East-West Artistic Transfer through Rome, Armenia and the Silk Road: Sharing St. Peter’s 1409403068, 9781409403067, 9781032070230, 9781003204619

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East-West Artistic Transfer through Rome, Armenia and the Silk Road

This book examines the arts and artistic exchanges at the “Christian Oriental” fringes of Europe, especially Armenia. It starts with the architecture, history and inhabitants of the lesser known pilgrim compounds at the Vatican in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, of Hungary, Germany, but namely those of the most ancient of Churches, the Churches of the Christian Orient Ethiopia and Armenia. Without taking a Eurocentric view, this book explores the role of missionaries, merchants, artists (e.g. Momik, Giotto, Minas, Paolo Veneziano and Dürer) and artefacts (such as fabrics, inscriptions and symbols) travelling into both directions along the western stretch of the Silk Road between Ayas (Cilicia), ancient Armenia and north-western Iran. This area was truly global before globalisation and was a site of intense cultural exchanges and East-West cultural transmissions. This book opens a new research window into the culturally mixed landscapes in the Christian Orient, the Middle East and north-eastern Africa by taking into consideration their many indigenous and foreign artistic components and embeds Armenian arts into today’s wider art historical discourse. This book will be of interest to scholars in art history, architectural history, missions, trade, Middle Eastern arts and the arts of the Southern Caucasus. Christiane Esche-Ramshorn was Research Associate, Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge, UK, and is Life Member of Clare Hall.

Cover image: St. John (detail), Cilicia, 1256, Matenadaran Erevan, Inv. Nr. 10450, fol. 311v.

Routledge Research in Art History

Routledge Research in Art History is our home for the latest scholarship in the field of art history. The series publishes research monographs and edited collections, covering areas including art history, theory, and visual culture. These high-level books focus on art and artists from around the world and from a multitude of time periods. By making these studies available to the worldwide academic community, the series aims to promote quality art history research. Mobility and Identity in U.S. Genre Painting Painting at the Threshold Lacey Baradel The Imperial Patronage of Labor Genre Paintings in Eighteenth-Century China Roslyn Lee Hammers Public Statues Across Time and Cultures Edited by Christopher P. Dickenson Mapping Impressionist Painting in Transnational Contexts Edited by Emily C. Burns and Alice M. Rudy Price Modern Art in Cold War Beirut Drawing Alliances Sarah Rogers Italian Painting in the Age of Unification Laura L. Watts East-West Artistic Transfer through Rome, Armenia and the Silk Road Sharing St. Peter’s Christiane Esche-Ramshorn Interpreting Modernism in Korean Art Fluidity and Fragmentation Edited by Kyunghee Pyun and Jung-Ah Woo For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/RoutledgeResearch-in-Art-History/book-series/RRAH

East-West Artistic Transfer through Rome, Armenia and the Silk Road Sharing St. Peter’s Christiane Esche-Ramshorn

First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Christiane Esche-Ramshorn The right of Christiane Esche-Ramshorn to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Esche, Christiane, 1957- author. Title: East-West artistic transfer through Rome, Armenia and the Silk Road : sharing St. Peter’s / Christiane Esche-Ramshorn. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021013208 (print) | LCCN 2021013209 (ebook) | ISBN 9781409403067 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032070230 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003204619 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Art and society—Armenia. | Art and society—Italy—History. | Christianity and art—Armenia. | Christianity and art—Italy—History. | Art and transnationalism—Armenia. | Art and transnationalism—Italy—History. | East and West. Classification: LCC N72.S6 E835 2022 (print) | LCC N72.S6 (ebook) | DDC 701/.03—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021013208 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021013209 ISBN: 978-1-409-40306-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-07023-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-20461-9 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003204619 Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Acknowledgements List of figures Photograph credits Introduction: geography of the dogma and the Christian Orient

ix xi xiv 1

1

Compounds at Old St. Peter’s History, setting and function 14 Architecture, decoration, administration and inhabitants 20 The Armenian compound 20 The Ethiopian compound with S. Stefano Maggiore 25 The Hungarian compound with S. Stefano Minore 28 The German “compound” and the Campo Santo Teutonico 31 Administration and inhabitants of the compounds 34

14

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Armenia between “East” and “West” Character of Armenian arts 44 Current state of research and problem definition: brief overview 47

42

3

Historical background Armenians as Europe’s intermediaries 61 Geography: centre and borders 61 Christendom’s longest frontier 63 Silk Road trading colonies 64 Cilician Silk Road trade and a church union with Rome 64 Armeno-French society and culture of Cilicia 65 The Catholics in Armenia 67 Rome’s missionaries in the new heart of the Mongol empire 68 Luxury trade and the Kingdom of Cilicia 69 Dominicans’ most successful missions of the Latin Middle Ages 69 “Against the Tachiks” 70 Rome criticises the Armenian dogma 71 Ayas, the safest harbour in southern Anatolia and the Levant 71 Armenians as specialists in long-distance East-West trade 72

60

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Contents Armenians and luxury trade 72 Armenian merchants’ family palaces 73 Organisation of an Armenian merchants’ family firm 74 Trade with China and central Asia from the second century BCE 75 Armenian position in international silk trade 77 Trading privileges and the Latins in Cilicia 79 Silks and the Armenian production of luxury textiles and dye, vordan karmir 79 Mutual cultural knowledge 81 Imported saints 84 Furnishing the Armenian churches 85 Armenians well-acquainted with Italian book illumination style 86

4

Colonies A mercantile “colonisation” 92 “Obedient ornament to the Roman Church” 102

5

Artistic crossroads Crossroads of languages and alphabets 114 Conclusion 126 Fabrics, silks and patterns 128 Armenian fabrics 129 Armenian nobility and their garments 132 Garments, fabrics and their meaning in Cilicia and Italy 133 Christian Oriental or Muslim fabrics? 143 Display of magnificence 145 Furnished with international taste and style 145

114

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A chronology Thirteenth century 153 New image creations in Armenian manuscript illuminations in Rome 153 Fourteenth century 156 Contemporaries: Momik and Giotto 156 Giotto-adaptation 166 Latin-Armenian illumination made in Italy 167 Armenian Latin illuminators borrow Latin elements for the decoration of initials 172 Toros of Taron and Awag 174 The (Latin) Armenian dominican scriptoria 176 Western maps adjusting biblical geography of Armenia. Saints 177 Fifteenth century 180 Florence, Santa Maria Novella 180 Rome, Old St. Peter’s 182 Vaspurakan 185 Eschatological themes 189

152

92

Contents

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Sixteenth century 190 Armenian Renaissance woodcuts 190 Armenian-made gift for the Doge of Venice 194 Armenian “Silk Road Painting”: Jughayets’i, Michelangelo, Dürer and Italy 197 7

International styles Excursus: Ethiopia and Italy 205 Renaissance, periodisation and “International” style 208

Conclusion Bibliography Index

205

212 214 221

Acknowledgements

The encouragement and support of Deborah Howard have been crucial for this project, which resulted in a Cambridge University Newton grant and a project grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I am extremely grateful for the institutional support this work has received. Research visits to Armenia and Ethiopia to facilitate this study were thus possible. They offered eye-opening views into these countries’ peoples, landscapes and history. In the search for the lost medieval world in the Christian Orient, where Europeans, mostly Italians, used to travel, these field trips proved indispensable for gaining a sense of place and space in the vast open highlands, plains and deserts of the Caucasus and Ethiopia. Soon after the project began, it became obvious that its direction needed to be reset, in order to place a much stronger focus on Armenia, due to the extent of Armenian material still unknown to art historians specialising in the Vatican and Italian arts. It was also important for attempting to address the general historical negligence of Armenian and Christian Oriental material shown by Western art historians and academics. Indeed, doubtful colleagues kept asking if my project was interesting and whether I spoke all the languages (Armenian, Geez and Persian). I hope that this study will assuage many of those doubts, and I further hope that it will encourage future research, even for researchers who are not fluent in all the respecting languages. I thank Levon Zekiyan for inviting me to attend his Armenian language course in Venice in the summer of 2009. My Erevan friends, especially Khachik Grigoryan and his family, helped me in learning Armenian. I remember many happy moments. Armenia’s incredibly rich artistic heritage (this book focuses on painting and sculpture rather than architecture) is well worth including in Western art historical studies. This study could not have been finished without the help of Vrej Nersessian, curator of the Oriental Manuscript Collection in the British Library, who did not mind my regular showing up in the Oriental and African reading room and asking many questions until I felt prepared to face my rather new subject. Our discussions over many coffees made me understand how complex the subject of the Christian Orient really is and how easily one steps into the wrong direction. His generous help will never be forgotten. Of course, any mistakes appearing in the text are mine alone. Theo van Lint generously helped me, especially during the early stages, with invitations to attend a workshop at Oxford and give talks about my project, thereby opening up new ways of thinking about the material at hand. The British Library and, most of all, the wonderful University Library at Cambridge and their helpful staff were essential for my research. The same is true for the Bibliotheca Vaticana, the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome and the Matenadaran in Erevan. Clare

x

Acknowledgements

Hall, Cambridge, provided a helpful and welcoming environment for me while I was doing my research. My travel to Addis Ababa was made much easier with the generous help of Richard Pankhurst, who asked me to bring him chocolates from home. Vrej Nersessian had prepared me for my first-ever trip to Armenia and helped by opening doors and assisting me to make friends. I thank all of my Armenian colleagues and friends for their generous help. An invitation from the Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II to Ejmiadsin was a memorable experience. He received me, flanked by two clerics/clergymen, while sitting under a canopy grown with flowers in a courtyard on a sunny late morning. Equally, the hospitality of Bishop Abraham Mkrtchyan of Vayots Dzor will not be forgotten. This research has taught me a lot, opened up new ways of thinking and new perspectives. During the course of the writing of this book, I had the opportunity of giving various international conference and departmental lectures and organising conference sessions in order to attract attention to this fascinating unknown field of East-West artistic contacts with Armenia. It could only be something of a brief glimpse into this mer a boire. I thank my family and friends, in particular my daughter, who always brought love and laughter to my life during all of the stages of research. I thank all of you, who have patiently listened, shared, discussed and helped bring on its way this new set of ideas, among them especially my Cambridge friends. Due to the outbreak of Covid-19, starting with spring 2020, the purchase of images and copyrights from various institutions was impossible for me. Unfortunately, this is why the book does not contain any maps. Therefore, I would suggest that the reader uses Hewsen’s relevant maps (see Bibliography) to be found online.

Figures

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 2.1 2.2 3.1 4.1 4.2 4.3

4.4 4.5 4.6 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8

Tiberio Alfarano, plan of St. Peter’s Old and New, 1590, engraving, Vatican, Archivio Capitolare di S. Pietro Site of the former Armenian compound at the Vatican, 2008 S. Stefano Maggiore, façade, Vatican, 2008 S. Stefano Minore, ground plan, Vatican, etching Ascension of Christ, Lectionary, Armenian, painted in Bologna, 1324, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 4553, fol. 25 Formerly Ministry for Transport and Communication, detail, Republic Square, Erevan, built 1933–1956 Port of Korykos, Cilicia St. Thaddeus Monastery, Province of Maku, Iran Yivli Minaret Mosque and portal, Erzurum, 1373 Dedicatory page, 1253, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Purchase – Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F 1944.17, fol. 12v St. Hovhannes Church, Jahuk, 1325–1330 Mother of God Church in ruins, Krna, 1325–1350 Andrea Bonaiuto, Thomas Aquinas preaching to the infidels, wall painting, S. M. Novella, Florence, Spanish Chapel, 1366 King Gagik Bagratuni of Kars with his wife and daughter, parchment, eleventh century, Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate 5226 Letter to the Ephesians, Bibliotheca Ambrosiana, Milan, Ms. B20 inf.a, f. 175v, thirteenth to fourteenth centuries Canon Table, Toros Roslin, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore 539, fol. 6 Duccio, Madonna Rucellai, 1285, S. M. Novella, Florence, panel painting Duccio, Madonna delle Grazie, Cathedral, Massa Marittima, ca. 1316, panel painting, detail Giovanni di Paolo, St. Jerome in his studio, panel painting, 1430, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena Filarete, bronze doors of St. Peter’s, Rome, 1433–1445, detail, St. Peter panel Filarete, bronze doors of St. Peter’s, Rome, 1433–1445, detail, St. Paul panel

17 22 26 30 48 49 65 93 98

99 106 107 108 115 116 118 119 120 121 123 124

xii 5.9 5.10

5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 5.19 5.20 5.21

6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 6.11

Figures Toros Roslin, Prince Levon of Cilicia, ca. 1250, parchment, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 8321, fol. 25 St. Mathew, Cilicia, 1253, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Purchase – Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1944.17, fol. 14v Angelo Puccinelli, St. Michael enthroned, panel painting, ca. 1350, detail, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena St. Luke, Cilicia, 1253, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Purchase – Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1944.17, fol. 92v Master of the Madonna of Palazzo Venezia, Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine, panel painting, ca. 1340–1350, detail, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena King Lewon and his family, Cilicia 1272, Jerusalem Armenian Patriarchate 2563, fol. 380 Pietro Lorenzetti, Pala del Carmine, panel painting, before 1345, detail, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Piccola Maesta, panel painting, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Dancing Girl, wall painting, detail from the Good Government, Siena, Palazzo Pubblico St. John, Cilicia, 1256, Matenadaran Erevan, Inv. Nr. 10450, fol. 311v Pietro Lorenzetti, Pala del Carmine, panel painting, before 1345, detail, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena Gregory of Narek writing, 1173, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 1568 fol. 7v Sindukht becoming aware of Rudaba’s actions, detail, Great Mongol Shahnama, Tabriz?, 1330s?, ink, colours and gold on paper, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Washington, DC: Purchase – Smithsonian Unrestricted Trust Funds, Smithsonian Acquisition Programme and Dr. Arthur M. Sackler, S1986.102 Gospel of Queen Keran, Skevra, Cilicia, 1283, parchment, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 6764, fol. 127 Khatchkar of Prince Elikum Orbelian, 1300–1312, Museum Yeghegnadzor Holy Saviour Khatchkar, 1273, Haghpat monastery Madonna and Christchild, tympanum, ca. 1300, Mother of God Church, Noravank Giotto, St. Stephen, 1320–1325, panel painting, Museo Horne, Florence Paolo Veneziano, Coronation of the Virgin, panel painting, ca. 1350, detail, Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice Bartolomeo da Bologna, Homilies, Top of page, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 725, fol.1r Giotto, Ascension, 1305–1306, Arena Chapel, Padova Giotto, Entombment, detail, 1305–1306, Arena Chapel, Padoa Minas, Crucifixion, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 982, fol. 217b Gospel of St. Luke, Perugia 1331, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 7628, fol. 4a

131

134 135 137 138 139 139 140 141 142 143 144

147 155 157 158 159 163 164 165 167 168 169 170

Figures 6.12 Gospel of St. Mark, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 7628, fol. 47v 6.13 Martyrs from Mount Ararat, Latin Missal produced in Magonza, 1392, Stiftsbibliothek, St. Florian, ms. 2307, XI, 464 6.14 Awag, Last Judgement, 1337, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 212, fol. 79v 6.15 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Maesta, Cathedral, panel painting, Massa Marittima, 1335 6.16 Paolo Uccello, After the Flood from the Stories of Noah, wall painting, 1431–1446, Chiostro Verde, S. M. Novella, Florence 6.17 Filippino Lippi Ethiopian, 1487ff., S. M. Novella, Florence, choir chapel, detail 6.18 Minas, Adoration, 1460–1465, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 982–4b 6.19 Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration, 1432, S. Trinita, Florence 6.20 Book of Fridays, 1512, Mkhit’arist Congregation, San Lazzaro 6.21 Vittore Carpaccio, formerly in S. Antonio, Venice, 1514, Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice 6.22 Gabriele Caliari, Reception of the Persian Embassy, 1603, Doge Palace, Venice 6.23 Hakob Jughayets’i, Descent from the Cross, 1587, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 6758, fol. 28v 7.1 Ethiopian Cross, fifteenth century, gilded bronze, Bargello, Florence

xiii 171 173 175 179 180 183 186 187 191 193 195 197 206

Photograph credits

Author Argam Ayvazian Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Washington, DC Bargello, Florence Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut for Art History, Rome Patrick Donabedian Cameraphoto, Venice Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC Khachik Grigoryan Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, Florence “Matenadaran” Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, Erevan Ara Melikian Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena San Lazzaro, Venice Scala, Florence Stiftsbibliothek, St. Florian, Austria Zaven Sargsyan The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Introduction1 Geography of the dogma and the Christian Orient

Throughout this book, we will be examining the artistic exchanges between Armenia and Italy. We will look at the Roman Pilgrim Compounds of Armenia, Ethiopia, Hungary and Germany at the Vatican, with a special focus on Armenia and the western stretch of the Silk Road. During the time frame of this book, from approximately 1250 to 1600, pilgrims from Armenia, Ethiopia, Hungary and Germany inhabited lodgings on the south side of Old St. Peter’s, in a complex of buildings that still offers fascinating insights for art historians. Surprisingly, however, the four foreign pilgrim compounds for pilgrims from Armenia, Ethiopia, Hungary and Germany formerly situated in this area (the Vatican Palaces lie to the north of the basilica) have neither received full attention, except the German, nor have they been interpreted as a group of buildings in terms of their function during our time frame. To this day, Franz Ehrle’s study of 1910 remains the only one that discusses the churches of these four different nations situated to the south side of the basilica, including those of the Armenians, in the area known as the Borgo, the quarter between the Vatican Hill and the Tiber.2 He describes this complex as: “so closely connected with the heart of Christianity, and so worthy of full illumination.”3 The compound given to the Ethiopians around 1480 by Pope Sixtus IV was the last one to be established. Two of the compounds, the German church and cemetery, the Camposanto Teutonico and the Ethiopian church of S. Stefano Maggiore still exist today, although reduced in size. Two of the four compounds belonged to Oriental Christian Churches – those of Armenia and Ethiopia – whereas the two others were assigned to the popes’ ancient European allies, Hungary and Imperial Germany. These four pilgrim compounds are the point of departure. This book opens with the history and reconstruction of their architecture, with the help of both textual and visual evidence. The sources are rich in the case of the Germans, but much sparser and relatively little investigated in the Armenian case. Indeed, the Armenian presence in medieval and Renaissance Rome has never been researched enough in depth. And “Western” art history has neglected if not ignored Armenian painting and sculpture and their mutual relationship to “Western” arts. In addition, during the fifteenth century, a time of dramatic cultural decline has been even less researched compared to other epochs in Armenia’s history. At that time, in Armenia, the art of miniature painting still flourished in some of the monasteries, for example, in Khizan, Lake Van area,4 and artistic production was intense in the Armenian diaspora, for example, the Crimea. It became necessary, therefore, to firmly shift the focus of investigation towards Armenia and to start exploring this widely unknown area known as the Armenian Highlands

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204619-1

2

Introduction

and its relationship to western Europe, which played such an important political role during the time frame of this book.5 What exactly was this role and why had academia entirely forgotten about it, despite recent successful exhibitions which have shed new light onto the material, such as Treasures in Heaven (New York, 1997) and Treasures from the Ark? (London, 2001). Today, China’s development of a modern “Silk Road” is gaining speed. Italy has opened the ports of its ancient trading cities Genoa and Trieste. But Peter Frankopan in his “The Silk Roads. A New History of the World”6 wrote his history without including the Armenians despite Armenia’s crucial role in the medieval and early modern Silk Road trade. This reflects the general academic negligence in history and art history departments and made this book’s focus onto Armenia so necessary. Through its geography, modern Armenia is again involved into China’s expansive trading plans. I have chosen together with Vrej Nersessian (in our view) a user-friendly vocalised transliteration system, in contrast with Armenologists’ use of the Library of Congress and the Hübschmann-Meillet systems. Returning to the Roman pilgrim compounds, the Armenian and the Hungarian compounds were both later destroyed in order to make space for the new layout of the Borgo close to the basilica; the Armenian compound was sacrificed in the seventeenth century to provide improved access to the Porta Cavalleggieri and the newly built Palazzo di Sant’Uffizio (or dell’Inquisizione); and in 1660, the Hungarian S. Stefano Minore or degli Ungari was demolished to make way for the building of the sacristy of New St. Peter’s. The decoration of these buildings will be discussed and interpreted with regard to the other foreign pilgrim houses that were situated in this cosmopolitan pilgrimage destination.7 We shall see how the presence of the Dominican order in the Oriental Christians’ compounds played a crucial role, especially with regard to the supervising and teaching of the Latin Roman dogma, which differed in important points from the dogma of the Oriental Churches. The Union of the Churches, as proclaimed in the Council of Florence (Decreto Armeno), was never put into practice for reasons that will be discussed later in the book. The Roman Church’s intolerance towards the Oriental Churches, which were declared “heretical” when not in union with Rome, was the biggest hindrance of all. This created a deep segregation within the group of Christian Churches. Of course, Rome attracted not only pilgrims but also artists from all over Europe, who worked for the international clientele of the papal court. Works of art were both exported and imported, and foreign saints and patrons were depicted on altars and walls of the “national” pilgrim compounds. This book asks how the four pilgrim compounds at the Vatican each represented the respective foreign community’s identity. For example, “national” altars in the compounds and in the basilica of Old St. Peter’s attracted certain ethnic groups, numerous foreign languages from the entire Christian and non-Christian world were spoken, taught and studied at the Vatican, and interpreters were needed. One even finds a scriptorium in the Armenian compound. We shall discuss several examples of manuscripts that show how, consequently, a “hybrid” Armenian-Italian-Latin artistic style evolved in Italy. In addition, the Ethiopian church’s tramezzo (rood screen) showed a fresco with a Trinity and an Ethiopian Dominican, together with the inscription of his name in Geez. This was a multi-ethnic area due to the confluence of pilgrims, who came from all over the Christian world, including Asia and Africa.8 The compounds shaped the area south of the basilica into a single complex, occupied not only by pilgrims, but also by Dominicans, other orders and canons – the basilica’s canonica was located here. The presence of the famous Vatican Obelisk, which originally

Introduction

3

stood to the south of the ancient basilica and was included in the visitors’ itinerary, added to the importance of the area. The pilgrims’ identity has many different components, of which three are of especial importance in this context: faith, language and alphabet. These will be recurrent themes of deep significance. Before discussing the reasons for the inclusion of Armenia and Ethiopia in the group of foreign pilgrims’ houses and their importance for the popes, not to mention the role of the arts in the compounds, we first need to focus on faith and distinguish Oriental Orthodox from Latin Christianity. Only in this way can we understand the Vatican’s missions, the diffusion of the arts and the dilemmas which Christians faced at the borders of Europe as well as in Rome. All of this had a direct impact on the visual arts, both in Rome and at the periphery of the Christian world.

Faith: the Oriental Churches and the Vatican The chapters about the historical background will discuss extensively the history of the Armenian church in relation to the Roman Church.9 While the Byzantine Church and its links to the West during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have attracted scholarly study, Medievalists and Renaissance scholars have not given the same degree of attention to Armenia. It is symptomatic for our specialised field that this knowledge has so far not reached most scholars of the Middle Ages and European Renaissance. For example, although it is known that Ethiopians, Armenians, Copts and other Eastern Churches were present at the Council of Florence in 1439, the long-detailed story of their relationship with Rome is hardly known and has yet to be written. In the long-term view, the fifteenth century is not the most important period of their contacts with the Church of Rome, but it had its importance especially in regard to the present book.10 Aristeides Papadakis made an important step in this direction by focusing on the perspective of the Eastern Churches; he mentions that “Millions of Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Balkans and Asia Minor were not represented (in the Florentine Council) because their territories were then under Turkish rule.”11 The same is true for most of the Christians in the Near and Middle East. Piecing together the necessary evidence, we shall find that the Vatican, together with the Mendicant orders, did its best to convert the “heretical” Armenian and Ethiopian Churches by Latinising them. Since the time of the Crusades, first Franciscan and later Dominican missionaries had been sent out to the Near and Middle East to convert non-believers. Missionary work and preaching were the key roles of these orders.12 In 1318, Pope John XXII took a new initiative towards Greater Armenia and divided up all of Asia between the Franciscans and the Dominicans as a new missionary territory. He assigned the Dominicans the metropolitan see of the important trading and royal city of Sultaniyah, west of Tabriz. In the huge area between the Caucasus and the Ethiopian Highlands, ancient Christian cultures created distinct churches, cultures and arts.13 Since they were situated between the huge cultural blocks of Christian Europe, Byzantium14 and the Muslim world (where religions mixed), the Oriental Churches of Armenia and Ethiopia were always exposed to the great danger of losing their cultural identity. Indeed, at particularly dramatic historical moments, even their existence was in danger. However, they survived. These areas and cultures (Armenia with its position on the western stretch of the Silk Road and access into the heart of the Middle East via Trabzon in the north and via Cilicia in the south, and Ethiopia with its access to the Indian Ocean trade and to the Red Sea) have always been immensely important for the transmission of religions, science and the arts

4

Introduction

between “East and West” and played an especially important role during the fifteenth century.15 As a consequence of this position, the culture and arts in Armenia show many influences from other non-Christian cultures. Within the time frame of this book, these two most ancient Christian nations were not “Christian borderlands” in the sense of centre (Europe) and periphery. They were themselves “centres,” since these Christian cultures were entirely distinct with their own language, alphabet, faith, literature and arts while at the same time deeply rooted within Asian and African cultures. They both belong to the Christian Orient, a term which has been widely accepted as referring to the ancient Churches of the Middle East, even where the lands in which they dwell were dominated by other civilisations over the course of the centuries.16 The Christian borders in the ‘East’ and north-eastern Africa attracted papal attention not only in the attempt to unite the heretical Oriental Christians and bring them into the Roman Church. In addition to the idea of mission, the raison d’être of the Order of the Preachers, the other motivation was the strategy of attacking the Mamluks of Egypt from all sides through the combined forces of Europe, the Middle East and Ethiopia. In the Middle East, in places such as Armenia, missionaries could preach only to Christians and not to the Muslim “non-believers.” During the fourteenth century, the Dominican order had founded the Dominican Armenian order (Fratres Unitores) to increase its influence in Armenia right in the biblical “centre” close to the Holy Mountain Ararat, in Nakhijevan. Here, the Latin missionaries were able to convert about 50 Armenian monasteries to the Roman dogma. Moreover, Roman bishoprics were founded in the Middle East, and as a result, many clerics came to Rome to be ordained by the popes. Therefore, the number of Armenian clerics travelling to Rome increased significantly. The presence of Latin missionaries generally met with fierce resistance from the Armenian church, who in 1441 had moved from Cilicia back to its ancient seat in Ejmiadsin (where it remains to this day). In Ethiopia, at that time, the relationship between the Vatican and the Ethiopian King had increased in intensity through embassies in both directions (which the Egyptian sultans tried to prevent), and the popes even sent religious books, vestments and paintings (such as a portrait of Sixtus IV), as well as artists and artisans to Ethiopia.17 Although here, too, some Ethiopian clerics feared too strong an influence from the Roman Church, the Ethiopian King, who was head of the church, prevented this quite effectively. Nevertheless, through the presence and invitation of Italian and other foreign artists during the fifteenth century to work in Ethiopia (they had to stay in Ethiopia and were never allowed to return home), these Europeans were able not only to change Ethiopian art stylistically, but also in some cases to modify its iconography by introducing new scenes and interpretations. In addition, the especially dangerous circumstances under which Europeans travelled to Ethiopia were reason enough to keep Ethiopia at a relatively safe distance from papal influence. This, of course, was different when Ethiopians stayed in Rome. By viewing the Armenian, Ethiopian and Hungarian pilgrim compounds in the Roman Borgo against this background, we shall see that in all three cases (excluding the Germans) Dominicans had control over the practice of the Roman rite there. The Dominicans kept watch over the dogma. Only the Roman rite was allowed in Rome, and this one-faith policy had important consequences for the arts. No other artistic subjects than those compatible with Latin dogma were allowed. Only when we take into consideration the different dogmas of Christianity are we able to discuss cultural transfer in the Christian Orient in Asia and Africa, a subject much neglected by Western art history. I shall

Introduction

5

address this problem later in this outline, when I talk about the different categories of comparative art history in the Middle East which I gather under the name of “geography of the dogma.”

