Research Catalog

The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander / Ekaterina Dimitrova.

Title
The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander / Ekaterina Dimitrova.
Author
Dimitrova, Ekaterina.
Publication
London : British Library, 1994.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Filter by

1 Item

StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
Request for On-site UseRequest Scan
Not available - Please for assistance.
TextRequest in advance ND3219.A1 D56 1994xOff-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors
British Library
Description
64 p. : ill. (some col.), map, ports.; 28 cm.
Summary
The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander is the outstanding treasure of a cultural and spiritual Renaissance in fourteenth-century Bulgaria, and a masterpiece of Byzantine manuscript art. The Gospels' creation was not only the supreme achievement of Bulgarian medieval culture; it also marked its final flourishing, 500 years after the introduction of Christianity and the Cyrillic script into Bulgaria and shortly before the country's collapse under the invasion of the Ottoman Turks. Commissioned, in 1355 for Tsar Ivan Alexander, the Gospels was completed in just one year by a single scribe, Simeon, and by artists of the Turnovo school, the Bulgarian capital, ecclesiastical and cultural centre, of the time. It contains 367 miniatures, among which is an outstanding portrait of the Tsar himself and his family. Following the fall of Turnovo in 1393, the manuscript was moved to safety across the Danube to Moldavia. By the early seventeenth century it was in the monastery of St Paul on Mount Athos and it was here that in 1837 the young Hon. Robert Curzon contrived to acquire it as a souvenir of his visit.
Subject
  • Ivan Aleksandŭr, Czar of Bulgaria, -1371 > Art patronage
  • British Library
  • Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander > Illustrations
  • Bible. > Illustrations
  • Illumination of books and manuscripts, Bulgarian
  • Illumination of books and manuscripts, Byzantine > Bulgaria
  • Manuscripts, Bulgarian > Great Britain
Genre/Form
  • Art
  • Illustrated works
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (p. 64).
Processing Action (note)
  • committed to retain
Contents
The Historical Background -- Tsar Ivan Alexander and the Creation of the Gospels -- The Gospels' Later History -- The Manuscript. The Scribe and Script. The Artists of the Gospels. The Art of the Gospels -- Conclusion: some comparisons -- An Outline of the Structure and Contents of the Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander.
ISBN
0712303499 (pbk)
LCCN
gb^95025668^
OCLC
  • 32201680
  • SCSB-11961996
Owning Institutions
Harvard Library