“AND HE WEPT OVER JERUSALEM”: ON POSSIBLE SOURCES OF FRANCYSK SKARYNA’S ENGRA-VING OF PROPHET JEREMIAH IN BIVLIA RUSKA *

Summary. The article discusses the possibilities of understanding the woodcuts of Francysk Skaryna’s Bivlia ruska from the perspective of the intellectual ‘cosmos’ in the Renaissance Europe. We shall focus on the engraving

V. Tumash was the first to point out specifically that at least two of the total number of five engravings of Skaryna's Little Traveler's Book (Malaja podorozhnaja knizhka / Liber viaticus of 1522), The Baptism of Christ and Christ teaching in the Temple, come from the Nuremberg woodcut shop of Johann Wohlgemut: "Offprints of those same wood engravings are to be found in the Latin and German editions of the Chronicle of the World by Hartmann Schedel, illustrated by Johann Wohlgemut and printed in 1493 by the famous Nuremberg printer Anton Koberger.In Schedel's Chronicle these wood engravings are to be found on the reverse side of page XCV" 5 .Then, again, Tumash pronounces in favor of German, Nuremberg origins of such Bivlia ruska's engraving as God with three faces and the archangel Michael from The Book of Genesis (Prague, 1519) thereby declaring its similarity to Dürer's "Saint Michael Fighting the Dragon" (Apocalipsis cum figuris, Nuremberg, 1498) 6 (Fig. 1).

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Ibid., p. 35-36; in his recent monography, Pranciškaus Skorinos Portretas.550-ąsias gimimo metines minint / Portrait de Francisk Skorina.En commémorant le 550e anniversaire de sa naissance (1470-2020), (The Portrait of Francysk Skaryna.To mark the 550 th anniversary [1470-2020] of the publisher), Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague, nouvelle série, vol.10.Vilnius-Prague: Lietuvių kalbos institutas (Institut national de langue lituanienne), Cercle linguistique de Prague, 2020; la 2e édition, revue et augmentée, 2021; the 3 rd edition, in Lithuanian, 2022, Ilya Lemeshkin continues Tumash's assumption by putting forward the statement on the second use of the portrait of Skaryna (this woodcut was printed twice, in The Book of Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sira on 5 December 1517, and in The [Four] Books of Reigns on 10 August 1518) as a paraphrase of Albrecht Dürer's engraving of Saint Jerome (Der heilige Hieronymus im Gehäus, 1514).angels: "And four angels were set free, prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, to slay a third of the people" (Revelation 9:15)."Then war broke out in heaven.Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back" (Revelation 12:7-9).Apparently, another scene is illustrated in Skaryna's Bible: fallen angels expelled from heaven (and not a much more 'spectacular' scene with a dragon -especially if Skaryna saw the corresponding engraving by Dürer).Skaryna depicts not a battle with a seven-headed dragon, but the defeat of four demons (the black creatures at the bottom of the engraving).Moreover, we see four angels at Dürer's engraving, by contrast to the three angels of Bivlia ruska.This iconographic type is quite common in the late Middle Ages (Isaiah, 14:12-15) and very frequently framed or combined next to the scenes of Creation in the Book of Genesis (Fig. 2).
Further, V. Tumash presents the similarity between Skaryna's Sun/Moon signs which appear in numerous woodcuts of his Bible and Schedel's Chronicle while emphasizing the fact of already (which could not be count as an argu- ment even if Skaryna actually used two woodcuts much later, in 1522) using the Chronicle's engravings 8 .In fact, the anthropomorphic Sun/Moon images, both in Schedel's Chronicle and in earlier works are deeply rooted in a context connected with Christian as well as with Neoplatonic and Hermetic aesthetics that took shape in its popularized versions during the Quattrocento, as we shall show below 9 .
V. Tumash indicates one more presumable case of Skaryna's use of Schedel's Chronicle: in the Psaltyr' (Prague, 1517) we can see the "genealogic tree of Jesus," as V. Tumash calls it, which is "no doubt drawn from the Chronicle" 10 .Schedel's Chronicle, indeed, contains many genealogical lines, but nowhere can we find the image of the Tree of Jesse similar to Skaryna's engraving 11 .

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In reality, we could not find the sun and the moon together (but not in conjunction as in Skaryna) in Liber Chronicarum except for two times: f.LXXVIr and f.CLVIIr.In both cases, the sun and the moon appear to symbolize dreadful signs when Alexander was born and the defeat of Monothelite heretics.In all other cases, the sun and the moon are presented separately, or the moon as the 'blood moon' also foretells famine and death.Except for two engravings and one initial discovered in the Little Traveler's Book by Tumash, we cannot find absolute borrowings from any work of that time, leaving to Skaryna (or more precisely, to his artist/engraver, although, in creating initials, Skaryna obviously took participation, at least at the associative level 15 ) the presumption of originality.
