The scribe of the founder's inscription of Saint Sava in Studenica

Abstract

The founder's inscription situated at the foot of the tambour in the Church of the Virgin in Studenica originating from 1208/9, is one of the oldest dated specimens of Serbian literacy. It was uncovered in 1951, during the conservation works in the monastery. Former research (conducted by Dj. Trifunović), has ascertained that inscriptions on the scrolls, books and frescoes in the monastery were written by the Greek artists who decorated the church. Scribal errors indicate beyond any doubt that Slavic was not the mother tongue of the scribes, and that they were not, or at least not sufficiently, familiar with the orthography of this language. In this paper the main focus has been directed at the founder's inscription, which has been put under detailed orthographic and palaeographic scrutiny. The morphology of some letters — the Greek "K", non-distinguishing between ižica (ippsilon) and the Cyrillic "Č" — clearly indicates that in all probability the author of the inscription was a Greek, perhaps the very painter who signed his name in the Greek language on the Mandelion beneath the large founder's inscription.