The Book of Kells is not only the most famous manuscript in the Library of Trinity College Dublin, but one of the most famous books in the history of the world, and the most sumptuously illustrated manuscript to have survived from the early Middle Ages in Europe. Completed in 800 AD, the Book of Kells contains 680 pages (340 folios), only two of which are without ornament. About thirty folios, including some major decorated pages, have been lost.

The scribes and artists who created the Book were Columban monks who lived in a monastery on the remote island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland. The monastery was founded by an Irish monk, St Colm Cille, in the late sixth century.

Below is the famous Chi-Rho page (folio 34r) which introduces St. Matthew's account of the nativity.