EARLY RUSSIAN GOSPEL.

EARLY RUSSIAN GOSPEL.
Chetveroevangelie [The Four Gospels]. Moscow: Moskovskii pechatnyi dvor, 1628.
Folio (325 x 205mm). Printed in black and red with decorative initials, headings and four woodcuts of the Evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). Blind-stamped 18th Century Russian red calf over wooden boards, leather clasps, later endpapers. Marginal staining and slight worming to a few leaves, last two leaves with neat marginal restoration, not affecting text, spine and covers rubbed.

AN IMPORTANT EARLY EDITION OF THE FOUR CANONICAL GOSPELS PRINTED IN RUSSIAN RATHER THAN LATIN. Published with the permission of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich (1596-1645). The Moscow Printing House were the largest printers in Russia in the 17th Century, printing some 750 publications throughout the century, most being religious texts in editions of 1000 to 1200 copies. Each of the full-page plates shows one of the Four Apostles composing his recollections of Christ. Undolskii, Katalog Slaviano-Russkikh knig ... iz biblioteki A. N. Kasterina (Moscow: 1848, No 153); Karataev, Opisanie Slavyano-Russkikh knig,napechatannykh Kirillovskimi bukvami ... 1491 po 1652 (St. Petersburg: 1883, No 332, p 401); Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga, Pamyatniki slavyano-Russkogo knigonechataniya (Moscow: 1933, No 387, p 22); A Treasury of Books: 250 years of the Hermitage Library (St. Petersburg: 2012, No 146, p 244).