of Hungary. Sitting on a large hill in the northwest of Hungary, the abbey houses the oldest collection of books in the country, as well as many of its oldest and most important written history.
For more than 1,000 years, the abbey has been among the most eminent religious and cultural sites in Hungary and all of Central Europe, survivors of centuries of wars and foreign incursions such as the Ottoman invasion and the occupation of Hungary in the 16th century.
Ilona Ásványi, director of the Pannonhalma Archabbey library, said that she was “humiliated” by the historical and cultural treasures that the collection holds each time.
“It is dizzying to think that there was a library here a thousand years ago, and that we are the guards of the first catalog of books in Hungary,” she said.
Among the most remarkable works of the library are 19 codices, including a complete Bible from the 13th century. It also houses several hundred manuscripts prior to the invention of printing in the middle of the 15th century and tens of thousands of pounds from the 16th century.
While the most ancient and rarest prints and books are stored separately and have not been infected, Ásványi has declared that damage to the collection represent a blow to the cultural, historical and religious heritage.
“When I see a book chewed by a beetle or infected in another way, I think that no matter how many copies are published and how replaceable the book is, a piece of culture has been lost,” she said.
Books will spend weeks in an oxygen -free environment
To kill the beetles, the books of books are placed in high plastic bags and tightly sealed from which all oxygen is removed. After six weeks in the pure nitrogen environment, the abbey hopes that all the beetles will be destroyed.
Before being resisted, each book will be inspected individually and sucked. Any book damaged by pests will be put aside for subsequent restoration work.
Climate change may have contributed
The abbey, which hopes to reopen the library at the beginning of next year, believes that the effects of climate change played a role in stimulating scarab infestation as average temperatures increase quickly in Hungary.
Hajdu, the main restaurateur, said that higher temperatures have enabled the beetles to undergo several development cycles per year than in cooler weather.
“Higher temperatures are favorable to the life of insects,” she said. “Until now, we have mainly treated damage caused by molds in depositaries and open collections. But now I think that more and more insect insects will appear due to global warming.”
The director of the library said that life in a Benedictine abbey is governed by a set of rules used for almost 15 centuries, a code which forces them to do everything possible to save its vast collection.
“He says in the reign of Saint Benedict that all the properties of the monastery should be considered as the same value as the sacred ship of the altar,” said Ásványi. “I feel the responsibility of what this preservation and this conservation really means.”
