About One Little-Studied Style of Old Russian vyaz’
Keywords:
manuscript, headings, initials, ligatures, vyaz’, monocondyle, ABC-Book of 1604, Ephraim’s Gospel, Basovs, StroganovsAbstract
The paper investigates a rare and little-studied style of Old Russian vyaz’. This type of writing may be classified as highly stylized, it has much in common with the so-called monocondyle compositions. This kind of vyaz’ was first identified in the Stroganov ABC-book of 1604 and was considered not to be intended for writing in books but for engraving in metalwork, as soon as other examples of this kind of writing were not known. The discovery of some other instances of its use in headpieces and other elements of Old Russian manuscripts radically changes this concept and leads us to the opposite conclusions.
At present, besides the Stroganov ABC-book, three other contemporary documents are known which also demonstrate the examples of stylized vyaz’. These include the Collection of Znamenny chants from the National Library of Russia (Vyaz. O.20), the so-called Efrem’s Gospels from the National Museum of Republic of Tatarstan (KP-5833) and the ABC-scroll also from the National Library of Russia (F.III.131). The paleographic analysis of these manuscripts shows that they all may be dated to the first quarter of the 17th century. The earliest is the Stroganov ABC-book. It also displays the samples of vyaz’ that could be used both in written books or documents and on other objects that belonged to Nikita Grigorievich Stroganov. The making of ornaments in these samples may be linked with the professional artists from the Armoury Chamber and Posol’sky Prikaz working upon the state commissions, such as Fyodor Sergeevich Basov and Parfenij (Bogdan) Perfiriev.
This style of vyaz’ was a kind of local fashion in the first quarter of the 17th century that later fell in disuse. It was probably created by Fyodor Sergeevich Basov, the compiler of the Stroganov ABC-book of 1604.
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