Pope Benedict's 'God is Love' in Handwritten Latin Manuscript

Marilena Ferrari, president of the Italian Franco Maria Ricci Foundation, presented the Pope on Monday with one of the handwritten manuscripts of "Deus Caritas Est" in Latin.

VATICAN CITY (Zenit) - An Italian foundation has created five Middle Ages-style copies of Benedict XVI's first encyclical, one of which was given him as a gift.

Marilena Ferrari, president of the Italian Franco Maria Ricci Foundation, presented the Pope on Monday with one of the handwritten manuscripts of "Deus Caritas Est" in Latin.

The five unique copies are reminiscent of monastic scripts prepared in the Middle Ages, and were made using the materials and techniques of those centuries, Ferrari explained to the Pope, according to L'Osservatore Romano.

This initiative is part of the foundation's "Civilization of Beauty" cultural project, which aims to "promote a cultural renewal that gives back to beauty its central place as an ethical and aesthetic value."

"I am convinced of the inextricable union between truth and beauty, and to this I have decided to dedicate the work of this publishing house and of the foundation itself," Ferrari said. "Thus, we try to make the books that we do exhibit words of truth, being at the same time a vehicle for this beauty that has its roots in truth and that displays it with the signs of art."

Another of the encyclical manuscripts will be given to Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop of New York, and will be put on display in St. Patrick's Cathedral in the spring.

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