Lot 24: LOMONOSOV, Mikhail Vasil'evich (1711-1765). Autograph manuscript transcription of Ars Poetica . [Moscow: 1734 and earlier].

LOMONOSOV, Mikhail Vasil'evich (1711-1765). Autograph manuscript transcription of Ars Poetica. [Moscow: 1734 and earlier].

Manuscript on paper, 133 leaves (lacking first leaf and possibly six from last gathering), 200 x 155mm, text in Latin in black ink, occasional manuscript annotations in Latin, a few in Russian, later pagination with errors. (First five leaves with margins strengthened and restored, rather browned and dampstained throughout.) Contemporary blindstamped calf over wooden boards (rebacked and restored). Provenance: M.V. Lomonosov -- Joasaph Chotuncensky (inscription in the bottom margin of the first few leaves recording the gift: 'Dono Venit Mosquae ab Ipso Rhetorices Studioso Michaele Lomonosov 1734 anno').

AN IMPORTANT LOMONOSOV MANUSCRIPT DOCUMENTING HIS STUDY OF POETRY. Lomonosov, 'the first university in Russia' in the words of Pushkin, was a prodigious polymath. But it is for his contribution to Russian letters that he is best know: for enabling modern literary Russian to move forward from its Slavonic roots. This manuscript, made during his studies at the Moscow Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy, records some of Lomonosov's first steps in his reform of the Russian language, which culminated in 1755 with the publication of his fundamental Russian grammar. NO LOMONOSOV MANUSCRIPT OF SUCH IMPORTANCE IS KNOWN TO US IN PRIVATE HANDS.

This manuscript bears great similarities to the two surviving works transcribed by him: Naturalis Scientia vulgo Physica, and Artis Rhetoricae (now in Moscow's Lomonosov University), both also written while at the Moscow Academy. But it is unknown to Tsenakal, and to Lur-Saluces, who knew the Artis Rhetoricae, when he discussed the importance of poetry in Lomonosov's studies with Feofan Prokopovich: poetry 'was considered a science which aimed to interpret human life and human nature. It owed its fundamental rules to the great Classical authors [and its study] revealed the rhythmic prowess of its various forms' (Lur-Saluces, p.52). The present manuscript follows such a programme of exposition: the first part divides into five sections, 'De Necessitate artis Poúeos, De Tropis Figuris, De Carmine latino in communi, De Subsidio Carminis' and 'De Carmine in specie'; the second with the subheading 'De Oratione Locuta' has three sections, 'De Periodis, De Amplificatione' and 'De Chria'. The last leaf forms the latter part of an index. Lur-Saluces, Lomonossoff. Le prodigieux Moujik, Paris 1933); Tsenakal, Lomonosov, Moscow 1965, p.41.

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