The museum of Dyonisy’s frescoes presents the exhibition titled “Icon and Book”. One can see some books of the museum holdings and exhibits from the private collections of V. Momota, E. Royzman, A. Iliin, O. Iliina, Yu. Malafeev, K. Voronin, A. Meloshenko.
The collection of the early printed books of the museum is the latest one in the Vologda region. Its formation was begun in 1993. Most books are the gifts of the admirers of the Ferapontov monastery. Creative professionals and the representatives of state establishments, of banks and of civil society organizations donated some books. The oldest museum exhibits date back to the 16th century. One can see a unique Gospel published in the nameless Moscow printing house near 1564. The Gospel printed by Anisim Mikhaylov-Radishevskiy and donated by N. Mikhalkov has been preserved very well. It has an original size and it is decorated with gravures. They expose the hand-written charter of the Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky. It is the donation of the pilot cosmonaut A. Leonov. It dates back to 1716. One can see the Ostrog Bible of 1581.
In the collection of the museum there are some west-European books among them the Bible in German as reworded by M. Luther. This book was printed by I. Shtern in Lunenburg in 1684. It is decorated with 146 gravures.
In this exhibition the manuscripts stand out particularly among them the Gospel of 1660s (from the museum collection), “Pentecostarion” of the 15th century and “Menaia” of the 17th century (from the private collection of A. Iliin ) and the Old Believers’ illustrated manuscript “The Passion of the Christ” of the 19th century (from the collection of K. Voronin).
Singing manuscripts were very popular. Their text was supplemented by the special hooked notation called kryuki. In the 17th century this hooked notation was replaced by the music notation and only Old Believers used kryuki. Among the exhibits there are two similar manuscripts.
The exhibition includes some icons with liturgical texts such as “St. Niphont and St. Varvara the Great Martyr” of the 18th century, “Mark the Evangelist” of the 17th century (from the collection of V. Momota), “The Resurrection of the Christ. The Descent to the Hell” of the 17th century (from the collection of A. Iliin) and calendar icons which date back to the 18th century.
