The craftsman Danila from Novgorod

The paper interprets a drawing and inscriptions on a casting mold from Novgorod featuring a «portrait» drawing signed «Danila». According to the author, the drawing exhibits a self-portrait of a craftsman who was a goldsmith (silversmith) and a graver of molds. This paper is the first attempt to restore and interpret the preserved fragments of inscriptions on the adjoining side of the mold as the name of the street where the craftsman lived and worked, i. e. Kuzmodemyanskaya street. The name Danila, the time-line roughly consistent with the time of his learning and the life of his famous classmate Onfim, who is the author of notes and homework exercises scratched on birch bark as well as the drawings found near Kuzmodemyanskaya street, handwriting and preserved fragments of inscriptions provide some grounds to identify the craftsman Danila as On-fim's friend. However, regardless of the probability of such identification, there are no doubts that a craftsman called Danila who made molds lived and worked in a workshop in Plotnitskiy end of Novgorod in the middle-second half of the 13th century