Armenian manuscripts

The colophons of the Armenian manuscripts take a special place with their original and rich information among the medieval Armenian written monuments.
In the work we have attempted to thoroughly examine the components of the Armenian colophons, the latters’ diverse ways of expression. We have done some classifications of the Armenian colophons, according to the time of writing, the authors of colophons and the content. We have individually represented the units we encounter in the Armenian colophons, if possible, comparing this all with the identical manifestations occurring in other manuscript traditions.

Pour le paléographe, il est plus commode de travailler avec des classifications nettes et des périodisations distinctes qu’en suivant une tradition confuse. Les styles d’écriture arménienne ne sont pas clairement définis, et il est commun de mélanger un type avec un autre. Une véritable catégorisation universelle n’est véritablement apparue qu’avec l’imprimerie, où l’idiosyncrasie du scribe laisse la place à une implacable logique des formes de lettres.

By Hay Horom (i. e. Armenian Orthodox) Hieromonk Cosmas Synaxarion preserved in the Gospel of the year 1203 (№ 99 of Kyurtian collection in Library of Mechitarists in Venice) is a calendar with commemoration of saints and the fests of all the orthodox ecclesiastical year. In editing of his Synaxarion-Calendar Hieromonk Cosmas used not only Byzantine sources, in particularly the Synaxarion of Constantinople (X c.), but also partially the local Armenian tradition, as his  Synaxarion contains St. Sahak’s, St. Mesrop Mashtots’s, and St. Sukias’s names. As a unique Byzantine-Armenian monument of XIII c. the Cosma’s Synaxarion was intended for liturgical use of Armenian Orthodox (Chalcedonian) communities and represents special value for researches about medieval Armenian and Byzantine hagiological legacy.

The French version of an exploration of Armenian manuscript art for a vast exhibition catalogue on the occasion the 500th anniversary of Armenian printing, 1512-2012.  The exhibit was held in the famous Correr Museum in the Piazzo San Marco using book items from its rich collection with loans from the Mekhitarist Brotherhood collection at San Lazzaro in the Venice lagoon and from various collections in Yerevan, Armenia.

The early centuries of Armenian manuscript painting are known from a small and disparate collection of surviving works.  A general description of these works and their interrelations has thus far been difficult because there are too many lacunae, too many styles, and little supporting textual information.
I would like to use this occasion to reexamine special facets of Armenian painting from an isolated fragment of the late sixth century to the more abundant remains of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries in search of whatever coherence the works can offer.  It is hoped that these preliminary remarks on the genesis of Armenian book illumination will provoke a fertile response from an audience of specialists.  The manuscripts to be discussed in this paper are conveniently listed in chronological order in Table 1; henceforth they will be referred to by date or by manuscript number.

À la fin du Haut Moyen Âge, plusieurs thèmes de l'iconographie chrétienne ayant trait à l'interprétation des scènes de l'Apocalypse montrent un plus grand recours aux motifs géométriques. Ces derniers se substituent aux éléments figuratifs caractéristiques des représentations de l'art paléochrétien. C'est particulièrement le cas des scènes tirées de la vision de saint Jean qui, étant investies initialement d'une signification ecclésiale, se voient conférer progressivement des connotations eschatologiques.

Апстракт: У раду се приказују промене које су визуелне шеме неких хришћанских представа, првенствено оних сачињених од геометријских фи-гура које су потицале из математичких и астрономских приручника, претр-пеле крајем раног средњег века. Веза која се у овој епохи успоставља између библијске иконографије и цртежа из научних рукописа нуди широко поље истраживања из многих перспектива. Овом приликом интересовање за дати феномен условљено је иконографским преображајима који су диктирани садржајем слика и њиховим новим есхатолошким тумачењима На почетку средњовековне епохе иконографски метод који користи небеске представе узете из астрономских и рачунских трактата односи се углавном на апока-липтички контекст виђења светог Јована Богослова, а међу њима су и оне које се анализирају у раду: представе Maiestas Domini и небеског Јерусалима у западној уметности од VIII до X столећа. Проучавање ових раних ико-нографских примера важно је због тога што се метод може применити и на друге теме из средњовековне верске уметности када је у питању истицање есхатолошке димензије представљених сцена. Кључне речи: хришћанска иконографија, апокалипса (откривење), есхатологија, астрономски и рачунски трактати, научни дијаграми, небески точак, илуминирани рукописи, Христос у величанству, Maiestas Domini, не-бески Јерусалим.

