Book of Kells produced the first facsimile of the Book of Kells. The majority of the pages were reproduced in black-and-white photographs, but the edition also featured forty-eight colour reproductions, including all the full-page decorations. Under licence from the Board of Trinity College Dublin, Thames and Hudson produced a second facsimile edition in 1974. This edition included all the full-page illustrations in the manuscript and a representative section of the ornamentation of the text pages, together with some enlarged details of the illustrations. The reproductions were all in full colour, with photography by John Kennedy, Green Studio, Dublin. In 1979, Swiss publisher Faksimile-Verlag
Book of Kells pages were, in effect, turned into carpet pages. The decoration of these texts is so elaborate that the text itself is almost illegible. The opening page (folio 29r) of Matthew may stand as an example. (See illustration at left.) The page consists of only two words: "Liber generationis" ("The book of the generation"). The "lib" of "Liber" is turned into a giant monogram which dominates the entire page. The "er" of "Liber" is presented as an interlaced ornament within the "b" of the "lib" monogram. "Generationis" is broken into three lines and contained within an elaborate frame in the right