An extensive Russian manuscript containing the iconographer's manual (The Royal Library, Stockholm, Acc. No. 1975-116) presents on 502 pages more than 1400 descriptions of saints along with a great number of motives connected to the church feasts. According to linguistic features, orthography, watermarks and content it was written about 1831 in Northern Russia, probably near Tikhvin. The present article contains a short paleographic description of the manuscript and an analysis of its age and geographic attachment. Such manuals including the textual description of the motives are called iconographer's manuals or iconographie guides in literature. The second type of the manuals, the one with patterns, or figures, is also called iconographie guide, or figurative iconographic patternbook, or podlinnik in Russian. However, in the Russian tradition podlinnik means any kind of manual, with textual description or with patterns. The most clear terminology is to use the term iconographer's manual on both types of books (podlinnik in Russian). A text-manual contains the descriptive text (tolkovyj podlinnik in Russian) and a pattern-manual contains patterns (litsevoj podlinnik in Russian). Linguistic features and other data such as the presence or absence of certain saints or the sequence of months in the calendar indicated that the protograph is as old as from the 16th century. The body of the Orthodox Russian calendars displayed very slight variability until the middle of the 18th century and comprised predominantly Byzantine saints. The service books and calendars became more standardised as a result of the centralization of state and church organisation in Russia along with the spread of printed service books. Many Russian saints canonised in Moscow became known all over the country. The share of the Byzantine saints in the oldest Russian church calendars from the 13th century is usually about 95% while the amount of the Russian saints is insignificant. In material from the middle of the 19th century the proportions are about the same. The actual manuscript has only 44% Byzantine saints, more than the half are Russian saints. As much as the third part of the Russian saints is from the Northern Russia which confirms the geographic attachment of the manuscript. On the other hand the protograph seems to originate from the central parts of Russia, most likely from Rostov-Suzdal'. The present article deals with the typology, content and the function of these manuals along with the church-political aspects on their rise. It is based on a series of Russian iconographer's manuals.
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