This article treats the Armenian manuscripts housed in the Vatican Library, offering an overview of their main contents and principal value, as well as surveying the scholarly work undertaken on the collection. After a brief sketch of some general facts and characteristic features of Armenian manuscripts in general, the main value of the Vatican Library's collection is discussed in relation to Armenian studies at large. Significant individual manuscripts are highlighted and situated in the larger context of Armenian history. Materials bearing upon Roman Catholic missionary efforts among the Armenians and Armenian Catholic communities are discussed, as well as "hybrid" manuscripts that combine Armenian elements with other linguistic, cultural, and confessional traditions.

A large number of Armenian manuscripts suffer from ink corrosion, a phenomenon due to oxidation and hydrolysis in which iron gall ink destroys the cellulose of the book’s paper and the text is lost. Armenian
manuscripts are not only the oldest Christian manuscripts in the world but also contain unique information on the history and culture of the Caucasus region; they also include antique texts translated into Armenian which have been lost in the original language. Therefore, these manuscripts represent a high value for European society in general and Armenian history in particular. An international interdisciplinary team set
out to rescue these books. The composition of the ink and its individual capability to react with the paper is one source for the corrosive destruction. In Armenia various sorts of iron gall inks and soot inks as well as mixtures of both were used. The inks were subject of the first step of a survey to rescue the manuscripts.
However, the text carrier - the paper - must be considered equally relevant in understanding the destruction, as it serves as reaction partner to the ink. The condition of the books varied widely, and
was not explained by the type of ink used. The paper’s composition, manufacturing process, and/or the surface treatment were suspected to be the reason for the condition of the text today. Thus the authors’ second step was to survey the paper. The authors reviewed several known treatments, including the phytate treatment suggested by Reissland and Neevel, which is aqueous and has known disadvantages.

The present paper deals with the question of the origin and literary connections of the ganj-hymns whose invention is attributed to Grigor Narekacʻi. According to the scholarly consensus, Narekacʻi used žamagrk‘ayin k‘aroz or litany as a literary model for his compositions. Directly linking the ganj to the Armenian k‘aroz, it has been argued for an “Armenian origin” of the ganj (Kʻeoškeryan, 1981, idem 2008, Devrikyan  2008, et al). The present paper is an attempt to challenge this view aiming to bring the question of the origin and literary connections of the ganj into a wider literary context. It concentrates on two literary connections: ganj - k‘aroz and ganj - Syriac hymns, madrashā and memrā. Based on a structural analysis of these genres, it demonstrates the extent of the ganj’s literary dependence on these genres as a poetic form revealing both common and distinct structural features. The study, on the one hand, suggests that the ganj’s dependence on the k‘aroz has been overestimated in the previous scholarship. On the other hand, it reveals a set of shared structural features among the ganj and Syriac memrā and madrāshā which provides a basis for discussing possible literary connections among these genres and ganj’s potential reception of some aspects of these genres into its literary form.

This article provides the detailed descriptions of two Armenian manuscripts kept in two Swiss collections - Martin Bodmer Foundation in Cologny (Codex Bodmer 34) and Stiftsbibliothek of Saint Gall (No. 1513). The manuscript of the Bodmer Foundation is a 17th-century Gospel manuscript, which also comprises a hitherto unpublished version of Step'anos Siwnec'i's Commentary of Canon Tables, whose text and an annotated translation are given in the present article. Given the theological and historical importance of this manuscript's colophon, its complete translation is also provided.
The second manuscript is a handwritten copy of Joachim Schröder's Thesaurus Linguae Armenicae, copied in 1775 by a local monk at the Abbey of Saint Gall, where it continues to be preserved.

