Pantaleon Gospel. Complete Aprakos.
Late 12th - early 13th cent. (?). Novgorod or Novgorod Lands. Scribe: Maxim Toshinich

F (340 õ 270). 224 leaves. Several leaves are missing from the middle part of the text block.
Parchment. Ink, cinnabar, colours.
It is written in a uncial hand in two columns.

The illumination of the manuscript includes the miniature of St Pantaleon and the Great Martyr St Catherine (fol. 224). Ther are head-pieces in the Old Byzantine style with the interlaced-band motifs, executed in colours (fol. 1r) and cinnabar (fol. 86r). Initials in the South Slavic and the Old Byzantine styles are worked in cinnabar and colours.

In the margins of the miniature on folio 224 is the note of the scribe Maxim Toshinich who was the priest of two churches in Novgorod: one of St John the Baptist and the other of the Ascension.

The manuscript is named after St Pantaleon depicted in the illustration in this book. By hypothesis of several researchers such as Dmitri Abramovich and Evfimi Karsky, St Pantaleon is likely to be a patron saint of a person who commissioned the manuscript. The Gospel is illustrated with a miniature showing the Holy Healer St Pantaleon and the Great Martyr St Catherine. This iconography is unique for book miniatures. In Anatoli Turilov' opinion, it may indicate that this miniature was produced by a vow - in memory of the healing of a patient, who prayed to the saints for his good health, since both Sts Pantaleon and Catherine were traditionally revered as the Holy Healers.

In 1919 the manuscript came into the State Public Library along with the collection of St Sophia's Cathedral in Novgorod.

Shelfmark: ÐÍÁ. Ñîô. 1.