Italian police return missing church book to Scotland
- Published
Italian Carabinieri officers returned the book to the Scots College in Rome
A 400-year-old book of sermons taken from the Catholic Church in Scotland has been recovered after a police operation in Italy and Holland.
The book by Cardinal Bellerine from 1605 was gifted to the Archdiocese in Glasgow in the early 1900s.
Officers do not know when the book was taken. It was discovered for sale on a Dutch website in September 2020.
It was formally handed over to the Scots College in Rome before being returned to Scotland.
The book had been sold to a buyer in Italy before it was seized by officers from Italy's Carabinieri police force.
The book of sermons was written in 1605
Det Sgt Billy Telford, of Police Scotland's Scottish Heritage Crime Group, said: "This is a fantastic result for the church and for all the officers involved in the investigation.
"It was an extremely interesting case to work on, tracing the book back to its roots here in Scotland.
"We don't know how it came to be for sale online, but it's now back where it belongs with a fascinating story of its journey."