LA vision du PRoPhètE dAniEL suR quAtRE bêtEs dAns LE LEctionnAiRE dE hEt'um ii par Emma Chookaszian université Paul-valéry montpellier 3 université d'État d'Érévan L'une des plus luxueuses et mystérieuses scènes du manuscrit, « La vision du Prophète daniel sur quatre bêtes », décore de haut en bas la marge du folio 129a du Lectionnaire écrit et illustré en 1286 sur l'ordre du roi het'um ii 1. cette représentation est, comme les autres images mar-ginales de ce manuscrit, un exemple incomparable dans la peinture armé-nienne. sa particularité n'est pas seulement le thème, dont quelques exemples sont connus, mais aussi le style qui est, dans l'art arménien, une totale innovation. Au-dessus de la marge de la page, dieu le Père est dessiné dans le médaillon rayonné, et la vision elle-même se développe dans la marge laté-rale. Au-dessus de la page un ange s'approche de l'image de daniel endormi horizontalement, et le touche de la main. Au-dessous on peut distinguer avec difficulté, dans l'image marginale, les quatre bêtes entrelacées avec des dessins feuillus et des formes animales. La première ressemble à un lion, la deuxième à un ours, la troisième à un léopard ; la quatrième a de grandes dents en fer et ses dix cornes forment un demi-cercle autour de la tête. même si, naturellement, cette image n'est pas la représentation littérale de la vision, cependant le miniaturiste a tout fait pour donner à la scène une impression percutante. dans la prophétie de daniel la première bête est décrite ainsi : « La première ressemblait à un lion, et avait des ailes d'aigle. Pendant que je regardais, ses ailes ont été arrachées, elle a été soulevée de terre et mise debout sur ses pattes comme un homme, et un coeur d'homme lui a été donné » 2. dans l'image du Lectionnaire de het'um, la tête et les ailes du lion sont clairement visibles, mais les ailes ne ressemblent pas beaucoup 1 Érévan, maténadaran m. maštoc', manuscrit 979, folio 129a, image 1. 2 La prophétie de daniel 4-5.

Cet ouvrage a bénéficié d’une aide de l’Agence Nationale de la Recherche portant la référence ANR-O9-BLANC-0307-01 et s’inscrit à l’intérieur du programme de recherches sur la création d’un mythe d’Alexandre le Grand dans les littératures européennes que Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, profes- seur à l’Université de Lille 3 et membre de l’Institut universitaire de France, dirige et qui est hébergé à la MESHS –Maison européenne des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société (CPER 2009-2010, ANR 2009-2014).

ISBN 978-2-503-55414-3

The abundantly illustrated article elaborates the history of Armenia paleography from its inception to modern techniques, discussing the contribution of each individual paleographer from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. The essay represents the introduction to the vast Album of chronologically arranged examples from some 200 select manuscripts. There is a clear presentation of the evolution of the four major Armenian scripts. The work is accompanied by the detailed bibliography of the subject.

Olympic victor lists are critical to our understanding of the chronological underpinnings of Greek history. Over 100 fragments from roughly twenty different Olympionikai have come down to us, but Eusebius' Chronika supplies the only extant, complete list. The last critical edition of Eusebius' Olympic victor list is that of Alfred Schoene, Eusebi Chronicorum libri duo (Berlin, 1866-1875). A revised critical edition of this list - based on Paris, BNF, gr. 2600 and on an Armenian translation made ca. A.D. 450 - is here given together with an English translation and an array of relevant background information.

Many of the 24 articles (in English, German and French) gathered in this book were provided in honour of the 60th birthday of Professor Erich Renhart, founder of the Vestigia Manuscript Research Centre of the University of Graz. Other articles were written in connection with the diverse researches conducted at Vestigia on the traces of the cultural heritage represented by Armenian, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Latin, and Croatian Glagolitic manuscript traditions, scattered in libraries around the world. Organized according to these main sections – Text Editions, Manuscript Cataloguing, Manuscript Studies, Digital Humanities, Varia Studia – the volume provides new approaches and results to the study of written heritage in different cultures, as well as digital solutions to preserve and study this heritage codicologically and paleographically. The book is concluded by a final chapter Ad personam, presenting the personal words and a Laudatio addressed to Erich Renhart on the occasion of his 60th birthday celebration (23–24, May 2019) at the University of Graz. Many illustrations and images facilitate the understanding and altogether contribute to the high aesthetic standard of the work – corresponding to its subject matter.

