Четири гръко-български миниатюри от XIV век
Four Greek Miniatures from Fourteenth-Century Bulgaria

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses Greek Ms 235 from the National Library of Russia, Saint Petersburg . This paper codex contains Archbishop Theophylact of Ohrid’s Commentary on the Four Gospels (ed . PG, vols 123-124) and was copied in AD 1337 for a certain john, protopapas and nomikos of the city of Anchialus (present-day Pomorie) in Northern Thrace . Since the region was under Bulgarian rule at that time, the four evangelist portraits associated with the manuscript are important for the history of Bulgarian medieval art . The watermark (Mošin-Traljić 7152) in one of them confirms that they must also date from 1337 . The images of Matthew, Luke and john are markedly similar to those in two other Gospel books (Athens, Byzantine Museum, Ms 157; Tirana, State Archives, Ms 10) . The Tirana manuscript is written in hodegon script and therefore must certainly have been made in Constantinople . Even as he followed metropolitan models, the artist of the Saint Petersburg miniatures adhered to a distinctly provincial and decorative style . In this latter respect, his work is very close to the evangelist portraits from Athos, Koutloumousiou, Ms 69 . The distinct combination of Constantinopolitan novelties and local tradition seen in the Petersburg images illustrates the manner in which Byzantine artistic influences were received in Bulgaria during the first decade of Tsar Ivan Alexander’s reign (1331-1371) . Such developments paved the way for a full adoption of the Byzantine Palaeologan style in the 1360s .

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