There is a need to publish printed books. 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 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).

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 was 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. Then they were removed from the set, after which the main text was printed on the same sheets with black ink

This is the first precisely dated Russian printed book. Scientists have established that even before the “Apostle” of 1564, a printing press operated in Moscow. The workshop in which he stood is called anonymous. The books published from here do not indicate who, where or when they were printed. “The Apostle” ends with an afterword, which contains information that we call today “weekends.” For the first time, Russian book printing loudly declared its existence.

“The Apostle” of 1564 cannot be called a rare book. Today, 62 copies are known. And almost every year new ones are found. We do not know how many copies the book was printed in. Information about the circulation first appeared in the Apostle, printed in 1597 by Ivan Fedorov’s student Andronik Timofeev Nevezha. “A total of one thousand and fifty of these books were printed,” says the book’s afterword. The conditions in which the “Apostles” of 1564 and 1597 were kept for centuries were approximately the same. The 1597 edition is known in 26 copies. Therefore, we can assume that the circulation of the first precisely dated Moscow printed book exceeded 2000, and perhaps 3000 copies.

You can now get acquainted with the first-born of Ivan Fedorov in the libraries of Moscow and Leningrad, Kyiv and Lvov, Novosibirsk and Riga, Washington and Dublin, London and Prague...

“The Apostle” of 1564 is a monument to the beautiful art of printing, which Ivan Fedorov mastered, one might say, to perfection. Everything here is thought out and verified.

The book is printed flat-sheet. This means that there are two stripes on each side of the paper sheet. The sheets were folded into one fold.

It is now difficult to establish with certainty the format of the publication, because all the copies that have survived to this day were bound many times and, of course, cut on three sides. Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences A. A. Sidorov, who at one time studied the “Apostle”, established that its format is within the range of 1774-181x2724-283 mm. The dial format is 119×204 mm. Here the information is already accurate, because the proof in the first printer’s books is good.

The format of the typesetting strip is given without taking into account interlinear and superscript references and indexing placed in the margins. If we take into account these texts, printed with cinnabar paint, it turns out, as A. A. Sidorov wrote, that the “Apostle” of 1564 was built according to the correct and clear multiple ratio of 3: 2 (the maximum height of the set is 21 cm, width 14 cm). This is close to the so-called golden ratio - the harmonic relationship between line segments, areas and volumes, which Leonardo da Vinci spoke about.

"Apostle". Moscow. 1564

In the strict thoughtfulness of the proportions and in the perfection of printing technology lies the secret of the amazing impression of harmony and harmony that the book produces.

The book block of the “Apostle” of 1564 is made up of 34 notebooks, each of which has 8 sheets, or 16 pages. The exception is the first and last notebooks, each containing 6 sheets. The total number of sheets is 268. There is no foliation on the first six of them. The rest are renumbered in Cyrillic numbers. Let us remind the reader that each letter of the Cyrillic alphabet also had a numerical value: “az” meant 1, “vedi” -2, “verb” -3, etc.

There are no signatures (numbering of notebooks) in the “Apostle” of 1564. But Ivan Fedorov perfectly understood the importance of the signature in ensuring the correct selection of notebooks. It is curious that the small-format editions of the pioneer printer have signatures. Perhaps he numbered notebooks and large-format publications, but he put the numbers on the very edge of the sheets and they were cut off when binding.

The artistic decoration of the “Apostle” of 1564 is rich and original, including a frontispiece, 48 headpieces printed from 20 boards, 22 initials from 5 boards, 24 lines of ligature. Thinking about the design of his first-born, Ivan Fedorov largely followed the tradition that had developed in ancient Russian manuscript workshops. It was here that an amazingly beautiful style of ornamentation was created, which was later called “old printing.” Scientists thought that it came into handwritten books from printed ones. But it was the other way around.

The headpiece is generally typical for Byzantine, Serbian, and Old Russian manuscripts. We will not find this important element of artistic decoration in a Western European book. The headpiece of the old printed style is a horizontally elongated rectangle with finials and decorations at the corners protruding beyond the strict geometric shape. The compositional center of the screensaver is a black and white “stamp” inscribed in a patterned frame, playing with all the colors of the rainbow.

