As a matter of fact, it is hardly correct to speak of Russian-Italian relations before the end of the first millennium A.D., when it was only possible for the first time to speak of Russians and Italians as such. Of course, this does not remove the question of the connections between the historical predecessors of the Russian and Italian elements, if only because both of them, through a number of intermediate stages, ascend to a single and common source—Indo-European, its language and culture. Of course, at this chronological level, for the researcher "there is neither Russian nor Italian", but being interested in "Russian", "Italian" and the "connections" between them in their "beginnings", he cannot neglect the task of the formation of all these three phenomena, i.e., their filiation from a single source, the transformation of one common into two different ones, the verification of the existence of a "secondary", i.e., non-genetic, connection (in fact, only such a "free" connection determined only by cultural-historical circumstances and deserves the name of connection). But even later, in the epochs when the original unity was broken and the features of disunity were undoubtedly present, it is permissible to assume that there were such real situations when the remote ancestors of these two ethnoi could enter into mutual contacts. Perhaps such a situation existed in Central Europe in the second half of the second millennium B.C. and the beginning of the first millennium B.C., when the ancestors of both lived in close proximity, which is apparently confirmed by the data of linguistic borrowings. Another similar situation could arise from the beginning of our era, when Roman domination extended to those borders that were adjacent to the area of the Proto-Slavic tribes or even partially inhabited by them (and in this case, the layer of Latin borrowings in Proto-Slavic would confirm the reality of direct contacts; by the way, it was at this time that Roman authors first mentioned tribes identified with early Slavic associations). This situation continues to some extent later, acquiring more and more specific features. In this last period (the first half of the first millennium A.D. and, probably, in some places even later), the encounters of the Roman-Latin and Proto-Slavic elements could have taken place both in ancient Rome itself (the Slavic slaves) and in various places of the Roman Empire, which on its periphery approached the places of settlement of individual Proto-Slavic tribes (Pannonia, Dacia, etc.; cf. also the "Great Amber Road" along the Vistula to the southern coast of the Baltic Sea). Of particular interest in this respect is the presence of Roman power on the northern coast of the Black Sea between the mouths of the Dniester and the Dnieper - Tiras and Olbia - and on the sea itself, where the Roman fleet exercised control and protection from sea robbers; it should be recalled that in the Crimea there was the Bosporan Kingdom, which was under the Roman protectorate and received a Roman garrison subordinate to the governor of Moesia, and that the Northern Black Sea region became known and accessible to the Eastern Slavs quite early (at least to individual tribal groups or enterprising people who sought contacts with other peoples of the Mediterranean).

[Later, the "Roman-Latin" element in the Black Sea region, primarily in the Crimea, was replaced by an Italian one. Its heyday coincides with the defeat of the Venetian fleet by the Genoese at Kurzola in 1296, when they founded in the Crimea the trading posts of Kafa, Balaklava, Soldaia, which became important centers of trade, in particular, with Russia, and the decline began after the defeat of the Genoese fleet by the Venetians in the battle of Chioggia in 1380 (true, the Venetians appeared in the Crimea with their trading posts, penetrating, however, much further to the northeast - the trading post of Tana [Azov] on the Sea of Azov) and acquired fatal importance after 1475, when Muhammad II defeated Kafa, most of the Italian population left the Crimea for Akkerman and Circassia, others were taken to Constantinople, still others remained in place, but converted to Orthodoxy, to the Greek rite, since their wives were usually Greek (cf. Dortelli d'Ascoli Emidio - "Descrittione del Mar Negro e della Tartaria", 1634), and eventually dissolved in the Greek, and later partly in the Russian population. However, from the end of the 18th century, a new wave of mass immigration of Italians to the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region began, which continued into the 19th century.]

The entry of the Eastern Slavs into the structure of the early state formations of Eastern Europe and the adoption of Christianity (9th-10th centuries) meant the achievement of a level of civilization at which both the circle of relations and their possibilities were fundamentally expanded. New types of ties arose—state, church-religious, acting as official, partly ideological, and so on (trade-economic, "matrimonial-dynastic," and other ties were also added to this category to a greater or lesser extent). These connections are not considered here either, but since even the connections of this period reveal their continuity in the form of separate, but sufficiently indicative traces with the situation of the preceding period, it is not superfluous to indicate the spectrum of "official" ties of Ancient Rus (primarily Kiev) with Italy, starting from the end of the 10th century, since it was in this "initial" period that the foundations were laid, which to a strong extent predetermined the composition and nature of the already truly Russian-Italian relations. which will be discussed further. But first, a few words about the ties of Ancient Russia with Italy during about two and a half centuries before the Tatar-Mongol invasion.