Sharing sacred space in the pilgrim centres The artistic impact of the intense links between the Armenians as Oriental Christians and Medieval and Renaissance Rome – the main theme of this book – has never been explored by Western art historians in detail. This book addresses these consequences from both sides. It asks how the relationship with the Oriental Christians affected the arts of Italy – and of Rome in particular – and investigates the arts of the Armenians living in the Italian diaspora. As a second stage, it asks what the European presence in Armenia meant for the arts in these regions. Armenia does certainly not occupy a central position in Western art historical thinking, due to the distinction between academic fields on either side of the perceived cultural divide between East and West. As Christian culture, does it belong to the West or to the East, since its arts are deeply rooted in the Middle Eastern cultures? Sadly, this East-West distinction limits our view. We should treat the Christian Orient as an independent subject of study, a geographical area where faiths and cultures coexisted and intertwined, an area which was always in contact with the West. Only by integrating these ancient cultures like Armenia within Western academia can we adequately study the ancient links with the Christian Orient. Concerning Western art history, this will require an open view towards the inclusion of cultures that the Church of Rome has usually viewed as being heretical. Referring to Armenia’s Hellenic heritage and religious dimension and its integration and place in Europe, Theo van Lint writes, “The Armenians are very well equipped for an encounter with Europe: the elements are in place that would make a mutual enrichment possible, since there is enough common ground.”18 The study of medieval and fifteenth-century arts will remain incomplete until we finally open up our field and include the Christian East. Rome was never an island. While Venice was connected through trading networks, Rome was linked to geographically distant places by the activities of its missionaries and, hand-in-hand, by papal politics and trade. The Christian world reached the Euphrates in the east and sub-Saharan Africa in the south, as demonstrated by the innumerable embassies which reached Rome from the Christian Orient and beyond. The question addressed here is what role the Oriental Christians played in the microcosm of medieval and Renaissance Rome, especially since the Vatican preached the ideal of union between Rome and the schismatic Churches of the East. How was the Western centre of pilgrimage shared by various Christian groups, and what united and divided them? For example, what do we know about the reactions of Europeans to the Armenians? As mentioned, Rome was a cosmopolitan pilgrim centre, but only one faith was practised there – like multi-ethnic Mecca and Medina.19 By contrast, in multi-ethnic Jerusalem, which was under Mamluk rule in the fifteenth century, three faiths – Islam, Judaism and Christianity (which included the Catholic, Greek and Armenian churches) – shared its pilgrim sites. Here, many pilgrims from Europe encountered Muslims and Oriental Christians for the first time in their lives. European visitors to the Holy Land often commented on the Armenians and Ethiopians, in many cases surprised, even puzzled and not positively. We shall find similarly revealing comments from other Europeans,

6

Introduction

for example, those travelling to Armenia. Religious tracts such as Nikolaus von Cues’ De Pace Fidei take a more tolerant stance towards the Oriental Churches than the Vatican. Although the popes of Rome received numerous Persian, Turkish and Egyptian embassies, Florence was the intellectual centre of philosophy and oriental studies. The dramatic case of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who, protected by Lorenzo de’ Medici, had striven to join all schools of thought in a single blend of philosophies, ancient and medieval, pagan and Christian, Muslim and Jewish, testifies to the dangers of intellectual work within an intolerant Christian society. He had these conclusions printed in Rome in 1486, and to introduce them he composed a work eventually of fame, the “Oration on the Dignity of Man.” Innocence VIII accused him of heresy. Consequently, he fled to France, was briefly jailed and later returned to the Dominican monastery of S. Marco in Florence, where he died at an early age.20 Forty years earlier (1439 ff), the Florentine Council of Church Union had gathered theologians from the Christian world. Filarete’s 6-m-high bronze doors for the basilica of St. Peter’s, which I shall discuss in detail, expresses the attitude of the universal Roman Church using various Oriental languages.21 In medieval and Renaissance Rome, according to the papal one-faith policy, the decoration of the churches of the Armenians and Ethiopians had to be “Latin.” However, in these churches, inscriptions in the respective language were allowed, as illustrated by the Ethiopian example mentioned earlier, in which a Dominican Ethiopian was shown on the church wall beside a depiction of the Trinity. With good reason, the Trinity and Holy Spirit were major points of discussion over which the Western and Oriental Churches never found common ground. Another point was the belief in purgatory and hence the selling of indulgences, meaning a loss of income for the Roman Church wherever this doctrine was resisted. The unique pilgrim’s report of Armenian bishop Martiros Erznkatsi (travelled 1489–1496 to Rome and beyond) never mentions them, contrary to the usual reports of his Latin contemporaries. This research into Rome’s links with Europe’s borders and the Christian Orient – Armenia and Ethiopia, and Hungary and Germany – will invite the reader to take a different perspective on the art and architecture of the Borgo during the Renaissance.22 The book seeks to show how the Roman faith, by excluding any alternative such as the Oriental Christian creeds, determined the artistic production of Italy. Comparing the culture of Rome with Armenia and its arts, the restrictive policy of the mono-faith society becomes all the clearer. At the same time, the Armenians lived in the Italian diaspora in relatively large numbers (most probably more or less assimilated with the Church of Rome), for example, in communities in all of the major Italian cities such as Rome, Florence, Perugia and Venice. The arts are a sensitive indicator of the level of integration of these communities into mainstream Italian life, as a later chapter will demonstrate.

Towards the borders of Europe: towards a geography of the dogma When we leave Byzantium and the Mediterranean Sea and travel towards the east, we step into areas, which, with regard to traditional scholarship, are under represented, such as Anatolia, the Caucasus, Armenia, the Middle East and north-eastern Africa. From early on, however, it was clear that Armenia and Ethiopia are both independent distinctive artistic centres located at the Christian borders. Churchmen, merchants and ambassadors travelled to the faraway and inaccessible church and trading outposts at the Christian borders such as Caffa in the Crimea, Nakhijevan, Tabriz and Ethiopia. We need to bear in mind that during the period under

Introduction

7

investigation Mongols, Timurids and Turkmen reigned in Tabriz and Sultaniyah, a trading centre more important and bigger than any in Europe. This multi-faith Muslim city with Christian minorities kept vivid contacts with Europe’s courts. Evidence shows that Europeans brought with them artefacts from home. How did the Europeans first experience these new artistic territories? When we move our eyes across maps, we are able to step into artistic landscapes as if entering huge imaginary doorways. Each door opens into another one and the artistic landscape thus slowly changes while we enter ever newer “artistic spaces.” Travelling through these geographical areas, we pass through one cultural “door” after another until we reach the multi-faith areas of the Near and Middle East. Here, we encounter a different artistic region compared to the mono-religious West: one which is often artistically “mixed,” where different ethnic groups and religions have coexisted for hundreds of years. Like Armenia, similarly, Ethiopia was under threat by Muslims. Both these Christian “outposts” developed their strength in trade, a necessary pre-condition for exchange and cultural transfer: Armenia through its position on the western stretch of the Silk Road; and Ethiopia with its Red Sea port and Indian Ocean trade. Since ancient times, both cultures had assimilated diverse artistic influences from other countries, such as Mongol, Chinese, Western and Byzantine influences in Armenia, and Egyptian, Arabian and Indian influences in Ethiopia. Since Josef Strzygowski first recognised the crucial role of Armenia’s early church architecture in understanding the development of Western and Eastern architecture, art historical scholarship has discussed the position of Armenian art within the framework of world arts from a comparative perspective.23 Concentrating on medieval architecture, however, these studies did not include the arts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.24 In trying to define Armenian art’s true position within world art, art historians have developed extreme positions, ranging from the stance of Strzygowski, who thought the origins of Armenian architecture lay exclusively in Iran, denying any importance of Mediterranean cultures, to the opposite position, which gave Eastern Christianity all the credit.25 According to Richard Krautheimer, of all the border countries of the Empire, Armenia was the only one to confront Byzantine architecture on an equal footing during the Middle Ages. This important observation also applies to the following centuries. Armenia and likewise Ethiopia developed distinctive cultures and artistic styles. Krautheimer then addresses the question of the artistic dependency of Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance architects, such as Leonardo and Bramante, on Armenian-centralised church plans, including the possible influence on St. Peter’s in Rome.26 These remarks bring us back to one of the main themes of this book, namely, the unexplored links between Italy and Armenia, especially in miniature and monumental painting and sculpture. By exploring the life of the Armenians in medieval Rome, it becomes clear just how much opportunity for communication and exchange existed between these cultures. So how can we address the relationship between these two arts? What is the place of Armenian arts? As late as 2001, Robin Cormack remarked “and the question remains how Armenian art can be incorporated into a broader art-historical discourse.”27 If that place isn’t at all clear, how can we address the relationship between the Armenian and “other” arts? In the chapter about “Sacred Art in Theology and Worship” in Treasures of the Ark, Vrej Nersessian writes on the theology of Armenian art and on the theology of colour and ornamentation. “The core of Armenian aesthetic thinking is Nerses’ (Nerses Shnorhali 1102–73) proposal that the world of experience should be divided into two

8

Introduction

classes of objects – the necessary and the pleasurable or sensuous.”28 Nerses Shnorhali was one of the most influential thinkers of the medieval Armenian church and therefore, in order to address the place of Armenian art within the world arts, we have to focus on a “theology of aesthetics.” Theology is a key subject of this book and to understand the relationship between the arts (and the people) in question and helps define categories for a comparative art history of the Christian Orient and its links with the West one needs to understand what I am going to call “geography of the dogma.” Who lived where together with whom and believed in which faith and under which circumstances? Christian culture was defined by dogma, as we have already seen in the case of Rome. By focusing on dogma and the problematic contacts between the Armenian and Roman Churches, this book analyses the artistic contacts and the position of Armenian painting and sculpture within the context of “Latin” arts. Only with dogma as the first among other categories can we compare these arts with one another. Dogma was the one defining factor within the relationship between the Christian Orient and Europe. It is imperative to compare medieval Western (e.g. Thomas of Aquinas’) with Armenian (such as Nerses Shnorhali’s) aesthetics and Persian aesthetics to locate the arts within their international framework. By applying this category, it is fascinating to look at the art of a painter such as Fra Angelico, a Dominican monk, who painted exclusively for the popes, the Dominicans and the Franciscans (the popes were often members of these orders). His paintings express perfectly the aesthetics of his time, and his art was the finest expression of the Dominican order’s theology. Many details in Fra Angelico’s paintings seem to derive from reports of missionaries returning to the order’s monasteries in Tuscany or Rome, such as precious gold, colours, carpets and Oriental garments. This book will also address the question of what, in terms of artefacts and art works, travelled back and forth between Europe and Armenia. What reflections of these art works do we find in the respective cultures? What do we know about the outfitting of the united Dominican Armenian monasteries in Armenia? And how would the missionaries have reacted to the (“heretical”) arts of Armenia, where Christian dogmas “clashed”? Like seeds carried by the winds, foreign styles entered these regions from all sides, from the Eastern Silk Road, the Western Mediterranean and from central Europe. These seeds germinated or moved on, were integrated or rejected. To a certain degree, this seemingly unstable process can be explained by the specific circumstances of the time. Historical moments could either favour or prevent infiltration of the typical Latin “Western” stylistic characteristics such as linear perspective, proportion or three-dimensionality. This book seeks to open new research into the culturally mixed landscapes of Armenia, by taking into consideration their many indigenous and foreign artistic components. Dogma is the one key element which most determined the arts at the borders of Europe. During the Middle Ages and fifteenth century, Oriental Christians along the Silk Road borrowed certain elements from Italian art, but also invented new scenes under this influence. Important studies have already explored aspects of cultural transfer between “the West,” the Muslim and the Greek world.29 We now must address questions regarding the role of the Christian Orient as “hybrid” zones and ask how permeable they were. Were they especially creative zones because of the meeting of various artistic styles, iconography and symbols? In which directions did artistic transfer tend to work? The freedom, expressionistic originality and inventiveness that one notices in the Armenian arts defined these artistic centres. Depending on our perspective, the terms “borderlands” or “frontiers of Christianity” are somewhat misleading, since these were artistically independent

Introduction

9

entities which at different times and for different reasons during their history adapted or rejected foreign styles. The study of Christian border arts requires knowledge of the faith and rites of the Oriental Churches and of their history regarding the Church of Rome. Art historians have so far neglected to interpret the arts of the Italian Mendicant orders as missionary “tools” (aesthetic “conquest”) directed to the conversion of the heretical “enemy” in the Christian Orient. Paintings on wood, fabric and also prints were especially important as teaching tools there.

Shared symbols In addition, we shall have to discuss carefully how not only style, but also symbols were shared by Latin Christians, Oriental Christians, Muslims and in some cases Buddhists. We shall see that Armenians served as a transmitter between East and West, and the symbols of the cross, sun, moon, wheel, star and knot carved on thousands of Armenian khatchkars are the symbols which link the West with the wide spaces of Asia and Africa.30 We find these motifs decorating Italian manuscripts and church facades, and although they often look the same they express different meaning. Anatolian carpets play an important part in this cultural transfer from the Middle East to Europe.31 The Armenian merchants had a major role in the carpet trade with Europe, adding to their important function as ambassadors between “enemy cultures,” because they had learned to live and trade with the “enemy” in distant friendship over the centuries. This book discusses how at the same time their resulting language and diplomatic skills were eagerly employed by both European and Asian rulers.32 Careful investigation into the symbols and their different meanings in the culturally mixed zones is urgently needed and may lead to important insights regarding a precise understanding of artistic coexistence in the Christian Orient. More often in this book, however, we shall have to content ourselves with questions rather than answers.

Methodology The point of departure of this book, the first chapter, is the late medieval ensemble of the four pilgrim compounds at the Vatican. Once the location and history of the buildings are discussed, the discussion moves to the four different cultures (Armenia, Ethiopia, Hungary and Germany), their presence in medieval and Renaissance Rome and the consequences for the arts. Because of the hitherto underestimated or even neglected importance of Lesser and Greater Armenia in western art history, this book has a strong focus on Armenian church, history, trade and arts. The key themes of the second chapter are a brief discussion of selected works and the state of present research with regard to the “contact” between the arts from the “West” and the Armenian “East,” the character of Armenian arts and its identity. Chapter 3 deals with the historical background and is written with the focus on Armenia’s role as intermediaries in long-distance trade. This book addresses the journeys made by fourteenth- and fifteenth-century churchmen, merchants and ambassadors travelling to the lands of the Christian borders: along the western stretch of the Silk Road, into Cilicia, the Armenian homeland (and on the Ethiopian Highlands). Although fifteenthcentury mapmakers were able to produce good maps of both countries and itineraries, most of these were still based on the Ptolemaic model. However, detailed late medieval travel itineraries to central Asia and north-eastern Africa exist.

10

Introduction

On the other hand, the presence of Italians in Cilicia, their mercantile “colonisation” efforts and in a second step the term “geography of the dogma” helps understand the complicated net of inter-woven mercantile and missionary interests. The Latin missions into the western stretch of the Silk Road (Mongol-dominated during their early stages) were organised as an “attack” on Armenian dogma. Throughout the later Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, explorations and missions throughout the known world were the popes’ means to achieve an ever more “international” approach towards a union of the Christian Churches. Parallel to the Portuguese sea voyages along the African coasts and to the West Atlantic, the fifteenth-century popes made a new all-encompassing claim to these new-found territories for Christian spirituality.33 This is reflected in the Roman arts. Chapter 5 discusses Lesser and Greater Armenia as “artistic crossroads” and theatre of artistic exchange between approximately 1200 and 1600. The focus is on languages and alphabets appearing in the arts of Armenia and the “West.” A discussion of fabrics, silks and patterns represented in both arts follows and proves how trade and taste move from one continent to the other along the Silk Road and appear in contemporary Armenian paintings of their time and only much later on in Tuscany. An important point which will be discussed in detail is Armenian production of fabric and possible export to Italian markets. A selected chronological list of works of art and their artistic connections between Armenia and Italy and vice versa follows in chapter 6. The examples range from the thirteenth century through 1600. Book illumination in Rome as well as major artists such as Momik and Giotto appear in this list, as do Armenian khachkar carved decoration and relief Madonnas of Nakhidjevan based on European models (but with Armenian inscriptions). The Noah iconography will be discussed in the frescoes in the cloister of Santa Maria Novella, Florence and Filarete’s riddles on the bronze doors of St. Peter’s. Eschatological themes in various arts will be interpreted and depictions of Armenian legends and merchants in Venetian painting and more. Dürer will appear as the producer of models for biblical scenes in the arts of the Christian Silk Road. A brief excursus into Ethiopia’s arts and history follows in chapter 7. A discussion of “international” style in the arts of the western Silk Road and Armenia into the term “Renaissance/s” and “periodisation” closes the book. Regarding the underlying background of religious hegemony and tolerance, this book aims to open up a new field for art historical research through its interdisciplinary approach. By entering new geographical regions for medieval and Renaissance research, it will necessarily leave questions unanswered.

The way forward This book is a study of the “arts travelling” and of European artistic models’ migration to the Silk Road (and Ethiopia), a process so far widely ignored by art history. We may wonder why this is so. Clearly, historical research is still missing regarding the late medieval and early modern Christian communities in the Middle East (including the Syrians) and its architecture and arts. European travel reports from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries, for example, give valuable information regarding the multi-faith world in which the Christian communities there lived, including its architecture, decoration and outfitting. Ethiopia today is one of the poorest countries in the world, and Armenia is only now gaining in strength after having recently passed through hard times. Ethiopia is not yet fully linked with Western academia; Armenia, however, is clearly represented. The West’s relative

Introduction

11

ignorance of these ancient cultures is rather disturbing and is probably the reason why Western art history has widely ignored its Christian borders, although recent exhibitions of Armenian arts and cultures (see the respective endnotes to this Introduction) in England and France gave the general public an excellent opportunity to familiarise itself with them. In the light of the present political turmoil in the Near and Middle East, it is time to research what is left of the many different groups of Oriental Christians before their remains disappear.34 The history of the numerous religious groups living together in close proximity in the Near and Middle East still needs to be written before it is too late, and the limited number of remaining artefacts is lost. Although they are the most ancient Christian churches and despite their continuous yet problematic contacts with the popes in Rome, traditionally, the Oriental Churches had to live in a sort of penumbra between these “distant frontiers” (if seen from a European perspective) and the major cultural blocks. This has not changed and today because of the tensions between the West and some Middle Eastern countries, the Oriental Christians have to face their continuous exodus from their ancient homelands. In contrast to the West, the three monotheistic religions had to find ways of coexistence during the period of this book. The Western tradition of one faith only, “Latin” Christianity, has prevented a free and unhindered view on the Christian Orient. This book aims to give back to the Armenian Christians their place within the group of Christian cultures. The “geography of the dogma” can be a valuable tool in this endeavour. For example, the relationship, dependencies and mutual influences between the arts of Armenian and medieval Europe are still far from clearly understood. Another problem concerns the arts in the Armenian diasporas in Italian cities. It is now time to acknowledge Armenians and their art as an important intermediary between “East and West.” In this process of cultural mediation, Ethiopia’s role, too, is crucial and hitherto undervalued. Symbols travelled along neighbouring cultures while at times changing meaning. Shared symbols connect cultures. Bailey’s study about the creation of a global artistic language in late-Renaissance Rome, with its focus on the Jesuits, needs an extensive new chapter regarding the crucial role of the Roman missionaries in the fourteenth century in the cities along the Armenian, the western stretch of the Silk Road and of the dispersion of the “Latin” style from the fourteenth century onwards.35 This book will show how at the borders of Europe and in the Christian Orient, as early as the very beginning of the Italian Renaissance, around 1300, this style, which was rather easily adaptable and modifiable, travelled along the trading and missionaries’ routes, to be transformed, rejected or assimilated.

Notes 1 The bibliographic sources mentioned in this introduction will be given more detailed treatment in the subsequent chapters of the book. 2 Franz Ehrle, ‘Ricerche su alcune antiche chiese del Borgo di S. Pietro’, Dissertazioni della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia X, 1 (1910), 3–43. The Armenian compound is never mentioned in the recent studies about Roman pilgrimage; see for example Pellegrini alla tomba di Pietro, edited by Giovanni Morello, Milano, 1999. Ferruccio Lombardi, Roma: Le chiese scomparse, Roma, 1996, discusses them briefly. The catalogue of the exhibition RomaArmenia, edited by Claude Mutafian, Vatican, 1999, mentions the Armenian churches without adding any further information. 3 ‘Le mie ricerche (. . .) trattandosi della storia d’un distretto così intimamente connesso col centro vivo, col cuore della Cristianità, così degno d’essere messo in piena luce.’ Ehrle, ‘Ricerche su alcune antiche chiese del Borgo di S. Pietro’, p. 10.

12

Introduction

4 Regarding the school of Khizan, Lake Van area, see for example Edda Vardanyan, ‘Catalogue des manuscrits du peintre Minas’, Revue des Etudes Armeniennes, 27 (1998–2000), 359–378. 5 This fact is widely ignored by modern historiography and church history, for example, Karen Armstrong, Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence, Penguin Random House, London, 2014, only includes a brief note about Armenia. And in H. A. Winkler, Geschichte des Westens: Von den Anfängen bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, München, 2000, Armenia appears only once and very briefly. 6 Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, Bloomsbury, London, 2015. 7 See Richard Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City: 312–1308, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1980, on the tradition of artistic transfer in medieval Rome, and concerning ‘Rome between East and West’ in the early medieval city, see ch. 4, pp. 89ff. Artistic transfer between Renaissance Italy, Germany and Hungary has been widely researched and research results have been shown in exhibitions such as Dürer e l’Italia, Rome, 2007. Among the rich literature which will be discussed in this book, an introduction into the subject is Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich, The Renaissance in National Context, Cambridge, 1992. 8 Asia included India’s ‘St Thomas Christians’, and India is specifically mentioned as being united with Rome for example in the inscription on Pope Eugene IV’s tomb monument. 9 They do not belong to the Orthodox Commonwealth as it is normally understood, that is, as belonging to the group of Churches in communion with the Greek Orthodox Church. They are separated from them by their rejection of the council of Chalcedon (451), the fourth ecumenical council. A useful historical analysis of the Oriental Churches is Robin Waterfield, Christians in Persia: Assyrians, Roman Catholics and Protestants, London, 1973, and Ken Parry (ed.), The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2007, with single chapters dedicated to each of the churches. Regarding the Armenians, see especially the valuable chapter ‘The Armenian Church within Christendom’ in Vrej Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark: 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art, London, 2001, pp. 43ff. 10 It seems that only the Copts have been lucky in this respect; see Alastair Hamilton, The Copts and the West, 1439–1822, Oxford, 2006. Regarding the Council of Florence, the most comprehensive source is Joseph Gill, The Council of Florence, Cambridge, 1959. 11 Aristeides Papadakis, The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy, Crestwood, NY, 1994, p. 392. 12 An excellent source regarding the Vatican’s Oriental fifteenth-century missions to Armenia and Ethiopia within a broader context covering the Balkans and the Middle East missions is Jean Richard, La Papauté et les Missions d’Orient au Moyen Age (XIIIe-XVe siècles), Rome, 1977. Regarding the Dominicans’ missionary work a vast corpus of literature exists, see for example James D. Ryan, ‘Toleration denied: Armenia between East and West in the era of the crusades’, in Michael Gervers and James M. Powell (eds.), Tolerance and Intolerance: Social Conflict in the Age of the Crusades, Syracuse, 2001, pp. 55–64, and Gabriele Winkler, ‘Armenia and the gradual decline of its traditional liturgical practices as a result of the expanding influence of the Holy See from the eleventh to the fourteenth century’, in Liturgie de l’Eglise particuliere et liturgie de l’Eglise Universelle, Rome, 1976, pp. 329–368, and the numerous articles written by M. A. van den Oudenrijn, O.P., for example, ‘Uniteurs et Dominicains d’Armenie’, Oriens Christianus, Bd. 42 (1958), 110–119. 13 For an overview, see The Christian Orient, The British Library, 1978, and Parry (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity. 14 Intolerance prevailed, for example, after Byzantium’s conquer of the Armenian kingdoms in the eleventh century, it tried to unite its church with the Church of Armenia. This created great hostility among the Armenians. Richard G. Hovanassian (ed.), The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, vol. 1, The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century, New York, 2004, p. 197. 15 The important exhibition and catalogue Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration, edited by Jay A. Levenson, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, New Haven and London, 1991, did not acknowledge this and ignored both Ethiopia and Armenia. 16 The Christian Orient, p. 9. 17 Nevertheless, it must be admitted that it is not always clear which of the many gifts finally reached the Negus’ Court in Ethiopia. All travellers usually passed through Jerusalem, where the Ethiopian and Franciscan monasteries served as meeting places where important

Introduction

18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30

31

32

33 34 35

13

information, the latest news, was exchanged, and travel reports were written or dictated. Thus, we know, for example, several detailed fifteenth-century travel itineraries between Jerusalem and the Ethiopian Highlands. Theo M. van Lint, ‘Europe beyond Europe: The case of Armenia and the Armenians’, in Paul Augustin Deproost et Bernard Coulie (eds.), Les frontières pour ouvrir l’Europe, Paris, 2004, pp. 153–178. Except for the Roman Jewish minority, see Gli Ebrei in Italia, Corrado Vivanti (ed.), Storia dell’Italia, vol. II, Torino, 1997. Dall’emancipazione a oggi, Einaudi, Torino, 1997, pp. 939–963. Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the dignity of man: a new translation and commentary, Francesco Borghesi, Michael Papio, and Massimo Riva (eds.), Cambridge, 2012. Angelo Michele Piemontese, ‘Le Iscrizioni Arabe nella Poliphili Hypnerotomachia’, in Charles Burnett and Anna Contadini (eds.), Islam and the Italian Renaissance, London, 1999, pp. 199–219. In contrast to art history, classical archaeology has dealt with the eastern borders of the Roman Empire rather extensively, for example in C. R. Whittaker, Rome and Its Frontiers: The Dynamics of Empire, London and New York, 2004. See also from the historians’ perspective David Abulafia and Nora Berend (eds.), Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and Practices, Aldershot, 2002. See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Toward a Geography of Art, Chicago, 2004, pp. 70ff, about Strzygowski’s place within the broader context of a ‘geography of art’. See the discussion of Strzygowski’s work, published mainly during the first three decades of the twentieth century, and the problems it poses, for example, racial questions, in Christina Maranci, Medieval Armenian Architecture: Constructions of Race and Nations, Leuven, 2001. Maranci, Medieval Armenian Architecture, p. 207. Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, London, 1965, p. 234. Robin Cormack, ‘Introduction: Armenian art from a Byzantine perspective’, in Vrej Nersessian (ed.), Treasures from the Ark, London, 2001, p. 13. Nersessian, 2001, p. 79. To quote a few of the influential books published in recent years: Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance, London, 1996, Deborah Howard, Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture 1100–1500, New Haven and London, 2000, Lisa Jardine and Jerry Brotton, Global Interests: Renaissance Art Between East and West, London, 2000, Rosamund E. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300–1600, Berkeley, London, 2002 and on the Byzantine world, Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), Helen C. Evans (ed.), catalogue, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2004. Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Le Moyen Age Fantastique, Paris, 1955, remains an inspiring source. Oleg Grabar’s interesting discussion of the cultural transfer of ‘ornament’ in Muslim and Christian cultures, however, does not (as usual) include Armenian arts, The Mediation of Ornament, Washington, DC, 1989. See the discussion regarding Oriental carpets in Italian art by Mack, 2002, and the controversial book of Volkmar Gantzhorn, The Christian Oriental Carpet, Cologne, 1991, regarding the Armenians’ role not only in carpet trading, but also in the production and invention of Anatolian carpets. For example, the Portuguese used Ethiopians as translators, such as during the Portuguese voyages along the coast of Africa, see Hans Werner Debrunner, Presence and Prestige: Africans in Europe: A History of Africans in Europe Before 1918, Basel, 1979, p. 48, who cites an incident in 1456. The Armenians’ language skills were well known, which also allowed them to trade widely, for example, in China and Tibet. Rome’s ‘character as the patria communis of all humanity and its mission to unify mankind’ is emphasised by Cardinal Lopez de Carvajal, John W. O’Malley, Rome and the Renaissance: Studies in Culture and Religion, London, 1981. On this theme see William Dalrymple, From the Holy Mountain, London, 1997. Gauvin A. Bailey, Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America, 1542–1773, Toronto, 1999.

