Abstrakt
Concerning time of birth of the first book publisher in Grand Duchy of Lithuania, most diverse theories have been expressed. The spectrum of opinions is extraordinarily wide and full of contradictions.
For lack of new documents, which could pour new light on F. Skaryna's life, we have to be content with the few available sources.
The article examines his known portrait from 1517 and studies the included text elements (parenthesis), primarily with help of semiological analysis. Although there is a large amount of literature about the publisher's portrait, it hasn't been studied within the most obvious and obligatory genre paradigm - the European and in particular Czech Portrait paintings of the first quarter of 16th century.
Skaryna's portrait is the second precisely dated Czech portrait in the Renaissance period and the first portrait of a bourgeoisie representative. All Czech portraits from the first half of the 16th century contain information about the age of the pictured person at the time the portrait was taken.
The portrait of F. Skaryna is no exception.
The embedded inscriptions, traditionally attached to portraits, inform us, according to a common practice of the era, about ((doctor Francysk Skaryna, aged 47 years, pictured in 1517}}. The combination of letters M and Z, earlier interpreted as artist's or painter's signature (*MƷ), actually means age of the depicted person (MZ = 47 [years]).
The same pattern, occuring most often in Latin (ANNO ... ÆTATIS SUÆ ... ; 1522 ÆT XXII; Ao. 1519 ÆT 27), can be found on countless tempera, oil and engraved portraits from 15th and 16th century. The portrait of the Ruthenian publisher from 1517 is a paraphrase of the well-known engraving "Saint Jerome in His Study" (Der heilige Hieronymus im Gehäus) by A.
Dürer from 1514. Since he wasn't just an average imitator, the inventive Prague artist transformed the inspiration source, but at the same time, both the mutual connection (St.
Jerome = Fr. Skaryna) and the allusion remained obvious. "Monogrammist IP", i.e. the skilful author of Skaryna's portrait, can be for many reasons identified as "Master of the Litoměřice Altarpiece".
Largely speaking, he was the only artist we know of, who worked with the aforementioned genre at that time. The portrait from 1517 brings an important biographic detail to light and reveals that F.
Skaryna lived a long life. The time of his life (taking in account critical reading of sources from 1541 and 1552) stretched from 1470 to 1551/52.