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Title
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en_US
(Russian)/Vitae Aesopi versio rossica
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en_US
Editio Cimelia Bohemica Vol. V
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Description
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en_US
This is a hardbound book (hard cover)
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en_US
Language note: Russian/Czech/English/French/German
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en_US
Josef Strnadel
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Creator
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en_US
Aesop
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Date
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2016-01-25T19:03:10Z
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en_US
2001-10
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en_US
1968
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Date Available
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2016-01-25T19:03:10Z
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Date Issued
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en_US
1968
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Abstract
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en_US
This is one of the most curious and wonderful of the collection's recent acquisitions. Canvas-spined heavy marbled boards enclose a text and sixteen oversized (7½ x 13) heavy-paper reproductions of Russian copper engravings of pictures and text. The text is an introduction by Josef Strnadel in five languages (Czech/English/French/German/Russian) to the prints. Strnadel notes that Aesop was translated into Czech in 1487 and that there were as many as twenty editions of Aesop's fables published in Germany alone between 1476 and 1510. The German editions, particularly that of Steinhöwel, served as models, especially artistic models, for the Russian editions. Strnadel notes the opinion of Alfred Stange that Ludwig Schongauer, one of the creators of the wood-carvings and painted decorations at the Ulm Cathedral, was the author of the illustrations accompanying Aesop's fables and life. The first independent edition of the life of Aesop in Russia was published in 1750 from copper plates. Text was supplemental to illustration. The cradle of Russian engraved books was the Kiev-Petcher monastery. In Russia, the life of Aesop seems to have captured more attention than the fables themselves. For Strnadel, Aesop is the spirit of anti-serfdom. The tsarist censor prohibited the publication of Aesop's life in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Apparently the only known copy of the 1750 edition is in the Lenin Library in Moscow. The work reproduced here is apparently in the Slavonic Library; Strnadel believes it is one of the last editions of that 1750 original, dating from Russia in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. He sees it as a particular treasure of Russian engraving art. After the full-page portrait of Aesop, each page tends to have a top quarter showing several scenes from Aesop's life, while the lower portion of the page is all print. Though some scenes are hard to identify, many are clear from the tradition. All have print identifications and are numbered. The last page includes at its bottom the thrusting of Aesop from the cliff in Delphi.
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Identifier
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en_US
4238 (Access ID)
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Language
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en_US
cze
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Publisher
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en_US
Pragopress
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en_US
Prague
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Subject
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en_US
PA3855.R8 S7 1968
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en_US
Vita
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Type
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en_US
Book, Whole