It must be said that the axis that determined these ties was the religious question of the choice of the "right" faith, which appeared both at the level of dogmatic and organizational, and at the ideological level, and even at the "state-political" level. Russia was the object of the struggle between Rome and Constantinople. Having received Christianity from Byzantium and strongly dependent on it in matters of religious order, the Russian Church inherited, along with the true values of "Eastern" Orthodoxy, a biased view of the "Roman heresy", of the "Latins", concentrating in its polemics with "Western" Christianity for the most part on empirically noted, but clearly secondary issues (about unclean food ["strangled"], about the wearing of the ring by bishops of the "Latins", about cutting their beards, about unleavened bread, finger composition, etc.). In this respect, the position of the Russian Church was not independent, and church policy was carried out in line with the "anti-Latin" Epistles of Patriarch Photius (2nd half of the ninth century), although it should still be noted that at first the attitude of the Russian Church towards the "Latins" was less aggressive than in Byzantium. The schism of the Christian Church in 1054, the new outbreak of the "anti-Latin" polemics in Byzantium (cf. the Epistle of Michael Cerularius to Patriarch Paul of Antioch, the anonymous work "Περι των Φράγγων και των λοιπών Λατίνων", known in the Russian translation, etc.) did not remain without consequences in Russia, and if until the middle of the eleventh century only the epistle of the second (in Golubinsky's opinion, the first) Russian metropolitan Leontius against the "Latins" (in Greek) is known, then the number of such speeches increases rapidly, and the tone noticeably (and sometimes sharply) becomes tougher. "Anti-Latin" epistles become a kind of canonized genre of church literature (Theodosius of the Caves, several "words" against the "Latins"; "The Struggle with Latin" by George, John II, Nicephorus I, etc., so as not to go beyond the 1st quarter of the twelfth century). Old Russian polemical works "against the Latins" have been studied well enough to dwell on here. In addition, although they reflect real relations between the Roman and Eastern Churches, they are nevertheless such, if we are talking about texts relating to "paper" contacts, the purpose of which is not to break the connection, but to break it, to separate it, to isolate it (cf. Popov 1872; Pavlov 1878, not to mention later studies).