All elements of the artistic decoration of the “Apostle” of 1564 were made using the technique of woodcut or woodcut engraving. It is possible to convey the patterned multicolored frame of handwritten headpieces using this method, but it is extremely difficult. To do this, the number of shapes must correspond to the number of colors. An important technical problem, which Ivan Fedorov could hardly solve at that time, was register. Therefore, the typographer took as the basis for his headbands black and white stamps, the design of which, as scientists have proven, went back to the alphabet of capital letters engraved on copper by a German-Dutch master of the 15th century. Israel van Mekenem.

The first book of Ivan Fedorov marked the beginning of a new style of ornamentation, which in the 16th - first half of the 17th centuries. dominated the Russian book.

Endings were not found in our ancient manuscripts. Ivan Fedorov tried to introduce endings into the pages of “The Apostle,” but then changed his mind and decided to follow tradition. Of the 62 copies of the 1564 edition that have survived to this day, the ending ending folio 81 was found in only four.

Art historians have written a lot about the frontispiece of the Apostle. It depicts one of the legendary authors of the book - the Apostle Luke. He sits on a low bench, with a book on his lap. In front of Luke is a high music stand, on which we see an open scroll, a writing stand, and an inkwell with a quill pen. The figure is enclosed in a decorative frame of a triumphal arch with a semicircular vault. Columns with lush capitals support a horizontal ceiling on which stands a vase of flowers.

Scientists have found that the frame design resembles an arch from the engravings of the German master Ergard

Shen, who worked in the first half of the 16th century. Ivan Fedorov significantly reworked the composition of the original, bringing it closer to the Russian tradition.

The image of Luke was apparently inserted into the frame. If we never see this image again, then Ivam Fedorov will keep the board from which the frame was printed and will subsequently use it in Lvov and Ostrog. The frame design will become popular and will be copied by Polish and Lithuanian masters.

It is necessary to say something about the printing technique of “The Apostle” of 1564. There is a lot of red in the book, which Ivan Fedorov uses to highlight individual texts. He also took into account the fact that the second color makes the book elegant and festive. Our first printer printed using the double-pass printing method from one plate. When typing, whitespace material was placed under the letters that were to be reproduced in red. At the same time, the letters rose somewhat above the main set. Cinnabar was applied to the raised areas and a sheet of paper was placed on top. The "red" set was then removed, leaving the pads. The form was filled with black paint and a red print was pressed onto it.

An interesting technique is the so-called blind embossing, in which some areas of the form were filled not with blank material, but with letters on which no paint was applied. On the print, these letters formed a relief pattern.

All of us scribes remember that the first Russian printed book is “The Apostle,” published by Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets in 1564 at the Moscow Printing Yard. In fact, this is not the first printed book. If you nitpick, then before the “Apostle” in Rus', six books had been published since 1553, and almost simultaneously with it the seventh was published, but they, without indicating the year and place of publication, were published by the so-called Anonymous Printing House. So Fedorov’s “Apostle” is not the first printed book of Rus' in general, but the first precisely dated printed book.

Little is known about Ivan Fedorov himself. During his life he traveled throughout a significant part of Poland, Germany, Austria, and Lithuania. Ivan Fedorov was solemnly received by the Polish kings Sigismund II Augustus, Stefan Batory, and Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. But where he learned his craft and why he found himself accepted by the august persons, historians can only guess.

The era of the handwritten book and the first printed books of Eastern Europe

As we know, books in Rus' were copied over several centuries. Large monasteries were book centers. For example, the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the Lazarus Monastery in Novgorod. With the rise of Moscow and the unification of Russian lands, all culture gradually concentrated in Moscow. And when the Metropolitan moved to the new capital, many book workshops opened at Moscow churches and monasteries.

Some researchers believe that the rapid development of book writing in Rus' could push back the development of printing. After all, “The Apostle” was published more than a hundred years after Gutenberg’s “Bible”. The first Belarusian printed book was published by Francis Skaryna in 1517 - although not on the territory of present-day Belarus, but in Prague, but nonetheless. Here, by the way, is another Slavic pioneer printer, about whom we know even less than about Ivan Fedorov.

In Montenegro, books were published even before Skaryna. In the city of Obod in 1494, the priest Macarius printed the “Octoechos First Glas”, and in 1495 – the “Psalter Following”. At the beginning of the 16th century, books were printed in Krakow, Vilna, Tergovishche, Lvov, Suprasl.

