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Hermitage in the World of Publications During the Hermitage Days an exhibition is traditionally held in the foyer of the Hermitage Theatre, focusing on the scientific activities and exhibitions of the State Hermitage Museum for the departing year. In 2007 the State Hermitage Museum Publishing House released more than forty books and brochures. As usual, the publishing activities are based entirely on the museum's work: scientific research, exhibition and exposition based and educational. The most numerous publications of any museum are always catalogues. The State Hermitage Museum produces two types of catalogue: catalogues of our collections and catalogues for temporary exhibitions. The first contains full information about the State Hermitage collection aimed at the specialist. They can be identified by their severe design, dark green, identically coloured covers. In the previous year three such catalogues were published: The Art of Russian Masons in the 18th - 19th Centuries by N.M. Mavrodina; Italian Sculpture of the 14th - 16th Centuries by S.O. Androsov and The Seal of the Byzantine Emperors by I.V. Sokolova. All three catalogues are the fruit of many years work by the curators at the State Hermitage Museum. The Art of Russian Masons is the first complete publication on the State Hermitage Museum's unique collection of Masonic art. The gigantic vases, table tops, lamps from coloured stones are familiar to any visitor of the State Hermitage Museum. The book covers 378 exponents, all of them made in the three largest artistic centres for processing stone, in Russia from the 18th century to the start of the 20th century: at Peterhof and Yekaterinburg there are lapidary factories and Kolyvansk there was a grinding factory. The catalogue talks about the organization for production at these factories from the time of their foundation until the First World War. Italian Sculpture of the 14th- 16th Centuries includes more than two hundred works of Italian sculpture from this period, including the works of such masters as Antonio Rossellino, Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Antonio Lombardo and the great Michelangelo. The collection began to be formed already in the time of Catherine the Great,when along with ancient monuments examples of renaissance sculpture were also brought to St. Petersburg. However, until recent times the collection remained was largely ignored by scholars. The catalogue represents the first effort to scientifically systematize and study the collection. The Seal of the Byzantine Emperors is a catalogue which includes monuments from the 4th-14th centuries, capturing almost the entire period of the existence of the Byzantine Empire. The State Hermitage Museum collection is based on the collection of the former Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople and the collection of a leading Russian collector N.P. Likhachev. In the edition as well as the State Hermitage collection demonstrates various seals made of lead, gold or extremely rarely, silver. The author gave himself the task to publish all the seals of the Byzantine Emperors kept at the State Hermitage Museum with exhaustively complete information about each one. The basic presumption of the catalogues for the temporary exhibitions, as opposed to collection catalogues, is not so much the collection but the idea and concept of the actual exhibition. One of the more notable projects for the previous year was Alexander the Great: Road to the East. The key idea of both the exhibition and the catalogue was to show the global and irreversible changes, which came about as a result of the eastern campaigns of Alexander the Great and short-lived union of huge territories from the Balkans to Bactria, India and Egypt into a single empire. The catalogue included nine introductory articles by curators of the State Hermitage Museum specialists in Hellenism from other academic establishments. The edition represented more than 500 display items from almost every department of the museum. The structure of the catalogue followed a logical chronological and geographical order of material. Consistency of the sections was provided with general trace campaign route: Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, Persia, India etc.. A separate section was devoted to the Myth of Alexander in the art of western Europe and Russia, and also the historical and cult images of Alexander in western European literary tradition. The Curator series published two books in 2007: In 2007 five volumes of the Works of the State Hermitage Museum were published in a new format. The collations of academic articles and conference materials were united under a single design for the series. However, each department has its own coloured book jacket. One of the main areas of the museum's printing activity as formerly remains popular science/history. Among the colourful publications addressed for a broad readership, has appeared yet one more book in the series of ‘Halls and Buildings of the Hermitage', The Rooms of Empress Maria Alexandrovna in the Winter Palace by T.A. Petrova. The book is dedicated to the unique complex which has preserved its appearance since the middle of the 19th century - the interiors of Maria Alexandrovna, the wife of Alexander II, under whom three leading architects of the period worked - A.P. Brullov, A.I. Stackenschneider and G.E. Bosse, and talks about the history of Maria Alexandrovna's rooms, the flow of court life within them, and the personality of their mistress.
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