University of South Carolina English professor Scott Gwara had sorted through 32 lots of medieval books and manuscripts in a London auction house when he pulled out box 33 and discovered a pristine prayer book that he hoped would round out USC’s collection of 15th-century religious texts."I pulled this off the shelf and I thought, ‘This is amazing,’" Gwara recalled Friday as he unveiled the volume that was hand-lettered and illuminated more than 500 years ago. "It is the original cover, it has never been rebound, and the paint is as fresh as it was in 1490." Better yet, for a medievalist such as Gwara, the prayer book he uncovered in May while teaching a USC Maymester course on King Arthur was illuminated by Robert Boyvin.