While keeping this idea in mind, let us turn back to Bivlia ruska's Jeremiah woodcut where, once again, we find the same controversies in terms of similarities and iconological clichés.
Petr Vladimirov spoke about Bivlia ruska's woodcut of Jeremiah briefly and categorically: when describing Skaryna's Bible "in typographical terms," he noted that "The view of the city with the castle was copied [italics -O.Sh.] from the engraving of the Schedel's Chronicle (see view of Padua, XXIII fol., tertia aetas mundi), with Jeremiah being added on the right and a flame added on top of the city" 16 .To debate Vladimirov's opinion, Mikhail Shchakatzikhin drew attention to the possible connection with A. Dürer's engraving St. Anthony Reading (1519) by noting that its composition "may have been conceived under its [A.Dürer's St. Anthony] direct influence"17 (Fig. 5).Such an assumption about copying Dürer's masterpiece is practically impossible due to the dates.Skaryna's book The Book of Lamentations was published, as he writes himself, by his "commandment, labor and consideration", in 1519, which is the same year as Dürer's St. Anthony.Even if we suppose that A. Dürer created his engraving at the very beginning of the year, and Skaryna published The Book of Lamentations at the very end of 1519, the problem of dissemination makes it unlikely that Skaryna possessed a copy of Dürer's engraving.Moreover, A. Dürer himself, even in July 1520, considered this engraving to be "the new."When, in 1520, A. Dürer started his journey to the Netherlands (whilst keeping a diary recording in detail his expenses), in July he writes: "Herr Egidius, King Charles's warden, has taken for me from Antwerp the St. Jerome in the Cell, the Melancholy, and "three new 'Marys', the 'Anthony' and the 'Veronica' [italics -O.Sh.] for the good sculptor, Master Conrad, whose like I have not seen; he serves Lady Margaret, the Emperor's daughter."And again, in Antwerp (September 3 -October 4, 1520), Dürer testifies: "I gave to Wilhelm Hauenhut, the servant of my lord Duke Frederick, the Platzgraf, an engraved ' Jerome', and the two new half-sheets, the 'Mary' and the 'Anthony' " [italics -O.Sh.] 18 .
The quasi-impossibility of dates 19 is reinforced by the differences in the engravings themselves.From the first sight, we can talk about a certain similarity between the two images: on both of them, the protagonists are shown seated, in long habits, with a book in their hands, and a city landscape is visible in the background.However, Dürer depicted not the prophet Jeremiah, but St. Anthony the Great (not to be confused with St. Anthony of Padua) peacefully reading (contrary to the 'weeping' Jeremiah of Skaryna), and concentrated on his reading, as evidenced by his crossed toes, with the traditional symbols of this saint (a cross, a bell, and a pilgrim's hat).
Considering the landscape of the city in the background of the engravings, the difference in the line of the roofs is eye-catching.In the case of Dürer's St. Anthony (the landscape was reused after his Pupila Augusta, c.1498 20 ) they are characteristically rectangular, or, as E. Panofsky called them, 'cubistic': "It is not so much a landscape as an agglomeration of buildings, echoing and amplifying the shape of the main figure whose huddled form, represented in full profile, offers the aspect of an almost perfect cone.It is exclusively composed of such clean-cut stereometrical solids as prisms, cubes, pyramids and cylinders which coalesce and interpenetrate so as to bring to mind a cluster of crystals" 21 .In the case of Skaryna's Jeremiah, the roofs are distinctly rounded, domed, whereas the dominant domed building on the left is decorated with a crescent.
Apparently, it was these two circumstances (the presence of a dome and a crescent) that caused the association of P. Vladimirov with the engraving from Schedel's Chronicle depicting Padua with a domed building and a crescent in the foreground on the right.In 1926, M. Shchakatzikhin pointed out Vladimirov's mistake and its possible reason: "Having found in Schedel's Chronicle (Fol.XXIII) more or less corresponding woodcut without an inscription on it, he began to look for its interpretation in the index, and there by mistake, instead of Folio number XXIII, he took CCXIII, where the city of Padua is mentioned" 22 .Shchakatzikhin also spoke about the fact that this image of 'Padua' is in reality not on its place; the publishers must have mistakenly put it there, and not on the next Folio with the text about Damascus.
