Beschreibung:

[CHURCH SLAVONIC]. Sbornik Kirillova kniga. [The Book of Saint Cyril]. [Moscow: Pechatni Dvor, 1644]. First edition of this Orthodox theological work, in a Russian binding . Known as ‘book of Saint Cyril’ from the author of the opening texts, it was a compendium, compiled by the religious polemicist Ivan Nasedka, of the true doctrines of the Eastern Orthodox Church according to Old Believers. In it, early Christian commentaries on the Apocalypse were used to interpret the life of the Catholic church, including its stance on most Protestant doctrines; it was accompanied by the fiery observations of the 16th-century Ruthenian theologian Stefan Zyzanii, considered heretical by the Muscovite religious authorities. It was especially renowned for its identification of the Pope with the anti-Christ, influenced by the rhetoric of Puritan millenarianism. The work sold over 1,000 copies in four months. The binding decoration is reminiscent of the panel stamps used at the bindery of the Trinity-St Sergius Monastery; it also bears small rectangular stamps for the title and a centrepiece with the lion and unicorn, reprising the seal of Tsar Ivan IV, typical of the Moscow printing house style. Zernova 169; Pozdeeva 352. Rock, Popular Religion in Russia , p. 80, Heretz, Russia , p. 51; Klepikov, ‘Russian Bookbinding’, p. 419. Folio (305 x 195mm). ff. [582] (against 590 ff. in Zernova), text in red and black, woodcut initials and ornaments (slight age browning, some finger-soiling or marginal spotting, occasional marginal tears with small loss, few old marginal repairs, edges softened, occasionally frayed, small ink burn affecting one letter, light water or oil stains in a few places). 17th-century brown calf, bevelled wooden boards, modern endpapers, two brass clasps, four small brass bosses to lower board, blind ruled to a panel design, upper board with rolls of tendrils and palmettes, two stamps with title and lozenge-shaped centrepiece with lion and unicorn, lower with floral rolls and round centrepiece with eagle eating a snake in blind, raised bands, spine blind tooled, a.e.r. (wanting centre brass boss, extremities rubbed, spine a bit cracked). Provenance: 17th-century partly indistinct inscription ‘Kniga Ivana (?)’ on two leaves – slightly later annotation.