Item #1037 Gosudarstvennyi muzei-zapovednik Pavlovsk: Polnyi katalog kollektsii, tom VI, Redkaia kniga, vypusk 1, illiustrirovannaia kniga XV – XVIII vekov (Pavlovsk Palace-Museum: Complete Catalogue of the Collections, vol. VI, Rare Books, vypusk 1, Illustrated Books of the 15th to the 18th c.). I. V. Alekseeva.
Gosudarstvennyi muzei-zapovednik Pavlovsk: Polnyi katalog kollektsii, tom VI, Redkaia kniga, vypusk 1, illiustrirovannaia kniga XV – XVIII vekov (Pavlovsk Palace-Museum: Complete Catalogue of the Collections, vol. VI, Rare Books, vypusk 1, Illustrated Books of the 15th to the 18th c.)
Gosudarstvennyi muzei-zapovednik Pavlovsk: Polnyi katalog kollektsii, tom VI, Redkaia kniga, vypusk 1, illiustrirovannaia kniga XV – XVIII vekov (Pavlovsk Palace-Museum: Complete Catalogue of the Collections, vol. VI, Rare Books, vypusk 1, Illustrated Books of the 15th to the 18th c.)

Gosudarstvennyi muzei-zapovednik Pavlovsk: Polnyi katalog kollektsii, tom VI, Redkaia kniga, vypusk 1, illiustrirovannaia kniga XV – XVIII vekov (Pavlovsk Palace-Museum: Complete Catalogue of the Collections, vol. VI, Rare Books, vypusk 1, Illustrated Books of the 15th to the 18th c.)

St. Petersburg: Pavlovsk, 2010. sewn pb. The Palace Library at Pavlovsk traces its origin to Catherine the Great’s “Travel Library” of 33 books, which she presented to her son, Grand Duke Paul. Subsequently Paul’s wife Empress Maria Fedorovna kept enlarging the collection and while making new acquisitions relied on the advice of her private secretary Baron A. Nikolai who was from 1798 President of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1828 there were 20,895 copies of books in the Library representing a range of origins and styles. This catalog reflects the contents of all twenty-two sections of the Library that covered almost all the branches of eighteenth-century knowledge, including natural sciences – botany, zoology and medicine; exact sciences – mathematics, physics and chemistry; politics and history of all times and nations; arts and crafts, modern and ancient literature, and finally, encyclopedias. About seventy percent of the books were French, twenty percent Russian, five percent German, and the rest Latin, English and Italian. In 1918, after the Pavlovsk Palace was turned into a museum, the Library underwent a thorough inventory, but in 1929–30, when many of Russia’s museum collections were sold, it lost more than 5000 important volumes. In September 1941, during World War II, Pavlovsk was occupied by German troops and units of the Spanish Blue Division. Retreating in January 1944 they stole the book collection of the Pavlovsk Palace that had unfortunately not been evacuated at the outbreak of the war. In 1945, part of this collection was returned to Russia. At present, Empress Maria Fedorovna’s library numbers 11,600 books. The collection boasts five illuminated manuscripts made on parchment in the late fifteenth century in France, the Netherlands and South Germany, all in Latin. There is also one palimpsest, an example of what is known as “renewed” manuscript books written on erased old parchments. The essays recount the story of famous engraved editions and their creators: the Vita de piu eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori by G . V asare (1568, Florence), La Sainte Bible (1582, Paris), and the Cosmographia by S. Münster (1594, Basle), which contains the first maps and descriptions of Muscovy, and Les presentes heures à l’usage, a book of hours (1515–17, Paris) superbly printed by Simon V ostre. Among the Russian early printed books dating to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries mention should go to the Four Gospels (1575, Vilno) by P. Mstislavets, Leiturgiarion or Service-book (1629, Kiev) by P. Mohyla, the Book of Hours (1648, Moscow) and the Pecherskii Paterik, or the Lives of the Fathers of the Kiev Monastery of the Caves (1661, Kiev). The editions presented in this volume naturally differ in their artistic merit. There are some plush examples of book graphics and some more ordinary books, which are not as perfect artistically. The collection gives an insight into the development of European book design over the course of three centuries. 216 pp, 8 3/8 x 10 3/4 ins., sewn pb., Rus. with titles of books given in the original. Item #1037
ISBN: 9785918160152

Price: $79.00

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