Engravings by Hryhorii Levytskyi, associated with the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy

Abstract

The publication attempts to analyse the engravings of the prominent Ukrainian master Hryhorii Levytskyi and his contacts with the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. The article presents biographical information about the master, including his probable education at the Academy.A group of so-called engraved theses dedicated to Kyivan leaders is analysed. Attention is paid to the analysis of a previously unknown engraving depicting the Virgin Mary and Divine Infant. The frame of this engraving was used in the decoration of the title page of Mytrofan Dovhalevskyi’s manuscript lectures on poetics of 1736.The reattribution of the frame prompted a more thorough review of other examples of engraved copperplate frames in Levytskyi’s creative heritage, including the so-called «frame for theatre posters» of 1735 and the engraving used for the title of «The Journey to Jerusalem» 1751 by Serapion Kadianov-Mnozhynskyi. Both of these frames are not separate works but were made to illustrate panegyric texts of the academic circles, which were either not printed or not discovered and require further research. Similarly, the unsigned engraving, depicting the Epiphany, on the back of the title of «The Journey to Jerusalem» is probably made by Levytskyi and was intended to illustrate a text related to the Academy. The correct spelling of the surname of the author of «The Journey to Jerusalem», Serapion Kadian (or Kadianov)-Mnozhynskyi, was established. Also, by analogy, a version of the toponymic origin of the engraver Hryhorii Levytskyi’s surname was proposed.The study of the engravings in the context of the history of their use traces Hryhorii Levytskyi’s contacts with the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, its teachers and students, including Hilarion Negrebetskyi, Mytrofan Dovhalevskyi, Mykhailo Kozachynskyi, Sylvester Kuliabka, Damian Halakhovskyi, Ambrose Negrebetskyi, Serapion Mnohynynskyi Kadyanov, Yosyp Narodovskyi, and others. It is also recorded that the cultural environment of the time, which functioned around the Academy and to which H. Levytskyi belonged, was united thanks to the efforts of its patron and developer, Kyiv Metropolitan Raphael Zaborovsky.