This supposition by Shchakatzikhin about the accidental inversion of two woodcuts (Padua and Damascus) explains the perplexing 'oriental' character of the illustration (which, once again, according to Shchakatzikhin, was supposed to represent Damascus).However, Shchakatzikhin incorrectly indicated what exactly a Christian city precedes in the description of Damascus.It is not Padua, but actually Trier.Furthermore, Vladimirov did not make a mistake with the numbering of folios because, in fact, there are six (!) identical woodcuts in Schedel's Chronicle (a common practice for that time of the so-called 'typical' illustrations) representing the same typical landscape of an 'oriental' city with a domed temple and a crescent: Treves, f.XXIIIr (and not Padua, as Vladimirov suggested); Padua, f.XLIIIIv (and not CCXIII, as Shchakatzikhin pointed out); Marseille/Massilia, f.LXIr; Metz/Metis, f.CXv; Nicaea/Nicea, f.CXCI-IIIv; Lithuania/Lituania, f.CCLXXIXv.If Shchakatzikhin's version could explain why a domed structure with a crescent was used to illustrate Trier (and not Padua) for the first time (out of six at total), being a result of a simple mistake, being in reality destined to Damascus, then it still does not explain the appearance of exactly the same typical orien-tal illustrations for such European Christian places as Padua, Marseille, Metz and ... Lithuania.The texts accompanying these illustrations contain the descriptions of those cities; they have corresponding inscriptions, and confusions, as in the case of Trier and Damascus -as supposed by Shchakatzikhinare excluded (Fig. 6).[…] There are many proofs of its antiquity, among them a Latin inscription discovered in our time, which mentions the above named Trebeta and Semiramis.There also may be seen a place of wonderful construction, resembling Babylonian masonry, made of baked tiles so strong that even now it is invulnerable to the enemy, and cannot be broken by any kind of implement.[…] Here also may be seen a gate made of incredibly large stones, fastened together with iron" 23 .
Despite the fact that modern historians believe that the city of Trier was founded by Emperor Augustus, nevertheless, in the Middle Ages and during the late Quattrocento, there was a common opinion about its 'Babylonian origins'.In that époque, the European cities competed for anteriority of their origins putting them back to the antiquity.Trier went a step further in stipulating its origins from the even more ancient Babylon.This founding legend was reported for the first time in Hystoria Treverorum dated 1059-1060 24 .During the course of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, many chronicles "paraphrased the Trebeta legend," thereby proving the 'supremacy' of Trier over other cities.This legend spread internationally, and was appreciated by Nicolas of Cusa and future Pope Pius II Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini 25 , or again reflected in the well-known bestseller Werner Rolevinck's Fasciculus temporum omnes antiquorum cronicas complectens (1 st edition: Cologne: Nicolaus Götz of Sletzstat, 1473/1474, with more than 30 subsequent editions in the late 15 th and early 16 th centuries. In accordance to this tradition, H. Schedel and his associates 26 take this 'Babylonian' version and illustrate it with a typical oriental woodcut.The ar- chitectural curiosities mentioned in the text (the one "resembling Babylonian masonry," or "the gate made of incredibly large stones, fastened together with iron"), apparently represent the real Aula Palatina and Porta Nigra.Even the Igel column illustrated by the column with the statue, is present on the engraving thus adding 'oriental' atmosphere because, in Schedel's time, these remnants were traditionally considered to be of Babylonian origins (Fig. 7).Following Trier, other cities having 'oriental' connotations were endowed by the same characteristic 'oriental' image.For example, Padua was founded by the legendary Trojan Antenor, and, in the description of its architecture, there are actually domes 27 that correspond to the engraving with the domes already available to the publishers.Metz (Metis) is "formely Mediomatricus being the central mother of the region up to Trier," which we have already mentioned 28 .For Nicaea (urbis Nicaeae), a city in Asia Minor, the illustration is placed expressively at the page with the text on "Expedition for the Relief of Jerusalem Made in the time of Pope Urban the Second in the Year 1094 (Expeditio xpianus [christianus] pro liberanda Hierosolima facta tpe [in tempore] Urbani Secundi, Anno 1094) 29 .Marseille "was built in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah by the Phocaeans, […] there came in ships from Asia into the Tiber young men called Phocaeans, who […] then migrated into the land of Gaul, and […] built Marseille."The text also mentions important elements of Marseille that meet the 'criteria' of our 'oriental' woodcut: the Rhone River, along which they "sailed to the hinterland beyond the sea," "a promontory at the mouth of the Rhone", "a well-fortified castle," "the preservation of cities by walls," and even "the very beautiful temple to Apollo of Delphi" 30 -all of this was in stock and matched the already existing plate.Finally, Lithuania.The Chronicle emphasizes the brutal nature of this country (see the story about Sindrigal and his bear), exoticism (piquant matrimonial details) 31 , pagan beliefs (such as serpents, fire, or the sun being worshipped), the presence of the "Hussite heresy" which the authors of the Chronicle associate with Manicheanism (manicheorum imitat infamia) 32 , as well as its remoteness in the east (which is evidenced by the map given below, after F. CCXCIX, where Lithuania is eloquently positioned as the 'Orient'), which thoroughly justifies the presence of a crescent.
