European Journal of Science and Theology, March 2009, Vol.5, No.1, 13-24 _______________________________________________________________________ THE MANUSCRIPT HERITAGE OF IOAN KRATOVSKI Liliana Stankova and Lora Nenkovska * Centre for Slavic and Byzantine Studies ‘Ivan Duitchev’, 18 Prof. I. Duitchev Street, 1618 Sofia, Bulgaria (Received 25 October 2008, revised 24 November 2008) Abstract The present study is meant to express our observations on the manuscript heritage of one of the most important and interesting Balkan scribes and illuminators of the XVI century – Ioan Kratovski. His activity is connected with two Orthodox centres on the Balkans – Kratovo and Craiova. Our work is an attempt to see the decoration of the impressive number of manuscripts left by Ioan Kratovski in the light of the innovations of the ornamental language of the Post-Byzantine art that took place during the XVI century. Keywords: decorative styles, Post-Byzantine art, Rūmi-Hatai motifs, Islamic ornament, Codicology 1. Introduction In our last article [1] we discussed briefly about the decoration of the manuscript collection of the Holy Monastery of Putna and this time we suggest you an article which aims to present the manuscript heritage of Ioan Kratovski - a scribe, calligrapher and illuminator whose activity represents the new tendencies in the Balkan manuscript illuminating style in the XVI century [2-7]. We will focus our attention on two main problems which will allow us, on one hand to reveal to some extent one of the directions of the Post-Byzantine art at this stage of its development and on the other hand to put some open questions whose answers to be found in future researches. The first problem we shall pay attention to is the appearance of the new innovated tendencies, which set their mark not only on the illuminating tradition of the Slavs on the Balkans during the XVI and XVII century, but had influenced also the decorating practices in the Romanian Principalities. * Corresponding author, e-mail: loranen@gmail.com