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History, setting and function One spring morning, sitting in the Archivio della Fabbrica of St. Peter’s on the upper floor, I was leaning over one of the archive’s precious maps, the worn-out map showing the ground plan of the basilica from the year 1571. The archive can be reached by an escalator, but only after having passed several checkpoints and security measures by the Vatican personnel. It is situated in one of the huge halls inside the pillars which support the cupola. Here was once the workshop of Michelangelo, the architect. I had come to Rome in order to search for further hints regarding the former location of the Vatican obelisk, which, together with the fifteenth-century Borgia tombs, had been my research project. And so, after a close inspection of that special area at the basilica’s southern side, that is opposite the Vatican Palaces, I started to puzzle over and try to make sense of the group of various adjacent buildings surrounding the basilica’s southern side and western part. What had been the use of these buildings whose ground-plans resembled monasteries? Who had lived there, and who had walked the small streets of this pilgrims’ quarter coming and going from the basilica and the city of Rome across the Tiber river? I did not know then that this was the beginning of a research project, which, a few years later, would make me travel to north-eastern Africa and into the southern Caucasus. From these faraway countries and landscapes, whose Christian arts are, unfortunately, not included in Western art history and generally believed simply to belong to the Byzantine Empire, came pilgrims who did not speak European languages, but were closely connected with Europe through their Christian faith, political and trading interests, most of all the long-distance caravan routes of the Silk Road and north-eastern Africa, Armenia and Ethiopia. Today, only a few medieval buildings in the Roman Borgo continue to exist within the proximity of St. Peter’s, with its most famous being the Vatican Palaces. However, with special permission from the Vatican, today’s visitors can enter the little-known small and atmospheric, yet over-restored Ethiopian church S. Stefano Maggiore, situated just west of the basilica. The famous, but much reduced in size German Camposanto Teutonico with its church lies south and close to the basilica’s transept. These two are the only surviving medieval “national” buildings in the vicinity of the southern and western side of the basilica. The Hungarian and Armenian compounds are gone. The Hungarian compound once lay adjacent to the west of the Camposanto, and the Armenian compound further south of the basilica, towards the Porta de’ Cavallegeri. Whether tourists or art historians, hardly anyone knows of the existence of the Oriental pilgrim compounds and of their inhabitants from Ethiopia and Armenia, who, after DOI: 10.4324/9781003204619-2

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long, tiresome and dangerous journeys to Rome, had crossed Ponte Sant’Angelo, former Ponte Elio, and approached the basilica, looking for their pilgrims’ quarters, where their language was spoken and where they were cared for by compatriots. The urbanisation of the Roman quarter, with the basilica of St. Peter, across the river Tiber and thus outside the centre of Rome, the Borgo, has roughly three phases: the earliest Carolingian, the second during the thirteenth century until the popes’ departure to Avignon and the third phase with the return of the popes to Rome. The beginnings of the German Camposanto Teutonico can be traced back to the first phase, the Armenian and Hungarian compounds to the second phase and the Ethiopian one to its third phase. Thus, the location of the Vatican’s pilgrims’ quarter of the Armenians, Ethiopians and Hungarians, together with the German Camposanto, all in the vicinity of St. Peter’s, is unique, since Rome’s other medieval European “national” churches such as the Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Irish, German, Greek, Slav and French churches are situated further away in the city centre. And they are much later, reaching back only to the fifteenth century. The reason for this could perhaps be that after the permanent return of the popes from Avignon to Rome, the Borgo appeared too impoverished and the intention was to rid it of the immigrants.1 By then, for example, in the parish of S. Stefano, 13 houses were in ruins. And of course, the Borgo would not have provided enough space to repopulate it with all of the “foreign” churches. Dispersing them to the city centre away from the Vatican Borgo helped to make them an attractive aim for the many different groups of pilgrims from all of Europe who came flocking to the renovated and uprising Rome. The ancient area of the southern side of the basilica of St. Peter’s sets the scene for this book. The pilgrims’ compounds consisted of monastery, hospice, church and perhaps a separate cemetery; the German Camposanto is still used today. Scholarly focus has been so far on the location of the various Borgo churches,2 and on their architecture3 or urbanistic context.4 Lepri in her conclusion stresses the importance of the Chapter of St. Peter’s as the major land owners and house owners in the Borgo, followed by the huge and wealthy Hospital of S. Spirito in Sassia (founded in 1198) in the Borgo. The Vatican, together with these institutions, was the financial key player in making the area with its heavy presence of international pilgrims, who rented out their houses, the most expensive area of Rome and its commercial centre.5 According to Krautheimer, Rome in the early decades of the thirteenth century was the power centre of Europe. “All legal business of importance in Western Christendom, whether or not within the Church or even between temporal powers alone, came to the papal court at some point.”6 As pointed out by Krautheimer, it was the main reason for the existence of the pilgrims’ compounds in the Borgo. We shall return to this topic later on. The Hungarian and Armenian compounds started up at a time when the Dominican and Franciscan missions and trade via Cilicia and the western Silk Road and the Balkans luxury trading routes were very lucrative, and for the Roman Church, too. The Pax Mongolica was extremely crucial for the development of Italian and generally European long-distance trade especially with the Christian Oriental merchants of Greater Armenia, experts in long-distance trade and vassals of the Mongol Empire. The subject of foreign art patronage and foreign finances in medieval Rome is still underexplored. The papal missions into these faraway areas at the “borders” of Christianity in Asia and Africa were closely related to the interest in international trade.7 Archaeologists have investigated the Roman remains in the Borgo, such as the mausoleums, the Vatican obelisk or the Meta Romuli, many of which were symptomatic of Constantine’s wish to transform his capital into a Christian city. While the Lateran

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Cathedral, Constantine’s first Church foundation, lies within the city of Rome, St. Peter’s is outside the city’s confines on a large terrace, which was created by filling in the ancient necropolis. Only the upper part of St. Peter’s memorial remained above floor level of the basilica.8 It was built bigger in size than the Lateran Church and clearly intended to hold a great number of pilgrims within its walls. Thus, from the start, it was probably planned as Rome’s most important pilgrim church and a future centre of a new Christian Empire. However, in 330, Constantine left Rome and set up a new Christian capital in the East, Constantinople. About 300 years later, with the pontificate of Gregory the Great in 590, Rome began to act as the universal Christian power with its missions to the semi-barbarian tribes of Lombardy, Spain, England, the Low Countries and Germany. Through Gregory “Rome became the missionary centre of Western and central Europe, the organisational pivot of the Western Church, the spiritual guide of the converted Germanic tribes, and thus both the capital of Western Christianity and an increasingly powerful influence in Western politics throughout the Middle Ages.”9 Let us return to the ancient map of the basilica from the year 1571 and its adjacent buildings. Figure 1.1 shows the most concise plan of Old St. Peter’s and its surrounding buildings. It shows Tiberio Alfarano’s original drawing.10 It is more difficult to read than the engraving, because on top of the drawing of the ancient basilica, Alfarano drew the plan of the new one. It shows many more details in comparison with the engraving and gives a much more vivid impression of the entire area, although certain details create problems. As a base for this “collage,” Alfarano used Du Perac’s 1569 ground plan of St. Peter’s and the measures of Michelangelo’s St. Peter’s project. Pierluigi Silvan11 points out that Alfarano used a quadratura where both longitudinal axis of the old and the new basilicas coincide.12 He then added the outline of the buildings north and south of St. Peter’s. They are less precise; however, they are the best we have of the original situation of the area at that time. For example, the Ethiopian church S. Stefano Maggiore is shown in the engraving with the portico standing in front of the church and not, as in the drawing, with the portico integrated into the façade. On top of the map and left of the face of Christ in the middle is the monastery of S. Stefano Maggiore, built in the ninth century. During the fifteenth century, it became part of the compound for the Ethiopians.13 Originally, it was one of the group of the five early medieval monasteries, namely S. Martino, S. Stefano Minore, SS. Giovanni e Paolo and “Hierusalem,” surrounding the transept and choir of Old St. Peter’s. According to the inscription on the map, the rectangular building further south-east is the canonica from the time of Nicolas III (1277–1280), where the canons lived. And right next to it was S. Stefano Minore, which was given to the Hungarians during the reign of King Stephen (997–1038). The church and parts of the cloister with cells are clearly visible. The German church with cemetery follows next in the map, including several smaller buildings. And close to the staircase of the basilica is the church of S. Gregorio in Platea. This was one of the Armenian churches, to which we shall return soon. The literature about the early beginnings of the pilgrims’ structures in the civitas leoniana – the name refers to Pope Leo IV (847–855) – is vast.14 Here, Saxons, Frisons, Langobards and Franks all had their own scholae or pilgrim houses. Because of the numerous changes in the outlook of building and reconstructing/rebuilding in the area, today, it is hardly possible to gain an exact image of the original architectural situation of these scholae. Leo II had started and Leo IV continued the commission of the construction of the Leonine wall after the sack of the basilica by the Islamic Saracens in 846.15

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Figure 1.1 Tiberio Alfarano, plan of St. Peter’s Old and New, 1590, engraving, Vatican, Archivio Capitolare di S. Pietro Photo: Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut for Art History, Rome

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This wall was 44 feet high and had 44 strong towers at bowshot intervals. Still today, a huge round tower remains. The Borgo fortification, when seen from the north and from afar rising from the huge plain, must have been very impressive, as for example, Oswald Achenbach’s painting from 1879 still shows (although here with the dome of New St. Peter’s). The Porta Castelli close to Castel Sant’ Angelo, the Porta Peregrini in the north through which the emperors passed – the road was later called Via Francigena – and a southern gate Porta de’ Cavalleggeri leading into today’s quarter of Trastevere, served as the main gates to the civitas leoniana. Along its main arteries between, roughly during the sixth and tenth centuries, lay the scholae. In order to understand the architectural structure of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we shall focus for a moment on the early medieval period, when the scholae peregrinorum were founded. The Schola Longobardorum with the church of S. Guistino was close to the northern gate, while the three other scholae lay along the southern of the two main arteries/streets of the Borgo, which led from the Tiber to Old St. Peter’s. The central one led directly to the basilica’s front and the second ran parallel slightly further south and alongside the basilica. Here was the Schola Saxonum with S. Maria in Sassia, closer towards the basilica, the Schola Frisonum with the church of SS. Michele e Magno and south of the quadriporticus of the basilica was the Schola Francorum with S. Salvatore in Torrione.16 All three churches are still in use today. Already, before the founding of the four scholae, there must have been some sort of pilgrim quarters at the Vatican. Since foreign language and provenance were a defining element in the scholae, the clerics serving them must have spoken or originated from there. Each schola had its own administration, income and head person.17 The scholae were royal establishments, for example, the Schola Saxonum was financed by paying a tribute, the so-called romescott founded by King Ina of Wessex. The King donated an image of the Madonna with Christ child for the small church. The schola was later extended, and during the fifteenth century, its hospital became the most prestigious foundation of Pope Sixtus IV. He succeeded in involving most European monarchs into its financing. Likewise, the Schola Langobardum is a royal foundation of one of the last Langobard Kings Ratchis, before he became a monk in Montecassino. The Schola Francorum was founded by Charlemagne. The church S. Salvatore received yearly funds by the Kings of France, Aquitania and Gallia. In its cemetery the pilgrims of these countries are found buried. In contrast, the Schola Frisonum seems to have been founded during the eighth century perhaps by Bishop St. Boniface. If we take into consideration the strong spiritual link between Pepin, Charlemagne and the Popes, these institutions were important signs in regard to the political link between the Frankish Empire and Rome. They were a part of the Roman building campaign of Charlemagne’s which went hand in hand with the Roman Popes’ buildings and mirrored the building campaign of contemporary Jerusalem, also helped by Charlemagne. Outside of St. Peter’s remains of an ancient imperial “palatio” and papal “triclinium” have been found, and the basilica received donations, artefacts and inscriptions by Charlemagne and his successors.18 The backdrop of all of these construction efforts was the Renovation Romani Imperii, which was declared by the Pope and Emperor, and determined a new Renaissance for the city of Rome. The layout of the four different scholae at St. Peter’s expressed the Church of Rome’s claim as caput mundi and resembled a Latin Christian mappa mundi. The popes of the following centuries would add three further pilgrims’ compounds, one for the Hungarians and two for Oriental Christians, the Armenians and later for the Ethiopians. They

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were located side by side to the cemetery-cum-hospital of the German Empire and its vassal Hungary. Between the sixth and tenth centuries, in the citta leoniana, there were numerous churches and monasteries, hospitals and “diaconie” cared for the pilgrims. Several historians explored the welfare provisions for the St. Peter pilgrims in detail but have not taken any notice of the Oriental Christian pilgrims and institutions.19 With the departure of the popes to Avignon, the Borgo declined and during the popes’ 70 years long absence from Rome a lot of its architecture became derelict. An entirely new phase in the Borgo planning started with the decision of Gregory VII to leave Avignon. His followers moved the Roman centre of papacy from the Lateran to St. Peter’s. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the buildings in the Borgo were in need of repair. For example, in 1437, an eyewitness reports that “Le case in Borgo erano quasi tutte rovinate ed abbandonate degli inquilini e che i Romani non ardivano più di portarsi a S. Pietro per il pericolo di rimanere schiacciati lungo la via da qualche edifizio rovinante.”20 With the papacy’s decision of moving the see of the papacy to St. Peter’s, not only the long-neglected architecture of the Borgo, but also the overall function of the Borgo was restored. Nicolas’ V plans for the improvement of the Borgo was part of a huge project concerning the restoration and expansion of the Old St. Peter’s Basilica, the expansion of the Vatican Palaces and the fortification of the entire Borgo with its walls and towers. With this campaign, around the middle of the fifteenth century, the papal court became the political, social, economic and cultural centre of Rome. All of the fifteenth-century popes left their traces in the buildings of the fifteenth-century Borgo.21 The basilica was extensively restored, roofs and window glass were repaired and much more, the basilica’s outfitting was modernised with numerous art commissions and a new updated concept regarding the location of the papal tomb monuments and mausolea was explored.22 The true underlying idea was in the words of Nicholas V that these huge projects were undertaken for Christianos Populos dignitate.23 The word populos, the plural, acknowledges the distinction between the peoples, but also their Christian bond. The curia, its cardinals as well as the entity of papal officers in the Vatican were all people belonging to the entire “Latin” Christian world. It is not clear to me, if any selected clerics from the united Oriental Christians, Armenians, Ethiopians or Indians ever rose to the high ranks of high office in medieval Rome. The Borgo was “laid out as a secure residence for the head of the Curia and of all its members,” that is “totus Curia habitatione.”24 And the pilgrims on their way to the basilica along the main road between Castel Sant’Angelo and the façade of St. Peter’s, thus passed Cardinal palaces, money changers and the highly regarded craftsmen, while the smaller craftsmen were housed on the side streets close to the northern main road running through the Borgo. Along the southern artery of the Borgo lay hospitals, apothecaries and rented pilgrims lodgings. At the same time, the pilgrims’ compounds of the Hungarians, the German Camposanto and a little later S. Stefano Maggiore for the Ethiopians were renovated. The basilica had become the centre of the fortified Borgo with the purpose to serve the high Roman clergy and the city’s pilgrims, while the Vatican Palaces became the focal point of papal diplomatic staff including Christians and nonChristians from as far as Persia, India and Mongolia. Italian painters of the fifteenth century included the Borgo and its famous architectural landmarks in their frescoes and miniatures. However, rare is a focus on the southern side of Old St. Peter’s as for instance in the painting of Piero di Cosimo’s Adoration of the Shepherds painted around 1490 in the Toledo Museum of Art in the United States25. The city of Rome is clearly identifiable, although the view shows a city by the sea (in the

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background). It is one of the best views of the pilgrims Borgo lying in the sunshine seen from the Aventine Hill. The road winds its way around the hill leading down towards Porta de’ Cavalleggeri and into the Borgo further along the Armenian compound and towards the basilica. The German and Hungarian compounds are in full view, but although the painting depicts an ensemble of buildings, it is only possible to distinguish the famous landmarks such as the Vatican obelisc and the Rotunda di S. M. della Febbre, the façade of the basilica and the Sistine Chapel behind. But none of the compounds can be clearly distinguished.

Architecture, decoration, administration and inhabitants The Armenian compound Location The Armenian compound for pilgrims to the Vatican is the only one of the group about whose architecture nothing is known. However, its location is known. In the past, several architectural historians have discussed the compound’s location, but art historians have not yet studied it in any detail with questions regarding its architecture, outfitting and possible ornamentation, its inhabitants and use, with the exception of two Armenian scholars of recent years. They were particularly interested in the medieval Armenian Diaspora churches in Italy and also in the manuscript production there. Although Franz Ehrle, in 1910, had reconstructed the location of the Armenian compound between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries with great accuracy, we know nothing about its earliest architectural beginnings in the Vatican. In Santiago de Compostela, an Armenian hospice existed during the times of the Crusades.26 Perhaps an Armenian hospice existed in Rome at an earlier time, since Armenian pilgrim-travellersenvoys are known here at least since the eighth century. The earliest date in regard of the pilgrim houses is 1221: the information given in two colophons is important, the first in a Gospel Book copied by the monk Vanakan in the city of Rome under the shelter of the church of the holy Apostles Paul and Peter “in the rest house of the Armenians at the Church of the Holy Theotokos (Mother of God) by the hands of the weak and sinful Vanakan . . . who with his family and others who left their homeland under the threat of the sword.”27 It is possible that the mentioned Church of the Mother of God (S. Maria) and the Armenian rest house were situated close to Old St. Peter’s. The second colophon is in a Gospel Book copied by Vardan Khatchenetsi (from Artsakh, Greater Armenia) abełay (unmarried priest) in 1239 “in the universal city of Rome under the shelter of the holy churches of St. Peter and St. Paul and under the image of Christ which is called Dastarak (shroud) in the rest house for the Armenians at the door of the Church of Santa Maria . . .” The prior of the rest house and the monks was Sargis Marmashinetsi.28 The colophon asks for pity for Vanakan and his companions who, “killed by the sword, had not been buried.” Anna Sirinian believes that this Armenian house must have been somewhere close to the “Santo Volto” chapel of Old St. Peter’s near the facade and entrance into the basilica’s right nave, along which a row of chapels and oratories was attached.29 But where exactly would that have been? The question about the location is still open. Numerous colophons written in Rome between 1240 and 1260 prove the existence of an Armenian house.30 Unfortunately, the medieval sources are never completely clear

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regarding its setting and location, and the various buildings, such as church and hospice which served the needs of the Armenian pilgrims. Ehrle finds three Armenian churches in the documents. Chronologically, and according to the medieval sources, mostly catalogues of churches in the Borgo31, the situation is as follows32: an oratory of S. Giacomo degli Armeni existed between the thirteenth century and the 1560s. Secondly, the church or oratory of S. Gregorio degli Armeni was serviced from the late fourteenth century to the second half of the sixteenth century. And thirdly, there was S. M. degli Armeni. Ehrle discusses the problem of the various Armenian church patrociniums in depth and has researched the medieval catalogues of the churches in the Borgo in great depth. Zekiyan33 doubts that there ever was more than one Armenian church-cum-hospice at the Vatican and believes that the information given in medieval sources mentioning various churches is confusing and that there is no reason to expect more than one Armenian church at St. Peter’s. Although three different churches are mentioned, Zekiyan believes that it was not unusual that Armenian churches in Italy had more than one patronage, which means, in our case, that S. Maria and S. Giacomo were one and the same church. However, it is rather possible that the Armenian church-cum-hospice, during the early thirteenth century, located close to the chapel of the volto santo, was moved into another location, perhaps another older church or oratory with a different patronage, simply due to the building works of the Vatican Palaces for which the former compound had to make space.34 As we shall see in the discussion of the Hungarian and Ethiopian compounds, the Hungarians moved into a pre-existing early medieval monastery and the Ethiopians did the same; around the year 1480, they moved into the early medieval monastery of S. Stefano Maggiore at the Vatican. Three hundred years later, the Hungarians had to move out, as soon as the plan for a transept for the new basilica was realised. Meanwhile, the Ethiopians stayed, since their church was at a safe distance from New St. Peter’s and remains so to this day. The Orsini Pope Nicolas III, elected in 1277, started the construction of a new papal Vatican Palace on the north side of the basilica. According to Lepri, documentary evidence shows that there is a good chance that its architects were two Dominicans who had come to Rome from Florence. There they had been involved in the building of S. M. Novella and in Rome they built the church of the Dominican headquarter S. M. Sopra Minerva,35 making them experts in copertura a crociera – “Kreuzgratgewölbe,” and perhaps responsible for the vaulting of the great hall beneath the Sala Regia. As mentioned earlier, three churches and locations are connected with the Armenian presence at the Vatican: an oratory of S. Giacomo degli Armeni, the church or oratory of S. Gregorio degli Armeni and S. M. degli Armeni. Alberto Zucchi mentions Santa Maria twice, firstly under the Pope Boniface IX (1389–1404) “Petro Stephani de Armenia, Priori Domus S. Marie de Urbe, Fratrum Armenorum Ordinis S. Augustini, sub cura Fratrum Praedicatorum viventum.”36 And secondly, for the year 1404, the same Pietro di Stefano had died at the age of 80 after having served as a prior of the “casa armena” for 34 years.37 Building works at St. Peter’s involved the square in front, the Platea Sancti Petri, and the access to the basilica from the south via Porta de’ Cavalleggeri. Documents show and Ehrle interprets them carefully that the Armenian isola or contrada was located in this area. At least since 1325 (and until the end of the fourteenth century according to Ehrle’s study of the catalogues of the Borgo churches38), a hospice and church S. M. de Harmenis de Portica S. Petri (portica meant within the Leonine City) existed in the Isola di

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S. Gregorio. This isola was located close to the steps of the basilica, easily to be seen in Bufalini’s plan of the area from 155139, the oldest existing plan. But, according to Alpharanus, in 1572, the Armenian connection had already seized. He drew a part of the Isola S. Gregorio’s outline in detail with rooms and doors, clearly visible in his plan, and added: “Ecclesia et Xenodochium sancti Gregorij papae primi, ubi et Cantores Basilicae habitant, et alij Summi Pontificiis ministri, pauperibus et peregrinis ad Basilicam confluentibus alimoniam quitodoe ministrantes.” In 1571, the multi-use of the isola had changed and it no longer included the Armenians. In 1589, S. Gregorio was destroyed for the expansion of St. Peter’s square, which can be seen in Tempesta’s plan of the area drawn in the year 1593.40 Between the square and Porta de’ Cavalleggeri in the south, only two isole are visible. S. Gregorio had already disappeared. Ehrle found various references to the Armenian hospice, such as una casa iuxta Harmenos or prope Armenos, iuxta viam uqi itur ad Armenos, posita in platea Armenorum, in contrata, qui dicitur Armenorum. The so-called Catologo di Torino mentions under the year 1345 an Oratorium S. Iacobi de Harmenis habet XII fratres and secundum ritum suum isti Harmeni habent uxores et filios.41 And in 1405, we hear of the Platea Hermenorum in Parrochia sancti Michaelis Archangeli. Ehrle identifies the location with the help of several documents. A document of 1514 calls the contrada degli Armeni an annex of S. Salvatore de Ossibus or in Terrione and the Cappella di S. Zenone.42 Thus, the Contrada degli Armeni had to be in one of the two isole lying south of the square along the road leading towards Porta de’ Cavalleggeri, that is between the Palazzo dell’ Inquisizione and Palazzo Cesi, both identifiable with the buildings’ inscriptions provided by Tempesta.43

Figure 1.2 Site of the former Armenian compound at the Vatican, 2008 Photo: Author

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Even at the time of Lievin Cruyl’s view recorded in 1667 one of the two isole still stands, but in the future, this isola, too, would be destroyed.44 By 1566, the Armenians had moved their hospice further away from the Vatican, first to S. Lorenzo in the Ghetto and shortly later to S. M. Egiziaca by the Tiber with an Armenian cemetery in front of the church.45 We’ll return to this later. Nevertheless, even if the Armenian hospice had moved away from the Vatican, as late as 1816, an Armenian church is documented at the Vatican: S. Gregorio Illuminatore. This church, destroyed in 1589 for the expansion of St. Peter’s square, had moved into a new location close to the Bernini colonnades opposite the Palazzo di S. Uffizio.46 Today, nothing of the former Armenian isola at the Vatican is visible (Figure 1.2). Where there once were houses and church or oratory, today in front of the Palazzo della Propaganda Fide, pedestrians walk and cars drive towards Bernini’s colonnades and St. Peter’s square, where once were the isola’s former foundations. The connection with the Armenians has completely disappeared and no memories remain. Whereas Bufalini’s map roughly outlines the Armenian contrada or isola, in Tempesta’s engraving its architecture is very well visible. But how precise was Tempesta and how closely can we work with his map? Tempesta identifies all the big landmarks, the palaces and main churches, and it seems difficult to imagine that he would have taken great care to realistically represent the single isole remaining in the surroundings of the basilica. On his map, these isole all look much the same, with their smaller and slightly bigger houses all arranged around courtyards, some with trees. The Armenian isola between Palazzo Cesi and S. Inquisitione comprises small and bigger houses arranged around one courtyard, and thus could easily offer enough space for a church or oratory and living quarters for monks, priests together with their families and for pilgrims. As already mentioned, during the popes’ “exile” in Avignon, sources report that the Borgo architecture was in a bad state. In 1437, one source mentions “Le case in Borgo erano quasi tutte rovinate ed abbandonate degli inquilini e che i Romani non ardivano più di portarsi a S. Pietro per il pericolo di rimanere schiacciati lungo la via da qualche edifizio rovinante.”47 Perhaps, at that time, the Armenian contrada in the Borgo was equally run down. Ehrle mentions various houses in the Armenian contrada appearing in fifteenth-century sources as being sold, for example, on December 25, 1405.48 These houses must have belonged to St. Peter’s, who, at the end of the fourteenth century, owned more than three-quarters of the houses in the Borgo, administered by the canons of St. Peter’s.49 Unfortunately, no sources exist regarding the number of houses, floors and rooms, its scriptorium, signs on its houses, to whom they were sold or any information about the church’s decoration and outfitting. All we know so far is of a sepulchral inscription of 1240 mentioned by Lombardi50 of one of the superiors of the Armenian monastery with the name Stefano Lazzaro Vanese (from the city of Van). In the year 1269, 26 Armenians had come from the Armenian provinces to settle in Rome “in the place of rest of the Armenians.”51 And in 1320, “S. Jacobi de Harmenis habet XII fratres,” reports another source.52 The isola armena in Tempesta’s map offered enough space for at least 12 cells for the brothers. During the pontificate of Boniface IX (1389–1404), the monastery of S. Maria de Armenis had an Armenian superior “dilecto filio Petro Stephani de Armenia,” who is characterised as “religionis zelus, vitae ac morum honestas” and who had died at the age of 80 years and who had been prior for 34 years.53 Both the names are common Armenian names. The first is Petros [Պետրոս] = Peter and the second is Step’anos [Ստեփանոս]. This is the last documentary source regarding the Armenian church in the Borgo until the

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year 1566 with the Armenians’ community transferred to their new church and hospice at S. M. Egiziaca further away down the river Tiber.54 The important Armenian pilgrims’ community at the Vatican expanded as a result of the long wars in their homelands, a period of economic decline in the homelands followed. At the same time, cultural assimilation of the Armenian Diaspora in Italy further advanced. But of course, Armenian pilgrimages to Rome continued, as we shall see in a later chapter according to the pilgrim report by Martiros Erznkats’i, 1489–1496. The question remains as follows: Was St. James and St. Mary one and the same church and/or were both part of the Armenian Borgo compound? Were they two different monasteries within the compound or one church with two name patronships? In any case, St. James and St. Mary of the Armenians were both Latin churches under the jurisdiction of the Dominicans.55 The Dominicans had total jurisdiction over the Armenian Unitarians or Basilian Order “Frati Armeni Ordinis Unitorum oppure Ordinis S. Basilii” as stated in a bull of 1402 (Pope Boniface IX) which was confirmed in 1409.56 These Armenian Unitarians also had a church in Rome.57 The Armenian church compound at the Vatican was controlled by these Unitarians and here, in 1392, an important get-together of Dominicans took place.58 In addition, in medieval Rome, there was a “contrada Archenohe” with a church S. M. de Arca Noe.59 In a later chapter, the implication of the iconography of the Ark in Italian art and the Dominican missions to Nakhijevan in the land of the Ararat, where Noah first emerged will be discussed. In the city of Nakhijevan, supposedly, Noah lay buried in a centralised church.

Architecture and decoration Even with the little evidence, the Armenian compound with one or two churches at the Vatican was a religious centre of special importance also for the Roman Church and was probably very well equipped. According to the already-mentioned colophon of the year 1269, 26 Armenians had come from the Armenian provinces in order to settle in Rome “in the place of rest of the Armenians.” The same colophon reports that in the same place also lived respected women, modest old men and the poor and needy.60 Another source mentions that Armenians were living there with their wives and children according to the Armenian custom. This points to a variety of rooms and apartments within the compound. Separate areas for superior, priests, friars, for their daily worshipping and their work, for example, in the library and the scriptorium, and for the lay pilgrims and for entire families must have existed. The Isola Armena must have given enough space for them with its houses and other buildings grouped around a courtyard according to the typical arrangement of houses in the Borgo, at least according to Tempesta’s Borgo map from 1577. During the centuries, the Armenian compound must have been renovated, at times extended, refurbished and modernised. It was not an Armenian church as in the Armenian homeland, but a Latin church. No doubt, a Latin-Armenian church in Rome looked different from an Armenian church in the homeland and would have been outfitted in a Latin style. So, how were S. Jacobi and S. Maria de Armenis decorated or more generally speaking, how would any other Armenian church in the Italian Diaspora have been outfitted? Unfortunately, Zekiyan61 in his fine article about the Armenian churches in Italy does not discuss this problem, which is, as we shall see in a later chapter, an interesting point, especially for art history scholarship. How exactly did the Armenian churches in Italy reflect the identity of the Armenian worshippers in the Italian Diaspora with regard to their assimilation? For example, today, St. Peter’s church in London is an Anglican

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church, whose only internal feature that suggests it is an Armenian church is the altar. This is the case in Manchester, Calcutta and so on. The main question is if these churches serviced for Armenians of Orthodox faith or to those converted to Catholicism.62 According to Tempesta’s map, the architecture of the buildings in the Armenian isola must have looked just like any other in the Borgo. Presumably, the Armenian church or oratory was rather small and would have been similar in size to the other numerous churches and oratories in the Borgo, which could have had between up to six bays.63 Some of them, like the one-nave S. Salvatore in Terrione, S. Pellegrino or the three-nave S. Lorenzo in Piscibus, are still in situ and could serve as models for us regarding how the Armenian church may have looked.64 Nothing is known about the medieval decoration of these smallish churches, except for S. Salvatore in Terrione, the completely remodelled church of the former Schola Francorum. After the decline of the schola, Pope Nicolas V had it restored and decorated for the Jubilee of 1450. Remains of Quattrocento frescoes are still on the walls and its altar painting is today kept in the Pinacoteca Vaticana.65 Since the Armenian church at the Vatican was a United Church (Armenians belonging to the Catholic faith) under Dominican leadership, it must have been decorated like other Borgo churches, but probably with some iconographic references to the Dominican order. It could have been a simple smallish church like the aforementioned ones, or a small three nave basilica with an apse like the ones in the Hungarian and Ethiopian compounds. It could have been decorated with paintings, perhaps in a manner similar to S. M. Sopra Minerva or S. M. Novella in Florence, whose chapels and cloisters are richly adorned. During the fifteenth century, we know that the Armenian church of the United Order of St. Basil in Via S. Gallo in Florence was outfitted like other churches in Florence, that is with Giottolike sculpture and paintings.66 The image in the Florentine Codex Rustici shows the convent in via S. Gallo with garden, church building, campanile and three entrances. But what could have reminded the worshipper of his Armenian culture and homeland? In the Ethiopian church at the Vatican S. Stefano Maggiore, there was a painted choir screen with the Trinity, St. Stephen and a Dominican friar kneeling with Ethiopian letters Frat. Antonio Abessino. The Ethiopian brother has the Latin name Antonio, as was often the case with the Armenians’ latinised names. It is very well possible that in the Armenian churches, too, inscriptions in the Armenian language in a Latinised form were added and frescoes of Armenian friars with Latin names were painted. In the Borgo, an Armenian church would have had inscriptions and coats of arms as references to those popes during whose pontificate it had been built or restored, as well as to the Basilian and Dominican order and to St. Mary and the pilgrims’ patron St. James. Through the Vatican’s close relationship with the Armenian clerics, especially in the Kingdom of Cilicia (until its fall in 1375), and with regard to the many churches for the Italian merchants and their families in the Cilician cities, the Armenians in Rome were very familiar with the outfitting of Italian churches. We should not assume, though, that Armenian saints were depicted here or that the church showed any typical Armenian features such as holy curtains and steps leading to a free-standing altar,67 behind which usually was an image of Mary and the Christ child, replaced only at Easter and during a few other feast days. The Ethiopian compound with S. Stefano Maggiore Architecture and decoration The monastery of S. Stefano Maggiore originates from the ninth century. Only later, during the late fifteenth century, it became the Ethiopian pilgrims compound.68 It was

