Khitrovo Gospels

The Man of Matthew, a miniature attributed to Andrey Rublev.

The Khitrovo Gospels is a Russian illuminated Gospel Book from the late 14th or early 15th century. The book has numerous similarities to the , Kiev Psalter of 1397, and other East Slavic manuscripts of the 1390s.

It contains eight full page miniatures; four Evangelist portraits and four pictures of their symbols (the eagle, angel, lion, and bull), the latter the earliest known Russian full-page examples. The angel is attributed to Andrei Rublev, and is the only illumination usually attributed to him, although some art historians incline to attribute at least all the full-pages miniatures to him.^[1] All the initials are painted in colour and gold, and many pages are richly ornamented. The style is elegant with light colours and expressive faces.^[2]

The gospel takes its name from Bogdan Khitrovo, a powerful boyar who obtained the manuscript from Tsar Fyodor III. Khitrovo bequeathed the gospel to the Trinity Monastery near Moscow, where Andrey Rublev used to be a monk. After the nationalisation of the monastic library the Khitrovo Gospel was incorporated in the holdings of the Russian State Library in Moscow.

References[]

^ Popova (op cit) for one
^ Popova, Olga, Russian Illuminated Manuscripts, Thames & Hudson, London (or Braziller NY), 1984, nos 36-39

An online view and a short description Treasure no. 4 of Rossiiskaya Gosudarstvennaya Biblioteka (Russian-Moscow National Library)
The Khitrovo Gospel at UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.

[1] Popova (op cit) for one

[2] Popova, Olga, Russian Illuminated Manuscripts, Thames & Hudson, London (or Braziller NY), 1984, nos 36-39

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