Thus, in the Chronicle, woodcuts 'type' with domes designate 'oriental' cities, which, either by their location, or by their origin, or by manners, fell under the characteristic 'oriental' 33 .
This observation about the domes excludes specific, non-type woodcuts with domed buildings in Schedel's Chronicle for iconic Christian cities: Rome, f.LVIIv-LVIIIr (with its majestic Vatican Palace/Palatium Pape, Colosseum, the ancient marble sculptures of the Dioscuri, or Horse Tamers, the Church of Santa Maria Rotonda / Maria Rotu[n]da); Constantinople, f.CXXIXv and CXXXr (with Saint Sophia / Sancte Sophie and the ancient columns); Florence (with the recognizable dome of Florence Cathedral by Filippo Brunelleschi, f.LXXXVII ) and Venice, f.XLIIIv and XLIIIIr, well-known for its Byzantium-style architecture and domes (Fig. 8) 29 Ibid., f.CXCIIIIv.30 Ibid., f.LXIr.31 Ibid., f.CCLXXXr.32 Ibid., f.CCLXXXr.33 The same trend is observed in numerous editions of the already mentioned Werner Rolevinck's Fasciculus temporum omnes antiquorum cronicas complectens (1 st edition: Cologne: Nicolaus Götz of Sletzstat, 1473/1474): e.g. in the Venice edition by Erhard Ratdolf, 1481, the same identical illustration with the domes is used for Nineveh, f. 5r; Roma, f. 13r and F. 49v; "Nabuchodonosor subuerit Hierusalem", f. 14r and "Hierusalem reedificatur", f. 17v; "Bisantium civitas", f. 14v; "Antiochie", f. 40v.Schedel's Chronicle has several more unique, non-type engravings with domes, intended, this time, for the true oriental cities: Babylon (f.XXIIIIv) and Jerusalem (f.XVIIr, f.XLVIIIr, f.LXIIIv, f.LXIIIIr, f.LXIIIIv).The image for Jerusalem was borrowed from Bernhard von Breydenbach's (1440-1497) pilgrimage book 34  Since it is Jerusalem that is directly related to Skaryna's The Book of Lamentations, we should examine the images of this city in more detail.As Shchakatzikhin rightly noted, "if the author of Skaryna's woodcut [in The Book of Lamentations -O.Sh.] had really used Schedel, then it would be completely inexplicable why he would have borrowed the type of a city taken purely by chance -whether that be Padua or any other city [and we can add here in parenthesis 'Trier', 'Metz', 'Nicaea', 'Marseille', or even the more relevant for Skaryna 'Lithuania' -O.Sh.] -while Schedel's Chronicle has the specific woodcut with a view of Jerusalem (Fol.XVII, secunda etas mundi), which was exactly what Skaryna needed in this case" 35 (Fig. 10).world, which was firmly imprinted in the mass culture and human subconscious even after Titus and Vespasian demolished it in 70 AD.The temple was thought to have been built over the Foundation Stone which supported the Ark of the Covenant.After invading Jerusalem, the Muslims built there their first Mosque, while later in the 7 th century they rebuilt in the majestic octagonal shrine that is called today the Dome of the Rock (Fig. 12).As Pamela Berger puts it: "By the 9 th century, the Dome of the Rock had been conflated in the popular imagination with the ancient [Jewish -O.Sh.] sanctuary, and, from then on, the Jewish Temple was rendered in imagery as a polygonal or circular structure with a dome, even though literate Christian and Jews knew that the Bible had described the Temple as rectangular in plan" 36 .When the crusaders occupied Jerusalem, they, like everyone else, identified the site of the Dome of the Rock as that of the Ancient Temple and consequently called the building the Templum Domini37 (Fig. 11).However, when they needed a realistic image for Jerusalem and its Temple, the Chronicle's editors deliberately took a ready-made and widespread model of the Muslim Temple (as shown above, from Breydenbach's Peregrinatio in terram sanctam), i.e., a depiction of the contemporary to them Jerusalem, known from recent pilgrimages, with the Templum Salomonis in the form of the Dome of the Rock (Fig. 14).To recapitulate: while they were well aware that the ancient Biblical Temple was not round or octagonal, but rather rectangular, still, by giving diagrams of its original 'visionary' design, when the need arose to update it in a modern sense, the publishers deliberately went on to present it as the Dome of the Rock.
