Apostle 1564 “Apostle. “Apostle” – a masterpiece of printing

Frontispiece and title page of the book

"Apostle" 1564 ("Moscow Apostle", "The Acts of the Holy Apostles" copied by the holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke") - the first dated printed book in Russia. Printed in 1563-1564 by Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets.

History of creation

"The Apostle" was not the first book published in Moscow. Six so-called anonymous editions (three Gospels, two Psalters and the Triodion) were published in the 1550s shortly before the first editions of Ivan Fedorov (the latest of them perhaps shortly after the publication of The Apostle).

"Apostle" spread

Edition characteristics

For the first time in the Moscow edition an engraved frontispiece appears - the figure of the Evangelist Luke in the triumphal arch. In addition to this engraving, the book contains 48 headpieces (from 20 boards), 22 drop caps(from 5 boards), 51 flower frames (from one board). The section titles are typed in script.

The engraving on the frontispiece is a composite one (separate boards were used for the arch and for the evangelist). Fedorov used the arch in other publications. It is known that it was based on an engraving by the artist E. Schön from the Bible, printed in Nuremberg in 1524 by Peipus. This practice was common in book printing, but in The Apostle the arch design is creatively reworked. The Evangelist Luke, depicted in reverse perspective, is completely original. The closest prototypes should be sought in Russian church frescoes. Most likely, the frame and the evangelist were made by different engravers. The author of the frame may be Ivan Fedorov himself.

Headpieces with foliate patterns are at the same time similar to traditional Russian handwritten headpieces, the Gothic ornament of German incunabula and the “Venetian” ornament of modern Western printed books. The Renaissance influence of the latter is especially noticeable in the ornamentation of Fedorov’s Books of Hours, published after The Apostle.

The Apostle font is executed much more carefully and accurately than the fonts of anonymous publications. The main and additional lines are of the same thickness. The font is based on a handwritten 16th-century semi-character.

“Apostle” by Fedorov is a true masterpiece of the first printed Russian book. It surpasses both the early “anonymous editions” and subsequent editions by Fedorov himself in terms of artistic integrity, typographic accuracy, type design and accuracy of typesetting. In “Apostle”, for the first time in a Slavic book, the typesetting strip was turned off on both the left and right sides. Words are separated by spacing, but not always.

The Books of Hours, printed by Fedorov and Mstislavets back in Moscow, are executed in a much more modest manner. Fedorov's foreign publications are very different both in type and design from Moscow ones. Fedorov uses a smaller font in them, set in two columns. Together with the frame from the Moscow “Apostle,” he uses an engraving of King David, which is more modest in its dignity.

Printing Features

When publishing the Apostle, Fedorov used two inventions characteristic of Russian book printing. Firstly, this is the principle of “crossing lines” (the term of E. L. Nemirovsky), already used in anonymous publications, when diacritics are typed in letters separate from the letters. Secondly, an original method of printing in two runs (of paint) from one plate, apparently invented by Fedorov himself. First, the letters that were to be printed in red (cinnabar) were raised above the surface of the form and an impression was made. They were then removed from the typesetting, after which the main text was printed onto the same sheets with black ink.

Known specimens

E. L. Nemirovsky suggests that about 2000 copies of “The Apostle” were printed. Of these, 23 copies are in Moscow, 13 in

"Apostle" 1564 ("Moscow Apostle", “The Acts of the Apostles was copied by the holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke”) - the first dated printed book in Russia. Printed in 1563-1564 by Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets.

History of creation

Edition characteristics

Printing Features

Known specimens

E. L. Nemirovsky suggests that about 2000 copies of “The Apostle” were printed. Of these, 23 copies are located in Moscow, 13 in St. Petersburg, 3 in Kyiv, 2 each in Yekaterinburg, Lvov and Novosibirsk. About twenty more - in various cities around the world.

