A Geneva Bible, one of 321 rare items stolen from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, has been recovered in the Netherlands.
The FBI will announce the recovery of the Bible at a news conference Thursday in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in March 2018 that appraisers hired to evaluate the library’s rare book collection discovered that more than 300 atlases, maps, plate books, photograph albums and books were missing.
The Oliver Room, which housed the collection, has been closed since April 3, 2017, because it is a crime scene. The appraisal, which began in April 2017, was the first time in 26 years that the rare book collection had been assessed for insurance purposes.
The recovered book is a variation of the Geneva Bible and is commonly called a “Breeches Bible.” That’s because this edition’s Genesis chapter says that when Adam and Eve realized they were naked, they sewed fig leaves together and covered themselves in breeches. Pilgrims who sailed aboard the Mayflower carried a Geneva Bible during their voyage to Massachusetts in 1620.
The director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum in Leiden, Netherlands, assisted FBI agents who are part of an art crime team and based in Philadelphia, the FBI said in a news release Wednesday.
Last July, Allegheny County detectives filed criminal charges as a result of the missing items.
Gregory M. Priore of Oakland, a 62-year-old former Carnegie Library archivist, and John Schulman, a 54-year-old rare book dealer from Squirrel Hill who operates The Caliban bookstore, were accused of cannibalizing rare books by cutting out pages and stealing valuable prints, maps, photographs and volumes for about 20 years.
Mr. Schulman is accused of selling the stolen items through his business, which is a short walk from the Carnegie Library in Oakland. Pretrial motions are slated for June 17 before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Alexander P. Bicket.
Three detectives from the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office began investigating the case in 2017. Authorities have estimated the value of what was stolen at $8 million, making it one of the largest library thefts ever.
Mike Manko, a spokesman for the district attorney said, “To date we have recovered 42 books and nearly 300 assorted maps.”
The stolen Geneva Bible was published by Robert Barker in London in 1615. A 1991 appraisal of the Carnegie Library’s rare books holdings, prepared by Schoyer’s Books, valued the Bible at $450. On eBay now, a 1615 Geneva Bible published by Barker is priced at $3,750.
The Carnegie Library’s Breeches Bible appears on a long list of stolen items that the library gave to the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America. The ABAA maintains a database of lost and stolen books and regularly alerts its members.
The first edition of the Geneva Bible was published in Geneva in 1560.
“It’s a great recovery, but it’s not a great book,” said David Szewczyk, who runs the Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Co. The Geneva Bible, he added, is “a fairly common book. It’s old and there’s always a market for it.”
The Geneva Bible published in 1615 came out after the King James Bible, which appeared in 1611 and made other Bibles obsolete because it was better written and had the approval of King James I of England.
On vialibri.net, a search engine used by rare book dealers, many editions of the Geneva Bible are available. A seller in Deal, England, lists one in good condition and published in 1610 for $3,800. A dealer in South Deerfield, Mass., is offering one in “very good” condition for $2,750.
Suzanne M. Thinnes, a spokeswoman for Carnegie Library, emailed this statement: “The news that two people who were close to the library broke the public’s trust by not treating our collections with the respect and care they deserve has been absolutely devastating for all of us.
“We are grateful to the District Attorney’s Office, FBI, and the agents and detectives assigned to the case for their patience, due diligence and persistence in identifying and recovering a number of items and returning them to the collection. We look forward to invigorating community interest in our unique collections over the next year as we move toward restoring public access to the rare book collection.”
Marylynne Pitz at mpitz@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1648 or on Twitter:@mpitzpg.
Editor's note: The FBI announced the recovery of the Geneva Bible in a news release Wednesday. An earlier version of this story included an incorrect day for that announcement.
First Published: April 24, 2019, 11:52 p.m.