Epic book 'like Dante's Divine Comedy illustrated by Michelangelo'

The Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, the great national epic of Iran is to Persian painting what the Book of Kells is to Celtic art, says Des O'Sullivan 

A detail from the illustration in The Shahnameh.

One of many extraordinary lots to come up at auction this year was a folio from The Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp. 

The illuminated manuscript from the 16th century recounts the history of Persian rulers in 50,000 rhyming couplets.