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one of the five early medieval monasteries grouped like a monastic “family” around the transept and choir of Old-St Peter’s: S. Martino, S. Stefano Minore, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Hierusalem.69 As already mentioned, the best ground-plan is Alfarano’s drawing from 1571 kept in the Archive of the Capitolo di S. Pietro, to whom Alfarano left all his manuscripts after his death. Compared to the better-known engraving, it shows many more details and gives a more detailed view of the area. S. Stefano Maggiore is shown as a three-aisle basilica with portico, six bays, transept, apse and crypta, and thus a smaller version of Old St. Peter’s. Figure 1.3 shows the church exterior as today. The row of marble spolia columns in the main nave with their long architraves above are in situ and give this church its distinct look. Fra Angelico depicted a similar church in his fresco of the “Consecration of St. Lawrence” from 1449 in the Chapel of Nicholas V in the Vatican Palace a short distance away from S. Stefano Maggiore. But S. Stefano Maggiore had a wood beamed roof and was not vaulted like the church in the fresco. Alfarano’s drawing shows on both sides of the basilica monastic annex buildings grouped around two courtyards. However, he drew only three bays at both sides of the façade, a small part of the northern annex to the transept and the plinths of the columns of the cloister. Why didn’t he draw the complete church, since during his lifetime and according to the documentary sources and the many sixteenth-century inscriptions in the church, the pilgrim and monastic life there was in full flow? Had it been reduced in size already before the renovations of the mid-fifteenth century or in 1506 at the beginning of the building of the new tribuna for New St. Peter’s?70 Were these monastic buildings in the way and required to make space for the earth works on the Vatican Hill? We do not know. With the help of Alfarano’s drawing, two cloisters surrounded by monk cells can be reconstructed. Refectory, library, scriptorium, an infirmary-hospital, pilgrims’ hospice and cemetery, all would have been necessary parts of the pilgrim compound. During the

Figure 1.3 S. Stefano Maggiore, façade, Vatican, 2008 Photo: Author

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ninth century, the monks of S. Stefano Maggiore who “were charged to take care of the footsore” had a long tradition of pilgrims’ care.71 A library existed according to a document in the libraria ad sanctum Stefanum maggiore.72 Because the monastery lay at a safe distance of about 50 m from the basilica’s choir, it survived the transformations of the area, while other ancient parts of the basilica and entire buildings surrounding it were destroyed. Compared to the other mapmakers of the Borgo, such as Cartaro (1576) and Du Pérac-Lafréry (1577), Alfarano did neither add to his drawing the church of S. Marta, which had been already consecrated in 1538, nor the houses which at that time connected S. Marta with S. Stefano Maggiore. On Greuter’s map from 1618, we see at no. 280 S. Stefano Maggiore with garden, a cloister and surrounding buildings.73 This is all missing in Alfarano’s plan. He simply shows us the area as he remembered it at the start of the building of the new basilica. We have little information about S. Stefano Maggiore during the fifteenth century but, in 1450, Maffeo Vegio reports that the basilica and the surrounding buildings were in great disrepair.74 His is the first reference on S. Stefano Maggiore during the fifteenth century. Perhaps under Eugene IV or Nicholas V, restoration works on S. Stefano Maggiore had already started. But it seems that during Sixtus IV’s pontificate the number of Ethiopians and Copts from Egypt,75 as well as St. Thomas Christians from India had risen in numbers and the need to give these pilgrims in Rome a place of their own must have been necessary. In documents of the fifteenth century, the monastery is called S. Stefano de Aegypto ubi sunt Fratres Indi, Ecclesia Sancti Stefani Indiae. Numerous church inscriptions, the earliest dating from the sixteenth century in Coptic, Geez, Arabic and Latin are testimony of the burials of mostly monks, but also some lay people, such as the son of the King of Tunis in 1549. He was probably a converted Muslim. Another famous contemporary (and possibly a) convert living at the Vatican was of course Leo Africanus, who was perhaps well known to the monks of S. Stefano Maggiore.76 Probably, Leo X asked him for information about Ethiopia. We don’t know how many monks lived in S. Stefano during the second half of the fifteenth century, but in 1518, 30 “united” monks were living there, and later in the century about 10–15 monks and more.77 We don’t know when the church was reduced from three to a single bay. Perhaps it was done when the church was decorated in baroque style,78 which, during the 1930s restoration was ripped out.79 During these works, numerous inscriptions and fragments of medieval and fifteenth-century decoration were unearthed, but due to missing documentation cannot be placed into their original context.80 All of these fragments came from the time when the church was reduced in size and when its outfitting of the side naves was destroyed. The beautiful twelfth-century marble portal, which was incorporated into the baroque façade, and the impressive marble columns of S. Stefano Maggiore, still today, give an idea of its superb original decoration. Some of the fifteenth-century sculptural fragments found are as follows: the marble coat of arms of the Piccolomini popes, Sixtus IV, Innocence VIII, which are the proof of restoration works in the church; a fragment from a balustrade from the surroundings of an altar or chapel with the cardinal coat of arms of the family Cibo; a fifteenth-century fountain “niche” (nicchia di fontana quattrocentesca), a bas-relief with fifteenth-century geometrical decoration with rosettes and a simple cross, a head-fragment from a lying bishop from a tomb monument and many more. The fragments prove that S. Stefano Maggiore was richly adorned and of considerable importance since these popes were involved in the fifteenth-century restoration of the church and high clergy was buried here. In fact, Alfarano says that the monastery was restored under Sixtus IV.81 And documentary evidence shows that during the midfifteenth century, works on the roof and in the monastery’s library were in progress.82

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In 1487, a payment for the fabbrica di Egitto83 is done. Most interesting information about the church’s outfitting is given by Cancellieri, who mentions a choir screen . . . painted during the pontificate of Sixtus IV (1471–1484), about which Cancellieri adds: facendovi il tramezzo, che vi e, con la pittura della SS. Trinita, di S. Stefano, con un Frate Dominicano in ginocchione, con le lettere sotto Etiope, che dicono in nostra lingua Frat. Antonio Abessino.84 This shows us that the Ethiopian church had a tramezzo, a partition wall and typical feature of contemporary churches. In December 1492, the chapter of St. Peter’s spent 15 ducats on a mass sung in Ecclesia Sancti Stephani Indiae.85 But five years later, in December 1497, according to a document, the chapter could not perform the usual mass there, because. . . quia Indiani ipsam ecclesiam violaverant.86 We do not know how the Indians “violated” the church. Did they “destroy” its Latin outfitting? Did they perhaps perform Mass according to the Ethiopian rite? The most fascinating part of the Renaissance outfitting of S. Stefano Maggiore is the Trinity with the kneeling Ethiopian friar, because depictions of Ethiopians during the Renaissance were so rare. It was a part of the new decorational scheme financed and overseen by the Renaissance popes. The inscription in Geez gave the church its identification as Ethiopian. During the fifteenth century, S. Stefano Maggiore must have been a beautifully adorned church in the Renaissance style. The Hungarian compound with S. Stefano Minore I Tedeschi e gli Ungari in gregge, e a turme grandissime, stavano la notte a campo stretti insieme per lo freddo, atandosi con grandi fuochi. Matteo Villani (14th century), Cronica, Lib. I, Cap. LVI

Architecture and decoration Like S. Stefano Maggiore, the monastery of S. Stefano Minore was another of the early medieval monasteries for the choir service of St. Peter’s, grouped around the basilica’s transept and choir. S. Stefano Minore was built under Pope Stephen II (752–757),87 who endowed it with its necessities. It carried the name of its patron. Shortly after the year 1000, adjacent to the monastery, King Stephen I of Hungary had a hospice erected for his subjects visiting Rome. During his reign, Hungary had been Christianised. He was later canonised. This Hospitium Hungarorum adjoined the monastic buildings of S. Stefano Minore, was located next to the German Camposanto and lay opposite the famous Vatican obelisk. According to the Vita Stephani Regis Ungariae, King Stephen had a circular stone wall built, a domibus et hospiciis and 12 canons settled there, and in 1058, a Bull of Benedict X gave control of the hospice to the monks of S. Stefano Minore and stated that the Hungarians in the city, whether on business or on pilgrimage, should stay in the hostel.88 Regarding the year 1384, Armellini89 records that S. Stefano Minore was a parish church and is mentioned several times as such in the libri censuali of St. Peter’s. He records one of these notes: Item presbytero Paulo da Viterbo clerico nostrae ecclesiae pro reparatione tecti domus cum signo tripedium ubi fiunt marmora pro cappella d.ni cardinalis s. Petri in parochia s. Stephani de Ungariis. In the year 1384, the presbyter Paul of Viterbo had the roof of the “house” repaired. He mentions a chapel of the cardinals in S. Stefano Minore. During the fifteenth century, the church-hospital-hospice was restored by the Kings of Hungary, Emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg in 1433, King Ladislaus the Posthumous 1452 and King Ladislaus II Jagiellon 1497. Two inscriptions on the buildings are documented. An inscription in majusculus letters on the church façade commemorated the

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patron of the foundation of the pilgrim hospital: ecca.hospitalis.s.stephani.regis.hungarorum. And a later inscription attached to the hospital remembered its renovation in 1497: domus.hungarorum.renovata.per.d.phi, d.bodrog, dd, se, d, vladislai.regis.proc ex, elemosinis. Peregrinorum sedente, alex.pp. vi 1497.90 Patron of the renovation was Filippo Bodroghi, procurator of the King of Hungary Ladislas II.91 The most potent central European Renaissance King of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus, however, neither visited Rome nor did he come south of Milan or was remembered in connection with this nation’s pilgrims’ compound in Rome. He would certainly have come, had he been offered the Emperor’s crown he hoped for. During the Holy Year 1475 under Sixtus IV, the Hungarian pilgrims were welcome in the hospice, which at that time was led by the Dominican Fra Simone di Andrea da Seghedino from the city of Szeged in southern Hungary.92 At that time of course, there were more Hungarian Dominicans in Rome living in the Dominican convent of S. Maria Sopra Minerva. Another Hungarian Dominican who constantly lived in Rome during the years of Sixtus IV pontificate was Fra Giorgio de Settecastelli. Here, he published his “Tractatus de moribus Turcorum.”93 During the late eighteenth century, the compound was destroyed in order to make space for the building of the sacristy of New St. Peter’s.94 Thus, the almost 800-year lasting history of the Hungarian compound at the Vatican came to an end. Other than the marble columns nothing survived from the ancient church and nothing is known about any fragments of its chapels and tombs. Where did all the remains from the ancient buildings go to? The Hungarian church must have been a well-equipped, beautifully decorated building whose décor must have been regularly updated during the restoration campaigns. But we have no details concerning its outfitting. A view of the Borgo appears in a fresco from 1435,95 commissioned by Cardinal Branda Castiglione from the painter Masolino in Castiglione Olona, Lombardy. The cardinal had been pontifical legate in the Hungarian Diocese of the Hungarian city of Veszprem. It includes a good imago urbis romae seen from the north, the direction from which central European visitors usually arrived in Rome. Compared to other contemporary imago urbis, this one is unique because it shows the three churches, all with bell towers, of the “national” pilgrim compounds at south-St Peter’s. They cannot be safely identified, since they look rather similar, but one of them must have been S. Stefano Minore of the Hungarians. Perhaps the cardinal patron had the three churches included in the Borgo because one of them reminded him especially of his former close connection with Hungary? Almost nothing is known about the early architectural history of the compound. With the demolition of the ancient Rotunda di S. Andrea and of S. Stefano Minore in 1776 to make space for the new sacristy, we only know that ancient marble columns of S. Stefano Minore were preserved and later incorporated into the new sacristy where they are still to be seen. Alfarano’s drawing from 1571 shows S. Stefano Minore as a three-aisle five-bay basilica with portico, transept and apse, but smaller in length and width than S. Stefano Maggiore. Like S. Stefano Maggiore, this early Christian church had three naves and an apse, with adjacent buildings set around a cloister. But which rooms of them served for hospice, hospital, library and so on is not known. In the East, it shared a wall with the Camposanto Teutonico. According to Banfi, the main altar of S. Stefano Minore was dedicated to Saint Stephen of Hungary and its painting (now lost) depicted the saint.96 It is rather possible that the painting of St. Elisabeth of Hungary in the Pinacoteca Vaticana97 by Niccolo di Liberatore detto l’Alunno from 1466 could have come from one of the chapels in the Church of the Hungarians.

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However, frescoes in the church are documented. Cancellieri writes that sub Aede S. Stephani perantiquam Coemeterium repertum, sacris imaginibus pariete depictis undequaque exornatum, quod Hungarorum excipiendis (allowances) exsuriis (?), qui in contiguo Nosoconio (hospital) vita fungebantur.”98 The holy images, according to this source, were paid out of the allowances of Hungarians who had died in the hospice of the Hungarians. It is not known which manuscripts were kept in the library of the monastery. Banfi lists four volumes from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries formerly owned by Hungarians who spent time in Rome, for example, John Vitez, Archbishop of Esztergom or Thomas Draghi, a diplomat of Mattias Corvinus at the Vatican, are in possession of the Bibliotheca Vaticana.99 Alfaranus’ ground plan from 1571 (Figure 1.1) shows the compound in a reduced state: only the church and two rows of rooms attached to a cloister. This must be, according to Alfarano, what he thought was left of the early state of the Hungarian compound or what he thought was once the beginning of the compound. The other buildings must have been additions built during the fifteenth-century renovation campaigns and after. Figure 1.4 shows the two rows of each five marble columns supporting the main nave of S. Stefano Minore, visible in cross section on another of Cancellieri’s etchings. At the time of the destruction of the Hungarian compound and church, the compound buildings had been rented. Since the mid-sixteenth century, they were no longer used for the service of pilgrims.100 Thus, the small medieval church with its bell tower and simple wooden roof beams is seen embedded in an ensemble of much bigger surrounding buildings, such as the four-storey possibly seventeenth-century house.

Figure 1.4 S. Stefano Minore, ground plan, Vatican, etching Source: Francisci Cancellieri, De secretariis novae Basilicae Vaticanae, Liber II, 1786

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Cancellieri’s ground plan shows the entire platea ungarorum in the late eighteenthcentury state stretching from the church in the West to the Camposanto Teutonico in the East with whom it shares a garden resp. cemetery wall. The house nestled into the south-western corner of the garden did not belong to the former Hungarian complex, as it had no access to its garden and annex buildings. The buildings facing the road running alongside the basilica, the obelisk and the Rotunda, however, all have doors to the garden. This could be the nucleus of the original medieval Hungarian pilgrims’ compound. On this northern side and facing the main road once were the inscriptions referring to the foundation and the restoration of the compound. Cancellieri shows multi-storied buildings with regular shaped and equally sized interconnected rooms with windows. From here, several entrances led across the road into the basilica. As already mentioned in this chapter, sources from the early fifteenth century tell how much the entire area appeared run down with buildings in disrepair and with falling roofs. Thus, the restoration of the Platea Ungarorum of 1423, initiated by King Sigismund, had become part of the restoration process of the Borgo. The King made the Franciscan Giorgio di Enrico “Rector Hospitalis S. Stephani de Urbe” with the duty of taking over the restoration. Martin V and Eugene IV both reconfirmed him in this office. Again, in 1497, the buildings were in need of restoration and this time, Filippo Bodroghi, procurator of King Ladislas II in Rome, was in charge. During the mid-sixteenth century, the Hungarian pilgrim compound seized to exist and the buildings were rented out. The Hungarians, however, moved away to the Roman Church of S. Stefano Rotondo.101 Thus, like the Armenian compound, two national churches had moved out of the Borgo and into the city centre at about the same time. The Ethiopian and the German compounds, however, stayed on and, each for its specific reasons, still exist to this day. The German “compound” and the Campo Santo Teutonico Architecture and decoration On the way to Rome, Villani saw many Germans and Hungarians spending the night together by huge fires. Their Roman pilgrims’ houses, too, lie side by side and during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they were still surrounded by vineyards stretching south towards Porta de’ Cavalleggeri. Like the other three national pilgrim compounds south of the basilica, the German site has its own special history, too. It is the oldest one. While the Hungarian goes back to the early eleventh century, the Armenian probably started around 1220 or earlier, the Ethiopian began as late as 1480, the German began already under Charlemagne, although the earliest years of the German compound are not well documented.102 The German compound consisted of three elements: the Salvator Church, the Schola Francorum and the cemetery Campo Santo Teutonico. Today, only the German cemetery and the fifteenth-century church S. M. della Pietà are still in situ and working but reduced in size. Under Charlemagne, the Schola Francorum with S. Salvatore in Torrione was founded with three priests and 12 clerics with the duty to take care of the burials. While documentary evidence is rather scarce, it is clear that the schola flourished and must have been of considerable size. Two papal bulls are important: 1053 Leo IX orders the Schola Francorum to bury those from the countries north of the Alps. And Gregory VII orders in 1081 that in the future the moneys arriving from the north, promised in the foundation document of the Schola Francorum, would be spent for the use of the popes. Perhaps this decision initiated the decline of the Schola Francorum which must have

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soon followed, since the last document regarding it is from 1141, when the foundation document was copied. During its long history, burial in the Campo Santo meant high indulgences. Like other cities in Italy, for example, Pisa, Benevent, Capua, and Chieti, the Campo Santo is said to have received holy soil from Jerusalem.103 The mention of the cemetery Campo Santo occurs in documents from the years 1384 and 1397.104 Shortly later, sources tell of a hospital and church of S. M. Theutonicorum established by persons of the Theutonicae nationis, a novelty compared to the other “national” compounds, all of which were royal or papal foundations.105 But it seems that during the following years, like most buildings in the Borgo, the hospital was neglected, and even wolves came into the cemetery at night.106 In order to revive the care of pilgrims and the burials of the cemetery, under Eugene IV (1431–1447), a new huge hospice for women to the right of the main entrance and a smaller house for pilgrims at the left of the main entrance were built.107 A female sub prior from the hospital of S. Spirito down the road was responsible for the female hospice, while the small ancient chapel of St. Gregory, the cemetery’s charnel house, close to the obelisk stayed under the administration of the chapter of St. Peter’s.108 This arrangement, which had lasted for centuries, began to change in 1454, when the Brotherhood of the Campo Santo Teutonico was installed and the chapter slowly lost its influence. More on this is given in the following chapter. It is very difficult to interpret the scarce sources available for the buildings and their administration, since both parties, the popes with the chapter, as well as German lay people and German clergy, were involved in the changes and improvements in the area. In any case, this was a sacred site: for the fifteenth century, Miedema quotes documentary sources telling of indulgences of 33,000 years for those who are buried there or 5,000 for those attending a burial in the cemetery church or pray Ave Maria there.109 Other sources say that burial here meant full redemption of one’s sins. Compared to only 100 years of indulgences for prayer in the much-visited Petronilla chapel inside the basilica, one understands the special importance of the Campo Santo for the Vatican.110 The list of indulgences concerning the area of the Campo Santo include the Vatican obelisk as well as the Rotunda di S. M. della Febbre, offering the pilgrim very many opportunities of redemption of his sins on many occasions to stop and pray on the itinerary through the basilica and its sacred surroundings in the south. No traces of outfitting and decoration remain from the early beginnings of the German compound but, according to the importance and sacredness of the cemetery as part of the pilgrims’ itinerary, one can assume that its buildings were well equipped and nicely decorated with frescoes. With regard to the indulgences, none other of the three national compounds at the Vatican seems to have had this importance and sacredness, and none was part of the pilgrim itinerary. Heemskerck’s well-known ca. 1533 drawing of St. Peter’s seen from the south shows the outer Campo Santo wall with the small apse of S. M. della Pietà and several country houses and gardens within the Leonine walls. To the right of his detailed depiction of the Rotunda with the Vatican obelisk and the sacristy of Old St. Peter’s, one notices the buildings of the Campo Santo grouped closely around the main entrance. Also, Alfarano’s ground plan from 1571 (see Figure 1.1) shows the buildings of the German compound east of the reduced Platea Ungarorum running along the main road south of the basilica. Several buildings are grouped around the main entrance, and further in the south-western corner is the fifteenth-century church of S. M. della Pietà with its two apses. The main entrance is connected to the so-called Porta dei Morti leading via stairs from the vestibule of St. Peter’s out into the road facing directly the German main entrance.

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These buildings can also be seen in Tempesta’s view of the Borgo drawn some 20 years later: an open view on the cemetery with buildings on the right. Alfaranus had these buildings in mind when he wrote: Iuxta praefatam ecclesiam et coemeterium est magna domus magna coenaculo multisque aulis et cubiculis praesertim a sanctissimo domino, nostro Gregorio XIII ampliata. According to Alfaranus, it was in this huge building that the popes fed hungry pilgrims and the poor. It must have been in this building or in a previous one that, according to medieval sources, 1,800 people were fed weekly.111 If the building was extended under Pope Gregory XIII, as Alpharanus says, it means that at the time of Alpharanus the Brotherhood of the Campo Santo Teutonico shared responsibilities over the Campo Santo together with the popes. In any case, the feeding of the poor continued here until the pontificate of Urban VIII (1623–1644). The founding document of the Brotherhood states that Friedrich Fried from Magdeburg, one of its founding fathers, repaired and installed two altars in the older church of St. Mary in the Campo Santo. At that time, two churches with three altars were in the Campo Santo. But we don’t know anything about their decoration, any inscriptions and altar patronage. It is safe to assume that those popes involved into building and renovation of the Campo Santo churches were remembered with their coats of arms on walls and above entrances, on altars, fountains or balustrades. As mentioned before, sacred soil from Jerusalem is said to have been brought here. And it is possible that earth and stone relics from the Holy Land were kept in the Campo Santo churches.112 In 1454, with the foundation of the Brotherhood of the Campo Santo Teutonico, the Campo Santo received its most interesting fifteenth-century feature, a new church called S. M. della Pietà. The goal of the German brotherhood, like numerous other “national” brotherhoods at that time in Rome, was to support and help the poor and the pilgrims, to take care of the cemetery Campo Santo and the memoria of the dead. From now on, the brotherhood tried to continuously push out the influence of the chapter of St. Petere’s on the institutions of the Campo Santo.113 Although it is difficult to interpret the historical sources especially with regard to the growing need to focus on the German identity of the site, it seems that since the mid-50s the former women’s hospital had changed into a hospital for Germans.114 The need to focus on the memoria of the dead and thus guarantee the continuity of remembrance between the living and the dead must have been the leading thought and goal of the German brotherhood.115 With regard to the Ethiopian church with the Ethiopian friar depicted on the tramezzo, with the Hungarian compound and the paintings of the Hungarian kingly and national saint St. Stephen, we should assume that the German Campo Santo, too, carried inscriptions which made clear to which nation it belonged. All we know is that in 1501 magistro Jacobo pictori was paid 24 ducats for a fresco above the main entrance depicting a Maria della Pietà.116 No mention is done of any inscriptions or other. The painter cannot be identified. With the new church S. M. della Pietà, founded and paid for by the German brotherhood alone and no longer by the popes, a situation similar to the Hungarian one had been created. The question is if a German iconography can be traced comparable to the Ethiopian case, where letters of the Ethiopian alphabet appeared on the tramezzo. The new church which was begun in 1475, ready much later and consecrated finally in 1500, was one of the few new churches of the Renaissance Borgo. Because of its peculiar ground plan, art historians have difficulties in identifying its architecture and style especially with regard to any expected “national” identity. Is it German or Italian or does it even have Armenian references?117 Although S. M. della Pietà is a German church, at first sight, hardly anything in its architecture seems German. The ground plan reflects different stylistic elements which all together create a highly original and beautiful new

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building type. This is neither an Italian Renaissance church nor, compared to the architecture of the slightly later better-known quintessentially German church in the centre of Rome S. M. dell’Anima, of northern Gothic style. Obviously, the architect of the Campo Santo church did not feed expectations of a German style. The church is a Hallenkirche over a square and inscribed Greek cross without a dome, with two prominent apses in the south and north built of brick. Four pillars divide the interior into nine rooms of different sizes. The main chapel is flanked by two side chapels. Main entrances lead West into the Campo Santo and East out of the Campo Santo onto the surrounding road. It has been observed that the sparse decoration and the clarity of the interior space give the architecture an Italian feeling. But the ground plan is unique in contemporary Roman architecture. Only 30 years later, Bramante takes up the scheme for the St. Peter’s domed crossing. The question about the architect’s name of this original building still remains unanswered. He is an unknown master architect who created a beautiful spacial and light structure without ornamentation; in this respect, it seems to be contemporary in style marrying “Eastern” and “Western” elements in a synthesis. The huge altar piece for the church’s main altar was finished in 1502. Its iconography is a traditional one and suits the place perfectly: a Pietà in the centre flanked by depictions of “Anna Selbdritt” and the Visitation, while the outermost wings show pairs of saints, Peter and Paul and James and John the Baptist. Its painter, too, is unknown, although he must have been a master and familiar with Italian as well as northern Renaissance styles. The west wall of the chapel of the Swiss Guard to the left of the main chapel was painted in 1517 by an Umbrian painter with the coronation of the Virgin. The fresco cycle on the remaining walls with scenes from the Passion was also painted by an Italian, the well-known Polidoro da Caravaggio, a student of Raphael’s. In the Crucifixion, the Swiss patron of the altar is seen standing beside the Cross.118 Administration and inhabitants of the compounds The lack of sources allows only few answers concerning the administration and financing of the compounds, which were royal or papal foundations. But it is clear that the Dominican (in the Armenian and Ethiopian cases) and Franciscan (Hungarian compound) orders must have had a crucial role at least during the fourteenth century and after. Traditionally, Dominicans as the “Maestro del S. Palazzo” were theologians of the popes, first sharing the office with the Franciscans, but from 1306 exclusively selected.119 Since the missions to Armenia and Persia were mostly organised by the Dominicans and to a lesser degree Franciscans, it is no surprise that the Armenian compound was under Dominican supervision, at least when Stephen of Armenia was prior. Alberto Zucchi mentions the Armenian Prior of S. Maria degli Armeni under Boniface IX (1389– 1404), who acted under Dominican supervision: “Petro Stephani de Armenia, Priori Domus S. Marie de Urbe, Fratrum Armenorum Ordinis S. Augustini, sub cura Fratrum Praedicatorum viventum.”120 And the fresco in the Ethiopian Church, as mentioned earlier, shows an Ethiopian Dominican called Antonio, according to Cancellieri, painted during the pontificate of Sixtus IV (1471–1484), about which Cancellieri adds: facendovi il tramezzo, che vi e, con la pittura della SS. Trinita, di S. Stefano, con un Frate Dominicano in ginocchione, con le lettere sotto Etiope, che dicono in nostra lingua Frat. Antonio Abessino. Antonio was perhaps the Prior or another official or visitor to the compound, probably shown in a life-like portrait.

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A brief detour into the history of papal contacts with Ethiopia is useful at this point. According to the documents, on January 24, 1450, the Coptic Patriarch John XI to Pope Nicolas V wishes a house for his legates and pilgrims in Rome. He wrote that also the Ethiopian emperor Zara Yacob would be happy about such a house.121 The Ethiopian Dominican brother Antonio Abessino in the fresco can be identified: Paris de Grassis and Suriano tell of Giovanni Brocchi da Imola’s Ethiopian mission in 1481 during Sixtus IV pontificate. Brocchi da Imola travelled to the Ethiopian king’s court via Jerusalem and returned with the Negus’ delegation of six legates whose head was the familiare of the Negus and chaplain Antonio, a man as highly venerated as a cardinal. The Ethiopian delegates were regarded as imperial ambassadors and enjoyed all privileges at the papal court.122 Brocchi da Imola who knew the Ethiopian language served as a translator and in the papal chapel Antonio sat to the pope’s right, Brocchi da Imola on his left translating. They lodged first in the Castel S. Angelo, later in S. Spirito in noble apartments and at the cost of Pope Sixtus for three months. They had brought gifts such as pearls and precious stones and left with gifts, for example, a portrait of Pope Sixtus and a ring from his finger. The mission’s aim was that the Ethiopians get familiar with Roman Church rites, a much-criticised issue in Ethiopia. Sixtus IV was deeply involved not only with Ethiopia, but also with all questions regarding the new occupied Portuguese trading territories in Western Africa. Several delegations from the Congo had reached Rome during his pontificate.123 Under the pontificate of Alexander VI124 in 1492, we hear of S. Stefano Maggiore dall’India and expenses paid for masses and decorations made for the day of the titular saint, St. Stephen. In 1493, the monastery of S. Stefano Maggiore was called a “small house near the place called Egypt behind the tribune of St. Peter’s at the left of the entry into Egypt” (Domuncula posita in loco uqi dicitur Aegyptus, retro tribunam dictae Basilicae, manu sinistra intrando Aegyptum).125 In 1515, under Leo X, 30 brothers of different orders lived there. And certain Abbas Thomas and John were buried in the church in 1518. Convent life126 was regulated by rules. In 1551, the Holy Siege approved the rules for S. Stefano Maggiore for the Ethiopian monks. Ethiopian manuscripts originally in the convent library are today in the Biblioteca Vaticana, and during the late sixteenth century, the convent became the first European centre for Ethiopian studies. The rules speak of humble obedient life under the superior. Ethiopian pilgrims were allowed to stay for three days while they were looked after, given bed, food and care. But if Ethiopian pilgrims turned out to be proud, they would be chased away. Various religious bodies and benefactors shared in financing the compounds, as did also royal patrons as in the Hungarian and German cases, or the German Brotherhood, and the Chapter of St. Peter’s. The Chapter owned many houses in the Borgo. Lepri mentions six houses in the “Platea Ungarorum” owned by four “canonicus,” one “rettore” of S. Giacomo Scossacavalli and a private person.127 Also the sister Lucia of a certain Nicolaus, “rettore” of S. Stefano degli Ungari, owned a house in the Borgo, close to S. Salvatore de Terrione.128 No names are known of the permanent lodgers or visitors to the Armenian compound, although the number of Armenian churchmen and pilgrims travelling to Rome and back was immense. For example, Tournebize and Jean Richard report about the many trips of the “uniates,” the Latin Armenian Archbishops, all of them Dominicans, to Rome.129 They had to be consecrated at the Vatican and had to travel to Rome every eight years.