Therefore, for the topic put forward here, those contacts are more important that involve real human meetings, even if their participants act as official representatives of certain state or church institutions. A number of Western sources report indirect contacts between the Vel. Kn. Olga, and those who acted as conductors of papal policy (an embassy to Otto I, sending Adalbert to Russia as bishop). However, these initiatives have proved fruitless. However, Rome was looking for contacts to a much greater extent, pursuing its own goals. In 979, Pope Benedict VII sent his ambassadors to Yaropolk, hoping that the Russian prince would convert to Christianity according to the Western rite. Seven years later, when Prince Vladimir was wondering what new faith he should choose, Germans (foreigners) came to him from Rome, a message from the pope. A question-and-answer dialogue took place between them, attested by the chronicle. Vladimir was interested in the main thing – What is your commandment? And having listened to the answer that did not satisfy him, "Go again, for our fathers have not accepted the essence of this. Knowing Vladimir's openness, it is easy to imagine that before the final Ideta there was again time for an informal conversation that satisfied the need for human communication and disinterested interest. Soon Pope John XV sent his ambassadors to Korsun, having learned that the newly baptized Vladimir was discussing with the Greeks the question of the baptism of Russia. In 991 and 1000, ambassadors again arrived to Vladimir, first from the same John XV, and then from Sylvester II. The embassy of 1000 is especially indicative: it allows us to see, at least partially, or at least feel, a certain human, everyday situation behind the official and state, which also involves personal contacts (the situation of the marriage of Vladimir's son Svyatopolk with the daughter of the Polish king Boleslav I, an attempt to subordinate Svyatopolk and someone else from the princely nobility to the "Latin" influence). Even more characteristic in this respect is the story of Vladimir's meeting with the papal missionary Bruno, who went to preach to the Pechenegs. It is known that Vladimir cordially welcomed Bruno, who spent about a month visiting the prince, and after that saw him off with his retinue, dissuading him from a dangerous mission. There is information about the conversations between Vladimir and Bruno, and one can guess about their human solidarity, and perhaps about the religious tolerance of Prince Vladimir (probably, this can be partially confirmed by the facts of Vladimir's sending ambassadors to Rome in 994 and 1001, apparently in response to papal embassies, which is reported in the Nikon Chronicle). In Bruno's epistle to Henry II, there are important testimonies (probably the first and for a long time the last) about the personal and human in this meeting of the Russian chief apostolic prince and the "man of Rome" (it is worth recalling that the Pechenegs heeded Bruno's persuasions and agreed to accept Christianity, but on the condition that Prince Vladimir would conclude a lasting peace with them): "With this [offer of peace. — V. T.] I came to the Emperor of the Russes, who, for the sake of the Lord's cause, satisfying my request, gave my son as a hostage; and we consecrated one of our own bishops, and he [Vladimir. — V. T.] sent him together with his son to the middle of the land [of the Pechenegs. — V. T.]." Much of these early meetings remains unclear, but it is known that they took place, and sometimes there is information about the very situation of communication, which opens up the possibility of establishing personal relationships from person to person. The initiative belonged to Rome: before the Tatar invasion (in part even a little later) papal epistles were constantly sent to Russia (1227 – the epistle of Pope Honorius III "ad universos reges Russiae", 1231 – the epistle of Gregory IX "ad regem Russiae", 1248 – the epistle of Innocent IV to Alexander Nevsky, etc.), and envoys or even missionaries appeared after the epistles or together with them. In 1228, brothers of the newly formed Dominican Order appeared in Kiev; they formed a whole community (the "convent," see Dlugossi I, lib. VI) at the church of St. Mary, at the head of which stood a special prior. Pope Gregory IX highly appreciated their activities (according to him, the Dominicans, "burning with zeal for faith and piety, fought hard to spread the worship of God in the Russian countries"). They were indeed active and inventive; contacts with the Kiev population were undoubtedly close and lively; A common language was found, and, of course, the sermon had a response among the people of Kiev. Sensing the danger, the Grand Duke Vladimir expelled the Dominicans from Kiev in 1233, but their five-year stay in the city could not but be associated with unofficial, everyday, perhaps even personal ties, and could not but leave traces, in particular, of good ones. Or another example of such connections is the one about which Plano Carpini, sent in 1246 by Pope Innocent IV to Great Mongolia to Khan Guyuk, writes in his travel notes (the stay of the traveler and his companions as guests of the "duke" Basilisk, the discussion of the question of "union with the Holy Mother Church", conversations in anticipation of the return of Basilisk's brother "Duke" Daniel from the headquarters of Batu, his arrival and consent to the admonitions of the Pope in exchange for help in the fight against the Tatars). A reconstruction of the "subtle" structure of such meetings, even a very approximate one, gives a chance to reveal the secret nerve of these meetings themselves.

And at the superficial level, which was the only one that was recognized as the main thing, everything went on as usual. Embassies came, sovereigns and church hierarchs met, official negotiations were conducted on important political, interstate, foreign policy and religious issues, missionary preachers came to enlighten the pagans with a new and better faith. All this was discussed and planned in advance, and only then solutions were proposed, contracts were concluded, and laws were established. The highest and most authoritative instances participated in all this: the State, the Church, and the Court (legal authority). There is no reason to take a nihilistic attitude towards this kind of activity, which proceeds from a conscious, purposeful, reason-based attitude, and on the results obtained: the entire "crude" structure of civilization presupposes just such activity and such results corresponding to it. But here the situation is somewhat different. The meetings referred to here, in whatever general framework they may be included and whatever special goals they may pursue, are valuable primarily because they served the "expanded order of human cooperation," which is more often and better achieved in other ways that lead to the creation of a "delicate" structure of civilization. The need for such cooperation is such that it is most organically born where the actors think not so much about the cooperation itself, but about something else, above all about its results, and the "extended order of human cooperation" arises to a certain extent arbitrarily, as a by-product of conscious activity pursuing a different, "main" goal. And as long as this is done in this way, the expansion of the "anthropic", personal, spiritual component of civilization can be considered assured. «[…] the emergence of our civilization and its preservation in the future, Hayek wrote, depend on a phenomenon that can best be defined as the "extended order of human cooperation" [...] In order to understand our civilization, it is necessary to understand that this extended order did not arise as a result of the realization of conscious human design or intention, but spontaneously: it arose from the unintentional adherence to certain traditional and, mainly, moral practices. […] Reluctantly, forced, even painful, inculcating such practices held such groups together, facilitated their access to all kinds of valuable information, and allowed them to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and possess it" (Genesis, p. I: 28). This process seems to remain the least understood and appreciated facet of human evolution" (Hayek 1992, 15–16).