A similar phenomenon can be observed in the Bivlia ruska.In the Third Book of Kings, we see the rectangular temple of Solomon, in full accordance with the biblical text translated by Skaryna himself and, therefore, well known to him (Fig. 16).However, when it becomes necessary to show an actualized image of the city Jerusalem being destroyed, Skaryna, unlike the Nuremberg publishers, does not use the widespread contemporary images of Jerusalem and the Temple as the Dome of the Rock -this is quite obvious if comparing the landscape on Skaryna's Jeremiah weeping.Instead of the Dome of the Rock and it being surrounded by rectangular Romanesque-looking buildings, his Jeremiah sits against the backdrop of numerous domed buildings and towers.
In the private correspondence, I. Lemeshkin drew our attention to the same method of actualization of the biblical story in the engraving of 1518 Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, conquers Jerusalem (na v² honoso r car6 vavilµ oski i dob6yva e  erusalima, The Books of Reigns (Книги четвертыи цар[ст]въ, Prague, 1518, f. 183), where the Emmaus Monastery of the New Town of Prague is identified 40 .In this case, the actualization (Emmaus Monastery depiction as the center of Jerusalem) may have been associated with a real event: the reform of the city government in Prague on the 30 th of August 1518, which is also apparently confirmed by the analysis of the colophons in the Bivlia ruska (from "in the Old City of Prague" to "in the Great City of Prague") 41 .
Skaryna actualizes The Book of Lamentations with an image of an event that marked the minds of intellectuals of the late Quattrocento -the fall of Constantinople in 1453.This historic rupture led to a massive migration, mostly to Italy, of Byzantine scholars, philosophers, grammarians, politicians and theologians 42 .Exodus from Constantinople greatly contributed to the revival The so-called Prisca theologia which would embrace all the knowledge of humanity beginning with Zoroaster (for Plethon), Hermes Trismegistus (for M. Ficino) and Plato and culminating in the Christianism first appeared in works of G. Plethon, and was later developed by M. Ficino.It became a major point of the Renaissance intellectual thought.Although not directly, but we can still capture several of its echoes in Skaryna's Prefaces to the Bivlia ruska.
In his Skazanie to the First Book of Genesis, Skaryna says: "Whoever from the philosophers could understand that the Lord by his only word created from nothing everything visible and invisible, to their father Aristotle saying 'nothing creates nothing'.But we, Christians, having perfect faith in Almighty God in the Trinity, who created Heaven and Earth in six days, and this is the essence" 45 .This name of Aristotle coming from Skaryna was always perceived as a proof of his erudition or even his commitment to Averroism (reinterpretation of Aristotle).However, a close reading of this phrase gives us the following: (1) Skaryna does not classify himself as a follower of Aristotle (they vs. us); (2) Skaryna was against Aristotelianism and Averroism which considered that translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, a work attributed to the semi-mythical Egyptian priest and supposed contemporary of Moses, Hermes Trimegiscos," in: PICARDA, Guy.Francis Skaryna and the Cabala: [Manuscript].London, Anglo-Belarusian Society Archives, 1992, p. 20, 66.
it is impossible to create "the visible and invisible" out of nothing; (3) Skaryna, unlike Aristotle, advocates the ex nihilo principle, which was at the very center of fierce discussions between the supporters of Aristotle (Averroists) and Plato (in the renewed interpretation by Marsilio Ficino)."That God produced the world from nothing by his infinite power" (infinita virtute mundum produxit ex nihilo), wrote M. Ficino in his preface to Plato's Timaeus 46 .
