Our Notes & References

More than 250 watercolours including 160 full-page and remarkable baroque ornaments: a beautiful, richly illustrated, and relatively early manuscript of quality, presenting a wide variety of texts and a rich iconography.

This florilegium, a compilation of spiritual and eschatological texts, brings together three works strikingly illustrated: the Passion of Christ — presented in an unusual narrative — the Apocalypse of St John and the Life of Andrew of Constantinople (also known as Andrew the Fool). These major texts are interspersed with collections of shorter apocryphal tales focusing on the redemption or punishment of the soul, the prevention of natural disasters and pandemics, and acts of exorcism.

In addition to its vivid full-page (162) and half-page (99) illustrations, decorative initials and headpieces, the manuscript also includes supplementary quotations in different hands within elaborate baroque-style frames. These contain either Biblical excerpts, summaries of the narratives, or lubok-style verses inspired by the stories. We have found no textual matches for these verses and assume that many were composed specifically for this collection.

The imposing volume is an impressive and luxurious, as well as representative if sometimes unusual, production by the Old Believers, an ascetic branch of Russian Orthodoxy that rejected the Church reforms introduced in Russia during the late 1650s. Subjected to persecution, the Old Believers were, for a long time, unable to print their religious texts, and consequently developed a rich tradition of manuscript production and illumination.

The illustrations here are of higher quality, more accomplished than in most other Old Believer manuscripts we have handled. Appearing on nearly every leaf, the allegorical scenes are particularly striking, rendered in vivid, saturated colours that often fill the entire surface of the page.

Although the Old Believers carried on an ancient iconographic tradition with very little innovation, this volume is noticeably and unconventionally influenced by Western baroque style, especially in its lavish and detailed ornaments. Beside this stylistic characteristic, its dating derives also from two facts: an unusual dated illustration (1760 in Old Church Slavonic on folio 139), and the paper watermark with the Yaroslavl coat of arms and the initials of the local paper manufactory, dating to the 1760s.

Illuminated Old Believer manuscripts from this period, particularly in such fine condition and with such an abundance of illustrations, are rare.

The book opens with brief miracle tales of various saints, including the 12th-century Varlaam of Novgorod. In 1505, Varlaam — whose relics lay in the Cathedral of the Khutyn Monastery — appeared at night to the sacristan Tarasii, warning that Lake Ilmen was about to flood the city. He prayed to the Mother of God for its salvation and foretold that, as punishment for the townspeople’s sins, a pestilence would follow three years later, succeeded by a fire — events which did indeed occur. “Thanks to the legend, the calamities that befell the city were seen as a lesser evil than the terrible flood that was averted through Varlaam’s prayers” (Tretyakov Gallery, our translation here and elsewhere). A vividly coloured plate depicts Varlaam as a towering figure against an apocalyptic red sky, flanked by two ominous clouds.

Following a detailed “description of the divine flesh of Christ and his perfect age”, The Passion of Christ — described in its title as “copied from a Kyiv collection of the St Lavra [monastery]” — restarts the pagination. The account of Christ’s final days, crucifixion, and resurrection is illustrated with striking compositions that often overtake the text, and is enriched with episodes not found in the canonical Gospels. These include the detailed “Resurrection of Christ’s friend Lazarus and his installation as bishop in the Khiteiskii Monastery” (likely located in modern-day Cyprus), the Descent of John the Baptist into Hell (“who, like Lazarus, is a precursor of Christ in this deed” – Shkapa), the council of the Jewish priests against Christ, Judas’s arrival in Jerusalem and later Bethany, his encounter with Christ, and a brief tale of his corruption, the lament of the Virgin Mary and her attempt to dissuade Christ from his fate, along with many chapters focusing more closely on her actions during and after the Crucifixion.

Another unusual addition to the narrative is the introduction of Tiberius Caesar, who learns of the Crucifixion from Martha and Mary Magdalene and orders the beheading of Pontius Pilate. Pilate, in turn, repents and receives God’s forgiveness; at the moment of his execution, an angel carries his head up to the heavens. The story’s dramatic illustrations culminate in a highly unusual baroque depiction of God and Christ — strikingly youthful and muscular, reminiscent of Greek gods — resting in their glory in the sky.

Many scenes from this section are set within extravagant interiors, richly adorned with intricate multicoloured patterns imitating marble and other materials. These settings blend elements of medieval, Orthodox, and baroque architecture, often presented from unconventional angles. The portrayal of the apostles and other figures is also notable: some are depicted with markedly darker skin tones than others. This is particularly curious given that the text frequently uses the term “Ethiopians” as a synonym for dark forces or demons.

The following works offer guidance and explanations of rituals for the deceased through didactic stories of various saints, vividly illustrating the necessity of such rites. Among them is the tale of a warrior named Taksiot, who rises from the dead during a pestilence to repent for his sins, as well as a twisted narrative about a pious man who, after giving away his possessions to the poor and selling himself into slavery, is seduced by his master’s wife. Ultimately, he redeems both his own wrongdoings and those of his master’s family.