It is precisely these "moral practices," which are formed in part by these encounters between "us" and "them," and which in turn prepare for new encounters at an even greater depth, that induce people whose conscious plan is directed toward the "main" goal, the "cause," to distract themselves for a moment from the vanity of this day and its malice, to stop to look, as if in between, involuntarily, at the "non-essential," at first glance trivial and, at first glance, trivial. apparently irrelevant, but nevertheless necessary, satisfying some hitherto obscure need of the soul. And in this "unimportant" and unexpected-unexpected, there suddenly begin to arise another person, a "stranger", an unfamiliar city, a previously unnoticed landscape, that beauty of this God's world, which, being seen, felt and experienced, makes a person different, new, transformed, and he begins to understand what it means — And God saw that this is good, and to feel himself in the space of the divine word-deed — Let it be! If "meetings" planned in advance as something "main" and the only necessary thing often turn out to be dubious and often doomed to failure, then unforeseen, spontaneous and accidental meetings, when intuition comes into play and turns out to be a better guide than reason, meetings that arise as if at the intersection of some completely different plans and affairs and therefore are not disturbed by the "order" of reflections, falling on a person at once, unexpectedly, they give if not to understand, then to feel the joy of communication, its grace-filled action. Each such meeting forms a concrete and "natural-supernatural" act of "expanding the order of human cooperation," and the farther and more separated in the physical space and in the space of culture and spirit these participants in the meeting are, the more different they are, the more they do break through to each other, meet physically and discover their closeness in spirit, or at least the very possibility of rapprochement (you as I and I as you).  — the fruits of such a meeting are more valuable.

The work involves the analysis of one of many similar examples of such Russian-Italian meetings, which in the general chronological context of relations between these two ethno-cultural elements should be classified as undoubtedly early. If the first example refers to the situation of the "Italian in Russia", then the second, which will be considered elsewhere, will deal with the opposite situation: the Russians in Italy (based on materials relating to the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439). on the above-mentioned effect of the reproduction of the "extended order of human cooperation"; thirdly, on the pre-eminent value of such meetings as the grace of those who are sent down and on their role in culture and, above all, in the consolidation of the fabric of human existence, but also on those cases where prejudice and lack of good will lead to that "hateful separateness of the world" which gives rise to fear, sows the seeds of mutual distrust, ill-will, hatred that freezes the eyes and makes one forget about God's providence for people, about the common work of God on earth.

Needless to say, these aspects do not exhaust all the value that can be provided by the sources testifying to such meetings.

ANTHONY ROMAN — a Novgorod saint in his "life"

When a text appears as the only or not the only, but the main source of what is communicated in it, its reality is self-sufficient: moreover, it is "stronger" than the completely unclear and divinatory reality behind this text, and it is possible to break through to the latter only if the reality of the text is accepted as the first and necessary step, because it is in the text that its author, skillfully or unskillfully, communicates this and usually in this way. what and how he wanted. Only after the recognition of the sovereignty of the text and its choice as a kind of guiding thread by which it is possible to find a different "extra-textual" reality, it becomes possible to restore the fragments and/or the very scheme of this event reality subject to the text, from the point of view of which alone it is possible to judge the degree of correspondence between the reality of the text and the reality of the events described. Strictly speaking, this "order" of realities, their hierarchy, their cognitive-informational values cannot be otherwise. Ontologically, the text is primary. A "pure" event (if it exists and if it is necessary in this form) is usually too abstract and "unweighed" and, consequently, "elusive" in the space of meaning, attitude, orientation, evaluation). In practice, it is often more important for the consumer of the text to know the "impure" truth of the text, mixed with evaluation, "interpreted", that is, the point of view of the author of the text, his position; but even for the historian, who considers the text as the source of something "main" for him and lying behind the text, it is first of all necessary to criticize the text, which involves clarifying how the consumer of the text, contemporary with him or placing himself in the same time as the text, understands the text, what he sees or even wants to see in it. Neither the intention of the consumer of the text can be ignored, if only the researcher and/or the reader is interested in both the text itself and the reality behind it.