Other

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Notes

Collection “Ivan Fedorov the First Printer”, Leningrad, 1935, p. 56.
“... the tsar... Ivan Vasilyevich... ordered the holy books... to be bought and placed in the holy churches:... But among them there were few that were suitable, while others were all spoiled by the scribes, ignorant and ignorant of the sciences, and some were spoiled due to the negligence of the scribes. This also reached the ears of the king; Then he began to think about how to organize the printing of books, like the Greeks, and in Venice, and in Italy, and among other nations, so that from now on the holy books would be published in a corrected form.”
Sidorov A. A. History of Russian book design. M., Leningrad, 1946. pp. 52-53.
Sidorov A. A. History of Russian book design. M., L., 1946. P. 64. See also: Nemirovsky E. L. A big book about a book. M., 2010. P. 368.
Sidorov A. A. History of Russian book design. M., L., 1946. P. 54.
Nemirovsky E. L. A big book about a book. M., 2010. P. 369. See also: .
Sidorov A. A. History of Russian book design. M., L., 1946. S. 56-59, 66.
Shchelkunov M. I. History, technology, art of printing. M., L., 1926. P. 310.
Bulgakov F. I. Illustrated history of book printing and typographic art. T. I. St. Petersburg. , 1889. P. 220.
Sidorov A. A. History of Russian book design. M., L., 1946. S. 55, 63, 67.
Nemirovsky E. L. Invention of Johannes Guttenberg. M., 2000. P. 166-167.
Nemirovsky E. L. A big book about a book. M., 2010. P. 370.

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Passage characterizing the Apostle (book, 1564)

And suddenly, as if in a bright flash, I very clearly saw a “picture” of my body glowing with a blinding green color, and my old “star friends” who, smiling, pointed to this green light... Apparently, somehow my “panicking “The brain managed to call them from somewhere, and now they tried to “tell me” in their own way what I should do. Without thinking for a long time, I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate, trying to mentally evoke a long-forgotten feeling... And literally a split second later everything “flashed” with the same amazingly bright green light that I had just seen in the “picture” shown by my friends. My body shone so strongly that it illuminated almost the entire room, along with the vile creatures swarming in it. I wasn't sure what to do next, but I felt that I had to direct this "light" (or rather, energy) towards all those squirming "horror creatures" in order to make them disappear from our sight as quickly as possible, and also from Without them, Arthur's life is quite complicated. The room flashed green, and I felt a very “thick” green beam burst out of my palms and headed straight for the target... Immediately I heard a wild screech, which turned into a real “otherworldly” howl... I almost had time to rejoice that finally everything would be good, and right now they will disappear forever, but, as it turned out, the “happy ending” was still a little far away... The creatures frantically clung with their claws and paws to the “dad” who was still waving his arms and the baby fighting them off, and so far they clearly weren’t going to give up. I realized that West would no longer be able to withstand the second “attack”, and thereby lose his only chance to talk to his father for the last time. But this is exactly what I couldn’t allow. Then I pulled myself together again and, with all my strength, “threw” green rays, now at all the “monsters” at the same time. Something loudly slammed... and there was complete silence.
Finally, all the monster-like monsters disappeared somewhere, and we could allow ourselves to breathe freely...
This was my first, still very “childish” war with real lower astral beings. And I can’t say that she was very pleasant or that I wasn’t scared at all. Now that we live in the twenty-first century literally “inundated” with computer games, we have become accustomed to everything and have almost completely ceased to be surprised by any kind of horror... And even small children, having become completely accustomed to the world of vampires, werewolves, murderers and rapists, themselves in the same way, they kill, cut, devour and shoot in delight, just to “go to the next level” of some favorite computer game... And probably, if some real scary monster appeared in their room at that moment - they wouldn’t even think about being scared, and without thinking, they would calmly blame everything on the special effects that are so familiar to them, holography, time travel, etc., despite the fact that the same “time travel” or other “effects” they love, none of them have yet managed to experience in reality.
And these same children proudly feel like “fearless heroes” of their favorite, cruel games, although it is unlikely that these heroes would behave in the same “heroic” way if they saw any LIVING lower astral monster in reality...
But, let’s return to our room, now “cleansed” of all the clawed-fanged dirt...
Little by little I came to my senses and was again able to communicate with my new acquaintances.
Arthur sat petrified in his chair and now looked at me dumbfounded.
All the alcohol had disappeared from him during this time, and now a very pleasant, but incredibly unhappy young man was looking at me.
- Who are you?.. Are you an angel too? – he asked very quietly.
I was asked this question (only without the “too”) during meetings with souls very often, and I had already gotten used to not reacting to it, although at the beginning, to be honest, it continued to confuse me very, very much for quite a long time.
This somehow alarmed me.
“Why – “too”?” I asked, puzzled.
“Someone came to me who called himself an “angel,” but I know it wasn’t you...” Arthur answered sadly.
Then a very unpleasant realization dawned on me...
– Didn’t you feel bad after this “angel” came? – Having already understood what was going on, I asked.
“How do you know?..” he was very surprised.
– It was not an angel, but rather the opposite. They simply took advantage of you, but I can’t explain this to you correctly, because I don’t know it myself yet. I just feel it when it happens. You need to be very careful. “That’s all I could tell him then.”
– Is this anything like what I saw today? – Arthur asked thoughtfully.
“In a sense, yes,” I answered.
It was clear that he was trying very hard to understand something for himself. But, unfortunately, I was not yet able to really explain anything to him, since I myself was just a little girl who tried on her own to “get to the bottom” of some essence, guided in her “search” only by still the most not entirely clear, with its “special talent”...
Arthur was apparently a strong man and, even without understanding what was happening, he simply accepted it. But no matter how strong this man, tormented by pain, was, it was clear that the native images of his beloved daughter and wife, again hidden from him, forced him again to suffer unbearably and deeply... And one had to have a heart of stone to calmly observe how he looks around with the eyes of a confused child, trying, at least for a short moment, to once again “bring back” his beloved wife Christina and his brave, sweet “little fox” - Vesta. But, unfortunately, his brain, apparently unable to withstand such a huge load for him, tightly closed himself off from the world of his daughter and wife, no longer allowing him the opportunity to come into contact with them even in the shortest saving moment...
Arthur did not beg for help and was not indignant... To my great relief, he accepted with amazing calmness and gratitude what was left that life could still give him today. Apparently too much of a storm of both positive and negative emotions completely devastated his poor, exhausted heart, and now he was only waiting with hope for what else I could offer him...
They talked for a long time, making even me cry, although I already seemed to be used to something like this, if, of course, you can get used to something like this at all...
After about an hour, I already felt like a squeezed lemon and began to worry a little, thinking about returning home, but I still couldn’t bring myself to interrupt this, although now happier, but, unfortunately, their last meeting. Many people whom I tried to help in this way begged me to come again, but I, reluctantly, categorically refused. And not because I didn’t feel sorry for them, but only because there were many of them, and I, unfortunately, was alone... And I also still had some kind of my own life, which I loved very much, and which I always I dreamed of living as fully and interestingly as possible.