"Marsilio Ficino of Florence, a man of extraordinary intelligence…, and now a prince among Platonic doctors," as the Nuremberg Chronicle calls him 47 gives us himself a possible key to understanding Skaryna's sign 'sun-moon' which is present in his Jeremiah engraving and so many others in the Bivlia ruska.Ficino concludes his Preface (Argumentum) to his illustrious translation of Hermes's Pimander 48 with the words: "But the divine light of Mind never infuses the soul, unless the soul itself is turned toward the Mind of God, as the moon toward the sun" 49 .Taking the sun as a symbol of centrality which "is filled with the worldsoul, and our intellectual soul comes to us from the sun, bringing life" 50 , Ficino develops this visual analogy when further talking about the moon as the sun's mirror (this thought as a common thread for his writings, was even an object of special work: Liber de sole.Liber de lumine, Firenze: Antonio Miscomini, 1493, cap.XI).As today's authority on Ficino Valery Rees puts it, "This gives especial potency to his use elsewhere of the image of moon as mind, for if the moon's light is the light of the sun reflected, the light of the mind is a reflection of God's light"51 .The images of celestial luminaires with human faces as a reference of the human soul and the mind of God became the visualized motto for the Renaissance intellectuals 52 .This intellectual transition in collective imagination was prepared by the late medieval époque when sun/moon symbolism was connected with astrology and where the sun and the moon as figural cosmic symbols regu-larly appear in manuscript astrological guides as well as in devotional books53 (Fig. 17).
The pages of the astrological manual meticulously show celestial bodies in different houses and their influences on their 'children': "The moon is very comforting in sailing.And in fishing and birding and hunting.It opens the door to all its children.And also in amusement that others like" 54 .
Likewise, one of the most recognizable manuscripts of the late Middle Ages, Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (early first half of the 15 th century) opens prayer cycles with a calendar containing the astrological data for each month (as the golden number, the Sunday letter, the number of days in the month, the name of the saint, the number of light hours and minutes for each day are written in separate columns).This information is traditional, albeit very accurate, for medieval calendars.The astonishing thing which completely 'stands out' of the tradition is that each table is preceded (on the left) by a full-page miniature containing the astrological signs of the zodiac for each month, and, in the very center of the celestial spheres, the chariot of Apollo carrying the Sun is proudly floated.
With the spread of the Neoplatonic discourse into the intellectual life of the end of the Quattrocento and the beginning of the Cinquecento, the most prominently traditional representations of the Crucifixion change connotations: "The angels relate to God as the stars to the Sun.But the soul alone relates to God as the Moon to the Sun.So nothing prevents the soul from descending from the divine and apprehending the divine, and yet from being moved by its own nature and from being able always to be moved and to live" 55 .In profoundly Renaissance Petrarch's Trionfi, the last image of the crucified Christ depicts not only God the Father and the dove of the Holy Ghost representing the Trinity, but also the anthropomorphic sun and moon (Fig. 18).ment), there is nothing surprising in the fact that Skaryna's Bivlia ruska depicts the recently fallen Constantinople as the "fallen city" of Jerusalem58 .Here, in the engraving Jeremiah the prophet of the Lord weeps while looking at Jerusalem, symbolism of landscape is employed with -apparently -Hagia Sophia decorated with a crescent, the very Skaryna's sign of Sun/Moon, which was so frequently placed on the top of his Bible compositions, is situated at the bottom, at the feet of Jeremiah, and even the sun and the moon themselves seem to be expressing their grief.The fall of Constantinople inspired the artistic imagination during the century.Constantinople was called the New Jerusalem, and merely a few years after the fall, it appears in the religious paintings of the Italian painters Andrea Mantegna59 , Vittore Carpaccio60 or Jacopo Bellini replacing the real Jerusalem61 (Fig. 20).
In fact, Skaryna's woodcut illustrating the grief of Jeremiah over the imminent destruction and fall of Jerusalem does not depict Jerusalem with its actualized as the Dome of the Rock Templum Domini Salomonis and the rectangular buildings surrounding it, but the city the description of which we find in the same Schedel's Chronicle.This description includes "fine tall buildings to such an extent that strangers coming there were so astonished at its appearance that they regarded it not merely as the home of mortal sinners but of the celestials as well," and "the cathedral of Sophia … worthy of universal admiration, … built with wonderful skill and of costly materials" 62 (Fig. 21).
It is this text that detailed Skaryna's Jeremiah with a majestic three-storied temple with high thin-domed columns reminiscent of the famous columns of Constantinople.A similar description, with "majestic domed Saint Sophia" and "countless tall columns" 63 can be found in the manuscript of Cristoforo By virtue of reflecting the Renaissance aesthetics and sensibility, greatly influenced by the Italian editions, Bivlia ruska followed the trend depicting Constantinople as Jerusalem with "Byzantine motives" which corresponded to the taste for 'orientalism' and the actual cultural context after the fall of the Byzantine civilization 65 , while actualizing this event with great mastery.
