Moscow, February 2, 2017
Photo: http://expositions.nlr.ru/
The Alexandrovskaya Sloboda Museum-Reserve has announced the acquisition of a unique ancient publication—a Psalter dated to 1577. This particular liturgical book has special significance for the museum as it was there at the sloboda that it was printed, reports Kommersant.
The Alexandrovskaya Sloboda Museum is located on the territory of the Alexandrov Kremlin, seventy miles northeast of Moscow. Grand Prince Vasily III of Moscow built a magnificent palace there, turning it into the most ancient government residence of the Moscow Tsars. The settlement is best known as the home of Vasily’s son Ivan IV, or “the Terrible.” Moving there in 1564, Tsar Ivan turned the sloboda into the largest cultural center of the Russian state.
Several government agencies were centered in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, including the printing house founded by Ivan Fedorov, one of the fathers of Eastern Slavonic printing. The Psalter, printed by Fedorov’s student Andronik Nevezha during Ivan IV’s lifetime, came out fourteen years after Fedorov’s Apostol, the first dated Russian book. It is the only book printed at the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda printing house.
The Psalter was printed in two colors, ornamented with splendid headpieces and engraved with an image of King David. Presently there are only twenty-four surviving copies of the 1577 Psalter. The copy acquired by the museum was to be auctioned with a starting price of 2.5 million rubles ($42,000), but the reserve management was able to negotiate its purchase outside the auction.
