Iconography of the illusrtated chronicle of Celestial phenomena

Abstract

The purpose of the article the examination of a unique source — the illustrated Chronicle of celestial phenomena, compiled in Kazan in the early 17th century. Currently only three monuments of medieval chronicles with illustrations are known : Radziwill Chronicle, Illustrated Chronicle Code and Remezov Chronicle. Researchers have been introduced to these chronicles in the 18th century. Now they have been published in facsimile and comprehensively investigated. The illustrated chronicles are extremely rare so an unknown one has a great value. Thus the Chronicle of Celestial Phenomena from the collection of the Russian Academy of Sciences Library is one of the rare monuments of medieval literature. The Chronicle is significantly different from the other well-known illustrated chronicles primarily to the fact, that its author was only interested in astronomical and atmospheric phenomena observed in Russia from ancient times to the middle of the 16th century: comets, solar and lunar eclipses, meteors, halo, parhelia, etc. The author carefully sketched all these occurrences. The character of the images resembles that of drawings or diagrams. The author was interested in astronomy, so the Chronicle indicates the origination of the natural sciences in Russia at the beginning of the 17th century. The study of the Chronicle will reveal a new source for research of the initial phase of astronomy and physics in Russia. An important area in the study of the illuminated Chronicle is the analysis of the content and features of the text. Its sources were Russian chronicles of the 16th century though the Chronicle is doubtless private. The latest and most unusual recordings were made during the reign of the False Dmitry I. Thus, this Chronicle reflects the termination of the all-Russian chronicle tradition, peculiar to the second half of the 16th century. The article is devoted to the iconography of the illustrated ‘Chronicle of the celestial phenomena’. It was done with description and analysis of the miniatures. They were compared with the miniatures of Illustrated Chronicles of the 16th century, as well as with images from M. Belsky’s and C. Lycosthen’s Chronicles. It was proved that miniatures of the Illustrated chronicle were influenced by the engravings of Lycosthen’s Chronicles. Its translation was prepared in Moscow in 1599. Separate miniatures of the Illustrated chronicle were influenced by engravings of M. Belsky’s Chronicle. Refs 22.