strip embroidered with gold thread and studded with gems that was a key part of the imperial insignia of Byzantine emperors. From the previous century this had begun to be shown in imperial portraits of other Orthodox rulers, such those of Serbia, Georgia and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. The face of the tsar is very carefully painted and clearly attempts a realistic likeness. There are a number of other portraits of the tsar; at the end of each gospel he is shown at small size in an arcade with the evangelist, and he appears in a large scene of the Last Judgement. In the Paris Greek gospel book with similar images (see above) the equivalent images at the end of each gospel show the evangelist with the abbot. History The text of the manuscript was all written by a monk named Simeon in 1355–1356 on the orders of Ivan Alexander, probably for use in his private chapel. Simeon gives his name in the colophon on f. 275. It is not certain whether Simeon also illuminated the Tetraevangelia or simply was a scribe and calligrapher, or indeed whether he devised the magic square. Probably at least three different artists worked on the miniatures, but as was usual no names are given. The handwriting of the manuscript shows definite similarity with that of the Manasses Chronicle (1344–1345), a product of the Tarnovo Literary School of the time. After the fall of Tarnovo to the Ottomans in 1393, the manuscript was transported to Moldavia possibly by a Bulgarian fugitive, marking the last time for nearly half a millennium it would be in its native Bulgaria. It spent a number of years there and was later bought on the orders and with the resources of Prince Alexander I of Moldavia (also a "John Alexander"), which is evidenced by a red-ink marginal note on folio 5. The later fate of the manuscript until its arrival in monastery of Agiou Pavlou (St Paul) on Mount Athos is uncertain, but the document was recorded as part of the monastery's collection in the 17th century. The English traveller and collector Robert Curzon (later 14th Baron Zouche, 1810-1873), who visited the monastery in 1837, was given the Tetraevangelia as a present by the abbot. This was to his surprise and delight, according to his own account; Milner-Gulland describes it as "shamelessly cadged" from the abbot. This probably saved