Therefore, the first necessity and the first step dictated by it is to trust the text and only the text completely, to surrender to its logic, to feel and assimilate it as one's own. But first of all, a few reminders of the text of the life of Anthony the Roman. The content of the life is evident from the title of the text: "The Legend of the Life of Our Venerable and God-bearing Father Anthony the Roman and of the Coming from the City of Rome to Novgorod the Great." The "Tale" was compiled, as it is now assumed, in the 70-80s of the XVI century (Slov. knizhn. Dr. Rusi, vol. 2, ch. 1, 1988, 246; it is considered possible to attribute to Niphon, a monk of the Novgorod Anthony Monastery, the author of a cycle of unpublished works about Anthony the Roman, the compilation or redaction of the "Life of Anthony" itself, but "this attribution is not unconditional", see ibid., vol. 2, part 2, 1989, 141), but other opinions cannot be completely ruled out, such as the very end of the 16th century (Golubinsky, Valk – 1598), not earlier than the 30s of the same century, or even the end of the 15th – the beginning of the 16th century (Tikhomirov 1945). It can be thought that some parts of the "Tale" refer to different dates. In the formation of the "final" version of the text, authentic fragments of very different epochs, starting from the twelfth century, were taken into account and included in one form or another; in the sixteenth century, when the problem arose of creating a canonical text of the "official" life, the rapidly changing situation required corrections and additions in accordance with the burning issues of the day. The idea of a gradual (until the end of the 16th century) formation of the text of the "Tale" is plausible. And in fact, it presupposes much earlier authentic texts, in one way or another connected with the name of Anthony: his spiritual and his deed of sale, reflected in the text of the Tale and traditionally related to the time not later than 1147, the year of Anthony's death (cf. Gram. Vel. Novg. and Psk. 1949, 159-161, NoNo 102-103) and a legend, which arose, of course, long before the sixteenth century and, apparently, continuing a certain folk tradition ("rumor"), which could arise immediately after the death of the monk and over the course of three and a half centuries either fade away, or flare up, responding to the changing situation [in resolving the question of the authenticity of the spiritual and deed of sale of Anthony in the works of the 40-70s, significant progress was achieved: the hypercritical tendency in relation to these documents was "interrupted", developing along an increasing line (Golubinsky 1904, 590–595 and Klyuchevsky 1871, 307–308: the spiritual one is authentic, but renewed, the bill of sale is forged; Valk 1937, 295–300: both charters are forged and fabricated at the end of the 16th century in connection with the litigation of the posad people with the Antoniev Monastery); as a result of the insightful studies of Tikhomirov 1945, 233–241 and Yanin 1966, 69–80; 1977, 40-59, the situation in the most probable version is depicted as follows: the spiritual deed is authentic and was written before 1131, the deed of sale is also authentic, but it was written in 1354-1357 and, therefore, could not have belonged to Anthony; attributing it to the monk is not a falsification, but a mistake that arose due to the fact that both charters (spiritual and deed) in the sixteenth century were combined into a kind of convolute, generally attributed to Anthony and used in his life]. In accordance with the chronological heterogeneity of the Tale, strictly speaking, there cannot be a single author of the text. In connection with the problem of authorship, two figures deserve special attention: Anthony's successor and disciple Andrei (cf. In the same summer [6664] the abbess Andreevi after Ontone. 1st New Year, 28; The same year [6665] Andrew, the abbot of the Holy Mother of God, and others), who is mentioned more than once, in particular and in person, in the "Legend" (cf. To me, the hieromonk Andrew, God vouchsafed to perceive this angelic image; he was in obedience and instruction to the monk; — and led my accursed the monk his coming from Rome [...] and commanded me to write all this after my repose, and to give it to the church of God, to those who read and listen to the crawling of the soul...; — and commanded the hieromonk Andrew to himself the censer and the departing singing; "And with the blessing of the monk, Archbishop Niphon ordained the Monk Hieromonk Andrew as hegumen. And these Andrews gave occasion to Archbishop Niphon and the prince of that city, and to all the people, when they heard from the monk and about these people [...] And Archbishop Niphon commanded that this life of the monk be set forth, and written, and that the churches of God be given over to the confirmation of the Christian faith and the salvation of our souls...), and Archbishop Niphon of Novogorod, who had known Anthony for many years of his life, loved him (for he loved the monk for his great virtue), he took part in it (And ordained the monk to the deaconate, then to the priesthood, and the same abbot), was present at the burial of Anthony, ordered the compilation of the Life of Anthony and did much for his canonization in 1597 (Niphon is mentioned many times in the 1st New Year. up to 1156: In the summer of 6664 [...] In the same spring Archbishop Niphon reposed, April 21). In any case, Andrei and Niphon are the extreme figures in the history of the creation of the "Life" of Anthony: Andrew is the initiator (unless Tikhomirov is right in admitting that the author of the "Life" could also be the abbot of the Antoniev monastery in 1499, Andrei, with whom another Andrew, a disciple of the monk, was confused, which, however, for a number of reasons raises doubts) and Niphon is the finalizer. It remains to say that the copies of the Tale preserved in manuscripts of the late sixteenth and eighteenth centuries are very monotonous (although additions continued later); cf. Barsukov 1882, 48–51, Popov 1875, 435–438. The manuscript of the former. Blush. Muses. No 154 (Pam–ki Star. Russk. lit. 1860, issue 1, 263–270) and a manuscript from the Solovetsky library. monasteries. No 834 (Pravosl. Sobes. 1858, No 5–6, 157–171, 310–324). The text is quoted from ed. 1860. Although Buslaev wrote about the "Tale" 1861, vol. 2, 110–155; Klyuchevsky 1871, 306–311; Golubinsky 1904, 590–595; Tikhomirov 1945, 233–241 and others, nevertheless it remains an unappreciated monument and needs further textual and research work (the one proposed below is no more than a brief version of some aspects of the Tale related to the topic of early Russian-Italian relations).

