THE NEW TESTAMENT
1703
Kyiv: Printing House of the Holy Dormition Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, 1703
/ Sdk-1756 /
Brief description
The New Testament of 1703 is a small-format edition that represents the activity of the Holy Dormition Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra as a leading printing center in Ukraine in the 17th – 18th centuries. The book is decorated with 46 text and full-page illustrations performed in the techniques of сhalcography and woodcut by the most prominent Ukrainian engravers of the seventeenth century Leontij Tarasevich, Illia and others.
In the Department of Manuscripts and Old Books of Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv there are 5 copies of the Kyivan New Testament of 1703. The represented copy (Sdk-1756) comes from the book collection of Ivan Mazepa, as indicated by the corresponding red wax seal with the the coat of arms of Hetman. The inscription on the leaflet of the upper bezel of the frame: "From Illustrious Prince and Tsarevich Alexey Petrovych to Hetman Ivan Mazepa Zholkva on April 11, 1707" - testifies that Ivan Mazepa received the book from the Russian Tsarevich Alexei Petrov 11 in Zhovkva (now in Lviv region) during his time at the Great Military Council. The copy contains a record of the death and burial of Ivan Mazepa: “Hetman Ivan Mazepa died on September 4, 1709. Burial in Galatsky Cathedral”. A sheet with a copy of Hetman's signature is also pasted in the book.
The fort, illustrations, ornaments and initials in the museum specimen of the New Testament in 1703 are tinted with yellow paint. Eighteenth-century rim: boards covered with velvet of burgundy color. In the center of each board are silver oval mids of various sizes with the engraved composition "The Virgin and Child"; book edges gilded, embossed; two pin fasteners.
According to the entry in the Book of Revenues, the memorial was sent to the National Museum in Lviv in 1923 by Pavel Voyno-Voynorovsky from Siberia, a descendant of Hetman Ivan Mazepa.
Olha Tkachuk, Head of the Department of Manuscripts and Old Books, Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv.
From the collection of Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv.