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Each year, the Archbishop sent a special delegation to Rome to bring incense. On the other hand, the united Latin Armenian convents had the duty to receive the embassies sent to them from Italy by the Dominican General. Most probably, the compounds were exclusively aimed for the pilgrims, since Armenian churchmen probably stayed with their fellow friars in the orders’ Roman houses or in the Vatican’s guesthouses. We know of several Armenian pilgrims to Rome who wrote travel reports. According to an Armenian colophon, the Armenian priest and pilgrim Tēr130 Sargis arrived from Armenia in Rome in 1476 and stayed more than one year. Later, he continued to Santiago.131 His itinerary must have been very similar to Martiros Erznkats’i, whose pilgrim report gives details about his trip.132 But none of them mentions the Armenian hospice in Rome. This is probably because they were not Uniates, but Orthodox members of the Armenian church. Interestingly, although we do not know from which European country or city, Sargis’ brought back with him to Van beautiful vessels, a cope and an expensive chalice and crosses, which he left to the church in memory of himself and of his parents. This gift to the home church of the Armenian pilgrim shows us that the beauty of European art was highly valued and venerated in the faraway city of Van. The trips to Rome were dangerous and could be life-threatening, all the more an environment such as the compounds was important for the foreign pilgrims especially the Orientals who came from far away. In the year 1269, 26 Armenians had come from the Armenian provinces in order to settle in Rome “in the place of rest of the Armenians.”133 The same colophon reports that in the same place also lived respected women, modest old men and the poor and needy. Another source reports about Armenians living there with their wives and children according to the Armenian custom. This proves the availability of many rooms and apartments within the compound. Separate areas for superior, priests, monks, for their daily worshipping and their work, for example, in the library and the scriptorium, and for the lay pilgrims and for entire families must have existed. The Armenian Unitarian Order dei Frati Armeni Ordinis Unitorum oppure Ordinis S. Basilii had a church in Rome.134 The Armenian church compound at the Vatican could have been only a Unitarian church. The Dominicans had the jurisdiction over the Armenian Unitarians or Order of the Basilians as in a bull dated 1402 (Pope Boniface IX) which was confirmed in 1409.135 The entire area around the southern side of St. Peter’s must have been rather densely populated and built with houses, gardens, stables, shops and granaries, as seen on an unpublished map from the year 1600.136 Right behind the Hungarian garden was a square and a “bottega” and a little road leading to the bastions called the little road of Perugino. At that time, at the corner of the “vicolo de cavaligieri detto strada Maestra” was the house of the well-known canon Giacomo Grimaldi, who had produced unique drawings of Old St. Peter’s. The map’s legend calls it “Casa d’Maria dicolonia hoggi di Antonio d’ (unreadable) et al presente le godi Jacomo Grimaldo chierico di S. Pietro.” In contrast to the missing documentation with regard to pilgrims’ lives in the medieval compounds, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century documents exist concerning the Armenian church and house. They shed a good light onto the circumstances of life there. Presumably, these circumstances were similar to those during the earlier centuries.137 In 1566, the Armenians had already moved their hospice further away from the Vatican, first to S. Lorenzo in the Ghetto and briefly afterwards, in 1606, they were already in S. M. Egiziaca by the Tiber with an Armenian cemetery in front of the church.138

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Another Armenian church was in the medieval Roman contrada Archenohe’ with the church S. M. de Arca Noe, now destroyed.139 Documents in the Archivio di Stato, Roma, give detailed insight into the restoration and outfitting of S. M. Egiziaca, church and hospice. The administrative and financial aspect of the outfitting campaign seems complicated and money insufficient, and in 1715, the Armenian house must have been drowning in debts and owning money to the creditors.140 A passage in a document from 1563 describes the need for an Armenian church and house or hospice, initiated per parte del diletto nostro figlio Alessandro Astuazadori Sacerdote dell’Armenia Minore della Diocesi Sitien, in the following words:141 molti Christiani della Nazione Armena non abbiano Chiesa, o Casa commune, alla quale possino ritirarsi, e dove con li loro Riti, costume, ed Idioma possino fare le cose Sagre . . . che siano forzati con un gran dolore del loro animo andar vagando tra Persone, e Luoghi, a loro incogniti dopo che con la longhezza del viaggio, e con la gran asprezza delle strade si trovano stanchi, e bisognosi di tutte le cose. In 1715, S. M. Egiziaca had 21 houses, vineyards, gardens, as well as personnel such as custodians, confessors, chaplains, medical doctors and so on. The Armenians were allowed to stay there for 30 days, in contrast to the usual Roman usage for pilgrims staying for only three days in the hospices.

Notes 1 Charles Burroughs, ‘Below the angel: An urbanistic project in the Rome of Pope Nicholas V’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute, XLV (1982), 94–124, n. 5. 2 Franz Ehrle, ‘Ricerche su alcune antiche chiese del Borgo di S. Pietro’, Dissertazioni della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia X, 1 (1910), 3–43. 3 Gabriella Villetti, ‘Architetture di Borgo nel Medioevo’, in Gianfranco Spagnesi (ed.), L’architettura della Basilica di San Pietro: Storia e costruzione, Rome, 1997. 4 Giada Lepri, L’urbanistica di Borgo e Vaticano nel Medioevo, Bonsignori Editore, Rome, 2004. 5 Lepri, L’urbanistica di Borgo, p. 140. 6 Richard Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2000, 158. 7 See Aziz Suryal Atiya, Crusade, Commerce and Culture, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and London, 1962. 8 Krautheimer, Rome, p. 27. 9 Krautheimer, Rome, p. 62. 10 Alfarano’s engraving dates 1590. It is published in Tiberio Alfarano, De Basilicae Vaticanae antiquissima et nova structura, edited by Michele Cerrati (Studi e testi, 26), Rome, 1914, appendix. This 1571 drawing is kept in the Capitolo di S. Pietro, to whom Alfarano left all his manuscripts after his death. 11 Pierluigi Silvan, ‘Le Origini della Pianta di Tiberio Alfarano’, Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana do Archeologia Rendiconti, 62 (1989–1990), 3–23, p. 9. 12 In reality, they did vary of more than two degrees in anticlockwise direction. More about this in Silvan, ‘Le Origini della Pianta di Tiberio Alfarano’, p. 13. 13 The most detailed although sometimes faulty monograph is by Mauro da Leonessa, S. Stefano Maggiore degli Abessini, Vatican City, 1929. 14 A. M. Giuntella, ‘ “Spazio Cristiano” e Citta’ altomedievale: L’Esempio della Civitas Leoniana’, Atti del VI Congresso nazionale di Archeologia Cristiana (Pesaro-Ancona, 1983), (1985), 323, n. 51, gives a good brief overview. Lepri 2004 is a detailed report about architectural and topographical structure of the Borgo, equally focusing on the early civitas leoniana. 15 Richard Hodges, Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe, Cornell University Press, Duckworth, 1983, 153.

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16 Gianfranco Spagnesi, ‘La Basilica di S. Pietro, il Borgo e la Citta’, in Gianfranco Spagnesi (ed.), L’Architettura della Basilica di S. Pietro: Storia e Costruzione, Rome, 1997, 31–42, fig. 2. And see Villetti, ‘Architetture di Borgo nel Medioevo’, pp. 73–90. 17 Lepri, L’urbanistica di Borgo, p. 34, n. 149. 18 Lepri, L’urbanistica di Borgo, p. 111ff. 19 See for example Debra Birch, Pilgrimage to Rome in the Middle Ages, Woodbridge, 1998, ch. 6: Welfare Provisions for Pilgrims in Rome, 123ff. 20 Antonio de Waal, Luoghi pii sul territorio vaticano, Roma, 1886, 52. 21 Hannes Roser, St Peter in Rom im 15. Jahrhundert, Hirmer, München, 2005, 57ff. 22 The author is preparing a publication about the fifteenth-century concept of papal mausolea in the Basilica of Old St Peter’s. The fifteenth-century papal burial “politics” with their mausolea in the Basilica of Old St Peter’s stresses the notion of the papal family and of the papal office’s succession concerning an uncle and a nephew from one papal family. 23 Peter Partner, Renaissance Rome 1500–1559, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1976, 16. 24 Torgil Magnuson, Studies in Roman Quattrocento Architecture, Almqvist and Wiksell, Stockholm, 1951, 81. 25 M. Bacci, Opera complete di Piero di Cosimo, Milan, 1976, pl. XV. 26 Gérard Dédéyan, ‘Les Arméniens en Occident fin Xe – début XIe siécle’, in Occident et Orient au Xème Siècle, Paris, 1979, p. 3. 27 I thank Dr Vrej Nersessian for his help and translation. The colophon is in Mat’evosyan, Colophons of Thirteenth Century Armenian Manuscripts (in Armenian), 1984, 216–217, no. 172 and in Garegin Yovsepian, Yisatakarank (Colophon), Beirut, 1951, 935–938. 28 The monastery of Marmachen was in the province Shirak in north-western Armenia, Thierry, Jean-Michel, Armenische Kunst, Freiburg, Herder, 1988, 562. 29 Anna Sirinian, ‘Da Drazark a Roma: Una pagina di storia ciliciana nel colofone del manoscritto Arch. Cap. S. Pietro B 77’, in Valentina Calzolari, Anna Sirinian, and Boghos Levon Zekiyan (eds.), Dall Italia e dall’Armenia: Studi in onore di Gabriella Uluhogian, Bologna, 2004, pp. 59–95, 95. 30 Catalogue Roma – Armenia, edited by Claude Mutafian, Rome, De Luca, 1999, 213–215. 31 Ehrle, ‘Ricerche su alcune antiche chiese del Borgo di S. Pietro’, p. 5, n. 2 gives a list of these catalogues. 32 This is according to Ehrle, ‘Ricerche su alcune antiche chiese del Borgo di S. Pietro’. 33 Levon Zekiyan, ‘Le Colonie Armene del Medio Evo in Italia e le Relazioni Culturali ItaloArmene’, in Atti del primo Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena, Venezia, Bergamo, 28–30 Giugno 1975, pp. 803–931, p. 857. Zekiyan quotes a source regarding the existence of an Armenian church in Rome before the thirteenth century, p. 857. 34 Lepri, L’urbanistica di Borgo, p. 114ff. Pope Nicolas III (1277–1280) focuses his building interest now on St Peter’s, where he had built the nucleus of today’s Vatican palaces. 35 Lepri, L’urbanistica di Borgo, p. 116. 36 Alberto Zucchi, Roma domenicana: note storiche, 4 vols., Florence, 1938–1943, 117. 37 Zucchi, Roma domenicana, p. 118. 38 Franz Ehrle, Ricerche su alcune antiche chiese del Borgo di S. Pietro, Vatican City, 1907, p. 32. 39 Ehrle, 1907, Tav. 1. 40 F. Ehrle and H. Egger, Piante e Vedute di Roma e del Vaticano dal 1330 al 1676, Vatican Library, Vatican City, 1956, pl. XLI. 41 William A. Hinnebusch, The Dominicans: Short History, Dublin, 1985, 56ff. 42 The references Ehrle mentions could not be found by the author. Ehrle speaks of ‘‘Pergamene e obituary troviamo molti passi, che si riferiscono al nostro ospizio S. Gregorius Hermenorum.’’ 43 Ehrle, 1907, p. 36. 44 Ehrle and Egger, Piante e Vedute di Roma e del Vaticano dal 1330 al 1676, pl. LIII. 45 Antonio Munoz, Il Restauro del Tempio della ‘Fortuna Virile’, Rome, 1925, 14. 46 Archivio di Stato, Roma, Brogliardo, Camerale III, pianta, Originale del Rione XIV, 1816, legend 393. 47 De Waal, Luoghi pii sul territorio vaticano, p. 52. 48 Ehrle, ‘Ricerche su alcune antiche chiese del Borgo di S. Pietro’, p. 35. 49 Villetti, ‘Architetture di Borgo nel Medioevo’, p. 79. 50 Ferruccio Lombardi, Roma: Le chiese scomparse, Fratelli Palombi Editori, Rome, 1998, 352.

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51 This is according to the colophon of a bible of the year 1269, see Mutafian, Catalogue Roma – Armenia, p. 214. 52 Lombardi, Roma: Le chiese scomparse, p. 352. 53 Zucchi, Roma domenicana, p. 117. 54 Christiane Esche-Ramshorn, ‘Reordering the Catholic Armenian Churches of Rome and Naxevan: “Hò sentito la Messa sua in Armenia et qui in Roma molte volte”: Nicholas (1560–1597) and Azaria Friton (1602–1604) of Aparan’, in Christiane Esche-Ramshorn (ed.), Reflections on Armenia and the Christian Orient: Studies in Honour of Vrej Nersessian, Erevan, 2017. 55 We shall discuss the Vatican’s relationship with the Church of Armenia, its accusation of heresy and the united religious order in more detail in a later chapter. 56 Zucchi, Roma domenicana, p. 115, n. 1: The 1402 bull reads: ‘‘dilectod filios Fratres Ordinum Armenorum S. Basilii ac etiam Unitorum seu qui Uniti et Armeni nuncupantur, sub cura et regimine Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum auctoritate Apostolica subiicimus et ponimus per praesentes statuentes et etiam ordinantes quod deinceps Magister dicti Ordinis pro tempore existens . . . erga Fratres (Armenos) facere . . . possit et valeat quae praefatus Magister in praefato Praedicatorum Ordine facere potest et debet.’’ (Bullarium O. P. Tom. II, p. 442) 57 Zucchi, Roma domenicana, pp. 115–119. 58 Zucchi, Roma domenicana, p. 119. 59 Louis Duchesne, Scripta minora: Etudes de topographie romaine et de géographie ecclésiastique, Rome, 1973, 154. 60 Mutafian, Catalogue Roma – Armenia, p. 213. 61 Zekiyan, ‘Le Colonie Armene del Medio Evo in Italia’. 62 My thanks go to Vrej Nersessian with whom I have discussed this question. 63 See the list of the lost Borgo churches in Lombardi, Roma: Le chiese scomparse, pp. 341–380 Rione Borgo. 64 Villetti, ‘Architetture di Borgo nel Medioevo’, pp. 76, 78, 81. 65 Ferruccio Lombardi, Roma: Chiese, Conventi, Chiostri, Rome, 1993, 391. 66 Walter and Elisabeth Paatz, Kirchen von Florenz, Klostermann, Frankfurt, 1940–1955, vol. 1, 337f. 67 Ernst Hammerschmid, Symbolik des orthodoxen und orientalischen Christentums, Stuttgart, 1962, 247. 68 Its most important, although sometimes faulty, monography is Mauro da Leonessa, S. Stefano Maggiore degli Abessini, Vatican City, Tipografia poliglotta vaticana, 1929. 69 In the following, I shall focus on the fifteenth-century sources. Regarding this area’s earlier topography and scattered documentary situation see Lepri, L’urbanistica di Borgo. 70 Silvan, ‘Le Origini della Pianta di Tiberio Alfarano’, p. 8. 71 Krautheimer, Rome, p. 267. 72 Roser, St Peter in Rom im 15. Jahrhundert, p. 119, n. 403. 73 F. Ehrle and H. Egger, Piante e Vedute di Roma e del Vaticano dal 1330 al 1676, Vatican Library, Vatican City, 1956, plate 44. 74 Leonessa, S. Stefano Maggiore degli Abessini, p. 61. 75 Tadesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia: 1270–1527, Oxford, 1972, ch. VII: Early Contacts with Christian Europe, 248ff gives a list of the many fifteenth-century Ethiopian missions to Europe and vice versa, of Europeans to Ethiopia. See also Hans-Werner Debrunner, Presence and Prestige: Africans in Europe: A History of Africans in Europe Before 1918, Basel, 1979. I shall refer only to some of these missions, which are relevant for the context of this book. 76 Natalie Zemon Davies, Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds, Hill and Wang, New York, 2006, 66. The author is not aware that already by then a well-functioning Ethiopian compound existed at St Peter’s. 77 M. Chaine, ‘Un Monastère Ethiopien à Rome au XVème et XVIème Siècle: San Stefano de’ Mori’, Mélanges de la Faculté Orientale, université St Joseph, Beyrouth, 5 (1911), 11. 78 However, this did not happen during the fifteenth century as states Villetti, ‘Architetture di Borgo nel Medioevo’, p. 85. Otherwise, Alfarano would not have drawn the three-nave basilica. 79 Gustavo Giovannoni, ‘La Chiesa Vaticana di Santo Stefano Maggiore: Trovamenti e restauri’, Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, s. III, V-VI (1934), 1–28. 80 They are now to be seen inside and outside the church.

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81 Alfarano, De Basilicae Vaticanae antiquissima, p. 38. 82 Eugene Müntz, Les arts à la cour des papes pendant le XVème et le XVIème siècle, Paris, 1878–1898, 4 vols., 3.1, 146: ‘‘Solvi duobus manualibus qui portaverunt ligna antiqua a libraria ad sactum Stefanum (. . .). Solvi pro operis novem magistro Dogardo positis in tectis sancti Stephani (. . .).’’ 83 Leonessa, S. Stefano Maggiore degli Abessini, 177f. 84 Francisci Cancellieri, De Secretariis Basilicae Vaticanae veteris ac novae, 4 vols, Rome, 1786, vol. 3: praemittitur syntagma de secretariis ethnicorum, ac veterum christianorum apud Graecos et Latinos: accedunt disquisitiones I. De cellis Gregorianis II. De Bibliotheca Basilicae Vaticanae III. De Circo Caii, et Neronis IIII. De aedibus rotundis S. Petronillae, et D.N. Mariae Febrifugiae. V. De monasteriis Vaticanis, et Lateranensibus: sequitur sylloge veterum monumentorum, 1526. 85 Censuali Basilicae Vaticanae, 1492, f. 61, as in Leonessa, S. Stefano Maggiore degli Abessini, p. 179. 86 Censuali Basilicae Vaticanae, 1497, f. 104, as in Leonessa, S. Stefano Maggiore degli Abessini, p. 179. 87 Guy Ferrari, Early Roman Monasteries, Vatican City, 1957, 328ff. 88 Birch, Pilgrimage to Rome in the Middle Ages, p. 131. 89 Mariano Armellini, Le Chiese di Roma dal secolo IV al XIX, Rome, 1942, 926. 90 Francisci Cancellieri, De Secretariis Basilicae Vaticanae, 5 vols, Rome, 1786, vol. 2, De secretariis veteris Basilicae vaticanae liber I. Accedunt disqvisitiones: I. De cellis gregorianis. II. De Bibliotheca Basilicae vaticanae. III. De circo Caii, et Neronis. IIII. De templo rotundo s. Petronillae, p. 1557. 91 Florio Banfi, ‘Fra Giorgio di Settecastelli O. P. detto Georgius de Hungaria’, in Memorie Domenicane, 1937, p. 130. 92 Zucchi, Roma domenicana, chapter about the Ospizio di S. Stefano degli Ungari. 93 Zucchi, same as previous note. 94 Walther Buchowiecki, Handbuch der Kirchen Roms, vol. 1, Wien, 1967. 95 Andrea Spiriti, ‘Imago urbis: problemi iconografici e iconologici del battistero di Castiglione Olona fra Lombardia e Ungheria’, Arte Lombarda, 139.3 (2003), 64. 96 Banfi, ‘Fra Giorgio di Settecastelli O. P. detto Georgius de Hungaria’, p. 130. 97 According to Florio Banfi, Ricordi Ungheresi in Italia, Reale Accademia d’Ungheria, 1942, p. 57. 98 Francisci Cancellieri, De Secretariis Basilicae Vaticanae, 5 vols., Rome, 1786, 1438. 99 Banfi, ‘Fra Giorgio di Settecastelli O. P. detto Georgius de Hungaria’, p. 59. 100 Banfi, ‘Fra Giorgio di Settecastelli O. P. detto Georgius de Hungaria’, p. 129. 101 Banfi, ‘Fra Giorgio di Settecastelli O. P. detto Georgius de Hungaria’, 128f. 102 For the following see Albrecht Weiland, ‘Der Campo Santo Teutonico in Rom und seine Grabdenkmäler’, in Erwin Gatz (ed.), Der Campo Santo Teutonico in Rom, vol. 1, Rome, Freiburg and Wien, 1988, vol. 2: Andreas Tönnesmann and Ursula Verena Fischer Pace, Santa Maria della Pietà: Die Kirche des Campo Santo Teutonico in Rom, Freiburg, 1988. 103 Weiland, ‘Der Campo Santo Teutonico in Rom und seine Grabdenkmäler’, p. 43. 104 De Waal, Luoghi pii sul territorio vaticano, p. 36. 105 Duchesne, Scripta minora, p. 342. 106 De Waal, Luoghi pii sul territorio vaticano, p. 40. 107 Duchesne, Scripta minora, 342f. 108 Tönnesmann, Santa Maria della Pietà, vol. 1, p. 78 and Knut Schulz, ‘Die Anfänge der Bruderschaft des Campo Santo Teutonico’, Römische Quartalsschrift, 93 (1998), 38–61, 41. 109 Nine Robijntje Miedema, Die römischen Kirchen im Spaetmittelalter nach den ‘Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae’, Tübingen, 2011 (Bibliothek des deutschen historischen Instituts, Bd. 97). 110 Miedema, Die römischen Kirchen im Spaetmittelalter, pp. 386, 393. 111 Antonio de Waal, La Schola Francorum fondata da Carlo magno e l’Ospizio Teutonico del Campo Santo nel secolo XV, Rome, 1897, n. 3. 112 Weiland, ‘Der Campo Santo Teutonico in Rom und seine Grabdenkmäler’, p. 43. 113 Schulz, ‘Die Anfänge der Bruderschaft des Campo Santo Teutonico’, 41f. 114 Schulz, ‘Die Anfänge der Bruderschaft des Campo Santo Teutonico’, n. 21. 115 Schulz, ‘Die Anfänge der Bruderschaft des Campo Santo Teutonico’, p. 48.

Compounds at Old St. Peter’s 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135

136 137 138 139 140 141

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De Waal, Luoghi pii sul territorio vaticano, pp. 67, 92. Armenian architectural references as pointed out in Mutafian, Catalogue Roma – Armenia. The rest of the existing outfitting of S. M. della Pietà belongs to later centuries. I. Taurisano, ‘L’insegnamento domenicano a Roma. I maestri del sacro palazzo’, Memorie Domenicane, 43 (1923), 527–536. Zucchi, Roma domenicana, p. 117. Lucas P. Desayer, ‘Lettre inédite du Patriarche Copte Jean XI au Pape Nicolas V (1450)’, Mélanges Eugene Tisserant, Studi e Testi 232, Citta del Vaticano, 1964. Lefevre, ‘Su un codice etiopico della Vaticana’, La Bibliofilia, 42 (1940), 432. T. Filesi, ‘Duarte Lopez, ambasciatore del re del Congo presso Sixtus IV’, Africa (Roma) 23, March 1 (1968), 44–84, and Debrunner, Presence and Prestige, p. 45. Leonessa, S. Stefano Maggiore degli Abessini, p. 179, libri censuali. After Mariano Armellini, Le Chiese di Roma dal secolo IV al XIX, Rome, 1891, p. 729. Marius Chaine, Un Monastère Ethiopien à Rome au XVème et XVIème Siècle, Melanges de la Faculte Orientale de l’Universite St. Joseph, Beirut, 1910. Lepri, L’urbanistica di Borgo, 162f. Lepri, L’urbanistica di Borgo, p. 169. F. Tournebize, ‘Les Frères-Uniteurs ou Dominicains Arméniens (1300–1794)’, Revue de l’Orient Chrétien, 22 (1920–1921), 145–161, 249–279, 157. An Armenian married priest. L. Katchikian, Colophons of Fifteenth-Century Armenian Manuscripts, 3 vols., V. 2: 1451– 1480, Erevan, 1958, 403, in Armenian. I thank Dr Vrej Nersessian for his help in finding and translating this source. Jean Saint-Martin, ‘Relation d’un voyage fait en Europe et dans l’océan atlantique, a la fin du XVème siècle, sous le règne de Charles VIII, par Martyr, évêque d’Arzendjan’, Journal Asiatique, (Décembre 1926), 321–373. See above, according to the colophon of a bible of the year 1269. Mutafian, Catalogue Roma – Armenia, p. 213. Zucchi, Roma domenicana, pp. 115–119. Zucchi, Roma domenicana, p. 115, n. 1: The 1402 bull reads: ‘‘dilectod filios Fratres Ordinum Armenorum S. Basilii ac etiam Unitorum seu qui Uniti et Armeni nuncupantur, sub cura et regimine Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum auctoritate Apostolica subiicimus et ponimus per praesentes statuentes et etiam ordinantes quod deinceps Magister dicti Ordinis pro tempore existens . . . erga Fratres (Armenos) facere . . . possit et valeat quae praefatus Magister in praefato Praedicatorum Ordine facere potest et debet.’’ (Bullarium O. P. Tom. II, p. 442) P. Pechiai, Inventari, Archivio del Capitolo di S. Pietro, Vol. 3, Armadio 46, Cataste, Piante, Descrizioni, Indizi; 10: Piante di case in Borgo, 1600. See in more detail Esche-Ramshorn, ‘Reordering the Catholic Armenian Churches of Rome and Naxevan’, pp. 131–149. Munoz, Il Restauro del Tempio della ‘Fortuna Virile’, p. 14. Duchesne, Scripta minora, p. 154. Archivio di Stato, Roma, Camerale III, Roma-Chiese monasterie, 114/1, busta 1882, no. 28. Archivio di Stato, Roma, Camerale III, Roma-Chiese monasterie, Num. I, Breve erectionis V. Hospitii S. Mariae Aegyptiae.

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Armenia between “East” and “West”

From the beginning, the Armenian church, as the oldest, biggest and most influential church of the Christian Orient, had strong and far-reaching ties with Europe, especially with the Vatican. But theological controversies between the Armenian church and the Vatican continued to afflict their relationship during the Middle Ages and beyond. At the same time, trade links between Armenian merchants acting as Christian intermediaries in the long-distance luxury trade with the main trading centres of Europe, in particular Italy, increased. Armenian trade opened the multi-ethnic cities along the western Silk Road for European trade. This intensity of these contacts resulted in mutual artistic transfer, and more specifically, in image borrowings and new image creations. Discussions of Armenian arts have rarely found their way into Western art historical publications, even if interest in world or global arts has lately increased. A consequence of this long ongoing negligence is that Armenian arts are often misunderstood as a mere off-spring of the Byzantine style. The problem of artistic transfer between “East” and “West” has become a major issue during recent years, but Armenian arts have rarely been given their proper place in these discussions, although artistic exchanges have been one crucial and enriching element in the development of Armenian arts. And a scholarly analysis of the relationship between the Armenian and western European arts, together with a comparison of the artistic “languages” of Christianity, is altogether missing. With regard to the Armenian “dialect” of art, Robin Cormack writes, In most of its vocabulary it is clear that the language of Armenian Gospel iconography is a language which Armenians shared with the rest of medieval Christendom. Many of the subjects and many of the compositions enjoyed a wide circulation and would have been as readily understood in Paris and in Constantinople as they were in Armenia. Armenian iconography is not a separate language by itself though perhaps it could be called a distinct dialect in the common language of medieval art. To understand what peculiarly Armenian about Armenian iconography is involves pressing the language to yield its nuances of meaning . . . The extraordinary quality and range of Armenian art . . . prompts many questions for the art historian and particularly the Byzantine art historian. At the centre of the debate is how incorporate this material into Western and non-Western art history . . . How did Armenian art interact with and influence other artistic spheres.1 Cormack asks the crucial question of how “can [Armenian arts] be incorporated into a broader art historical discourse.” DOI: 10.4324/9781003204619-3

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The following section aims at presenting an introduction into the character of Armenian arts, especially painting. Due to Armenia’s specific geographic and geopolitical context and its long-distance trading networks, its arts have a very specific artistic identity on combination with a noticeable degree of non-Armenian elements. Before focusing on the present state of research and problem definition of this book and its medieval artistic East-West exchanges in Cilicia and on the Armenian Plateau, it is useful to remember the main historical facts which led to this special artistic set-up. Edmond Schütz points out that “Since the dawn of her history, Armenia was divided into two parts: the West, subjected to the Greeks, Romans and subsequently the Byzantines, and the East, dominated by various Iranian states (the Medes, Parthians and Persians).”2 In the light of the strong Diasporic moment and the Armenian Genocide of the early twentieth century, this East-West “division” of the country has remained a constant factor until today. Before its Christianisation, Armenia’s role of Eastern colony of the Roman Empire resulted in its involvement in border wars between Rome and its sister Empire of westcentral Eurasia, Sassanian-ruled Persia (third to sixth centuries).3 But throughout these wars and despite its position between the “two shoulders of the world,” Armenia had remained partly independent and culturally separate without becoming a classic border region. Armenia’s conversion to Christianity during the fourth century further distanced it from the Zoroastrian Persians. The nation’s position between the two blocks of East and West is at the base of every discussion about the Western impact on Armenian arts during the Middle Ages until about 1600. Some researchers like to call Armenia Western and belonging to the cultural sphere of Europe. Others differentiate carefully, such as Christopher Walker’s “Are the Armenians European or Asiatic?” He believes, Since their homeland is east of Asia Minor, and the present capital is on almost the same longitude as Baghdad, it is not easy to call them European. Armenia grew to statehood at the eastern edge of Byzantium, and discovered the arts of writing, literature and architecture when such skills were prized in the Byzantine Empire but largely dormant in western Europe. Armenia carries its civilisation from distant centuries, when the world’s cultural configuration was different from that of today. It is therefore hard to find a European home for Armenia, unless ‘Europe’ is used as synonym for ‘civilised.’4 From early on, Armenia had the role as cultural transmitter between the “East” and the “West.” Trade and translation are the keys for understanding its cultural development and consequently its relationship with Latin Europe, with whom it shares the same faith, although not the same dogma. The Christians who lived in Roman and Sassanian Syria and Mesopotamia remained in close contact with one another, while being citizens of empires which spread their cultural achievements in these peculiarly vibrant regions far to the West and to the East.5 Vrej Nersessian’s detailed analysis of the historical sources with regard to the date of Armenia’s conversion to Christianity includes King Trdat’s relationship as former protégé of Diocletian, according to the Armenian historian Agat’angeghos. Both persecuted Christians. It was first Trdat who stopped the persecution after his own conversion, led by St. Gregory the Illuminator. Therefore, Armenia’s acceptance of Christianity in 301 predates that of the Roman Empire.