The posture of Jeremiah and his face express suffering while looking at the town.The iconography of a prophet sitting with a book, apparently sad, near a  The same 'actualization' proceeds for Jeremiah's habits in the Bivlia ruska.Despite the apparent similarity with Dürer's Anthony, the Jeremiah of Skaryna does not wear a hooded monastic habit.Jeremiah is dressed in a sort of cloak that completely covers him, and a very peculiar 'cap'.Notably, the head-dressing of the 'traditional Jeremiahs' shown above was a kind of turban that appeared, of course, due to the fashion for 'orientalism'.
'Turban-shaped' and similar exotic head-dresses can be found in large numbers in the Italian paintings and books of the late Quattrocento -early Cinquecento (Fig. 24).
These examples (as well as numerous others) show not only the variety of the 'oriental' types, but also reveal the real characters behind them.Besides the well-known members of the Medici family on the fresco The Journey of the Magi by Gozzoli, we find Georgios Gemistos Plethon, Giovanni Argiropulo, Theodor Gaza and other prominent Greek scholars66 .These 'types' were intended to present well-known contemporary personalities as biblical (i.e.'oriental' in form) figures.
We could also find the same 'orientalism' in incunables, for example, in the already mentioned Breidenbach's Peregrinationum which shows Sarracenis et Grecis67 (Fig. 25).
Skaryna's Jeremiah has a completely different head-dress, in contrast both to the occidental monastic hood of Dürer's St. Anthony and the 'exotic' oriental turbans of the 'Saracens', as well as to the habits of the 'Greeks'.His head-dress is similar to the Phrygian cap, but with a circular curving-up brim.This hat is a Greek version of the Jewish cone-shaped hat called pileus cornutus68 which was widespread from the 12 th to the 17 th centuries69 .had come to see child Jesus right next to the figure considered to be the image of Botticelli himself is wearing exactly this type of the 'Greek' hat (Fig. 26).This character was identified by S. Ronchey as a famous Greek emigrant, philosopher, member of the Byzantine delegation at the Florence Council, Theodorus Gaza (ca.1398 -ca.1475) 70 .
This head-dress depicted by Botticelli on the illustrious Greek scholar greatly resembles Jeremiah's cap from the Bivlia ruska and represents an additional argument in favor of the 'Byzantine version' of the actualization of the biblical story by Skaryna.
Long time ago, L. Barazna spoke about the emotional component of this woodcut of the Bivlia ruska: "If you look closely at the engraving ' Jeremiah the prophet of the Lord weeps looking at Jerusalem', it seems that the artist survived the event depicted in the engraving and accurately conveyed his emotion" 71 .
The fall of Constantinople in 1453 caused a shock for the intellectuals of that époque, thereby also changing the intellectual landscape of the Renaissance, bringing to the fore the ideas of mastering the ancient (Hermetic) heritage and Neoplatonism -which echoed in Skaryna's Prefaces.The fantasist landscape of the domed cathedral and the tall thin columns chosen by Skaryna was apparently inspired by the textual description of Constantinople in Schedel's Chronicle, along with the common imagination on Constantinople as Jerusalem during the late Quattrocento and the early Cinquecento period, with a crescent moon on the dome of the temple as a symbol of its breakaway from Christian civilization.The shape of Jeremiah's head-dress in the Bivlia ruska perfectly corresponds to the image of the learned Byzantines who emigrated to Italy.
Representations relative to the imaginative Jerusalem and Constantinople, the 'Byzantine trends' which were common during this period of the Renaissance in Europe, give us the 'clues' for understanding the Bivlia ruska's Jeremiah woodcut.Even if we prefer to leave the interpretation of Skaryna's Jeremiah, which is obviously original by its character, open, these 'clues' still suggest the 'atmospheric pressure' of numerous images and ideas of Skaryna's époque.

FIGURE 8 .
FIGURE 8. Original images for Christian cities with the domes in Schedel's Chronicle: (a) Rome; (b) Florence; (c) Venice

FIGURE 9 .
FIGURE 9. Images of Jerusalem with the inscription Templum Salomonis and the inverted crescent on the dome: (a) Breydenbach's Peregrinatio in terram sanctam, 1486 edition from the Metropolitan Museum (in this edition, the Jerusalem view is placed between folios CXLII and CXLIII); (b) Schedel's Chronicle, f.XLVIIIr

FIGURE 26 .FIGURE 25 .