The content of the "Legend" briefly consists in how a certain righteous man, a native of Rome, miraculously came to Novgorod, how he gradually established relations with the Novgorodians – from the common people to the highest ecclesiastical authority (Archbishops Nikita and Niphon), how he lived righteously – in his labors and prayers – how he laid the foundation stone church of the Most Pure Mother of God (this is also reported by other sources, cf.: In the same summer [6625] the hegumen Anton laid the foundation stone church of the holy Mother of God monastery. 1st Novg. years, 20), how he further expanded the monastery, what kind of person he was and how he died and was buried. The purpose of the "Legend" is to bear witness to the locally venerated righteous man, inseparable from this place (this combination itself, with variations, is repeated more than ten times and always in conjunction with the "Novgorod" locus and already with the place where the monastery of the Mother of God arose; this place is indicated immediately upon arrival in Novgorod: ... there is nowhere to reach this place. And a stone was placed, on which the monk stood and prayed, at the bank of a great river, called Volkhov, on the place of seven... etc.), to glorify him and thereby prepare the already maturing canonization of Anthony. In other words, the purpose of the "Life" is not simply cognitive and informational, not connected with anything else, but purely practical, opening the way to the canonization of Anthony as a saint.

A more attentive reading makes it easy to notice that the emphasis on this place, in addition to the general statement about the connection of holiness with man and his locus (a holy place is a holy person), probably has another purpose – to prove the right to this place in the event of possible disputes in connection with the identification of possessory rights. In fact, both the Spiritual Anthony of Rome and the Bill of Sale associated with him (both of these charters are reflected in the "Legend") confirm what has been said. In the very first sentence of the Bill of Sale, its compiler declares: Behold the labor, my Most Pure Mother of God, and they have labored in the place seven. Further, reporting on the purchase of this place from the posadniks' children Smekhna and Prokhna (I bought the land of the most pure for the house from Smekhna, and from Prokhna from Ivanov's children from the posadniks, cf. in the "Legend": And St. Nikita sends the posadniks after John and Prokofiy (= Prokhna. — V. T.) after Ivan's children of the posadniks, who, having listened to the saint with love and measured out for the church and under the monastery the land for all countries at fifty sazhens), the compiler of the charter describes in detail the boundaries of this place – the purchased land and warns: And whoever will step on this land, or the mother of God will rule. Attributing this charter to Anthony, they proceeded from the fact that these are the words of Anthony himself, which is confirmed by the Spiritual Anthony, undoubtedly belonging to Anthony. All of it is about this place, cf. the dotted line: Behold, the tongue of Anthony, who was in the midst of it, went out to this place, and did not accept any possessions from the prince or from the bishop [...] Yes, the mother of God is to govern everything, that I have accepted misfortunes about this place. And behold, I entrust [...] this place to the abbess [...] And whom the brethren shall choose, but from the brothers, and whosoever endures in this place. And if our brother begins to become hegumen from this place, either by bribe or by force, let him be accursed; Either the bishop begins to appoint someone for reward, or he begins to do violence in this place, let him be accursed. And behold, I declare: when I sit in this place, I am far away on earth, and seventy hryvnias on the ground... All these explanations, precautions and curses to those who would ignore Anthony's warnings turned out to be useful precisely when the canonization of Anthony was being prepared (the charter of Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich of 1591 testifies that in 1559-1560 there was indeed a lawsuit between the monastery and the posad people over land, which ended in the victory of the posadskys).