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In the fifth century, the Armenian church began to separate from the main branch of orthodoxy over disputes about the nature of Christ, and the rejection of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 established a fully separate Church with its own calendar. Nersessian points out that “the concept of a universal Church and universal empire became an achievable objective as presented by Eusebius in a single historical narrative.” According to historical sources, which Nersessian carefully discusses, Constantine, who claimed patronage of this Universal Church and who was involved with the Churches of Armenia and Persia. He seems to have personally met King Trdat, most likely between late 324, year of the foundation of Constantinople, and mid-325. The strong continuing Roman connection of Trdat together with the missionary work of the Armenian St. Gregory the Illuminator meant that Armenia became aligned with Rome. Nersessian writes, “But this was only the beginning of a relationship between Christian Armenia and Christian Rome that was quite as tortured as the Armenian relationship with Persia. Was Armenia, or was it not, part of Christian Rome?” When, in the seventh century, the Arabs appeared on the historical scene, they invaded Armenia, conquered the huge Sassanid Empire and fought incessantly against the Byzantines on Armenian territory. Already, before the tenth century, in the cities and main trading centres of Armenia, mosques stood next to churches, as Al-Istakhri states in his “Book of Routes and Realms,” for example, in Dabil/Dvin.6 The power play between Rome/Byzantium as “centres” and Armenia as “periphery” was to become the dominant problem in the history of both Rome and later Byzantium. It continued throughout the Middle Ages with papal Rome and Armenia occupied by the Mongols and Seljuks. This had a special impact on the arts.

Character of Armenian arts Like the exchange of goods, ideas, too, travelled long distances. The ethnically mixed, multi-religious trading towns on the road connecting Ayas, Tabriz and Sultaniyah were in a constant “dialogue” with other cultures, like a river with different rhythms and currents. What had arrived from the Far East, China, into the Muslim world and into Greater Armenia and Armenian Cilicia, eventually reached further West to the Byzantine World and in a next step to western Europe. What first arrived from the East such as ornaments and symbols in Armenia was adapted, translated or rejected in a process of cultural translation. Artistic style and iconography both create identity and boundaries between cultures and churches. Aesthetic norms and style make works of art easily recognisable. The formation of regional artistic identity depended on these norms and they were studied by Armenian artists as a “safe” and obligatory part of their artistic repertory, which is firmly based on the spirituality of the Armenian church. As quoted previously, Cormack thinks: In most of its vocabulary it is clear that the language of Armenian Gospel iconography is a language that Armenia shared with the rest of medieval Christendom. Many of the subjects and many of the composition enjoyed a wide circulation and would have been as readily understood in Paris or Constantinople as they were in Armenia. Armenian iconography is not a separate language by itself though perhaps it could be called a distinct dialect in the common language of medieval art. To understand what peculiarly Armenian about Armenian iconography is involves pressing the language to yield its nuances of meaning.

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The style, character and development of the Armenian illuminations have been brilliantly analysed in detail by Sirarpie Der Nersssian in 1936–1937:7 “Les Arméniens sont avant tout des décorateurs, c’est l’ornement qui donne a leur peintures, comme d’ailleurs a la sculpture, un cachet particulier . . . On ne peut pas oublier l’effet chatoyant de ces pages dont la richesse rappelle parfois les objets d’orfèvrerie. En étudiant des motifs de ce décor nous avons constamment mis en évidence les analogies avec l’art du monde iranien et musulman d’une part, et l’art hellénique et byzantin d’autre part . . . La peinture arménienne nous apparait assurément comme un art éclectique, mais n’est-ce-pas là le caractère de l’art byzantin lui-même et, mieux encore, de l’art musulman? Nous trouvons dans la peinture arménienne une dualité très marquée qui résulte des rapports différents, mais qui est en même temps inhérente au peuple. Nous ne voulons nullement faire entrer en jeu des considérations ethnique, toujours dangereuse, mais les Arméniens venus en Asie Mineure de l’Europe, sont un groupe occidental vivant en Orient. Ils portent en eux, par suite de leur origine et des circonstances historiques et géographiques de leur développement, des traits de caractère des deux mondes.” She continues stating that Armenian painting thus seems to be an art located halfway between the Occident and the Near East and is perhaps an art more intelligent than creative. The artists’ originality consists less on the originality of new forms than in the ways it adjusts, modifies and adds to the decorative repertory just like the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean and on the Iranean Plateau do. These works of art merit an honourable place in the history of medieval manuscript painting. In 1982, Burchard Brentjes, Stepan Mnazakanjan and Nona Stepanjan differentiate, for example, the Armenian arts, by their special “Menschenbild,” from the Chinese, Islamic, Byzantine and Latin cultures. They discuss an important aspect, While in the Roman Church the image of the crucified Christ prevailed with the function of identification of the believer with the suffering and redeeming of the Lord, in pre-Christian Armenia, in contrast, both traditions of adversity against images and image-friendly attitudes existed side by side. With a national church without monarchic structures, domestic piety led to the veneration and possession of bibles in every household. Gospel books replaced icons and were identified with Christ himself. Thus, book painting became the foremost artistic expression of Armenia. The depiction of the crucified was avoided. And the carved khatchkars, the Armenian cross stones, symbolise the rule of Christ over the four parts of the world and not salvation through suffering.8 Vrej Nersessian followed Der Nersessian’s study in 1987 with a detailed history of the main features of Armenian painting. He explains that the Armenian artists were mostly monks, who created an expressive intensity in their work by emphasising stylised linear qualities in their compositions. With a simple and austere style, the artists omitted unnecessary details in landscape and background. They simplified human figures, playing down aspects of shadows or contouring. Not seeking to imitate nature, they rejected the tradition of Classical art. The appeal of these manuscripts in their dark tones and stylised patterns, is not on the achievement of realism. In contrast, the Cilician style of painting was developed by artists schooled in the tradition of Western art. The ornamental elements in Cilician manuscripts began to consist of birds or imaginary creatures painted with precision and perched on the first initial of

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Armenia between “East” and “West” words . . . Contrary to Armenian artistic convention, these artists stressed detail, rendered human forms in a more lifelike way and included background landscapes.9

In 1991, Mathews and Sanjian focus on descriptions, style and the comparison with the Western and Byzantine artistic repertoire in their chapter on “The Development of Armenian Painting,” on iconography and medieval interpretations of the Canon tables, including new research. In their catalogue of 1995, Das illuminierte Buch Armeniens, Heide and Helmut Buschhausen describe what they understand as the three pillars of Armenian arts. Firstly, it is innovation, including the sharing of motives and form from the border cultures Syria, Byzantium and Italy, which once accepted, were transformed into something of their own.10 Secondly, the copying, so precise, at times, of the contours of the image pinching it with needles for precisions. Such a technique could guarantee the preservation of the Armenian artistic tradition. Thirdly, the safeguarding of the holy text, and since the turn to the first millennium, the decorative canon tables at the beginning of the Gospels which contain ornaments with apotropaic character. In 2001, Vrej Nersessian publishes his Theology of Armenian Art.11 His analysis reaches deeply into the theological meaning and character of the Armenian arts: “Armenian Christian art can only become intelligible when considered in relation to the culture of which it is an expression,” and that’s why Nersessian’s discussion is of such importance. The following briefly summarises some of Nersessian’s major arguments, which are exclusively and firmly based on Armenian church history. The Armenian bible “Breath of God” was translated by Saint Mesrop, the inventor of the Armenian alphabet, into Classical Armenian. He was “the originator and the sustainer of a profound revolution in the life of the Church and the nation. It was seen as the marriage between Christ and the Armenian people.” In the following, sponsor and scribe viewed the manuscript as sacred object and a most effective means for salvation and it remained in the family like an heirloom or as an “adopted child.” Sometimes a copy could have been made for the memory of a deceased child, and books could have been fiercely persecuted and hunted as their owners. Nersessian quotes from the Discourses of Gregory the Illuminator: “Scripture is to be understood in two ways: one is tangible and visible, the other intellectual.” The Armenian scholar David the Invincible says, “to adorn and add glitter to the human soul, and translate it from a life that is material and befogged to one that is divine and immaterial,” and Grigoris Arshruni on the art of commenting: like the peacock which as often it flutters its wings, displaying more and more colours surpassing the beauty initially witnessed, so also the hidden truths of the readings, which are also so infinite, which the more explained reveal the unspeakable mystery of our salvation. In Armenian art, he continues, the primary means for understanding the spiritual was visual perception, the gazing at the pictures, for example, Old and New Testament scenes painted on church walls. Nersessian discusses several examples in detail of the unique Armenian way of interpreting the scriptures, by focusing on the visualising of the Sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, Nativity, Crucifixion, Baptism, Transfiguration, Christ’s Descent into Hell and the Annunciation and on details in the depiction of biblical scenes marking them specifically Armenian, such as a woman’s head under the cradle of the

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Christ child in the Nativity with an inscription saying “Eve” or “the head of Eve” or a figure depicted seating on a dragon in the Baptism scene. In certain “Annunciation” scenes by the artist T’oros Taronatsi, again, there is a specifically Armenian detail, a twospigot fountain, a motif which Nersessian traces back to Syriac and Armenian sources. According to Nersessian, especially, the Armenian “pictorialising of the Transfiguration” shows the “deeper divergencies between Eastern and Western Christianity.” The East, with a mystical rather than moral outlook, dwells upon the cosmic effects of the Redemption. A quote from the Armenian Egishe’s homily makes clear that “the sense of the dominance of the Resurrection, the unity of the Cross and the Resurrection, the vivid realisation of the communion of the saints, the contemplative life as a life to which the heavens are opened, the insistence that nature is not left behind but is transformed by Christ in the same new creation wherein the souls of men are drawn into union with God.” For the Armenian believer, Transfiguration is a symbol of something which pervades all dogma and worship. Nersessian closes his chapter on “The nature of image veneration in Armenian art” with a detailed discussion on Armenian iconoclasm. Armenian arts, at no point in history, focus neither on realism nor on didactic, and thus are different from the arts of the medieval West. Nersessian quotes important Armenian sources to make clear how, in summary, “the paintings were never a gratuitous act but a functional one, since the religious images were created to enable the believer to apprehend the divine and follow visually the life story of Jesus. The efficiency of the image did not depend upon realism but upon the representation of what was recognised as the principle of the things portrayed and as the thinking of the Armenian church.”12 This thinking overlapped in important aspects with the stance of the Byzantine Church, for example, during the time of Emperor Leo V the Armenian (late eighth century). But with regard to the Church of Rome’s didactic use of images for its believers, starting before the year 1300, the Armenian stance meant artistic restraint. Current state of research and problem defnition: brief overview Greater Armenia’s geopolitical position as centre and crossroad is a major factor for the development of its arts. In an almost constant process, they advanced and created a distinct Armenian artistic identity together with a certain degree of a give and take with surrounding cultures. In 1978, Levon Zekiyan lists the medieval Armenian Diaspora communities in the major Italian cities,13 hitherto not used by “Western” art historians. A few of the Diaspora churches and outfitting have been researched, for example, the well-known Armenian church of Naples S. Gregorio Armeno. Also, a history of the arts in the culturally mixed multi-faith centres of the western Silk Road is still missing, too, since art historians focus on either Muslim or Christian art and rarely on their interactions. Lucy-Anne Hunt’s research is a rare exception. And, although art historians generally agree that medieval Armenian arts are preserving their national identity, proved to be involved in one cultural sphere or another, for example, Cappadocia, the Syrian-Arabic countries, Persia and Mesopotamia, Crimea or Europe. A thorough investigation into these processes is still missing. About 600 years stretch between Figure 2.1, a fourteenth-century Armenian miniature produced in Bologna and Figure 2.2, a building in Republic Square, Erevan, in neoclassical Stalinist style of the 1920s. Both are connected by their combination of different artistic styles. The miniature combines Armenian script and Italian painting style using

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Figure 2.1 Ascension of Christ, Lectionary, Armenian, painted in Bologna, 1324, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 4553, fol. 25

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Figure 2.2 Formerly Ministry for Transport and Communication, detail, Republic Square, Erevan, built 1933–1956 Photo: Khachik Grigoryan

a contemporary model by the Italian painter Giotto, as Chapter 5 will demonstrate. The architect Alexander Tamanyan, the creator of modern Erevan, built the group of monumental buildings surrounding the square in Neoclassical Italian style combined with ancient Armenian ornamental quotations.14 Both painting and building combine Eastern and Western styles. Each work of art can be interpreted and explained by its historical circumstances. Are they simply “Latinised” works of art and borrow foreign artistic elements or do they create something entirely new? Art historians are rather unsure how to deal with them. These specific works of art will lead us to questions about periodisation, Renaissance/s in Armenia, international style/s and how to distinguish each artistic vocabulary. Our following discussion of the state of current research into this subject is a selection of major works. Sirarpie Der Nersessian’s article from 195515 is the first study discussing the Western impact on Armenian arts with special focus on Western iconographic themes in Armenian manuscripts. She discusses some important fourteenth-century manuscripts produced in the scriptorium of the monastery of Gladzor, the intellectual centre of the Armenian province of Siunik in north-eastern Armenia and close to Nakhijevan, where Dominican missionaries founded their monasteries. Latin missionaries and Italian merchants resided in this important area practically side by side with the influential centre

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of learning, the famous monastic university of Gladzor next door, which contemporaries called “second Athens.” Here, Thomas of Aquinas books were translated and Latin culture spread through this vast area, while the anti-Catholic movement gained speed. Der Nersessian discusses Gospel Books painted by Armenian artist Toros of Taron during the first quarter of the fourteenth century. In all cases, the typical decorative Armenian scheme with title head, ornate letters and marginal ornaments is combined with Latin Western decorative schemes and iconography. For example, the first page of an Armenian Genesis has on its left a vertical row of medallions, filled with small scenes. Similar oval medallions are used in French manuscripts from the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which Toros of Taron must have seen and copied. He also added the figure of Moses writing into the loop of the letter “I,” another Latin element. In another manuscript, Toros included the Tree of Jesse, not an Armenian subject, but used in European book painting and sculpture. But here, the Virgin is missing, an important difference to the Western use of the motif. The Virgin as part of the Tree of Jesse is depicted on the S. Zeno bronze doors in Verona. A typical Armenian motif is the cross-legged seated position of the prophets and the turban-like headdress of Samuel. Her last example is the image of the Virgin and Child in the 1307 Bible, copied in the monastery of Noravank near Gladsor for a member of the ruling Orbelian family of Siunik. Both headpieces of the Matthew and Luke Gospels include the Virgin and Child, the Virgin wearing the typical Western veil and crown, following French and English fourteenth-century models. Like this Virgin of Tenderness, the Virgo Lactans, too, first appears in Byzantine art. Toros of Taron painted the crowned Latin Virgo Lactans in a Gospel of 1321 and in the famous Etchmiadzin Gospels, 1323, written for Esayi Ntchetsi, the influential abbot of Gladsor. Der Nersessian concludes that Toros of Taron must have copied Latin iconographic models he found in French manuscripts but did not copy Western style. Several ways of contact were possible. Noravank, Gladsor and Tatev monasteries were all intellectual centres in close proximity to the Silk Road, and Siunik’s trading towns, for example, Yegeghis was a multi-faith Armenian centre with a Jewish and Arabic cemetery. Der Nersessian discusses documentary evidence of Western arts arriving in Armenia, such as the Latin missions and East-West embassies to Armenia around 1300, for example, the French Dominican which Rubruck who passed through Ani in 1254 met. And Franciscans, Dominicans and Italian merchants accompanied several of the Mongol embassies to Paris and Lyon. Mongols visited Europe at least 13 times between the second half of the thirteenth century until 1321. Books changed hands frequently as gifts or war booty. For example, Ricoldo da Montecroce, before 1290, heard of captive Christians being sold after the fall of Acre and brought to Bagdad. Here, he bought some of the loot, manuscripts and vestments, from Muslim merchants. Rubruck carried a Psalter, given by the Queen of France, “in which were beautiful pictures” and which was “much noticed because of the gilded pictures in it.”16 Mangu Khan, for example, “made careful inquiry about the pictures and what they meant” in a Breviary and Bible. A tent in the shape of a chapel adorned with scenes of the Life of Christ, was sent by King Louis of France, together with chalices and books. In Peking, John of Montecorvino had six pictures made of the Old and New Testament for the instruction of the unlearned, an entirely didactic aim.17 Pope Clement’s comments on the pictures’ main educational purposes as persuasive didactic teaching tools: in testimony of the wonderful works of God that ignorant people may learn by the same pictures and understand God and his beautiful works. According

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to the sources, the Mongol Khans who had asked the Kings of France, of England and the Popes for images, thought very highly of the Western images. Der Nessesian continues with Rabban Sauma, who brought another decorated tent chapel from Rome to Arghun. In 1289, it was blessed by the archbishop of Siunik Stephen Orbelian, whose owned the important monastery of Noravank in Siunik. The early establishments in Tiflis and Nakhijevan did not yet have their own fully organised monasteries, but certainly had their own domus.18 And the Georgians gave the Latins property in land. Rubruck tells about a friar from the holy Sepulchre who stayed in Georgia and had large holdings in land there. It is very well possible that since the early beginnings at about 1233, the Franciscan and Dominican monasteries of the Caucasus and western Middle East were well supplied with illuminated books. The author lists the early missionary stations in Azerbaijan/western Persia, when Tabriz, capital of the Ilkhans, became the most important missionary centre. In 1289, when John of Montecorvino returned there, he stayed for two years with the Minor and the Preaching Brothers “who were dwelling there in one place preaching the faith of Christ to the heathens and baptising.”19 Before 1318, two Franciscan and one Dominican monasteries are listed in Tabriz. Sultaniyah became a metropolitan see in 1318. In Armenia, Franciscan monasteries existed in Erzurum before 1318, and also in Karakilisse and at Salmastrum, west of Lake Urmiah. In 1312, the Dominican missions of Asia were organised into a special Society of Peregrinating Brothers, with Franco of Perugia as their vicar general. Before the start of the crucial Dominican missionary centres in Nakhijevan in the 1330s, three Latin episcopal sees were founded in Western Persia: Tabriz, Dehikerkan and Maragha. The Dominicans founded around 50 monasteries in the Ernjak valley. Possibly, the Dominican missionary Bartholomew of Bologna and his entourage are linked with the Bible illuminator Toros of Taron. Der Nersessian concludes, despite all of these contacts, “There has been no Western influence, strictly speaking, on Armenian art. Toros of Taron copied some new compositions which he happened to see; but in the major part of his work he remained faithful to the Armenian tradition of the preceding centuries.”20 She points out overwhelming documentary evidence for the presence of Western art in Armenia but restricts her attention to manuscripts produced at Gladzor. In 1977, for the first time, the historian Jean Richard presents the first history of the medieval Latin missions in the Orient giving art historians a tool to understand the scale of mutual Western-Armenian contacts.21 European missionaries founded medieval Catholic churches and monasteries in Armenia and further beyond. He draws on the extensive corpus of literature produced by church historians on the subject of the Latin missions in the trading centres along the western stretch of the Silk Road. As we shall see, these Roman missions, by far the most successful and long-lasting in the Orient, have not been accredited by Western art history. Richard shows how, due to the continuity of contacts between Latin Europe and Greater Armenia, each side was very well informed about the other. In 1986, Nicole and Michel Thierry publish an article about the tenth-century wall paintings of the monastery church of Tatev in Siunik.22 They carefully characterise the paintings, according to later sources done by an artist of the Frankish nation. Their iconography and style point to the post-Carolingian period and can be compared to German examples. Likewise, the Peter and Paul patronage is unusual in Armenia, but typical Roman or Carolingian. The paintings mix Oriental Christian artistic elements into a Frankish composition, while all the inscriptions are Armenian.

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This does not surprise, since contacts at that time were frequent, with Armenia’s political links to Rome, Byzantium, Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostella.23 In 1991, Mathews and Sanjian in “Armenian Gospel Iconography” conclude, “In the narrative iconography one must first note the general independence of the Armenian tradition from that of western Europe and from that of Byzantium. Although a great deal of Western material was available. . . [It] is significant that all of these [artistic borrowings] belong to the category of dress and fashion.”24 In 1999, Mutafian’s catalogue of the Vatican exhibition Roma-Armenia appears, a vast corpus of dispersed historical material. It describes illuminations produced in the Italian Diaspora vaguely as: “synthesis of Armenian and Latin contribution,”25 “much more Italian than Armenian,”26 “Latin appearance”27 or “influenced by European art,” but without discussing possible Western models. In the same catalogue, Lilit Zakarian contributes two articles in the section “Armenia Cosmopolita” and extends Der Nersessian’s former list of Latin art in Armenian context. Her first article discusses Western elements in the art of the fourteenth-century Armenian painter Avagh, and the second article discusses possible Italian models for several bas-reliefs. She sets Avagh’s art into the context of the university-monastery of Gladzor. Avagh was a wandering artist, moving between scriptoria of Cilicia and northwest Persia where he developed a style firmly grounded in the Armenian tradition, but was open to non-Armenian elements. Zakarian calls his style universal. Avagh’s active partaking with the anti-Catholic clergy explains the inventions of new scenes which extend the Armenian canon. For example, he paints a Catholic cleric sent to Hell during the Last judgement. Her second article discusses artistic transfer between Italy and Armenia: two basreliefs of Saints Peter and Paul framing the entrance of San Stepanos in Aghots, and the Madonna and Child Christ on the tympanum of the Mother of God church in Spitakavor, Siunik, built in 1321. Zakarian explains the presence of the Apostles with the debates about the primacy of Peter. Zakarian believes that the influential theologian Vardan Areveltsi after having passed years in Rome-friendly Cilicia, came to Aghots in 1267. Was the iconography of the reliefs his idea? Had he seen such images in Cilicia brought by the Franciscans? The author finds the closest stylistic parallels of the Apostles in the Porta dei Fiori sculpture in S. Marco, Venice. The tympanum Madonna with the Christ child resembles the Madonna dello Schioppo also at S. Marco, Venice. Both Armenian sculptures, she believes, are in the Palaeologian style and isolated examples, which may or may not belong into the Dominican missionary context. Unfortunately, she concludes, too many facts remain unknown about these missions and the ArmenianRoman cultural bonds. Christina Maranci’s last chapter of her “Medieval Armenian Architecture. Constructions of Race and Nation,” 2001, is titled “The Problem of ‘Foreign’ and ‘Native’ in Armenian Architecture” and refers to the lack of attention to Western artistic presence in Armenia, since some “Armenian architectural sculpture reveals interesting correlations to Romanesque art.”28 Like Zakarian, she discusses the reliefs at Aghots and finds close parallels in the jamb and trumeau sculptures off the eleventh-century church of Moissac in Burgundy. Maranci continues that “in the case of architectural features, however, it is more difficult to draw conclusions since the forms in common are simpler. . . . As it stands, the common forms can be still explained by independent geneses. Even if inconclusive evidence linking Armenia and western Europe and Byzantium were discovered, many questions still stand. Armenians were found in many regions during the Middle Ages, yet a general preoccupation with western Europe and Byzantium had restricted

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preoccupied many scholars. The role of Transcaucasian architecture in the development of Islamic architecture, for example, remains to be explored. Most Islamicists also neglect this problem, and one may lead back to this lacuna to some extent the trend of increasingly narrow academic specialisations.” In 2001, Vrej Nersessian’s catalogue “Treasures from the Ark” presents two examples of Latin-Armenian artistic connections: the fourteenth-century Book of Ordination containing the translation of the rites for various orders of the Latin Church. Twentytwo initials show pictures where clerics, performing the ceremonies of ordination, wear Roman costume.29 The second example is Avagh’s “Entombment” and the “Holy Women at the Sepulchre,” who show an artist “familiar with Western manuscripts and the best achievements of Armenian Cilician art. . . . No artist surpassed Avagh’s mastery in representing the human figure from varied perspectives, meticulously depicting their emotions.”30 Again, in the 2007 catalogue “Armenia Sacra,” Paris, Ioanni Rapti31 and others are unsure of the extent of influences in Armenian art. The authors speak of “picturesque Oriental taste,” “appropriation of Italian models,” “stylistic and iconographic plurality,” “occidental inspiration,” “Greek models,” “faraway echoes of European Gothic art” and so on, but never seek possible models for these inspirations. Zakarian’s article in “Armenia Sacra” (2007),32 again, places the Armenian arts from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries within their multi-cultural context and further extends the list of Western-Armenian artistic exchange. She discusses how an Armenian Renaissance could gain influence during the unstable times marked by a gaining of forces of both Latin Christianity and Islam on Armenian territory, when a new Armenian view of the world started to open up again and a class of merchants, politically favoured, started to emerge. And although Armenia was politically divided its church was not and was therefore able to prepare this cultural Renaissance. At the same time, in central Armenia, Muslim political entities formed, and the Armenians needed to adjust to this new reality of Persians and Arabs now present in cities such as Dvin and Ani. Presumably, Arabic literature existed in the cities to whose charm poets and intellectuals alike were sensitive, for example, Yovhannes Pluz of Erznka who was inspired by the Ismaelian Brotherhood of the seventh-century “Fraternity of Purity.” One of its credos was that the Brothers were peaceful, listened and spoke to men of all people and acknowledged that every people has its wise. Pluz travelled widely and with interest in Arab sciences wrote two books about the Philosophy of the Turks and about the planets. Zakarian thinks that a consequence of more peaceful Armenian-Muslim relations was an awakened mutual cultural interest. Muslim youth movements and brotherhoods sprang up in the cities, whose counterparts are Armenian religious groups led by the clergy. Likewise, mutual artistic “contaminations” are found in architecture and Islamic ceramics with geometric interlace ornaments appear simultaneously in Armenian and Muslim building decoration. During the devastating Mongol invasions, the princely families of Armenia together with the Armenian church started to form a strong spiritual Armenia aiming for a sentiment of national identity. These Armenian families were integrated into the Mongol reign, able to help create new cultural life and help the great monasteries such as Gladzor gain influence. At Gladzor, the Armenian hymnal, lectionary, ritual and missal took their final form. During the thirteenth century, the human-sized relief figures of St. Peter and St. Paul in the small church of the monastery of Aghots in Ayrarat “seem to be a faraway and very indirect echo of the Gothic portals.” And the tympanum of the main church of the monastery of Yohannavank (Ashtarak) shows the parable of the three wise and the three

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foolish virgins, a typically Western iconographic subject. Also, she continues, this theme can be found in fourteenth-century painting of Vaspurakan, the Armenian kingdom on the north shore of Lake Van. Dominican and Franciscan missionaries from Italy, Spain and England seem to have inspired Armenian art such as the unique window tympanum at the Church of the Precursor at Noravank showing an iconography seemingly formulating an almost visual response to Latin accusations of heresy. At the same time, Byzantine iconography is likewise followed, such as at the tympanum of the Mother of God Church in Spitakavor, which reflects the Hodegetria, or the tympanum of the Mother of God Church at Noravank. Princely images are represented on church walls as well, such as the 1273 hunting scene above the door of a chapel in T’anahat/Vayots Dzor and at Spitakavor where on the south wall prince Amir Hasan is shown together with his father and hunting. These sculptures all show princes during the time of Mongol domination and reflect their power. Likewise, manuscript painting finds numerous new subjects. On the one hand, ancient models are followed and ones from Cilicia, but also “imprints from Western, byzantine or oriental imagery” are there. At the end of the fourteenth century, Tamerlane conquers the Caucasus, Armenia, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, and during the fifteenth century, the Turcoman tribes of the KaraKoyunlu and Ak-Koyunlu rule in Armenia. The colophons in Armenian manuscripts give a vivid picture of the violence, destruction and depopulation of Armenia under Tamerlane. Emigrations followed. The church of Armenia played an ever-stronger role as a point of reference for the survival of Armenian culture. Despite the political turmoil and devastation of the country, the monasteries continued their production of manuscripts, a consistent testimony of that era. Up to his death in 1410, the theologian and abbot Gregory of Tatev lived and worked through that time. He made Tatev monastery a stronghold of Armenian theology and he worked and wrote against the church union. He was also a painter of manuscript illuminations which show Iranian and Latin borrowings, he opened up some of the scenes to new ideas by adding narrative detail, he depicted warrior saints (and introduced the cult of saints), until then only rarely used in Armenian manuscript illumination. Zakarian finishes her article by pointing at the rather conventional style of illumination predominating the time after Gregory of Tatev and concludes that the real innovation in Armenian painting during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries happened in Vaspurakan, where a lively spontaneous and expressive painterly style of primitive charm prevailed. Zakarian calls the foreign “influences” rather vaguely “faraway and very indirect echo,” “contamination” and “imprints.” In 2012, Christina Maranci discusses the need to explore the ways of contact between cultures and writes, “Armenia’s intermediary position, held among various neighbours during much of the ancient, medieval and early modern periods, challenges any binary idea of periphery and border. If Armenia stands between Empires, exactly to whose borders or periphery does it belong?”33 With regard to Armenian arts and its contacts with non-Armenian, she adds, “the process to identify and assign sources to one culture or another . . . at times terminates discussion where it ought to begin. Exploring the specific circumstances of contact and the precise nature of appropriation would allow for a very different history of medieval art.”34 In 2012, Amy Landau discusses the decoration of the Armenian Bethlehem Church of the Diaspora in New Julfa, painted after 1630, as the first example of “a very fruitful encounter between Iran and the European artistic tradition.”35 But what exactly does

