A partner of Ivan Fedorov in Moscow in the 1560s, Petr Timofeev Mstislavets moved with him to Zabludov after the destruction of their Moscow press, later worked in Vilnius, and was reunited with Fedorov at Ostrog, where they produced the celebrated Ostrog Bible of 1581. After Fedorov’s departure, Mstislavets continued to print under the patronage of Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhskiy, and the present edition is an impressive witness to that final phase of Ostrog printing.

Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia and a foundational authority for Eastern monasticism, here addresses the spiritual discipline of fasting and the ascetic ordering of Christian life. The text stands at the intersection of patristic transmission, Orthodox devotion, and the programme of learned printing fostered at Ostrog in the later sixteenth century.

Copies are of marked rarity. The edition was already called “redka” ("rare") by Sopikov; Nemirovskiy records only eleven copies in Russian libraries, while outside Russia the present cataloguing notes only the Bavarian State Library copy in Munich and the Diaghilev-Lifar copy sold at Sotheby’s, Monaco, on 29 November 1975.

A very good example overall, with the expected faults of survival, but preserving the book’s visual force and material character to an unusual degree.

Provenance:

1) Contemporary inscription at foot of the first leaves of text.

2) Private European collection.

Nemirovskiy 121. Sopikov 193. Not in Cleminson. Not in Fekula.