For sale: secret Vatican papers that cleared heretic Templars
The Vatican began a scheme to market treasures from its Secret Archives yesterday, beginning with luxury reproductions of a 14th-century papal parchment absolving the Knights Templar of heresy.
The reproduction of Processus Contra Templariosor Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars is being sold at €5,900 (£4,000) a copy. It comes in a soft leather case with translations into English and Italian, a scholarly commentary and replicas of the wax seals used by the Inquisition. Pope Benedict has been given the first set free.
Barbara Frale, the Secret Archives medieval specialist who came across the document, which is also known as the Chinon Parchment, in 2003 after realising that it had been wrongly catalogued, said that it shed new light on the fate of the Templars....
Dr. Alan Cairns | 8/3/2009