The study of the scriptoria in Yerevan and its environs revealed the name of a productive scribe form the second half of the 17th century, who has copied about three dozens of manuscripts in Yerevan, Noragavit‘ and the Mother See of Holy Ejmiatsin. In his colophons, he always signed as Grigor Yerevants‘i and due to these scribal notes and colophons, we were able to find out some information about the scribe and his family as well, which helped us in the study of several manuscripts.
On the basis of the paleographic features of the manuscripts and the linguistic and stylistic analysis of their colophons, we have examined and identified 29 manuscripts completely or partially copied by the scribe Grigor. It should be noted, that their commissioners are representatives of various social groups and clergy, among them, two Armenian Catholicoi, Eghiazar I Aynt‘apts‘i (1682-1691) and Nahapet I Edesats‘i (1691-1705).
The list of the scribe’s manuscripts is presented in a separate table at the end of this article (see Table 1). The vast majority of them are kept in the Matenadaran of Yerevan (20 mss.), 4 manuscripts are in the manuscripts collection of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 2 other manuscripts are in the manuscripts collection of the Mekhitarian Fathers of Venice, the rest are in the National Library of France (1 ms.), and the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of St. Petersburg (1 ms.). The current location of one manuscript is unknown (it was registered in the catalogue of the Armash monastery manuscripts).

In this article, we examine the relationship between Armenian dictionaries and colophons, which we present in three groups:
a. words which are known to dictionaries only from the colophons.
b. words which are known to dictionaries in one example, but the colophons give other testimonies.
c. words attested in dictionaries the older usages of which we find in the colophons of the Armenian manuscripts.
A number of new words that are not attested in Armenian dictionaries is also presented with the study of their formation structures.

The issue considers the problems of research of the Old Russian, Greek, Latin and other manuscripts, among them are the palaeography, codicology and history of art. Special attention is paid to technical and technological aspects of medieval manuscripts and methods of its conservation.
ISBN 978-5-6040634-4-4-6

The study is dedicated to the activities of Grigor Khoja, a member of one of the influential families of the late medieval Yerevan known as the Motsakentc.In the context of this research, it is important to highlight the valuable evidences of various written sources of the XVII-XVIII centuries, among which the main colophon of the manuscript MM 6231 copied in 1652, stands out with its relevant information about Grigor. In the same colophon, the scribe lists the construction works funded by Grigor Khoja, who has sponsored also the writing of the manuscript and made various donations to the Kathoghike St. Astvatsatsin Church in Yerevan. According to this source, the chapel of the same church and a bridge in the nearby village of Parakar were built with the financial support of Grigor Motsakentc. However, as it seems, the construction of the bridges was not limited to this. According to historian Arakel Davrijetsi, the Ashtarak bridge on the Kasakh River was built under the sponsorship of the same Grigor Khoja.
In the article, there are mentions of other people by the family name of Motsakentc, about whom, however, our information is scarce.

This paper is about the silver cover of the Gospel illustrated in 1598 at Khizan and preserved in Mashtots Matenadaran (No.5576) in Yerevan.For the composition of the Descent from the Cross on the silver cover the unknown Armenian goldsmith have used the engraving made in 1620 at the ''school of the engravers'' of Piter Paul Rubens. That engraving was produced on the base of the Descent from the Cross created by Rubens for th Cathedrale in Antverpen during 1611-1614. This paper  introduces also with the other Armenian artworks that have certain connections with the legacy of Piter Paul Rubens.

The pax mongolica of the thirteenth century instituted after the conquests
of Genghis Khan reopened the Silk Road and provided a
locus for the exchange—or, better, the importation into the imagination
of medieval Armenia —of a number of notions and artistic
expressions from China. The study is devoted to a close analysis
of this cultural contact with East Asia by examining in depth a number
of oriental motifs only casually described in earlier literature.

A question that always disturbs historians writing about social or economic conditions of earlier centuries is whether generalizations of hypotheses about relative prosperity or decline in a given period are in fact independently verifiable. Using a form of data mining large numbers of precisely dated codices were charted to see what profiles emerge of productivity, the high and the low points of manuscript copying, as a guide to patronage and production.