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Finely prepared parchment
Original treasure binding; heavy wood boards; base silver used in all parts of cover; front cover decorated in silver filigree, with central cruciform panels of gilded filigree less refined in manufacture than those in silver; silver bosses with interlace designs in niello in corners, possibly replacements for lost gems; four stones also missing at ends of cruciform panels; four ivory plaques with Evangelists, three of which are original (Mark, in lower left corner, is a nineteenth-century replacement); wood of board has been recessed to receive central cabochon of polished rock crystal placed over an image of the Crucifixion drawn on gold foil, imitating the effect of gold glass, with the inscription "Mors Xri mors mortis erat tuus infere morsus" around the figure of Christ; spine has original Byzantine or Islamic silk both within, against the spine cords, as well as without, with two layers of tawed leather between; back cover has a sheet of gilded, hammered silver, engraved with an image of St. Michael trampling a dragon, and surrounded by the inscription "Velle quod est altum nichil est nisi velle ruinam. Hoc draco prostratus hoc monstrat celica virtus"; original presence of leather straps, no longer extant, evident from recesses in wood on back cover, possibly originally attached to pins on fore-edge of upper board, where corresponding pin holes are visible