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fruitful encounter, European style, hybrid mode, foreign stimuli and Westernised mean, since they each characterise more or less different styles. In 2014, Dmitrieva’s and Kovacs’ Die Kunst der Armenier im östlichen Europa36 struggles with the same problem. Art production in the Armenian Diaspora often followed Western models, and these should have been carefully identified by the authors. Art historians have discussed the transcultural aspect of Armenian arts. It can take many forms. The following discussion constrains itself to a few authors only. Dickran Kouymjian discusses various such aspects, in 1986 “Chinese Influences on Armenian Miniature Painting in the Mongol period”37 and in 1991 “Cultural Interactions in the Near East: Some Observations from the Armenian Experience.”38 He mentions the necessity of learning the “intricacies of classical and oriental languages to productively engage in Armenian studies.” The arts of both East and West need to be studied like the languages to understand the different artistic currents involved in interchange. Equally important are the cultural preconditions for any interchange, such as the conditions of coexistence of faiths in the cities. Like Zakarian before, he mentions the Armenian brotherhood of Erzinjan and refers to the statutes of the Armenian brotherhood there called (Y)eghbayrut’iwn from 1280 which represent the equivalent of an Akhi-nâmah in the Islamic tradition of Asia Minor. The statutes describe the personal rules necessary for the virtuous life that akhîs (urban dwellers, merchants, craftsmen, professionals and so on) were to follow. It shows how the continuity of municipal government in Asia Minor had to be guaranteed, during chaotic times in the early fourteenth century after the collapse of the Seljuk and Ilkhanid power, the Brotherhood’s major function was to protect fellow members from the threats of tyrants and wicked men and to assist when they went bankrupt or defunct in poverty or death. These brotherhoods helped to prevent the shifting of peaceful balance in the multi-faith societies of Asia Minor. Kouymjian discusses different ways of cultural and artistic dialogues. To which possible categories do they belong? One example addresses Byzantine and Armenian painting taking up the architectural motif of the scaenae frons at the same time probably from the same classical models. The reason for this was presumably the performance of Gospel narrative in such architectural environments. With the end of these performances, scaenae frons were no longer depicted. Another example regards the Chinese dragon-phoenix motif, which Armenian and Muslim tradition took up at the same time. Here, according to Kouymjian, the reason why Armenian artists stopped using elements from Chinese painting such as the dragonphoenix motif was political. It coincided not only with the end of the Armeno-Mongol alliance, but also with a decline of Armenian art production in Cilicia. In 1991, in the conference proceedings “Atti del quinto simposio internazionale di arte armena,” a good number of articles explores Armenian-Muslim artistic relationships, such as Burchard Brentjes’ “Armenian Tombstones and Turkish adaptations in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.”39 By then, Christian-Muslim interaction in the arts had by then become a much-studied subject. And for example, Tania Velman discusses oriental influences on the miniatures of Vaspurakan. In 1994, Priscilla P. Soucek publishes an article on artistic contact in Armenian and Islamic Manuscript Painting,40 includes case studies of “dialogue” with Christian, Mongol, Byzantine and European arts and asks for the motivating forces behind this transfer. She discusses the Mongol’s dominance in the Near East, their policy of toleration and the prominence of Armenians at the Mongol court and administration. The Mongol quarters of Alataq were situated on the Armenian plateau, in the mountain valleys to the

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north-east of Lake Van, known to the Armenians as Darn and to the Mongols as Alataq (spotted mountains). Here was the Mongols favourite summer habitat. It is said that Genghis Khan’s grandson Hülegü had a palace and a Buddhist sanctuary decorated with statuary and paintings.41 Soucek thinks that visual evidence suggests that the MongolArmenian alliance encouraged Armenian painters and decorators to “emulate designs used by their Muslim contemporaries. Typically, elements drawn from the Islamic repertoire are combined with traditional Armenian schemes to create new hybrid designs.”42 Examples are the polylobed niche-head with spandrels decorated with birds and a tympanum covered with an arabesque. She states a widespread popularity of the motif in Islamic art and architecture and Armenian manuscript art and wonders how this design could have entered the repertoire of thirteenth-century Armenian painters and asks if the motif had acquired an “aristocratic association” since the Armenian manuscripts in which it was primarily used were sponsored by princely patrons. A second element is dress. The reliefs on the church of the Holy Cross at Aght’amar show the Armenian patron King Gagik I and his sons in Islamic costume. And wall paintings strengthen her argument: descriptions of the wall paintings from the King’s now lost palace would suggest that they resembled decorations known from various Iranian and Islamic sites.43 Also the Armenian use of the dragon and phoenix motif, a Mongol emblem of imperial rank “may have conveyed a message of secular power and status unconnected to anybody of religious belief.”44 Soucek finishes her discussion of Islamic elements in Armenian art, “the Armenian emulation of emblems of rank or status used by their Muslim or Mongol contemporaries probably had only a limited impact on artistic development.” Soucek returns to religious life at Hülegü’s camp, where Nestorians and Armenians were the prominent Christians, and there were some Nestorians among the ruling families. Some Armenians were integrated into court, and an Italian appears as well. France had sent a church tent embellished with religious images from the New Testament, an oratory on a cart beautifully painted with sacred stories. The various Nestorian and other churches in the Mongol encampment contained religious images, too. Soucek thinks that there are two phases in the Muslim-Armenian artistic interchange, separated by Ghazan’s conversion to Islam in 1295. The first phase before 1295 shows Armenian illumination taking up Mongol elements, for example, in a manuscript page where the Evangelist John dictating the Gospel is shown with a scribe cross-legged on the ground instead of on a stool beside a silver table with a vase and peonies on top, both furnishings and features from Islamic art. Her next case is a Persian author portrait which “appears to be a desacralised version of a Christian painting.” They suggest that Islamic manuscripts produced before 1295 could contain paintings that are neutral copies or even positive emulations of Evangelist portraits, but a more critical and polemical tone is discernible in later examples. Illustrators of Islamic manuscripts appear to have been more profoundly affected by religious debates of the Mongol era than were their Christian counterparts. Two scenes from Rashid al-din’s “Compendium of histories” may have been inspired by the Armenian use of chrism-bearing angels, which reflect a distinctly Armenian tradition found only in a few manuscripts in the Vaspurakan area, the Baptism of Christ and the Entry into Jerusalem. Both scenes from the “history” demonstrate the role of Islam as the continuation and culmination of the Judeo-Christian tradition, one depicting the youthful

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Muhammad’s identification as a future prophet by the Christian monk Bahira, and the other shows him receiving the submission of the Banu’l Nadir, an important Jewish community in Medina. In both scenes, angels empty the contents of their flask onto Muhammad’s head, presumably to confirm his equivalence to Christ in his role as “anointed son.”45 Also, the very use of silver in the Islamic scenes resembles their Armenian “model.” The most striking difference between the Christian “Entry” and the corresponding Muslim “Submission” scene is though that the attending supporters in the Christian scene hold palm fronds whereas in the equivalent they hold swords, which, according to Soucek, was probably deliberate. This is an example of Islam’s appropriation of Christian iconographic models which are then used to control the “non-believers,” visually and with weapons’ forces. Since Soucek’s publication, a number of articles have discussed Armenian-Muslim artistic and literary production and the mutual relationships in the cities of the Armenian Plateau, for example, Armenian-Seljuk artistic fertilisation.46 In her article in 2004 about Armenian-Muslim interactions in the area of Erzerum, Christina Maranci believes that the architecture may still “raise more questions than provide answers.”47 In 2011, Sergio La Porta, again, focuses on the Christian-Muslim conflicts in his article “Conflicted Coexistence: Christian-Muslim interaction and Its Representation in Medieval Armenia,” and provides an extensive list of previous literature on the subject.48 Sara Kühn’s study on dragon iconography, 2011, discusses a wide range of examples of motif transfer between the arts of China and the Caucasus, especially Armenia.49 The carved and painted Armenian dragons, for example, prove closeness of contacts in medicine, philosophy and poetry. The meaning of the dragons, however, depends on careful research of the historical circumstances of each case, too often hindered by a lack of historical sources. Also, in 2011, Vrej Nersessian’s article about the Marcy-Indoudjian Cope appeared.50 He concludes, “Armenian culture has been in proximity with Islamic art since the seventh century, with the high points being during the Ottoman and Safavid periods. The borrowings from Islamic art were never simple plagiarism, for the objects produced in an Islamic style were for the Islamic market and those closer to the Armenian style were for Christian patrons and were made for the use in Christian institutions. The result is not an amalgam but a new creation in which the artist, while fully appreciative of current creative styles in neighbouring countries, is guided throughout by a sense of his own Christian tradition.”51 The notion of the artist being guided throughout by a sense of his religion is a most important remark in the discussion of artistic transfer and we shall return to it later on. The arts of the “West” had a distinctive part in Medieval Armenia’s rich arts. The Armenian arts were an important transmitter in the flow of motifs and iconographies which arrived from neighbouring cultures. In Armenia, they were adapted and from here they were set on their way again until they arrived in the Latin “West.” Today, the above-quoted question of Cormack (2001) of how to incorporate Armenian arts into the Western and a “global” art history and how exactly Armenian arts interacted with and influenced other arts is still up-to-date. The lack of a modern history of Armenian arts further aggravates the situation. This book will discuss the consequences of artistic transfer with regard to change of taste, the identity of arts concerning their character defined by dogma and theology of beauty, the language of the arts as well as translation techniques, the “dialect” of Christian arts, the question of periodisation and Armenian Renaissance/s, the dissemination

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of Latin arts, the creation of new images and the Armenian role of artistic transmitter. We shall investigate a selection of key pieces of Western and Armenian painting, where western European “met” Armenian style and will find answers to the question under which circumstances artistic borrowing and image creation happened. A difficult aspect to evaluate, though, is the Christians’ “respect” and “modesty” for the Muslim neighbours’ feelings in a multi-faith Muslim-dominated society with regard to the depiction of the human and the holy. According to an Italian source, this played a vital role.52 But before that, a close and detailed look into the historical background and political circumstances of Cilicia or Lesser and into Greater Armenia is necessary. Only then can we understand the Latin-Armenian interactions and the mechanics of artistic transfer along the western stretch of the Silk Road between Tabriz and Rome, all the way through the Armenian homeland.

Notes 1 Cormack in Vrej Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark: 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art, catalogue, The British Library, London, 2001, 13. 2 Edmond Schütz, ‘Armenia: A Christian Enclave in the Islamic Near East in the Middle Ages’, in Michael Gervers and Ranzi Jibran Bikhazi (eds.), Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands: Eight to Eighteenth Centuries, Toronto, 1990, p. 217. 3 Chris Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome: The History of Europe from 400 to 1000, Penguin, London, 2009, 43ff. 4 Christopher J. Walker, Visions of Ararat, I.B. Tauris Publishers, London and New York, 1f. 5 See the following for the in-depth discussion in Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, 18ff. 6 Rouben Galichian, Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps: Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, Printinfo Art Books, Yerevan and Gomidas Institute, London, 2007, 90ff. 7 Sirarpie Der Nersssian, Manuscrits arméniens illustrés des XIIe, XIIIe et XIVe siècles de la Bibliothèque des pères Mekhitharistes de Venise, E. de Boccard, Paris, 1936–1937, 168–170. 8 Burchard Brentjes, Stepan Mnazankanjan, and Nona Stepanjan, Zum Wesen armenischer Kunst, Kunst des Mittelalters in Armenien, Scholl & Co., Wien und München, 1982, 52–54. 9 Vrej Nersessian, Armenian Illuminated Gospel Books, British Library, London, 1987, 42. 10 Heide und Helmut Buschhausen, Das illuminierte Buch Armeniens, catalogue from the exhibition in Bochum, Armenien: Fünftausend Jahre Kunst und Kultur, Wasmuth, Tübingen, 1995, 191–210, 205. 11 Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, pp. 65–88. 12 Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, p. 83. 13 Levon Zekiyan, ‘Le colonie armene del Medioevo in Italia e le relazioni culturali italo-armene (Materiale per la storia degli Armeni in Italia)’, in Atti del primo Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armenia, Venezia, 1978, pp. 813–851, with an extensive list of literature. 14 Tigran Harutyunyan, Architectural Guide Yerevan, DOM Publishers, Berlin 2018, 27. 15 Sirarpie Der Nersessian, ‘Western iconographic themes in Armenian manuscripts, Etudes Byzantines et armeniens’, in Byzantine and Armenian Studies, Louvain, 1973, 611–630. First published as Melanges Henri Focillon, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, VIth series, XXVII (July– December 1955), 71–95. 16 Der Nersessian, 1973, p. 625, after W. W. Rockwell, The Journey of Rubruck, London, 1900, XXI. 17 Der Nersessian, 1973, p. 626. 18 Der Nersessian, 1973, p. 628, n. 105. 19 Der Nesessian, 1973, p. 628. 20 Der Nersessian, 1973, p. 630. 21 Jean Richard, La papauté et les missions en orient en Moyen Age (13e au 15e siècles), Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome 33, Ecole Française de Rome, Rome, 1977. 22 Nicole and Michel Thierry, ‘Peintures murales de caractère occidental en Arménie: Eglise Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul de Tatev (début du Xème siècle)’, Byzantium, 38 (1986), 180–242. 23 Gérard Dédéyan, ‘Les Arméniens en Occident fin Xe-début XIe siècle’, in Occident et Orient au Xe siècle, Paris, 1979.

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24 Thomas F. Mathews, and Avedis K. Sanjian, Armenian Gospel Iconography: The Tradition of the Gladzor Gospel, Washington DC, 1991, 184. 25 Catalogue Roma – Armenia, edited by Claude Mutafian, Rome, De Luca, 1999, 119. 26 Mutafian, Catalogue Roma – Armenia, p. 221. 27 Mutafian, Catalogue Roma – Armenia, p. 119. 28 Christina Maranci, Medieval Armenian Architecture: Constructions of Race and Nation, Leuven, 2001, 251. 29 Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, p. 214. 30 Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, p. 213. 31 Ioanna Rapti, ‘Les Arméniens hors d’Arménie (XIIIe-XIVe siècle)’, in Armenia Sacra: Mémoire chrétienne des Arméniens (IVe-XVIIIe siècle), Paris, 2007, pp. 281–291. 32 Lilith Zakarian, ‘Les arts en Grande Arménie (XIIIe-XVe siècle)’, Armenia Sacra, (2007), 323–329. 33 Christina Maranci, ‘Armenia and the borders of medieval art’, in Mark J. Johnson, R. Ousterhout, and A. Papalexandrou (eds.), Approaches to Byzantine Architecture and Its Decoration: Studies in Honor of Slobodan Curcic, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2012, pp. 83–95, 91. 34 Maranci, 2012, p. 92. 35 Amy S. Landau, ‘European religious iconography in Safavid Iran: Decoration and patronage of Meydani Bet’ghehem (Bethlehem of the Maydan)’, in Edmund Herzig and Willem Floor (eds.), Iran and the World in the Safavid Age, London and New York, 2012, pp. 425–447, 427. 36 Marina Dmitrieva and Balint Kovacs (eds.), Die Kunst der Armenier im östlichen Europa, Böhlau, Köln-Wien, 2014. 37 Dickran Kouymjian, ‘Chinese influences on Armenian miniature painting in the Mongol period, Armenian Studies/ Etudes Armeniennes’, in Armenian Studies: In memorian Haig Berberian, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, 1986, pp. 415–468. 38 http://armenianstudies.csufresno.edu/faculty/kouymjian/speechs/cultural_interactions.htm. No year. In note 1 the author says that parts of his article were presented during a lecture at Columbia University in April 1991. 39 B. L. Zekiyan (ed.), Atti del quinto simposio internazionale di arte armena, Venice, 1991. 40 Priscilla P. Soucek, ‘Armenian and Islamic manuscript painting: A visual dialogue’, in Thomas F. Mathews and Roger S. Wieck (eds.), Treasures in Heaven: Armenian Art, Religion and Society: Papers Delivered at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, 1998, pp. 115–131. 41 Soucek, ‘Armenian and Islamic manuscript painting’, p. 116. Armenians complained about the great amount of wood required for that. 42 Soucek, ‘Armenian and Islamic manuscript painting’, p. 116. 43 Soucek quotes Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Aght’amar: Church of the Holy Cross, Cambridge, 1965, 4, 25–27. 44 Soucek, ‘Armenian and Islamic manuscript painting’, p. 120. 45 Soucek, ‘Armenian and Islamic manuscript painting’, p. 128. 46 Armen Ghazarian and Robet Ousterhout, ‘A Muqarnas drawing from thirteenth-century Armenia and the use of architectural drawings during the Middle Ages’, Muqarnas, 18 (2001), 141–154. 47 Christina Maranci, ‘The art and architecture of the Erzurum region’, in Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.), Armenian Erzurum/Garin, UCLA Armenian History and Culture Series 4, Mazda Press, Costa Mesa, CA, 2004, pp. 89–122. 48 Sergio La Porta, ‘Conflicted coexistence: Christian – Muslim interaction and its Representation in Medieval Armenia’, in Jerold, C. Frakes (ed.), Contextualizing the Muslim Other in Medieval Christian Discourse, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2011, pp. 103–125. 49 Sara Kühn, The Dragon in Medieval Christian and Islamic Art, Brill, Leiden, 2011, 21. 50 Vrej Nersessian, ‘The Marcy-Indoudjian cope’, Ars Orientalis, 40 (2011), 204–241. 51 Nersessian, ‘The Marcy-Indoudjian cope’, p. 236. 52 Anne-Dorothee von den Brincken, Die ‘Nationes Christianorum Orientalium’’ im Verständnis der lateinischen Historiographie, Böhlau, Köln-Wien, 1973, 204.

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The medieval trading and missionary networks of Italy were like fingers of a hand spreading out from the centre of Europe, reaching Hungary and the Black Sea in the East and Cilicia in Asia Minor up to the Armenian Plateau to north-east Iran. Merchants and Dominican and Franciscan missionaries were the connecting elements travelling along these long-distance networks and settling in their “houses” along the way. The three pilgrim houses at the Vatican of the Armenian, Ethiopian and Hungarian “nations” were tightly connected with the merchants’ and missionaries’ routes and interests. Equally, the Armenian networks spread out from the centres in Cilicia and Greater Armenia. Here, they met with the Latins and the contact was intense. Which historical situation in the Armenian homelands led the way to the institution of the Armenian pilgrim compound at the Vatican? This chapter will explore the special circumstances of the Italian-Armenian relationship by focusing on the Armenian homelands. From the perspective of Rome, the main focus was on bringing the Armenian church into the fold of the papacy, assisted by trade links. Because the Armenians acted as political and trading “intermediaries” for the Italians, trade and missions could work hand in hand. Fuelled by common interests, although rather conflict-laden, for over a century, the relationship between Italians and Armenians resulted in a half-hearted “union” of the Churches and the lucrative Armenian Silk Road trade with the crucial Cilician hub, the port town of Ayas. From Ayas, Italian travellers, missionaries and merchants would start their Silk Road travel. This chapter’s aim is to explore some major elements of the yet rather unexplored cultural exchanges along the western Silk Road, ask what the Italian merchants and missionaries brought with them and what they later took back home. Goods, such as luxury fabrics, church outfitting and so on all travelled with them, and many of these, in certain ways, had an effect on local arts and also onto the arts of the Italian banking centres. On the other hand, the Armenians in the Italian cities, markets and monasteries acted as agents of change by challenging “Western” by introducing “Eastern” taste in the form of fabrics and patterns. The hope of opening new lucrative markets in Italy, helped by trading privileges by Cilicia’s Kings and the Vatican’s wish for expanding its “frontiers,” thus coincided with cultural blossoming and mutual inspiration, in Italian as well as in Mongol arts. This chapter will follow the Italian merchants and missionaries on their way Eastwards, and it will explore the ways of contact and exchange with the Armenians in Cilicia as well as the mixed Oriental Christian and Muslim societies along the ancient itinerary of the western Silk Road. One important and astonishingly little-acknowledged, even overlooked problem is the Italian-Armenian trade especially during the era of the Mongols. Western research has hitherto almost completely left out the crucial Armenian role. Historians of fabrics and silk never acknowledged their importance.1 Armenian merchants, being Christians, were DOI: 10.4324/9781003204619-4

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the main players in the long-distance trade and intermediaries, facilitators and finally agents for change for the Europeans trading in the Mongol dominions. They not only brought huge economic success to the Italian trading cities but were intermediaries especially with regard to the large-scale introduction of silk fabric. They were a source of inspiration for the introduction of artistic elements such as patterns, ornaments and more. Silk fabrics and fabric borders with Oriental languages “entered” Italian arts, due to the creation of mass markets for luxury objects and the Europeans missionaries’ language and alphabet studies in Arabic, Persian, Mongol and Armenian during the years before and after 1300. Dominican missionaries entered the Silk Road cities of the western stretch via Cilicia, too, by using the same itinerary as the merchants, and brought with them Latin dogma and teaching. The Vatican moved them into the important silk-producing region of Nakhijevan, Aserbaijan, into its ancient biblical landscape. The huge success of these Latin missions along the western Silk Road and in the Caucasus, including generally overlooked Georgia, went hand in hand with the creation of a strong European trading network along the western Silk Road reaching the Mongol capital of Tabriz, where European merchants and missionaries settled, too. The integration of the artistic landscapes of the Christian Crescent into art historical discussions in the interest of an integrative history of art enables us to attain a more complete picture of what artistic transfer and transculturality could mean in the cultural and religiously mixed regions of the western stretch of the Silk Road. These cultural centres along the western Silk Road were not centres at the margins of Europe with “hybrid” arts. They were important culturally and artistically productive centres in their own right, and, like the exchange of goods in their markets, deeply involved in an ongoing dialogue of different rhythms and trends. This artistic dialogue entered the Armenian scriptoria and Diaspora communities on the Crimea to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and again followed the Europeans back into the Near and Middle East. Artistic elements from as far as China and India reached the arts of the Armenian Plateau, of Cilicia and Islamic arts first, and only in a second step Byzantium and western Europe. The hitherto rather overlooked Oriental Christian element will thus play the most vital role in this chapter. Many questions, though, will remain unresolved, but will hopefully attract the attention of future research.

Armenians as Europe’s intermediaries Geography: centre and borders Armenia’s special geography was the determining factor of the Vatican’s wish to expand its missionary’s efforts to Aserbaijan, Persia and beyond. The same was true for the merchants wanting to participate in the lucrative Silk Road trade via the access to Cilicia’s major ports. Naturally, the nature of its history reflects Armenia’s geography. With its setting on a Plateau and table-land spreading across a vast area, it was culturally and artistically closely related to the neighbouring lands in western Asia, the Caucasus, Iran and Mesopotamia. Strategically based, the Armenian Plateau with its elevation varying sharply, ranging from 800 to close to 2,000 m,2 forms a natural bastion dominating the lower plateaus and lowlands to every side of it, but is less well protected on its eastern and western borders. In this direction, the invasion routes lay and the main trade routes ran. Therefore, the formation of the land explains many aspects of Armenia’s history, which has been at a crossroads for traders and invading armies since ancient times. Most of the

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wars in this part of the world for the past 2,000 years were fought for the possession of this strategically important position. Armenia has been both the victim and the beneficiary of its geographical location. In the heart of the country, the principal peaks are the Great Ararat (5,205 m), the highest peak of the whole of western Asia, and next to it the Little Ararat (3,914 m). In the west rises the Bingöl dagh from which the Arax river springs and the principal tributaries of the Euphrates. The Arax runs through the plain of the Ararat proceeding southward and then north-east to flow into the Caspian Sea. The largest most fertile plain is the plain of the Ararat, where the ancient cities of Armenia were founded and where the Silk Road runs through. The Armenian Plateau encompasses the high-altitude Lake Van and Lake Sevan, while Lake Urmia lies outside the limits of historical Armenia. Despite the long hard winters, the natural fertility with volcanic black earths facilitated agriculture and rich pastures while the Arax valley and the surroundings of Lake Van have vineyards and orchards. The Armenians tended to practise agriculture while the herding of the flocks was left to the mountain people, particularly the Kurds. Earthquakes were common and frequently severe on the Armenian Plateau.3 The Ararat fault consists of two lines, the Erzenka-Ararat and Dvin-Siunik-Tabriz, which run through the centre of the country, causing devastating earthquakes. More than any invader, these visitations have been responsible for the destruction of the historical monuments that were erected over the centuries upon the high plateau. While churches and monasteries were usually rebuilt, the castles, fortresses, and civil structures, once levelled, were usually quickly pillaged for building stone by the local peasants, a process that still goes on in historically Armenian lands under Turkish rule.4 Before addressing the events of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with the arrival of the Italian merchants and missionaries in Cilicia and on the Armenian Plateau, in order to later discuss the dynamics, character, identity and transculturality in Armenian arts which are tightly connected with the historical set up of the country, at this point, a few words about the early history of the Armenians and how the land and nation developed are needed.5 The Armenians belong to the earliest inhabitants of Asia Minor. On the plateau, the Urartian state existed prior of the coming of the Indo-European speaking “Armen” tribes. The Armenians absorbed most of this federation’s many peoples, who were united under the kings of Van, but not all of them. It took a long time to assimilate these protoArmenian people on the plateau. From a very early period, the Armenians had to share the plateau with later arrivals, such as the Assyrians, Greek, Persians, Turkmen, Turks, Kurds, Romans, Byzantines, Turks, Scythians, Georgians, Medes and Mongols. More than half of the traditional lands of the Armenian monarchy were lost in the fourth century CE and since then most of the region stayed under foreign rule. Under the Byzantines began a long process of deportation of the Armenian population which continued until the beginning of the twentieth century. It finally culminated in the creation of the modern state of Armenia, which occupies a tenth of the territory of the Armenian kings of ancient times.6 The formation of the Armenian nation is obscured by myth and its legends are the Armenian variant of similar historical parables as in Greek, Phrygian and Persian literature.7 “Until the conversion of Armenians to Christianity, with its Byzantine and Syrian cultural and political links, Armenia was to remain in the Iranian cultural orbit almost exclusively.”8 But from the diversity and the interpenetration of linguistic, artistic,

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religious, and ethnic influences emerged the Armenian nation as the sole survivors, their language and legendry the inheritance of a continuous Indo-European tradition of extreme antiquity. Christendom’s longest frontier The Armenian conversion to Christianity and the subsequent turning west with all its cultural, social and political implications was irrevocable. According to Vrej Nersessian, this orientation brought a peculiar layout on the map, because the later barriers rising between Europe and Asia due to the religious differences between Christianity and Islam “confined a small nation to a most vulnerable position. Armenia became Christendom’s longest frontier, starting from the Caucasus and proceeding all the way down to the Cilician plains.”9 The early Christians in the Persian Empire were not subject to persecutions ordered by the King of Kings but were rather of local nature.10 This was different in the Roman Empire, where Christianity was to be wiped out. With ancient Armenia’s fought-over position wedged like a buffer state between the huge empires of Rome and Persia, it was at exactly that time that Armenia became the first Christian state. “The Armenians were the first to embrace Christianity,” the fifth-century historian Sozomen tells us.11 Vrej Nersessian discusses in detail the historical circumstances of the conversion of the Armenian King Trdat by St. Gregory the Illuminator, which occurred during the earliest years of the fourth century.12 Emperor Constantine’s claim to a “patronage of the Universal Church” underlined his aim to make the whole world Christian and Roman. The following centuries prove that the Roman popes continued acting according to this ancient claim, and although Armenian Christianity turned towards West, the relationship of both Churches remained prone to conflict. In addition, the identity of the new Armenian church was especially strengthened with the invention of the Armenian alphabet by Mesrop Mashtots (died 440), which led to an independent Armenian literature.13 In 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, the five Eastern Churches, the Syrian, Armenian, Nestorian, Coptic and Ethiopian Churches, decided to leave the non-Chalcedonian or Byzantine – Roman Church. Today, the five Churches are the so-called “Christian Orient,” despite their location in the Near and Middle East, and in north-eastern Africa. The frictions between the Armenian and the Roman Churches and the numerous attempts to unite the Armenian with the Church of Rome under the leadership of Rome, characterised the relationship with Rome during the following centuries.14 Byzantine rule over Armenia ended in 1071, with the battle of Manazkert and the Byzantine defeat by the Seljuk powers. During the course of centuries, the political organisation on the Armenian plateau changed repeatedly. The merging of Principalities, dividing, changing hands or losing control over them happened in continuity.15 “In the ninth to the eleventh centuries, a number of new Armenian kingdoms emerged on the tableland, their lands made up of groupings of earlier small districts.”16 Later, under Persian and Turkish rule, new provinces with their own divisions emerged. Subject to various political entities, the various districts of Armenia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had been subjected to different ethnic, economic, and cultural stimuli. The Armenian or part-Armenian populations of these states subscribed to a variety of religions, such as Apostolic, Orthodox, and Catholic Christianity, and Islam. Even north-eastern Armenian society, for which historical records are good, on the eve of Turco-Mongol invasions was far from being a homogeneous ethnic, cultural or religious entity. Even where Armenians were in political control of Armenian-inhabited territories, the naxarars (lords) were not

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united. Therefore, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Armenia experienced the effects of a double centrifugation: of Turco-Mongol societies in dissolution and of native Armenian naxarar society.17

Silk Road trading colonies This section will outline some of the main political events leading up to and enabling the start at of the Italian Silk Road trading colonies in around 1200.18 The Mongol terror on the north-eastern and northern areas of Armenia started in 1236.19 With the establishment of the Mongol general Chormaghun’s summer camp in the Mughan plain in Aserbaijan, Mongol armies were sent out to capture Armenian key fortresses. During 1236, the Mongols subjugated north-eastern and northern Armenia. Despite their destruction of Ani, generally speaking, the Armenian submission did not mean sudden death, and the princes were reinstated in their land. But Kars, which had surrendered, was nevertheless destroyed. Between 1242 and 1254, western and southern Armenia, ruled by the Seljuks and Ayyubids, were attacked, and Karin/Erzerum sacked. Entire populations were massacred or led into slavery. “Like dominoes, the remaining key cities of central Asia Minor fell”:20 Erzenka, Caesarea, Sivas, Malatia, Divrigi, Khlat, Amida, Edessa, Nisibis. The Mongol attack on Europe started during the first half of the thirteenth century with Batu Khan’s defeat of the German, Austrian, Hungarian and Polish armies in the battle of Liegnitz (1241). The wave of conquests stopped in Russia and Europe, probably saved due to the complications after Great Khan Ögedey’s death. Even the fact that at least four tribes of the Mongols followed the Nestorian Christian faith, did not lead to any hopes in Europe and did not affect Mongol policy. Now the son of Chengiz Khan’s youngest son Hülagü turned his army against the Islamic world. He left Tabriz in 1259 and having marched through Armenia and Upper Mesopotamia, took Aleppo in 1260, and soon after his armies captured Baghdad. The next aim was to conquer Egypt. With a common Muslim enemy, the European rulers’ interest in the Mongols grew, and when in the same year the invincible Mongols were defeated in Ayn-Jalut in Palestine by the Egyptian army, “an event that changed the course of the world’s history,”21 the Mongols started to think about a collaboration with Europe. The new contact with Europe was made easier by Hülagü’s son Abaqa’s marriage with Maria, a daughter of Emperor Michael Paläologos. Abaqa’s envoys visited European courts, for example, 16 envoys came to the Council of Lyons in 1269, where three of them were baptised. Khan Arghun (1284–1291) in his correspondence with the Pope suggested a European-Mongol campaign against Egypt. More Mongol embassies to the courts in Paris and London followed. As we shall later discuss, the Armenians had an important role in the rapprochement of Mongol and European powers. Cilician Silk Road trade and a church union with Rome With the importance of Cilician and Silk Road trade and a Church union with Rome, Cilicia, being under Mongol rule, had become a crucial stepping stone in East-West diplomacy. For the time being, Europe used and needed Cilicia. Of course, the consequences of these alliances for European, Mongol and Armenian arts were manifold. This set-up came to an end with Ghazan Khan (1295–1304) and his conversion to Islam. One of Ghazan’s Muslim emirs, Nauruz, had persuaded him to accept Islam promising as a reward the support of the huge Muslim community. Therefore, Ghazan ordered all of the churches, synagogues, fire temples and idol temples of Tabriz to be

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destroyed. Although this event had consequences for the Europeans living in Tabriz, trade and missions continued due to the European-Mongol long-established relations. Cilicia or Lesser Armenia lies west of Greater Armenia and is separated from it by the Euphrates. It formed a separate Armenian state of its own. Annexed by the Romans in CE 72, Lesser Armenia remained a part of the Romano-Byzantine Empire for a thousand years, following its own line of development, quite different from that of Greater Armenia. Although its history enrolled outside that of Greater Armenia, Lesser Armenia is significant because so many Armenians from Armenia proper settled there after 1071, the defeat of Manazkert.22 Armeno-French society and culture of Cilicia Geographically, Cilicia had an equally crucial position as that of Greater Armenia and specialised in long-distance trade. Positioned along the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor at its eastern end, the Cilician Kings controlled the mountain passes including the so-called “Cilician Gates” through which the Crusader Armies had to pass. Especially after the fall of Baghdad in 1258, the Oriental luxury trade ran through the Cilician mountain passes to the major Cilician port cities of Tarsus, Korykos (figure 3.1, port of Korykos) and Ayas. Since the twelfth century, the Cilician kings systematically intermarried with the Frankish ruling families, which, in 1197, resulted in the papal legate Konrad von Mainz bringing two crowns from the Hohenstaufen Emperor, one for Aimery de Lusignan of Cyprus, and one for Baron Levon II of Cilica. King Levon recognised the German Emperor as his suzerain and the Pope as head of the Armenian church.