FIGURE 26.Sandro Botticelli The Adoration of the Magi (Adorazione dei Magi, c. 1475, Palazzo degli Uffizi, Florence) 10 TUMASH, Vitaut.Wood Engravings of..., p. 21. 11 Czech researcher P. Voit suggests the authorship of this woodcut as the Master of the New Testament, active in Prague in the late 15 14 -early 16 th century, whilst the image of the Tree of Jesse itself represents a copy of the original cliché (in contrast with W. Deluga opinion that it was the original cliché) from the Czech New Testament (1497/1498) Late Middle Ages, Quattrocento and Cinquecento paraphrased already known clichés.This similarity could suppose only continuity and common sources of Skaryna's Bivlia ruska engravings and the German graphical design whilst the very style of Skaryna's Bible characterized by the presence of architectural details (columns, urns, arcades, entablatures, carved balconies, balustrades) as well as some other elements of the ancient tradition (garlands, putti, tritons, bucrania, centaurs), womenswear fashions, headdresses, fabrics, is dramatically different.All those elements which will appear later in the German tradition, in Skaryna's Bible are a testimony of the undeniable influence of the Renaissance originating from the North Italian art and Venetian editions14.Even if Skaryna's Bible was created under certain influences (a widespread practice which, with the appearance of book printing became generalized), it shows the typical Biblical plots and heroes in actualized form of the Renaissance art.
Soon, the Neoplatonic humanist circle appears here, resembling that of M. Ficino's and Bessarion's academies in Florence and Rome.One of the projects of this informal community was a universal world chronicle, created on the initiative and with the funding of Sebald Schreyer (1446-1520) and Sebastian Kammermeister (14??-1503), with the participation of M. Wolgemut, W. Pleydenwurff and others (for example, the famous C. Celtis, who at that time was teaching at the University of Ingolstat).The result of their project is known today under the name of Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514), one of the authors of the text who, in turn, received his doctorate in medicine in 1466 at the University of Padua, a hellenophile and follower of M. Ficino's Neoplatonism.On philosophic and esthetic ideas of H. Schedel: Kikuchi, Catherine, La bibliothèque de Hartmann Schedel à 24 GUENTHER, Hubertus.The Babylonian Origins of Trier, in: ENENKEL, Karl A. E.; OT -TENHEYM, Konrad (eds.).A The quest for an appropriate past in literature, art and architecture.Leiden: Brill, 2019, p. 591. 25 Ibid., p. 593.26 Nuremberg at this time was not only a center of publishing, but also became an arena of intensive humanist activity.It was strengthened by the arrival in 1471 of Regiomontanus (Johannes Müller von Königsberg, 1436-1476) and the creation of his own printing house with a project to print two dozen scientific books.This event aroused the keenest interest among Nuremberg intellectuals in astronomical studies (including their practical part, astrology) and, in general, in all 'Italian' innovations, studia humanitatis (for example, the creation of Poetenschule/'school of poets' under the patronage of the famous humanist, Paduan alumnus, Hans Johann Pirckheimer, 1440-1501), father of Willibald and Caritas.Nuremberg: les apports de Venise à l'humanisme allemand et leurs limites, Mélanges de l'École française de Rome: Moyen Âge, 2010, vol.122/2, p. 379-391; Zinner, Ernst, Regiomontanus: His Life and Work; transl.E. Brown.Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1990, p. 31.
44y Picarda was the first to express this hypothesis speaking about the importance of the Constantinople event for the Renaissance when emphasizing the context of Cabbala and the Cabbalistic character of Skaryna's writings: "The fall of Constantinople in 1453, together with the conquest, of Grenada by the Spaniards in 1492, precipitated the movement of Byzantine, Jewish and Morisco scholars into Central and Western Europe.With them came new attitudes and fresh ideas, rooted in an ancient and often forgotten past, including Helleno-Islamic philosophy and Hebrew Cabalistic mysticism.The study of Plato (Arab."Flatun")and the Platonists was renewed in the Florentine medical circle of Marsiglio Ficino (1433-1499), who extended the scope of Renaissance research by his of the Greek studies in Europe which became an important vector in the development of the Renaissance.The Greek language, Greek manuscripts, ideas of the Palaeologan Renaissance brought to the Italian soil, the famous confrontation between Averroists (the 'old' interpretation of Aristotle by Averrois) and Neoplatonists (the 'new' Platonic Academy of George Gemistus Plethon, c. 1360-1452, and then Marsilio Ficino, 1433-1499, in Florence, Academy of Cardinal Bessarion, 1403-1472, Neoplatonist thinker and patron of the arts and sciences in Rome43) were of paramount importance to the Italian humanist thought of the late Quattrocento44.