Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander

The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander, Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander, or Four Gospels of Ivan Alexander (Bulgarian: Четвероевангелие на (цар) Иван Александър, transliterated as Chetveroevangelie na (tsar) Ivan Aleksandar) is an illuminated manuscript Gospel Book, written and illustrated in 1355–1356 for Tsar Ivan Alexander of the Second Bulgarian Empire. The manuscript is regarded as one of the most important manuscripts of medieval Bulgarian culture, and has been described as "the most celebrated work of art produced in Bulgaria before it fell to the Turks in 1393".

The manuscript, now in the British Library (Add. MS 39627), contains the text of the Four Gospels illustrated with 366 miniatures and consists of 286 parchment folios, 33 by 24.3 cm in size, later paginated with pencil. The language of the text is variously described as Bulgarian, Middle Bulgarian, Slavonic, and Church Slavonic.

Contents and binding

The book contains the four Gospels and some other texts, so is a true gospel book rather than an evangeliary, but there are markings showing which passages were to be read in the liturgy, as well as a list at the end of the book. The bookbinding of red leather over wooden boards is original, but the elements of a metalwork treasure binding probably decorated with gold, gems and pearls on top of this have disappeared. The nail holes where these were fixed on are evident, but it would not have covered all the binding, even on the front, as the leather is stamped with patterns and a griffin.

The last gathering, with ff. 276–284, is a later insertion with a smaller page size, containing a menology or liturgical calendar of feast days and the appropriate gospel readings for them, and a synaxaria or calendar listing saint's feast days.