Establishment of the Moscow Printing House

Sooner or later, book printing had to appear in the Moscow state, because there were not enough books and they were expensive. The Church, the main consumer of books, was dissatisfied with numerous errors, which became more and more numerous with constant rewriting - this led to discrepancies and heresy. In addition, Ivan the Terrible conquered many lands, the wild peoples of which needed to be educated. How to educate? With the help of books.

In 1551, the Council of the Stoglavy was held, which developed a document - Stoglav, which, in addition to political and religious issues, stipulated the legal norms regulating the work of “scribes”. It was ordered to “monitor” churches so that liturgical books were written from “good translations.” What can guarantee that the text of the rewritten book does not contain discrepancies with the original? Nothing. But if the book was printed from the correct printing plates, there was such a guarantee.

Ivan the Terrible already knew about the activities of the Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius, about whom Maxim the Greek told the Russian educated society. The king, naturally, wanted to be no worse than the Italians. And so in 1562 he decided to establish a printing house, which was located in Moscow on Nikolskaya Street.

Anonymous printing house

The activities of the Anonymous Printing House are the most poorly studied issue in the history of Russian books. Based on paper types, ornaments and fonts, researchers identified seven publications published from 1553 to 1565 by the Anonymous Printing House. Naturally, these were religious books.

In all publications there is no indication that the tsar ordered them to be printed, that is, with a high degree of probability we can say that the Anonymous printing house was private. The names of people who supposedly worked in the printing house have been preserved. These are masters of printing Marusha Nefediev and Vasyuk Nikiforov.

An analysis of printing technology led researchers to believe that Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets could have worked at the Anonymous Printing House.

Appearance of Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets in Moscow

We know little about Russian pioneer printers. We cannot even say with certainty that they were Russian in origin. The approximate date of birth of Ivan Fedorov is 1510. Place of birth - either Southern Poland or Belarus. It was possible to establish with a high degree of certainty that in 1529–1532 Fedorov studied at the University of Krakow.

Scientists know nothing about what Ivan Fedorov did in the 1530s–1540s. But perhaps at this time he met Metropolitan Macarius, who invited Fedorov to Moscow. In Moscow, Ivan Fedorov became a deacon in the Church of St. Nicholas of Gostunsky at the Moscow Kremlin.

Even less is known about Peter Mstislavets. Presumably he was born in Belarus, in the city of Mstislavets. One of the most important questions - where the first printers learned to print books - remains unsolved to this day.

“Apostle” – a masterpiece of printing

“The Apostle” by Ivan Fedorov was published on March 1, 1564. The fact that it was printed in the state printing house is evidenced by the mention in the book of two top officials of the state: Ivan the Terrible, who ordered the publication, and Metropolitan Macarius, who blessed the publication. In addition, Metropolitan Macarius edited the text of the Apostle.

The circulation of “Apostle” is about 2000 copies. 61 copies have survived to this day. About a third of them are stored in Moscow, a little more than a dozen in St. Petersburg. Several books - in Kyiv, Yekaterinburg, Lvov and other cities of Russia and the world.

The most important historical source is the afterword of “The Apostle,” in which Ivan Fedorov lists everyone who participated in the creation of the book and talks about the printing house itself. In particular, from the afterword we know that work on the “Apostle” began on April 19, 1563, the type was cast from scratch in the printing house, equipment was manufactured...

The Apostle has 267 leaves, each page has 25 lines. The engraving on page 14 is noteworthy. It depicts the Evangelist Luke in a triumphal arch. The engraving was printed from two boards. Presumably the board for the frame was made by Ivan Fedorov himself; the engraver who depicted the figure of the evangelist is unknown. In addition to the engraving with Luke, the book contains 48 engravings with floral designs.

As a sample for the “Apostle” font, a handwritten half-chart, used in the 16th century, with a slight slant to the right, was taken. The font itself looks much neater than in the publications of the Anonymous Printing House. Two-color printing. The letters and inserts are printed with cinnabar. Both the red and black ink are of high quality as the letters are still clearly visible.

Neither before the Apostle, nor for a long time after it, there was a printed book in Russia that could compare in its artistic merits with the first edition published by Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets.

