Florilegium (Izbornik)

A florilegium (izbornik, from the Latin florilegium — 'a gathering of flowers') is a manuscript collection of selected texts, excerpts, sayings, and teachings of various authors, compiled according to a thematic or other principle; a kind of anthology of wisdom. The genre was extremely popular in medieval book culture: from the works of the Church Fathers, philosophers, and didactic tales, collections were compiled for reading, education, and moral instruction. The oldest dated East Slavic izborniks are the Izbornik of Sviatoslav of 1073 and the Izbornik of 1076, copied for the Kyiv prince Sviatoslav Yaroslavych; they contain articles of theological, philosophical, natural-scientific, and literary content (notably the famous article 'On Images' — the first Slavic treatise on poetics). Izborniks are a valuable source for the history of early Ukrainian culture, learning, and translated letters. Izborniks were studied by Ivan Franko, Volodymyr Peretz, and historians of early literature.