Apostle (disambiguation)

History of creation

By the 1550s, the need to publish printed books had become urgent in the Russian kingdom. Ivan the Terrible gives the order to set up a printing house. There were several reasons for this, including: the need for books in connection with the expansion of territory (the conquest of Kazan), the development of crafts and trade in general; “the need to strengthen state censorship”; “policy of centralization and unification of ideological influence.” Ivan Fedorov, in the afterword to the “Apostle,” speaks of the need to correct the text of handwritten books, which were often distorted by copyists.

"The Apostle" was not the first book published in Moscow. Six so-called anonymous editions (three Gospels, two Psalms, and a Triodion) were produced in the 1550s. shortly before the first editions of Ivan Fedorov (the latest of them - perhaps soon after the release of "Apostle").

Edition characteristics

“Apostle” is printed on French glued paper in a small sheet. The book contains 267 sheets (534 pages), each page has 25 lines. The first 6 sheets are without marks. Numbering is alphabetic Cyrillic, starting from the 7th sheet. The original format is not known exactly (all existing copies were trimmed by bookbinders), but it is approximately 28x18 cm (1:1.56). The proportions of the typesetting strip (1:1.72) also tend to the golden ratio.

For the first time in the Moscow edition an engraved frontispiece appears - the figure of the Evangelist Luke in the triumphal arch. In addition to this engraving, the book contains 48 headpieces (from 20 boards), 22 initial letters (from 5 boards), 51 flower frames (from one board). The section titles are written in script.

Printing Features

Known specimens

E. L. Nemirovsky suggests that about 2000 copies of the Apostle were printed. Of these, 23 copies remained in Moscow, 13 are in St. Petersburg, 3 in Kyiv, 2 each in Yekaterinburg, Lvov and Novosibirsk. About twenty more - in various cities around the world.

Other

On December 25, 2009, by decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, Orthodox Book Day was established, timed to coincide with the date of publication of the first printed book in Rus' - March 1, 1564 (March 14, new style).

Apostle (from the Greek apostolos - messenger) is part of the New Testament, the liturgical book of the Orthodox Church, which includes the Acts of the Apostles written by the Evangelist Luke, the conciliar letters of the apostles James, Peter, John, Jude, the 14 epistles of the Apostle Paul and the Apocalypse. It is believed that the Slavic translation of the Apostle was carried out by Cyril, Methodius and their disciples.