Published immediately after “The Apostle,” in 1565, “The Book of Hours” was prepared less carefully, which affected, if not the quality, then the artistic merits of the book. “The Book of Hours” was the last book by Ivan Fedorov published in Moscow.

Escape from Moscow

After the publication of “The Book of Hours,” Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets, taking all the equipment from the printing house, left Moscow. Historians put forward different versions of the reasons for the sudden departure. One of them is the introduction of oprichnina. There is an assumption that book writers set Ivan the Terrible against Fedorov and Mstislavets. Someone is talking about Ivan Fedorov being removed from printing because after the death of his wife he did not become a monk. Here, by the way, at least some detail appears about the personal life of the pioneer printer. Perhaps his son fled from Moscow with Fedorov.

On the other hand, it is quite difficult to secretly remove government equipment from a printing house. And it is unlikely that Ivan Fedorov would have been able to do this without the knowledge of the tsar. Some researchers went further and suggested that Ivan the Terrible sent Ivan Fedorov to Lithuania with a special mission - to support Orthodoxy in Catholic lands. If we remember that the Livonian War had been going on since 1558, we can imagine the spy Ivan Fedorov, sent behind enemy lines. However, history is unpredictable, so any version is not without its right to exist. In addition, copies from almost every edition published by Fedorov after leaving Moscow somehow ended up in the hands of Ivan the Terrible. For example, the tsar presented a copy of the Ostrog Bible to the English ambassador. This book is now kept in the Oxford Library.

Ivan Fedorov in Lithuania and Poland

The last years of Ivan Fedorov’s life were spent constantly moving from city to city. Fedorov and Mstislavets, having left Moscow, went to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There they were received at the court of Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.

Then Fedorov and Mstislavets went to the city of Zabludov, where they opened a printing house, or drukarnya, in the Western Russian style. Zabludov was ruled by Hetman Grigory Khodkevich, a zealot of Orthodoxy, who took printers under his protection. Already in 1569, the first Zabludov publication, “The Teaching Gospel,” was published. And this is the last collaboration between Fedorov and Mstislavets. Mstislavets moved to Vilna (where he also founded a printing house), and Fedorov remained in Zabludov and in 1570 published the “Psalter with the Book of Hours.”

In 1569, with the conclusion of the Union of Lublin, the political situation changed dramatically. Hetman Khodkevich was forced to refuse support to Fedorov the printer; in return, he offered support to Fedorov the landowner. Ivan Fedorov did not accept a large plot of land as a gift from the hetman, saying that he preferred to plow a spiritual field. The symbolism of Ivan Fedorov’s publishing brand is associated with these words – a stylized image of a removed cowhide (a hint of the leather that was used to cover the binding boards) and a plow turned upside down towards the sky (to plow a spiritual field).

From Zabludov, Ivan Fedorov moves to Lvov, where he opens his third printing house. And there, in 1574, he printed the second edition of “The Apostle” (in terms of artistic execution, inferior to the first), in a huge circulation of 3,000 copies, which nevertheless quickly sold out.

In the same 1574, Ivan Fedorov published the first Russian alphabet, which is considered the first Russian textbook in general. ABC is one of the rarest publications by Ivan Fedorov. Only one copy has reached us, which is kept in the Harvard University library.

Ivan Fedorov's financial affairs were going poorly; he needed a wealthy patron, whom he found in the person of the tycoon Konstantin Ostrozhsky. At the end of the 1570s, Fedorov moved to Ostrog and opened a printing house there. Here he publishes the second edition of the alphabet and the New Testament with Psalter. And the most famous book of this period is the Ostrog Bible, the first complete Bible in Church Slavonic.

But Ivan Fedorov did not remain in Ostrog for long. The pioneer printer quarreled with Konstantin Ostrogsky and in 1583 returned to Lviv, where he tried to set up his own printing house, already the fifth in a row.

In Lvov, Ivan Fedorov is not only engaged in book printing, but also produces a small cannon by order of the Polish king Stefan Batory. Where the drukhar learned to cast cannons, history is silent. In the spring of 1583, Ivan Fedorov traveled to Vienna to sell another weapon of his own invention to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. Either the talented pioneer printer managed to master the arms trade in his spare time, or...

Ivan Fedorov died on December 5, 1583. At his deathbed were his eldest son Ivan, his second wife with children and his student Grin. The printing house quickly went bankrupt after the death of its founder.

