Bookvica

[PRINTED ON CLOTH] Antimnis [i.e. Antimension]

Item #2704

Moscow: Pechatniy Dvor, 1662. 42x50 cm. Woodcut on flax cloth. Inscribed on the left side in ink over the date. Minor soiling and period staining (including a wine stain). Small piece from the right bottom corner is missing (over the image of evangelist Luka).

Extremely rare example of the Antimension, printed by the main Russian press of the time.

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich is mentioned in Antimension as a ruler of ‘Great and Little Russia’ [i.e. Gosudar’ Tsar’ Alexei Mikhailovich, Vseya Velikaya I Maliy] - the title ‘Maliy’ was added in 1655 after the Pereyaslav Agreement of 1654, after which Ukraine was taken under the Russian rule. Antimensions emerged as a distinct category of printed material during the Schism of the Russian Church, in the period when the Moscow Printing House operated under the administration of Patriarch Nikon. The format of the antimension was formally approved in 1654, with the first printed edition issued two years thereafter.
From the mid-seventeenth century onward, antimensions formed an essential component of the output of the Moscow Printing House, the principal state printing establishment in Russia. From this center, antimensions were distributed to churches across the country, where their presence was mandatory for the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. The plate employed for the present impression most likely derives from the first woodcut form, created of the 1650s, while the edition itself may be assigned to the interregnum period, when the patriarchal throne remained vacant following Nikon’s departure in the aftermath of his unsuccessful ecclesiastical reforms. In accordance with ecclesiastical decrees issued during the seventeenth century, churches throughout Russia were required to possess antimensions of the “new printing,” that is, those produced at the Moscow Printing House.
Comparable antimensions are known from the second quarter of the seventeenth century, as earlier examples existed primarily in manuscript form. Surviving specimens are exceedingly rare on the market:
owing to their inherent fragility and sustained liturgical use, very few made it to the present day.

Price: $7,500.00