This site has been updated in the middle of 2017. The changes allow visitors to view it comfortably using mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Preface to The Second Version of the site

The present Second Version of this site has been submitted to the public domain at the beginning of March, 2012. It replaces the Primary version published an year earlier - in March 2011.

In the Primary Version the Old Bulgarian and Greek texts are reproduced by means of thousands of distinct images, whereas the Second version makes use of online unicode fonts for this purpose. This approach enables site visitors to copy directly separate words or whole pieces of the original texts (subject to respective restrictions).

So as to be able to reproduce the copied texts correctly, visitors may download and install on their computers the fonts used in the site from page Lexis: Alphabets, Fonts.

Moreover, visitors have access to keyboard layouts corresponding to the fonts, which they may also install and thus utilize the fonts for other purposes.

Another essential change in the Second Version is the publishing of all 43 chapters of the only extant copy of the Pseudo-Basilian Recension of the Physiologus in Slavic translation. It is based on a microfilm of the manuscript preserved at the Library of the St. Panteleimon monastery (Mount Athos), so the inaccuracies of the only former publication of the text from 1893 have been eliminated. •

The idea for this site as well as all efforts to develop it belong to Dr. Ana Stoykova¹. She is a Senior Researcher with the Old-Bulgarian Literature Department of the Institute of Literature of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS). Among her research interests are Old Bulgarian literature and Cyrillo-Methodian studies, hagiography and hagiology, as well as computer-aided methods and technologies in medievistic research.

The Physiologus has long been one of her favourite preoccupations; she defended her PhD thesis "The Physiologus in the South Slavic Literatures" in 1993 (published in 1994, see Стойкова 1994). •

The author is grateful to her brother Dr. Vesselin Stoykov, an enthusiastic admirer of the Physiologus, who created the software and the design of this site and provided its domain and server.

The author wishes to thank her colleagues at the Institute of Literature of BAS for their support,
- Dr. Olga M. Mladenova from the University of Calgary, Canada, for the inspiring discussions and for her inestimable contribution to the English translation of the Physiologus,
- Dr. Sarah Turner from the University of Waterloo, Canada, for her numerous suggestions made with remarkable professionalism which immensely improved the English version of the site,
- her daughter Marta Ivaylova, for the valuable consultations on the Greek texts,
- all her friends, who helped with advice or just showed sincere interest,
- and, finally, her dog Terry for the calm minutes of reflection while walking her.

The author is especially obliged to her colleagues Dr. Svetlina Nikolova, Dr.Sc. Anisava Miltenova and Dr. Klimentina Ivanova for their support during her research on the Physiologus as well as for the photographs of manuscripts and microfilms which they kindly provided.

The author is grateful to all libraries and museums for having granted access to their precious collections (in alphabetical order):

Bodleian Library, Oxford (BLO)
Centre for Slavo-Byzantine Studies "Prof. Ivan Dujčev", Sofia (CSBS)
Church-Historical and Archival Institute, Sofia (CHAI)
Cyril and Methodius National Library, Sofia (NLCM)
Library of Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb (HAZU)
Library of Hilandar Monastery, Mount Athos (LMH)
Library of Romanian Academy , Bucharest (RA)
Library of Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca (RA CN)
Library of St. Panteleimon's Monastery (Rossikon), Mount Athos (LMP)
Museum of Serbian Orthodox Church, Belgrade (MSOC)
National Library of Austria, Vienna (NLA)
National Library of Serbia, Belgrade (NLS)
National museum, Prague (NMP)
Royal Library, Copenhagen (KBC)
Russian State Archives of Ancient Acts, Moscow (RSAAA)
Scholarly Archive of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia (BAS)
State Historical Museum, Moscow (SHM)
University Library, Vienna (ULV)

The author is also obliged to other libraries and museums, holders of the magnificent miniatures of beasts and birds that are used as illustrations in this edition of the Physiologus (in alphabetical order):

Aberdeen University Library, Aberdeen (ULA)
Bibliothèque Municipale, Reims (BMR)
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris (BNF)
Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris (BSG)
Bodleian Library, Oxford (BLO)
British Library, London (BLL)
Huntington Library, San Marino (California) (HLS)
Morgan Library, New York (MLNY)
Museum Meermanno, The Hague (MMH)
Royal Library, Copenhagen (RLC)
Royal Library, The Hague (RLH) •

The author will be grateful for any critical notes, recommendations, comments and ideas concerning the site, which will help in eliminating any inevitable errors, inadequacies and discrepancies in it.

The author hopes that in future the chapters of the Pseudo-Basilian Recension will be expanded with the corresponding Greek parallel texts as well as with Bulgarian and English translations. •