Ivan Fedorov was buried in the Onufrievsky Monastery. In 1975, Ukrainian archaeologists found the remains of the first printer, which in 1990 were transferred to the Museum of Ancient Ukrainian Books in Lviv. The remains have not yet been buried.

In Moscow in 1909, on the site where the Moscow Printing Yard was once located, a monument to Ivan Fedorov by sculptor Sergei Volnukhin was erected. The monument was moved several times, and today it is located opposite house No. 2 on Teatralny Proezd, a little away from the place where Ivan Fedorov published his “Apostle” in 1564.

"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

"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).

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 was 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 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

Write a review about the article "Apostle (book, 1564)"

Notes

1. Collection “Ivan Fedorov the First Printer”, Leningrad, 1935, p. 56.
2. “... 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.”
3. Sidorov A. A. History of Russian book design. M., Leningrad, 1946. pp. 52-53.
4. 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.
5. Sidorov A. A. History of Russian book design. M., L., 1946. P. 54.
6. Nemirovsky E. L. A big book about a book. M., 2010. P. 369. See also: .
7. Sidorov A. A. History of Russian book design. M., L., 1946. S. 56-59, 66.
8. Shchelkunov M. I. History, technology, art of printing. M., Leningrad, 1926. P. 310.
9. Bulgakov F. I. Illustrated history of book printing and typographic art. T. I. St. Petersburg. , 1889. P. 220.
10. Sidorov A. A. History of Russian book design. M., L., 1946. S. 55, 63, 67.
11. Nemirovsky E. L. Invention of Johannes Guttenberg. M., 2000. P. 166-167.
12. Nemirovsky E. L. A big book about a book. M., 2010. P. 370.

Links

• on the RSL website
• on the website of the State Public Library for Science and Technology SB RAS

View this template Books People Printing houses Electronic archives History of printing

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 to 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.

Printing began in 1563 on April 19, finished in 1564 on March 1. , 261, [i.e. 268] l. in Cyrillic, frontispiece engraved on the board, 48 engraved headpieces, 22 initials and 24 lines of title script in red. Binding: morocco-covered boards, brass clasps, rich gold embossing. Block format 26.5x17.5 cm. Binding format 31x19 cm. Currently, 62 copies are included in the bibliography. The brand belongs to this book the first printed book in Russia! Well, the price is right...

Bibliographical sources:

1. Book treasures of GBL. Issue 1. Books of the Cyril press of the XV-XVIII centuries. Catalog, Moscow. 1979, no. 13

2. Titov A.A. Old printed books according to the Catalog of A.I. Kasterina, with their prices indicated. Rostov, 1905, No. 15 ... 115 rub.!!!

3. Karataev I. “Description of Slavic-Russian books printed in Cyrillic letters.” Volume one. From 1491 to 1652, St. Petersburg, 1883, No. 69

4. Stroev P. “Description of early printed Slavic and Russian books located in the library of Count F.A. Tolstov”, M., 1829, No. 16

5. Karataev I. “Chronological list of Slavic books printed in Cyrillic letters. 1491-1730". St. Petersburg, 1861, No. 54

6. Undolsky V.M. “Chronological index of Slavic-Russian books of the church press from 1491 to 1864.” Issue I. Moscow, 1871, No. 61

7. Sakharov I.P. Review of Slavic-Russian bibliography. Issue four. Chronological list of Slavic-Russian bibliography. Editions printed in Cyrillic and Russian letters, from 1491 to 1731. St. Petersburg, 1849, No. 45

8. Nemirovsky E.L. Books of Kirill's printing 1551-1600. Moscow, 2009, No. 69

9. Sopikov V.S. Experience of Russian bibliography. Editing, notes, additions and index by V.N. Rogozhina. T.1-2, Parts 1-5, St. Petersburg, edition A.S. Suvorina, 1904-1906, No. 73

10. Shiryaev, Register of early printed books, No. 5

11. Zernova A.S. “Books of the Kirillov press, published in Moscow in the 16th-17th centuries. Union catalogue. Moscow, 1958. No. 7

12. Stroev P. “Description of early printed Slavic books located in the Tsarsky library”, M., 1836, No. 15

Exactly ten years after the publication of the first anonymous narrow-font Gospel, a book was published in Moscow, which indicated the place and time of printing, the names of not only the printers, but also the customer publishers, and even stated the reasons for the publication. This was the famous first printed Apostle of 1564 - the work of Moscow masters Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Timofeev Mstislavets. Thanks to this publication, the exact date associated with the history of book printing in Russia is known. If in the early 50s of the 16th century. By decree of Tsar Ivan IV "...they began to seek the skill of printing...", then in the early 60s the Tsar "ordered to build a house at the expense of the royal treasury where printing would be carried out."

