The Maecenas Foundation is a

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

foundation whose sole officer is Mario Roberty, a Swiss attorney. Centered in the city of

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

, it came to notice in 2005 when Swiss art dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos, the owner of the

Codex Tchacos Codex Tchacos is an ancient Egyptian Coptic papyrus, which contains early Christian gnostic texts from approximately 300 AD: the Letter of Peter to Philip, the First Apocalypse of James, the Gospel of Judas, and a fragment of the Book of Allog ...

, which contains the Gospel of Judas, informed the press that the manuscript would be donated to Maecenas for conservation and publication. The foundation reached a commercial agreement with ''

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

'', and sold the copyright of the

Coptic Coptic may refer to: Afro-Asia * Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya * Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century * Coptic alphabet ...

text to the magazine. Roberty was previously best known as Nussberger-Tchacos' lawyer. The creation of a foundation to contain the Gospel of Judas was proposed earlier on by the various people who owned it between 2000–2005. Papers online at Michel van Rijn's site indicate that such shell foundations were part of the process of marketing the text by the art dealers.michelvanrijn.nl
. Retrieved March 5, 2007.

References

Foundations based in Switzerland Gnostic apocrypha Basel {{Switzerland-org-stub