In 1564, the Apostle was printed in Moscow, becoming the first precisely dated Russian printed book. By European standards, it saw the light quite late - 124 years after Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and a device for casting type. By the middle of the 16th century, printing houses already existed in many large cities throughout Europe. Ivan Fedorov himself wrote in the Apostle’s afterword: “They began to think about how to present printed books, as in the Greeks, and in Venice, and in Phrygia, and in other languages.”

This does not mean at all that attempts to transfer the typographic art of the West to Russian soil have not been made before. The documents preserve several dramatic evidence about the fate of the pioneers of book publishing in Russia. The Lübeck chronicle of Reimar Kok from 1556 tells about a native of Magdeburg, Bartholomew Gagan, who went to Moscow to print books in Russian and Latin, but was unable to carry out his plan, since “the Russians took everything from him, threw him into the water and drowned him.” No evidence of this story could be found, but it cannot be denied that it, even if fictitious, is very typical of that era. About another foreigner, the German Hans Schligge, it is known that in 1547 he was sent by Tsar Ivan IV “to look for artists in Germany for the book business.” Among the craftsmen recruited by the enterprising Saxon there were a printer, a bookbinder and an engraver, but none of them made it to Russia, since on the way back Schligge was detained in Lübeck and put in prison. However, the very repetition of such failures demonstrated that the problem was ripe and required a solution. There were many reasons for this.

The annexation of the Novgorod, Tver, Pskov and Ryazan lands to Moscow, the strengthening of the centralized Russian state, and the expansion of its trade relations with European countries contributed to a noticeable cultural upsurge in Rus' in the 16th century. The entourage of Ivan the Terrible, about whom contemporaries said that he was “rich in verbal wisdom,” at various times included the learned Metropolitan Macarius, the Tsar’s favorite Alexey Adashev, who highly valued books, the Pskov monk Elder Philotheus, who first put forward and substantiated the idea of the “Three Rome,” Maxim A Greek who in his youth studied bookmaking in Venice, the enlightened archpriest Sylvester, who is credited with compiling Domostroi. It is Sylvester who is called by book historians as the organizer and owner of the first Moscow so-called “Anonymous” printing house, which operated in 1553-1565 and published at least seven books without indicating the imprint, place and year of publication. It is quite obvious that Ivan Fedorov had predecessors in Moscow, but it was he, the deacon of the Church of Nikola Gostunsky in the Kremlin, who was destined to break through the veil of anonymity, to be the first to gain a professional name, and with it the gratitude of his descendants.
Little is known about the beginning of Ivan Fedorov’s life. It is believed that he was born around 1510. It is known that in 1532 a person with that name received the academic title of bachelor at the University of Krakow. It has also been established that in the 1550s Ivan Fedorov was already in Moscow. His reliable biography can be traced only from the moment of the birth of the Apostle in 1564.

The history of this publication has been studied and described in detail: Ivan Fedorov himself and his closest assistant Pyotr Mstislavets worked on the book. The leading role belonged to Ivan Fedorov: he organized the entire publishing process, edited the text, wrote the afterword, and kept the proofs. Pyotr Mstislavets was most likely a technical editor, engraver and typographer.

Experts unanimously assess the level of design and printing of the Apostle as high for its time. The text is arranged thoughtfully and systematically; at the beginning of each section, the table of contents of the subsections and their brief contents are given. Scientists call Ivan Fedorov’s concluding afterword the first printed journalistic work in history; the technology of two-pass separate printing of the text with cinnabar and black paint was used in the process of work. The frontispiece of the book is decorated with the image of the legendary author of the “Acts of the Apostles” - the Evangelist Luke. The engraving is skilfully printed from two boards. So the Apostle of 1564 is important not only as the first dated book in the history of Russian printing, but also as a monument to the art of printing, which was followed and imitated in the 16th and 17th centuries both in Rus' and far beyond its borders.

Researchers define the circulation of the Apostle of 1564 differently - from 600 to 2000 copies. Currently, over 60 copies of it are kept in libraries and museums in different countries. This information does not cover private collections, but we can safely say that here we can only talk about a few books.

The fate of innovators and pioneers is rarely easy: a year after the publication of the Apostle, Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets were forced to leave Moscow for Lithuania. As Ivan Fedorov himself wrote about this, they made such a decision “due to great persecution, but not from the sovereign himself, but from many superiors and spiritual authorities and teachers, who, out of envy, brought many accusations of heresy against us, wanting to turn good into evil.” and completely destroy the work of God, as is usual for evil-willed, ignorant and undeveloped people who have no skill in grammatical subtleties and are not endowed with spiritual intelligence.”