Ivan Mazepa Among His Good Deeds

A panegyric thesis engraving dedicated to Hetman Ivan Mazepa by Ivan Myhura, archdeacon of the St Sophia monastery in Kyiv. The sheet is built in three registers. Above, on clouds, stand the Kyiv churches built and restored at the hetman's expense, with a seven-columned rotunda between them as an image of Wisdom and the seven liberal arts; below them a row of saints. In the middle register Mazepa appears in knightly armour holding the hetman's mace, surrounded by female personifications of the virtues and the sciences; one of them holds an open book bearing his name. At the foot two putti lean on military trophies — a cannon, drums, arms and banners — flanking the Kurcz coat of arms and the mottoes HUIC OMNIS and STAT GLORIA FERRO. The Latin dedication in the cartouche opens "PRINCEPS ECCLESIARVM TRIVMPHANS SANCTA SOPHIA…", styles Mazepa a knight of the Orders of St Andrew and the White Eagle, and is dated "Kijov 8br 12" — Kyiv, 12 October. Myhura signed himself "IOANNES MIGVRA, Orientalis Metropolis Kijoviensis Archi-Diaconus". The sheet is usually dated 1706, though some scholars tie it to Mazepa's visit to Kyiv on 12 October 1705. After the anathema of 1708 images of the hetman were destroyed on Peter I's orders — this engraving is one of the few made in his lifetime to survive.