Manual of Christian Iconography

b) Codex 707 of the same monastery, of the 18th century 1.

c) Codex 258 of the Monastery of Saint Panteleimon, of 598 pages, of the 18th century.

d) Codex 832 of the same monastery; a copy from the year 1738.

More than these copies likely exist in the cells of the Athonite painters. In the year 1839, Didron saw such copies with some of them, but not being able to purchase even one, he was content with a copy, which, made for him by a monk between the years 1839-1840, he took from the Holy Mountain to Paris 2. As it seems, this is today located in the Royal Library of Munich 3. Didron’s fellow traveler, Paul Durand, translated it into the French language 4. His translation, with a preface and learned observations by Didron, was published in the year 1845. However, I myself do not know from which specific Athonite codex the text for Didron was copied. Didron simply says that one of the copies he observed on the Holy Mountain was "probably not older than the 15th or 16th century" 5. Obviously, Didron was deceived, taking for such an old manuscript one that was admittedly no older than the first half of the 18th century, for the simple reason that the author of the "Interpretation," Dionysios, lived in that same century. It is paradoxical that Brockhaus also notes that he saw a copy of the "Interpretation" in Karyes of Athos dated 1630 6. Undoubtedly, he took as a...

1) Professor Lambros did not correctly attribute codices 685 and 707 to the 17th century.

2) Manuel d'iconographie chrétienne grecque et latine, avec une introduction et des notes par M. Didron... traduit du manuscrit byzantin (!), le Guide de la peinture, par le Dr. Paul Durand. Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1845, pp. XXI, XXIII—XXVI.

3) Ibid., p. XIII. Durand's manuscript remained for some time with the priest G. Schäfer, who also translated it into German. This translation is titled as follows: "Interpretation of Painting. The Manual of Painting from Mount Athos, translated from the original manuscript text with notes by Didron the Elder and Godeh. Schäfer." Trier, 1855.

4) Durand's copy is now located in the Bibliothèque de Chartres. See H. Omont, Inventaire sommaire des manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque, vol. 3, p. 367, no. 39.

5) Manuel d'iconographie, p. XXXV.

6) Heinrich Brockhaus, Die Kunst in den Athos-Klöstern. Leipzig, 1891, p. 160.