Insights into the Early History of the Sredna-Gora Translation of Treasure by Damaskēnós Stoudítēs: A Fresh Look at Manuscript NBKM432

Abstract

Two sixteenth-century translations of Treasure, made soon after its first edition in 1557–1558, mark a return to active literary pursuits in the eastern part of the Balkans after the Ottoman invasion two centuries earlier. NBKM432, an anonymous miscellany, containing the earliest preserved record of the Sredna-Gora translation, provides evidence of its state three consecutive handwritten copies after the translation was made. The article reviews the manuscript’s history, content and formatting, as well as its paleographic, codicological, artistic and orthographic characteristics through the prism of the conclusions reached by the textual study of its components ascending to the Sredna-Gora translation: seven homilies by Damaskēnós Stoudítēs and two by Theophánēs Eleavoûlkos. The article fixes the timeframe, within which this miscellany was produced, in the 1580s–1590s and concludes that the Sredna-Gora translation must have taken place – most likely during the 1570s or 1580s – in a scriptorium of unknown whereabouts within the Tarnovo Diocese, which belonged to the cultural centres that had preserved to some extent the pre-Ottoman Tarnovo cultural heritage and the output of which displayed a preference for certain formatting and decorative solutions.