Footnotes

• PROVENANCE:
  
  Gifted by Tsar Alexander I to The Reverend Alexander Weir and bestowed by Prince Alexander Galitzine.
  
  Thence by direct descent.
  
  Inspired by Alexander I's support of the Missionaries at Karass (which included bestowing special privileges on the Edinburgh Missionary Society mission and colony at Karass, a settlement in what was known as Russian Tartary) the Reverend Alexander Weir copied the New Testament and presented the manuscript in 1814 to the Emperor for his library.
  
  A few years earlier, the Emperor had joined the Russian Bible Society headed by his trusted friend, prosecutor of the Senate and Holy Synod, and Head of Affairs for Foreign Faiths, Prince Alexander Galitzine. The purpose of this group was to disseminate bibles in the vernacular (as opposed to Slavonic) throughout the Russian Empire. The Edinburgh-based Weir addresses Alexander as 'known friend of religion and the zealous Patron of the St Petersburgh Bible Society'.
  
  In recognition, Prince Galitzine was charged by the Imperial patron with conveying a diamond ring and accompanying note of thanks forming parts of the proposed lot. A copy in the Rev. Alexander Weir's hand of the letter that accompanied the manuscript to St. Petersburg and a draft of his subsequent thanks for the gift are also included.