The Vatican Palimpsest is an Old Bulgarian parchment manuscript with 203 pages in Cyrillic that contains the oldest known copy of the Gospel.
A palimpsest is a written monument on parchment, the text of which is written on top of another older text that has been erased by washing or scraping. Palimpsests arose because of expensive and hard-to-find material for creating manuscripts. And also – due to the isolation of the monastery centers. Another reason is the obsolescence of certain written monuments. Or – if their content is deemed outdated or incomprehensible by the current audience.
The manuscript was discovered by Trendafil Krastanov in 1982 in the Vatican Library.
The discovery was made almost by accident, in the process of searching for a letter addressed to the papal cardinals by the Ecumenical Patriarch German II in 1232, in which it was stated that both the Greeks and other eastern nations, among which “the kingdom of the Bulgarians with the great conquer,” desire union with Rome.
The manuscript containing the letter is recorded in the library with the signature Vat. Gr. 2502. Under its Greek text, Krastanov notices another written in Cyrillic letters: it turns out that the book is a palimpsest, that is, its parchment has been reused, in which the earlier writing on it has been washed or erased.
In the 19th century, for the reading of the original text in such manuscripts, a chemical reagent (ammonium hydrosulfate) was used, which corroded the parchment. In our time, reading is done with the help of ultraviolet photography.
The Vatican palimpsest has 203 pages, of which 186 have been read. It has been found to contain an optional (official) Gospel from the tenth century.
Until the discovery of Trendafil Krastanov, the Ostromir Gospel, also in Cyrillic, was considered the oldest precisely dated and localized Slavic manuscript. This Gospel was transcribed by an Eastern Bulgarian archetype in Novgorod in 1056-1057. Based on it and the rest of the oldest Slavic manuscripts (Assemani’s Gospel, Savina’s Book, Suprasal Collection and others), scientific theories have been built that greatly underestimate the importance of the spoken Bulgarian language from the 9th century for the development of Slavic culture.
According to prof. Constantine the Philosopher began his translation work even before the Moravian Mission of 863, in the “Polychron” monastery in the Asia Minor region of Bithynia. There live Slavs, resettled from Thrace and the Rhodopes. Into their language he translated the Slavic Electoral (liturgical) Gospel consecrated by the Roman Popes. After 893, this language was adopted as the official literary and church language in Bulgaria.
The Vatican palimpsest was published in 1996. Anna-Maria Totomanova, who checked the translation with the Greek original, and (as editor) Prof. Ivan Dobrev participated in the publication. Due to lack of funds, a phototype edition of the monument is still missing. Which is unfortunate, since it is probably the oldest surviving Cyrillic book.
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