Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.

Welcome to the Arts and Ideas download from the free thinking team at the BBC.

Hello, memories fade, people die, flesh rots.

Books, given the right conditions, can go on forever.

But as the years pass and the world changes around them,

the marks upon the page become more mysterious, more alien.

When we look at strange strange pale saints in illuminated manuscripts

or navigate those little forests of Latin words, what can we really know of the minds of those

who made and read them? Even a recent work can seem bizarre and distant if tastes or mores change

with sufficient speed. On tonight's free

thinking, we'll enter the space of a new novel set in a world that seems older than it should.

We'll hear the story of a book that was written after it was translated, and we'll turn

the psychedelic pages of the illuminated manuscript, where siege machines are dragged uphill,

pig's blood sizzles in a frying pan,

and the baby Jesus levitates, refulgent.

Here in the studio is a man who is said to have handled more medieval manuscripts

than any other person alive.

Is this true, Christopher de Hamill?

This was a remark I made unguardedly to the publisher,

and I saw him scribbling it down. It now appears on the cover of the book. I don't know whether

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