It is unknown where this first state enterprise, organized by order of the Tsar and carrying out a program agreed upon with the Tsar and Metropolitan, was located in Moscow. Perhaps in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, where Artemy, one of the initiators of printing, became rector in 1551. Documents have not been preserved or have not yet been discovered showing how the work was organized in the printing house of I. Fedorov and P. Mstislavets, how it was equipped, how many people worked, who performed such complex printing processes as casting fonts, engraving boards, etc. It is only known that the tsar “without sparing gave from his royal treasures to the workers ... Ivan Fedorov and Peter Mstislavets for the organization of the printing business and for their support until their work came to completion.” 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. The publication of such a reputable book as the Apostle required a lot of preliminary work. Therefore, the craftsmen had to get down to business long before 1563, when, according to the testimony of the printers themselves, they “began printing for the first time this holy book of the Acts of the Apostles and the Council Epistles in the year 7070, the first, April 19th. They finished in the year 7070, the second of March in 1st day under Archbishop Athanasius, Metropolitan of All Rus'...". The first printed Russian book, by European standards, was published 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, in the Apostle’s afterword, wrote: “They began to think about how to set out 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 in 1556 tells about Bartholomew Gotan, a native of Magdeburg, 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 Schlitt, 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 Schlitte 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 Alexei Adashev, who highly valued books, the Pskov monk Elder Philotheus, who first put forward and substantiated the idea of ​​the “third 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 content are given. Scientists call Ivan Fedorov’s concluding afterword to the Apostle the first printed journalistic work in the history of Russian literature. The technology of two-pass separate printing of text with cinnabar and black paint used in the process was also innovative. 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 of printing art, 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.” But the labors of the Russian pioneer printers were not in vain. The “Reliable Legend about the Invention of Printing” says: “And after those masters there were other masters, and from that time this business went strong and without interference, uninterruptedly, like a continuous branch.” The Moscow Apostle of 1564 is an innovative work in many ways. Ivan Fedorov freed the book's language from archaisms and non-Slavic expressions and phrases, and improved the spelling. The text is presented very thoughtfully, systematically; at the beginning of each section, the table of contents of the subsections and their brief content are given.

