Manuscript Monday
Today’s staff pick is a rare facsimile edition of the Kyiv Psalter, published in Moscow by the Russian art magazine Iskusstvo in 1978. The original manuscript, created in 1397, is one of the most important surviving works of medieval Ukrainian culture. Commissioned by Bishop Mykhail and written by the Kyiv archdeacon Spyrydonii, it consists of 228 parchment folios and nearly 300 richly detailed miniatures.
The illuminator of the manuscript remains unknown; however, the style and visual characteristics of the miniatures show strong similarities to the frescoes and mosaics of Saint Sophia of Kyiv (1037) and St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery (1108). These connections point to a continuity of local artistic traditions associated with Kyivan Rus’.
The manuscript’s later history reflects the movement of cultural objects across political boundaries. It remained within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for centuries, passing through Lithuanian noble collections, before being acquired in the nineteenth century by the Russian count Sergey Sheremetev. Today, the original is preserved in the Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library in Saint Petersburg.
Scholarly interpretations have often attempted to place the Kyiv Psalter within a broad “Byzantine” framework or to connect it to Moscow-based traditions, sometimes downplaying its Kyiv origins. In contrast, its visual language and historical context point to a strong continuity with earlier artistic traditions of Kyiv.
This facsimile edition allows us to engage with a manuscript that is both a masterpiece of medieval art and a reminder of how cultural heritage is preserved, interpreted, and, at times, contested.
-- Kate, Special Collections Graduate Art History Fieldworker
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