The following hundred or so leaves (ll. 163-283) are dedicated to the Book of the Apocalypse of St John the Theologian, which includes a table of contents for all 72 chapters and a brief hagiography of St John. While there are minor variations in the names of chapters and their imagery, the narrative largely follows the standard Christian Orthodox tradition. However, the spectacular illustrations of John’s apocalyptic visions — especially those depicting destructions, the devil embodied by many different fantastical creatures and usual animals, and the Antichrist — are notably more imaginative and dynamic than the conventional iconography.

The next part of the book recounts the striking 1661 story of the possessed young woman Solomoniia and her miraculous healing by the Virgin Mary and the holy fools Procopius and John of Ustiug. Shortly after her wedding, Solomoniia, the daughter of a priest, began to feel a demon in her womb. Over several days, demons in the form of young men assaulted her. Her husband sent her back to her father’s house, but there, demons lured and tortured her again, inciting her to kill her father, stay with them, and worship Satan. She eventually gave birth to several demons, but her suffering continued. One night, Saint Theodora appeared in a dream, instructed her to seek Procopius and John in Ustiug, and revealed that her tortures were caused by a “drunken priest” who had failed to complete her baptism. After over ten years of torment, the saints removed the demon, and Solomoniia was cured.

“Remarkable for [its] attempt to break with old literary traditions and develop a more life-like narrative, [the story] also drew upon poetic fiction inspired by national folklore” (Skripil). It was first published in print in 1860.

The final major text in the volume is the Vita of Andrew the Fool (Andrei Iurodivyi), spanning 53 chapters that are often expanded by additional stories within them (ll. 301-447). “The hagiography (c. 50 chapters) would be copied both in its entirety as a separate work and in fragments as part of various collections” (Nikiforova). As a young man, Andrew chose to become a Fool for Christ: he discarded his clothes and lived on the streets. The Vita recounts the challenges and miracles of his life, including surviving a harsh winter on the streets, being run over by a carriage filled with drunkards, and being lured into a brothel. The text also includes stories about various characters and events in Constantinople, often only loosely related to the main hagiography. Notably, much attention is given to Epiphanius, a God-loving young man of noble birth who was Andrew’s friend and follower. A significant portion of the Vita consists of Andrew’s answers to Epiphanius’ questions on the nature of the world, various natural phenomena, and eschatological predictions, which form what is known as the ‘Apocalypse of Andrew the Fool’.

The author of this hagiography is believed to be Nicephorus (Nikifor), a priest at the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople during the early 10th century. “This Vita is not so much a hagiographical or, even less so, a historical narrative of real events and persons, but a work in the spirit of a medieval novel […] With its diverse and vivid content, The Life of Andrew the Fool had a significant impact on the spread of the ideas of holy fools in Russia and served as a source for other hagiographies of this kind’ (Moldovan). Notably, at the end of the text, the scribe Dimitrii includes a brief message to readers and fellow scribes who would later copy his work.

Provenance

From the estate of Andrey Nikolaevich Avinoff (1884–1949), a noted collector, entomologist, and watercolourist from a Russian noble family descended from the 14th-century Novgorod boyars, the Ovinovs. His grandfather, Admiral Aleksandr Avinov (1786-1854), participated in the Battle of Trafalgar under Horatio Nelson’s command, and later took part in several Russian expeditions seeking a northern route through America to the Atlantic and subsequently crossing the entire Pacific Ocean. After the October Revolution, Andrey Avinoff left Russia and, in the US, served as the director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh for 20 years (1926–45). Avinoff’s paintings are rich in symbolism and occasionally feature apocalyptic imagery, subtly echoing the allegorical miniature painting of the Old Believers.

Avinoff’s nephew, Alex Shoumatof, published in 1982 a history of the family (Russian Blood: a Family Chronicle, NY, McCann) and part of Avinoff’s book collection was acquired in 2000 by the Hillwood Museum & Gardens.

Bibliography

Khristoforova O. B. “Povest o besnovatoi Solomonii’: mifologicheskie konteksty i paralleli” // Folklor: struktura, tipologiia, semiotika. 2020. T. 3, № 1, pp. 94–127.

Moldovan A. M. Zhitie Andreia Iurodivogo. Podgotovka teksta, perevod i kommentarii. IRLI Pushkinskii dom.

Nikiforova A. Iu., N. V. Pivovarova. “Andrei Iurodivyi” // Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, 2009, pp. 391-393.

Shkapa A. S. “K voprosu o formirovanii teksta drevnerusskogo pamiatnika ‘Strasti Khristovy'” // Uchenye zapiski OGU. Seriia: Gumanitarnye i sotsialnye nauki. 2015.

Skripil M. O. “Povest o Solomonii besnovatoi” // Istoriia russkoi literatury: V 10 t. / AN SSSR, 1941—1956. T. II. Ch. 2. Literatura 1590-h — 1690-h gg., 1948, pp. 292-294.

Tretyakov Gallery. “Videnie khutynskogo ponomaria Taisiia. Nachalo XVIII veka”. (online).