PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) – A man is entrusting a 500-year-old family treasure to Marquette University.

Bill Warren of Portsmouth, 66, said a 1526 edition of Saint Thomas Aquinas’ lectures on the Epistles of Paul has been in his family for centuries.

Written in Latin, the book is missing its cover but is still extremely valuable. Only two other copies are known to exist. Aquinas is considered a pivotal figure in the emergence of the Catholic Church.

“I could have taken a picture of it with my digital camera and posted it on e-Bay and sold it,” Warren said. “But if we have an emotional attachment to these things, it is hard to sell it.

Warren collects old texts about Portsmouth and over the years has donated thousands of documents to the University of New Hampshire.

He decided to donate this book to Marquette’s special collections department after a five-year search. He chose Marquette, in Milwaukee, for its advanced archiving system and focus on Jesuit scholarship.

Warren had only one condition for the deal – he asked that members of his family be allowed to view the book at their convenience.

The book was published in Paris by Joannis Petit. It found its way into Warren’s family in the 17th century, when it was acquired by his ancestor, Sir Robert Throckmorton, 1st Baronet of Coughton, Warwickshire, in England.

The distant relative, who signed the book in 1627, suffered for his Catholicism because of the throne’s order to follow the Church of England, Warren said.

“He was imprisoned as were a lot of his family members because they were in fact Catholics, and in the U.K. at the time, to be anything but a member of the Church of England was heresy or sedition.”

Warren is unclear of the books history between 1627 and 1938, when it was bought in England by a friend of his family. The friend gave Warren the book when he was young to return it to the family line.

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Information from: Portsmouth Herald, http://www.seacoastonline.com