Menu
The Nikolje Gospels is not only a masterpiece of South Slavic literacy and culture, but also of the whole of Europe. The Gospel is written in Cyrillic on parchment, on 175 sheets, 16 x 10,5 cm.
The book is richly decorated with illuminations, initials and flags. The Gospel was found by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in 1920, in the monastery Nikolje, near the town of Čačak, the Republic of Serbia.
The Gospel was named after the monastery where it was found, and since then it has been called the “The Nikolje Gospels “.
The first publication of the Nikolje Gospels was prepared and published by the Serbian scientist Đura Daničić in 1864, dedicating the book to the Serbian ruler, Prince Mihajlo Obrenović.
From 1864, the Nikolje Gospels was kept in the National Library in Belgrade until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when it was placed in wooden boxes together with 56 of the most precious and valuable manuscripts and printed books, and then sent to the city of Kruševac from the National Library in Belgrade.On that road, at the Kruševac railway station, every trace of the boxes with books is lost.
We knew nothing about the fate of the Nikolje Gospels until 1964, when archaeologist Vladimir Mošin discovered it in Dublin at the Chester Beatty Library, where it is still located.The exact place and time of the origin of the St. Nicholas Gospel are unknown. According to the scientist Pavle Jozef Šafarik (1858), the Gospel was written between 1240 and 1250, and was written for Queen Jelena, so he calls the book “The Gospel of Queen Jelena”.
Other scientists, such as Đura Daničić and Vladimir Mošin, believe that the Gospel was written in Bosnia during the reign of King Tvrtko I Kotromanjić (1338-1391), who was crowned as the King of Bosnia and Serbia, in 1377, in the Mileševa Monastery.Numerous illuminations from writings, crowns and lilies and other ornaments similar to the royal scriptorium of King Tvrtko I Kotromanić, which is also found in other manuscripts made in Bosnia, point to this.
All rights reserved, copying, sharing, and any other use of the material on the site is punishable by law.