The article considers Yuri Kologrivov’s letters from Rome (early 18th
century) as a source for the history of loan vocabulary. Given the almost
total absence of ways to designate works of sculpture or their chronological
and other characteristics, Kologrivov does not hesitate to introduce into his
texts both Russian words with new special meanings (for example,
робятки for putti) and a rather large number of borrowings from Italian,
for terms like ‘statue’, ‘marble’, ‘bust’, ‘vase’, ‘sculptor’, ‘niche’,
‘pedestal’, etc. In one case he uses a borrowing from the Polish (гзымс,
‘cornice’), which, presumably, he learned while he was in Russia. It is
interesting to note one borrowing which later has changed in the Russian usage and therefore was not correctly read by the researchers: in the
scheme of the arrangement of the statues, instead of «Труп Венусовых
забав» (“The Corpse of Venus’ Amusements”) we should certainly read
«Груп Венусовых забав» (“The Group of Venus’ Amusements”,
presumably one of Venus and Cupid playing with a dove) — from the
Italian Gruppo, which word is read in the Italian list of statues duplicating
the Russian one.