Emvlemy I Simvoly (1788)

In 1788 Nestor Ambodik brought out a Russian edition of the well-known emblem book, Symbola et Emblemata, originally published in Holland in 1705 under the auspices of Peter the Great. In particular, Ambodik added what was to be the first treatise in Russian on Emblems, heraldry and classical iconology. The present edition is a facsimile of Ambodik's Emvlemy I Simvoly, with a translation of his Russian text and an exhaustive index of all the 840 emblems. Anthony Hippisley also prefaces the edition with an introductory article throwing light on the sources of the emblem book and on its importance in eighteenth-century Russian culture. The facsimile edition makes available to scholars a comparatively rare book that played an important role in the Russian Enlightenment and whose impact is to be seen in the Fine Arts, applied art and literature of the time.