The Apostle does not yet have a title page, but there is an afterword that contains all the imprint of the book and the history of its publication: the “pious” tsar, Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich, whose command “began to discover the craftsmanship of printed books,” and the enlightened Metropolitan Macarius are glorified, and the how the printing house was established in Moscow. This afterword was most likely written by Ivan Fedorov himself and is of a secular nature. It can be considered the first printed journalistic work in the history of Russian literature. This was one of the best creations of Ivan Fedorov. The printing technique, quality of typesetting, and ornamental decorations far exceed the quality of anonymous publications. The book is equipped with a large frontispiece engraving depicting the Evangelist Luke, inserted into an artistically executed frame, which Ivan Fedorov used in his other publications. The ornamentation of the Apostle uses examples of the floral style of handwritten books of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. In some elements of this ornament one can see a reflection of the Renaissance. What is innovative in the book is the use of two-color printing technology in two runs. Some important changes have been made to the fonts as well. There are no numerous forms of the letter “o”, wide “e” and “s” have been eliminated. All this was a departure from the handwritten tradition, but the text was easier to type and read. This was a great achievement for Ivan Fedorov. His "Apostle" not only surpassed its predecessors - anonymous books - in terms of execution technique, but also became an unsurpassed example of printing for many subsequent decades. Moreover, Fedorov’s “Apostle” was distinguished by its technical originality in comparison with ancient Russian anonymous books and with the book products of foreign printing houses of that time. Abroad, in the West, from the end of the 15th century, a two-roll method of two-color printing was used from two typesetting forms, one of which (the main one) was covered with black paint, and the other with colored, mainly red, paint. In this case, the form was first printed with black ink: its imprint on paper gave the main text. Then, an imprint of a different shape with red (colored) paint was applied to the same sheet of paper with a second roll. As a result of this additional imprint on paper in unfilled places, colored details of the text were obtained: colored capital letters, headings, headpieces, script, etc. It was in this sequence that printing took place from two typesetting forms in foreign printing houses. This is confirmed by a simple study of books of this type. In all cases of mismatching of two forms or misalignment of the paper when applying it to the second form, it is clear that red (colored) paint is lying on top of black paint. Consequently, the main form with black ink was printed first, and the parts with colored ink were printed second. As already mentioned, when printing the first ancient Russian anonymous books, a different, single-roll, two-color printing method was used from one typesetting plate. This method, completely original, Russian, not borrowed from anywhere, was replaced in the anonymous “Triodi” when printing its middle sheets by a more advanced, but also original, different from foreign practice, two-roll method of two-color printing from one typesetting plate. At the same time, the order of two-color printing in the anonymous “Triodion” was the opposite in comparison with the foreign printing method: first, the text was printed with red (color) paint, and then the main text was printed with black paint. A. A. Sidorov thoroughly attributed the invention of this original printing method, first used in the publication of the anonymous “Triodion,” to Ivan Fedorov. His “Apostle” of 1564 was printed in the same way. As a result of painstaking research by V.V. Popov and A.A. Sidorov, the technique of this printing method is presumably presented in this form. First, Ivan Fedorov and his assistants laid the entire page on one form, including those details that were to be printed in red rather than black ink. Then these, so to speak, colored parts were raised somewhat, and special blocks were placed underneath them. Thus, a two-tier typesetting form was obtained.

After this, the top tier of the set was rolled with red paint, a sheet of paper was placed on it and the first print was made. The red details of the text left an imprint on the paper. Finally, having removed the upper tier (red parts) from the typesetting mold, they rolled the lower tier of the set with black paint, placed the same sheet of paper on it and made a second print. As a result, an imprint of the main text was obtained on the paper in appropriate places. Consequently, in contrast to the foreign printing method, Ivan Fedorov’s two-color printing was obtained not from two, but from one typesetting plate. And, in addition, there was a different printing sequence for black and red text: the red parts were printed first, and then the black main text. In foreign printed books of that time, red appeared on black, but in Fedorov’s “Apostle” it was the other way around: black on red. This is clearly visible in cases of erroneous shifting of paper during its secondary placement on the lower tier of a two-tier typesetting form. The printing method invented by Ivan Fedorov compared favorably with the single-roll method of printing anonymous books. Firstly, the work was less painstaking: there was no need to remove black paint from the letters and then cover them with red paint. Secondly, the text printed using Ivan Fedorov’s method turned out cleaner and had fewer blots. The method of the Russian pioneer printer also had some advantages in comparison with foreign printing techniques: it provided savings on materials, since it did without a second typesetting form. This partly explains the comparative duration of its existence: in the printing houses of Moscow Rus', books were printed using the method of Ivan Fedorov for a century. The pioneer printer showed great ingenuity and amazing skill in the production of fonts.

The “Apostle” font was made according to a special model, which differed from contemporary Western European and Slavic fonts. Such a model for Ivan Fedorov was that large half-shaft of the 16th century with a slight tilt to the right, which was widely used in ancient Russian handwritten books. This handwritten half-chart attracted the attention of the pioneer printer primarily for its clarity, simplicity and elegance of the outlines of the letters. It was also of great importance that the pioneer printer did not want to scare off readers with unnecessary novelty, and sought to bring the printed font closer to handwritten letters, to which Russian people had long been accustomed. Finally, such stylization of the book as a manuscript could somewhat weaken the attacks and objections of the enemies of the printed book. The drawings of the letters “Apostle” are always very clear and readable. Their tilt to the right is strictly observed, and the size is the same everywhere, and therefore the lines are even and harmonious. The same distance between letters is also consistently maintained. Capital letters are twice the size of lowercase letters. The initial letters of the chapters are given in the form of large initials decorated with stylized foliage. The table of contents of the book is printed in elegant script; This is a continuous pattern of a bizarre interweaving of large letters. The font of the “Apostle” of 1564 is so perfect and attractive that it influenced Western Slavic printing. In the Moscow state, this font was considered exemplary for half a century, until the beginning of the 17th century. The hand of a great master was also reflected in the layout of the Apostle. Impeccably straight lines of lines, absolutely equal distances between them, precise alignment of capital initials to lowercase letters, strictly maintained extreme lines on the right and left - all this creates the impression of captivating harmony and makes the book easier to read. A particular drawback of the layout of “Apostle” is the unevenness of spaces or their absence between words, as well as the absence of word hyphenation marks. The elm, initials, inserts in the text and in the margins are printed in red paint (cinnabar), everything else is printed in black paint. Vermilion and black paint are of very high quality. Thanks to this, the text of the book is well preserved. The Apostle has 534 pages, with each page having 25 lines when fully typed. With the exception of twelve pages, all other pages are numbered in the lower right corner in Cyrillic, that is, in the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet. The Apostle of 1564 is richly decorated. In it, in addition to the elegant script, there is a series of headpieces - forty-eight wonderful drawings printed from twenty engraved wooden boards (some headpieces are repeated), twenty-two beautiful initials - patterned letters printed from five boards (the initials are also repeated), fifty-four marginalia ( indications of chapters and order of reading the text) from one board and, finally, an excellent frontispiece. One of the surviving copies of the book has a braided ending on page 162. In other copies this ending is missing, apparently because the first printer himself either did not like it, or, on the contrary, he included it in the last copies of the book. The headband designs are shown on a black background and consist of a bizarre interweaving of lush, broad-leaved grasses with fruits in the form of pine cones, pods, and poppy heads. These plant patterns are very plastic, expressive, and full of lively movement of plant shoots. In the headpieces one can feel the experienced hand of a talented engraver, who independently creatively reworked the motifs of the headbands, known to him from ancient Russian handwritten books. Screensavers of different sizes. Large headbands are placed before the beginning of the book and its sections, and small headbands in the form of narrow, oblong ribbons are placed before the chapters. All decorations of the book: headpieces, patterned letters, script - are made in the same style and create a holistic impression. A special place in the book is occupied by the frontispiece - a wonderful work of an ancient Russian artist-engraver, the first artistic woodcut in Russia. The frontispiece consists of a frame artistically made in the form of an arch on two columns, and placed in this frame an image of the legendary author of the book - the Apostle-Evangelist Luke, bending over the manuscript. The frontispiece is printed from a woodcut measuring 26.25x16.6 centimeters, and this engraving is also a composite one: the figure of Luke is made on a separate board, which is inserted closely into another board with an image of a frame. This arrangement of the double engraving made it possible to use not only the entire composition as a whole, but also each of its component parts separately. Thus, it was possible to print either the entire double engraving as a whole, or one frame with text inside it instead of the image of Luke, or a frame with the image of any other figure. This is exactly what Ivan Fedorov did later when publishing other books. In this engraving, great skill in artistic execution is combined with a deep and significant concept: the image of a man working on a book under a solemnly magnificent triumphal arch, as if glorifies inspired work. the creator of the book. So, the original improved technique of two-color printing, a clear and beautiful font, excellent layout, impeccably literate text, rich variety and subtle artistic execution of headpieces and patterned letters, an excellent frontispiece - all this delights in the first book of Ivan Fedorov, published by him in the state. printing houses. “The Apostle” of 1564 is a synthesis of all the best that was in ancient Russian handwritten books and in the practice of anonymous printing, the result of the development of book technology of the past, which was significantly enriched by the pioneer printer, a gifted inventor and innovator in the field of printing. It is noteworthy that the Italian Raphael Barberini, well familiar with the world achievements of Italian typographers, in a letter to his homeland spoke with great praise in 1564 about Moscow printers and the work of the Moscow state printing house: “Last year they introduced printing... and I I myself saw with what dexterity books were already printed in Moscow.” “The Apostle” of 1564 is an unsurpassed masterpiece of ancient Russian printing, the highest achievement of printing skills of the 16th century. This creation of Ivan Fedorov was a model for his students and admirers, for the successors of his great work. The works of all Russian printers of the 16th century bear clear traces of the beneficial influence of Fedorov’s craftsmanship. But none of these works could surpass the technical and artistic level of the Apostle of 1564.