Figure 3.1 Port of Korykos, Cilicia Photo: Zaven Sargsyan.

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However, the position of Cilicia between the powers of East and West was a difficult one, since political alliances with the West in the hope of Latin aid while at the same time risking Latin exploitation, clashed in unease about compromises with the rulers of the East, especially since, in 1243, the meteoric rise of the Mongols. King Het’um of Cilicia was the first of the Mediterranean rulers to give the Mongols diplomatic recognition. In 1247, he sent his brother Smbat the Constable to negotiate a treaty with the Mongols. This resulted in Cilicia’s position of historic significance since it became the focal point of contact and a link between the Mediterranean West and the Far East. “From being a partner in the twelfth-century triad of Byzantines, Crusaders and Armenians, Cilicia became in the thirteenth century the midpoint of a different trinity, comprising Occident, Armenia, and Orient. With regard to the common interests between Europeans and Mongols, Hethum of Cilicia advised the Europeans to keep an “amicizia per distanciam” with the Mongols, an advice which the Armenians of Lesser and Greater Armenia wisely followed during the entire length of Mongol rulership.”23 But Cilicia suffered the most from the Mongol defeat by the Egyptian Mamluks. In July 1322, Pope John XXII in a letter to Abu-Said from Avignon, asked the Il’khan to help the Armenians. But for the Mongols only cautious diplomacy remained. A treaty of peace was signed with the last Il-khan Abu Said in 1323. In 1375, after numerous attacks and raids on the Kingdom’s castles, monasteries and cities, the Mamluks succeeded in conquering Cilicia.24 The royal family was captured and taken to Egypt, and the last King, after a European odyssey, died in France and was entombed in the cathedral of Saint-Denis. The Armeno-French society and culture of Cilicia had come to an end, despite its rather “tolerant” society skilled in “brilliant diplomacy” and international trade. In the aftermath of the break-up of Cilicia the new focus was on the Armenian homeland. With the end of Cilicia its church and especially its hierarchy were under attack.25 In 1387–1388, Stepanos, archbishop of Sebastia/Sivas, was executed for refusing to convert to Islam. His monastery was converted into a dervish sanctuary. In 1393–1394, Catholicos Zakaria of Aghtamar and Teodoros, Catholicos of Sis, were executed. The invasions of Timur’s armies into the Caucasus, in 1386–1387, 1394–1396, and 1399–1403, were perhaps the most brutal invasions yet. But already during more than 60 years previously, from 1220, when the Mongols first appeared in the Caucasus, to 1385 when Tokhtamysh invaded, parts of Armenia had experienced 12 foreign invasions. The severity of Mongol rule had triggered three Armeno-Georgian rebellions, Mongol centrifugation had resulted in two major uprisings of Mongol nomads resident in the Caucasus, and with the collapse of the Il-khanid state in the 1330s, internal war had broken out in most parts of historical Armenia as mutually antagonistic bands and armies of Mongol, Turkmen, and Kurdish nomads fought one another and the sedentary population. Religious persecution and economic chaos had long since become the norm.26 The popes reacted to these brutal circumstances in their own ways: with a bull from August 1398, Boniface IX, for example, declared that indulgences are given for every Christian who help restore the destroyed Catholic churches by Timur’s armies and who help recover the freedom for those Catholics who were kidnapped and enslaved.27 But, according to an Armenian colophon from the year 1426, not all of the Christian churches were supposed to be repaired. In a different region, regarding the Maku area of Vaspurakan, ruled by the Armenian Catholic feudal lords, the Catholics had not allowed the non-Catholic or Orthodox Armenians to repair their own church. But when the lords of Maku were overthrown by Timur’s armies, the Armenians praised the Muslims for allowing them to make repairs on one of their churches.28

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The Catholics in Armenia The Catholics in Armenia were an important political factor. Italian travellers report how they used the catholic villages as resting places and sources for supplies and Armenians as local guides through Muslim lands. For example, the Venetian ambassador to Tabriz, Giosafa Barbaro liked to rest with Catholic Armenians in their villages. Barbaro, in 1471, was on his way to Tabriz in order to deliver arms and munitions to Uzun Hassan, the Turcoman leader: six great “bombarde,” 600 “spingardes” and shotguns, carried by 200 fusiliers who accompanied him.29 Meanwhile, internal conflicts arose in the Armenian church. The influence of Roman Catholicism, which had grown thanks to the Armenian clergy during the era of the Cilician Kingdom, led to a break-up between the Catholicosates of Edjmiadsin and Sis in Cilicia during the mid-fourteenth century. At the same time, from about the 1330s onwards, the Dominicans had won over the influential Hovhannes Krnets’i of southern Sinik, who started to attract more Armenian churchmen to Catholicism. The fight against the Armenian Catholics of Krna preoccupied the Armenian church leadership for much of the fourteenth century. During the reign of the Catholicos Hakob of Sis matters had deteriorated to the point that the Cilician Catholicos supported Krna’s efforts against Edjmiadzin. At the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century, a few small Armenian principalities still existed in the same areas which had withstood previous invaders and owed their semi-autonomy to the forbidding mountainous terrain such as Vayots Dzor, Siunik, Artsakh, Gugark, Mokk, Sasun, Mush. The Timurids preserved the Orbelians in Siunik, the Dopians in Tsar, the Proshians in Vayots Dzor and Shahapunik. However, the Armenian lords were under constant pressure to convert to Islam. Tovma Metzopets’i recounts: During the first year of his reign [Umar, Timur’s grandson], he forcibly made to apostatise three princes of our people who had remained like a tiny cluster of grapes among us: the son of Ivane and grandson of Burtel, ter of Orotan, of the Orbelian family; his brother Smbat whom they took with his family to Samarqand; but subsequently through divine mercy and their prayers they returned; the ter of Ehjegis named Tarsayitch, son of Gorgon they caused to apostatise; the ter of Maku they detached from the false and diophysitic [beliefs] of Aghtarmayutiun [Roman Catholicism], and the son of an Azat named Aitan from Aghtsuats village in the Ayraratian district. Later, however, they repented and became true believers in Christ and heirs of the Kingdom.30 Despite this extremely bleak situation across the Armenian highlands around the year 1400, the sources still report a few instances of secular and clerical lords enjoying some influence with the Timurids, for example, the influential intellectual vardapet Gregory of Tatev, a confidant of Timur’s son Miran. Around the mid-fifteenth century, the short-lived new king on the ancient island of Aght’amar established himself, and in 1441, the Armenian church, formerly centred in the Cilician capital of Sis was returned to its ancient holy centre of Edjmiadzin at the foot of the Ararat. Both events are crucial in Armenian medieval history, which continually oscillated and needed to carefully adjust between Europe and the East and between nation and Church. Medieval history of Armenia is a continuous process of finding sovereignty and independence while at the same time trying to hold on to its identity as

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a people, an identity which Roman Catholic missionaries firmly questioned. Nina Garsoian has noted that when the powers surrounding Armenia are in equilibrium, either in strength or in weakness, Armenia flourished, taking these opportunities to create states, foster trade and grow artistically.31 According to Theo van Lint, Armenians became “exceptionally flexible, creative and capable of cooperation for a common purpose” and belong to Europe.32 Atiya calls the question of the “mobile frontiers which separated the realms of Greece and Persia, or more broadly conceived, Europe and Asia, the “Eastern Question.”33 It is exactly this question which lies at the core of any research into the character of Armenian arts. Rome’s missionaries in the new heart of the Mongol empire For Rome, the missions were aimed at being a further step beyond the Christian frontier areas in the East. The Hungarian, Ethiopian and Armenian pilgrim compounds at the Vatican are part of the effort to make Rome an international centre of Christianity and are a symbol of the idea of one united Christian Church of the world. The Roman Church’s active move into the cities of Cilicia, the Armenian Plateau and into the Mongol key centres was part of the Latin expansion efforts into the lands of the Balkan and north-eastern Africa, Ethiopia. This had the consequence that Armenia was split into two, Latinised Cilicia and Greater Armenia, which remained isolated ecclesiastically and politically. In Cilicia, Latin Episcopal sees were established,34 and a little later in Aserbaijan, in all three major Mongol centres. After the conquest of Baghdad in 1258, Hulagu retreated to the Persian province of Aserbaijan, where he took residence in Marāgha.35 This first important centre for the Mongols lay 130 km south of Tabriz and not far from lake Urmia in a fertile valley rich with water and moderate climate. Soon after the Mongol residence was moved to Tabriz and later to Sultaniyah. In all three cities, briefly after 1300, Roman bishoprics were founded. The Il-khan’s move to Aserbaijan and its new capital city Tabriz resulted in the transfer of political and intellectual life to the north-western corner of Persia. From here, for roughly 80 years, the Mongol empire ruled over the remaining parts of Persia, Transcaucasia, Armenia, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. The vassal princes and embassies all came here with their gifts. In Aserbaijan, the new heart of the empire, a new style in arts and fashion was created. The list from 1398 of the entire stolen church outfitting from the Cathedral in Sultaniyah, discussed later, is a fascinating document which shows how many objects belonging to daily church life were sent from Rome to faraway lands. With regard to the newly founded Mongol centres and the creation of new artistic style, this is of greatest importance, since it brought the western Silk Road much closer to collaboration with Europe. The consequences this had for the arts will be seen in this chapter’s discussing cultural taste, translation techniques, the study of alphabets, the transculturality of arts, and the consequences for these East-West relations for Italian painting. After 1295 and the Mongol conversion to Islam, the longest Christian-Muslim frontier-line ran all the way from the Caucasus in the north down to Cilicia in the south. The aim was to cross this frontier, and so in 1279, a Franciscan convent was founded in Sebastia/Sivas, a Silk Road centre, and in 1314 another at Trebizond, where a Catholic Episcopal see existed from 1345 to 1427. A mission then was extended to Amisos/ Samsun on the southern Black Sea coast and later eastwards to Erzerum 1320 and Sinop (southern Black Sea coast) in 1334, at both of which Genoese merchants had set up trading colonies at around 1290.

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Luxury trade and the Kingdom of Cilicia The Kingdom of Cilicia was very interesting for the Latins for political, ecclesiastical and for reasons of trade. The popes hoped to incorporate the Armenian church into the Latin Church of Rome, which would not only increase papal power and influence, but also have an effect on the papal treasure with indulgences and absolutions.36 During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Latin ecclesiastical sieges were held in eastern Cilicia, Mamistra, Ayas and Anavarza.37 During the first Crusade, the Latin Church resuscitated the formerly Greek ecclesiastical sieges in Cilicia.38 Because most of the Armenian princes of the twelfth century had married often very pious Latin princesses, the LatinArmenian relationship of political and ecclesiastical hierarchies was generally tolerant. Mutafian states that the Latin sieges of Cilicia were a “sort of barometer of armenofrank ecclesiastical relations.” Around the year 1200 the mood was rather Latinophile, when the Genoese were allowed to open a church at Mamistra, but the following years were marked by conflict. Papal interest in obtaining an ever-stronger Latin influence on Cilicia went against the Armenian church which feared Latin submission. With the Mongol conversion to Islam in 1295, however, Cilician politics became more Latinophile than ever. This coincided with the papal interests in the missions of the Orient, and more and more Dominicans and Franciscans were introduced and put in high positions in the Latin ecclesiastical sieges of Cilicia. It was to the port town of Ayas, the commercial and international hotspot of Cilicia, that in 1318, Pope John XXIII sent Dominican missionary friars for the teaching of Latin and with the goal of the union of the Churches. Dominicans’ most successful missions of the Latin Middle Ages The Franciscans and Dominicans organised their missions to the Mongols through the Armenian port of Ayas. From here, imports from the Asian trade routes – now dominated by the Mongols – reached the Mediterranean. Marco Polo set out for Cathay in 1271 from Ayas. Symbolic of the mediating role and trans-cultural aspect of the Armenian culture are the portraits of the brother of King Het’um and Smbat, of Archbishop John, abbot of Grner monastery, who appears in a miniature from 1272 dressed in silk woven with fleurs-de-lis, and in 1289 in Chinese silk woven with a dragon motif.”39 The appreciation of wearing those gowns is evidence of the wide range of Armenian trading networks and cultural taste. Of course, the Roman missions of Greater Armenia were not directed at the Muslims, which would have been forbidden. They were aimed at the “heretical” Armenians. Gabriele Winkler discusses the gradual Latinisation of the traditional Armenian liturgical practices because of the expanding influence of the Papacy from the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, to which we shall later return in detail.40 Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the union of the Churches was a much-discussed topic in Cilicia and Greater Armenia, the main objection being the doctrine of the Filioque as well as the papal primacy and the Council of Chalcedon.41 The most successful missions of the Latin Middle Ages were the Dominican ones of the Ernjak Valley in Nakhijevan, Aserbaijan. Here, the Friars Unitors or Fratres Unitores had a first Dominican centre in Krna in 1330 by an Armenian patron, from where other congregations spread, of which most important were the monasteries of Aparan, Koshkashen, Jahuk, Shahaponk. Krna’s foundation was supervised by Bartolomew, the Latin bishop of Maragha, and Hovhannes of Krna, a graduate of the monastic University of Gladzor, both noted and authoritative figures of their time. Lasting until the seventeenth century, the Latin monasteries, at least 15 if not 50 Armenian monasteries, had

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been changed into Dominican centres founded in the villages and towns of Nakhijevan enhancing the Catholic influence on the local inhabitants. For a while these activities were detrimental for a segment of the Armenian population.42 The monastic universities of Gladzor and Tat’ev and other schools put up a tremendous struggle against the Latinisation efforts. This struggle even had deadly consequences for some of the Dominicans who were attacked by Armenians.43 One of the major religious treatises of the time Book of Questions has been written by the Armenian Grigor Tathevatsi (1340–1410), abbot of the monastery Tat’ev in the Armenian province of Siunik in 1397, which is an answer to Thomas of Aquinas’ accusations against the Armenian faith.44 “Against the Tachiks” Tathevatsi’s chapter “Against the Tachiks” in his Book of Questions can be translated as “Against the Turks” (meaning Islam, not the people) as it is commonly used in Armenian writings.45 Since Tathevatsi formulates and answers Islam’s accusations against Christianity, we understand what Islam accused Christianity of. In total, 16 errors of Islam are discussed, from the denial of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, the idea that Resurrection is material, which includes a devastatingly negative discussion of the Muslim Paradise as being material, to the discussion of “Their Condemnation of the Cross and holy Images” in chapter 9. Here, too, as in the case of Paradise, he accuses the Muslims of being unable to perceive the inner meaning of the Cross and the holy images. Because of the Cross and the holy images, they accuse us of idolatry, not perceiving the inner meaning, like an ignorant fellow who thinks that the letters written on the page are the sense. The written letters which are material only serve to reveal the sense, and so the Cross, and the Images, which are of wood or metal or stone, and carved in such forms, only serve to set forth the inner meaning. We do not adore the matter of the Cross but the power of Christ crucified. Do they not know that the difference between our images and those of idolaters is that the power behind our images is that of God, while that behind the images of the idolaters is the Devil? God created man in His own image, so if God can make an image of Himself it is not wrong for us to make an Image of Him.46 It must have been Tathevatsi’s great concern to put these accusations right. Muslims and Armenians were united by a great love for books and the art of book illumination. Armenian arts were of course figurative and narrative, yet shared certain characteristics of their Muslim neighbours’ arts, such as beautiful and complicated ornaments depicting birds, star, cross, wheel and knot ornaments, lobed arches and so on. Armenian art meant mostly architecture, book painting and khatchkars within an aesthetical system all of its own.47 A medieval Latin source speaks about consecrated images in Armenia but says that there are no statues and no sculptures. In 1341, that is 50 years before Tathevatsi wrote his treatise, the Franciscan Daniel of Tabriz tried to defend the Armenians saying the lack of religious images came out of respect for their Muslim neighbour’s feelings.48 But was this really the case? Or did the Armenian reserve against a greater use of religious images have other reasons? The Armenian church never embraced the “liberal” Western use of images but remained constrained by focusing on book illumination while greatly following ancient models of imagery and composition. Nevertheless, fresco cycles in Armenian churches existed, of course, as well as the production of carved stone crosses, even figurative ones, the khatchkars, flourished through the centuries.

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Rome criticises the Armenian dogma The Armenian church, together with the Greek Church, objected to the inclusion of the filioque49 into the Nicene Creed, indulgences and purgatory, and rejected the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope, the use of wine not mixed with water during mess, and more. The Armenian church venerates all the saints up to 451. The Virgin Mary is the first among saints, and the Armenian martyr virgins Saints Hripsime and Gaiane are especially venerated. With the Dominicans presence in Nakhijevan, the number of martyrs and saints in the area increased considerably. Likewise, for the Armenian church, the Ark became an important reference and symbol for the Roman popes, too. The Sour Petrosi or Peter’s Sword is a Dominican vademecum helping the preaching for conversion of infidels, Christians and Jews, and was produced by Dominicans in Nakhijevan during the 1330s. The introduction compares the role of the Roman Church to that of Noah’s Ark. The Vatican thus “adopted” the image of the biblical ship, which was rooted and located in the Armenian homeland. To whom belongs the Ark? As for the Armenians, they compared the important Armenian fifteenth-century painter Minas to the saint Beliseel, the legendary painter of the Ark. And on medieval “Western” maps, the Ark and Armenia became synonymous. But the Dominicans’ stance in Armenia and the pressure put on them by Armenians became more and more problematic and prosecutions, even murder, happened. The bad situation was made worse by the Muslims’ numerous persecutions of Christians, and combined with warfare, this must have become in some cases quite unbearable. However, in 1374, Pope Gregory XI forbade the Armenian Unitores from moving to Italy.50 Such a move, it was said, would have shed a negative light onto the Armenian Unitarian monasteries. But the objection was lifted in 1381 and Armenian Catholics were allowed to move to Italy and beyond. From now on, documentary sources speak more and more about Armenians from monasteries in Nakhijevan moving to live and work in monasteries in the Diaspora, such as Crimea, Pera, Rome, Bologna, Venice and other Italian cities. It is important to note that the Armenian delegation for the Council of Florence in 1436 came from the Crimea, not from the homeland. They were not representatives of the Armenian Orthodox Church. Ayas, the safest harbour in southern Anatolia and the Levant Let us now return to Cilicia and some aspects of the organisation of the international trade, in which the Kingdom specialised. Research has hitherto focused on Cilician fortifications, monasteries and on the Latin ecclesiastical sees.51 It comes as no surprise that the topic of international trade in Cilicia, the base of its wealth, has hardly been looked at. The Armenians in Cilicia settled in the broad almost sea-level plain by constructing garrison forts. These forts, together with some late antique cities, which they had occupied, formed a ring of mountain fortresses and castles in the plain that protected their land. By controlling the plain, Armenians as intermediaries taxed the storage of the goods brought through the Taurus mountains from the Orient. Since the territory of Armenian Cilicia has a higher concentration of military architecture than any other region in the Middle East of equivalent size, the organisation required to coordinate any common activity among the barons must have been huge. “Armenian Cilicia was confined to a self-contained geographical unit. The Armenians defended themselves by simply shoring up the openings in a natural barrier to create a continuous semi-circular march.”52

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There is no evidence, however, that the city walls were constructed by the Armenians.53 The only significant Armenian site on the coastal edge of the plain, the port of Ayas, according to Edwards, was fortified. The port brought in great taxes. Because of the good system of fortifications and garrisons in the plain and the mountains the port of Ayas was “the safest in southern Anatolia and the Levant.”54 According to Edwards, the surviving fort in Ayas is an Ottoman construction, and if its plan follows the medieval outline, then “it was adequate to protect only the Venetian and Genoese warehouses in one corner of the port.” It is important to discuss the question of fortification system in detail since “the Armenian experience in Cilicia is that it represents the antithesis of settled life in the Crusader Levant.”55 And the city of Ani in Greater Armenia was fortified. When the most characteristic trait of Crusader society was its urbanisation, Cilician Armenians were mostly rural, most probably lived in the secure highland valleys and those in the plain lived outside the cities, that is in scattered villages in the immediate vicinity of a large garrison. The castles of Lampron, Vahga and Sis are three of the most important for Cilicia’s history. Lampron was the seat of Hetumid power in the north-west corner of Cilicia, Vahga the seat of Rubenid power in the East, and Sis its capital and the seat of the Armenian Catholicate in the mountains north of Ayas. Close to Lampron was the monastery of Skevra with the largest library and scriptorium of Armenian Cilicia. The court of Lampron gave numerous commissions to the most famous Cilician painter Toros Roslin and to many more. Trade was the major base of Cilician society, and the Italian merchants moving into its cities must have had a firm place there. Armenians as specialists in long-distance East-West trade The highly successful trade of the western Silk Road and its hub Ayas lasted about 150 years. The Armenian merchants of Cilicia and the Armenian Highland acted as intermediaries in the trade between Europe and the Mongol empire. “Cilicia became in the thirteenth century the midpoint of a different trinity, comprising Occident, Armenia and Orient.”56 The markets were divided between the Latin and Armenian merchants. In Cilicia, mainly the wealthy Italian trading cities had privileges, while merchants from Marseille, Amalfi, Ravenna and so on were active in Syria. Some Latin merchants were active in various harbours at the same time, though, such as Lombards, Catalans and Provencaux. With a few exceptions focusing on Armenian trade, such as Manandian57 and Aslanian,58 modern scholars’ focus has been on Muslim and Ottoman trade more than on Christian trade in the “East,” although the population of medieval Anatolia and its merchants was mainly Christian. The important role of the Armenians long-distance trade in Cilicia and on the Plateau has been blended out. Armenians and luxury trade While medieval travellers usually mention the strong Armenian presence in the cities of the western part of the Silk Road, scholars rarely acknowledge their role in trade and in the production of silk, garments, carpets and more.59 Fleet’s study about European and Islamic trade, for example, starts after the end of Mongol power and after the fall of the Cilician Kingdom in 1375 and the rise of silk production in Persia. Silk trade had then been diverted from Cilicia to the port city of Bursa and became the economic foundation

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of the Ottoman power. While the Armenian key position in western Silk Road luxury trade is confirmed, it is difficult to trace names of Armenian merchants. A problem is the adjustment of Armenian names to the languages of the ruling Mongol, Persian and Turk powers. Italianised Armenian names are well known from Venetian documents. One encounters a similar problem in dress, when we try to identify Armenian merchants in Western art. The Cilician Kings directed their trade via trading privileges for the major Italian trading centres, mostly Venice and Genoa. Italian colonies along the western Silk Road started in Ayas and continued along the caravan route to the Mongol trading capitals Tabriz and Sultaniyah. From there, the immensely lucrative luxury products such as silk and spices were shipped to Europe in return for European silver controlled by Venice. Around the year 1300, this trade initiated a new and intense trans-cultural phenomenon in the arts, visible in cross-cultural exchanges and a subsequent change in cultural taste. This had a major effect on Armenian art, on Western painting as well as on Mongol art. Although recent scholarship has acknowledged these artistic changes, a detailed discussion is still waiting for. With regard to medieval Armenian trade, Manandian’s important book starts with an analysis of international trade during ancient times, the exchange of Asian goods and Armenia’s key role as transit route. He focuses on the consistency of trade throughout the centuries and the involvement of the major Armenian cities along the main trade routes across the Armenian Plateau on the way to the great ports in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Manandian cites sources such as inscriptions, proving Armenia’s cities’ deep involvement in international trade.60 The somehow scarce and fragmentary documentary evidence for Armenian trade during the Middle Ages, of course, does not reflect Armenia’s key role in the international East-West trade. Proofs of wealthy merchants’ patronage are the magnificent churches and monumental buildings built in Armenia during the first half of the thirteenth century. In Ani in 1215, the wealthy merchant and generous patron Tigran Honenc, according to a building inscription, had the monastery of St. Gregory (and more) built, decorated with frescoes and delicate carvings and outfitted with numerous precious things.61 An inscription from 1261 at the main gate of the palace of the very wealthy Armenian merchant Sahmadin at Mren tells that the palace was bought from the local Mongol ruler for 40,000 gold ducats (dahekans), an enormous sum in terms of Venetian gold coins.62 According to an inscription on a building in Erzerum from 1283, Umek, a family man and offspring of rich Armenian merchants, pays 40,000 ducats (again, Venetian gold coins) for the royal palace at Mren to construct his own palace with vineyards and gardens (“for his own use and that of his children”). Armenian merchants’ family palaces When looking at the architecture of medieval Armenian merchants’ family palaces, the aforementioned source is useful. But the evidence of these merchants’ houses is, so far, still very scanty. It does not seem that a great deal is known about Cilician merchants’ houses and those in Greater Armenia. In regard of the late sixteenth century and the painter Hakob of Julfa, it is known that those merchants’ houses were described by contemporaries as being “richly decorated with wall paintings and tapestries.” But nothing has survived.63 There can be little doubt that the houses of rich Armenians were well adorned and equipped. Aslanian discusses this point from the perspective of the history of trade and sixteenth-century merchant family houses in Old Julfa, in Nakhijevan.64 It is

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safe to say that the life style of the merchants during the centuries up to the early modern times was pretty much the same. Most Julfan families lived in one great house in which the brothers with their families would share the same roof ruled by the eldest male member of the extended family. . . . Julfans organised their businesses primarily by combining the archaic structure of the patriarchal family . . . with sophisticated techniques of capital investment in overseas markets, credit-sharing mechanisms, complex accounting and information monitoring.

Organisation of an Armenian merchants’ family frm In terms of the organisation of the Armenian merchants’ family firm in early modern times, a much later document is of great interest. Aslanian discusses a pamphlet published in London at the conclusion of a lengthy trial at the High Court of Admiralty involving some New Julfan merchants. It describes the organisational basis of Julfan trade. It could well be that the medieval trade in Cilicia and the Plateau was organised in a very similar way. It further appears from these papers, that the custom among these People is to keep a Capital in their Families to trade with, and that the Chiefs of the Family, in the nature of a patriarchal Government, manage the Affairs and Trade of the Family at home, at Julfa, and send the younger Branches to different countries to trade, with such and such Sums as they advance to them, out of, and on Account of, the general Capital of the Family: Beside which Sums, each Person has a Stock to trade with, on his own Separate account. An interesting point to consider, while we try to imagine the way of life of a medieval Armenian merchant, is Aslanian’s fascinating discussion of the “Making of Commenda Agents,” that is, the preparation of a young future Armenian merchant. Not only would a young Julfan learn his trade from an older family member. But during the mid-1680s, in the All Saviour’s Monastery in Julfa, a special trade school for the training of young merchants existed, which at that time had 300 students. A copy of the manual by Constant, the master of that school, still exists in the Bodleian library at Oxford University. According to that manual, the formal education of the young merchants consisted of behavioural advice, international trade routes, currencies, exchange rates and prizes, and most importantly mathematics and account keeping. Probably, Armenian trade schools like this already existed during medieval times. Manandian writes, The economic awakening of the Mediterranean countries, conditioned by the trade relations of the Crusaders and the Italian city states with the Muslim East, touched the Cilician kingdom as well. Already in the twelfth century, after the first Crusade (1096–1099), active trade relations began. These lay primarily between Genoa and Venice and Syria, Palestine and Cilicia. Then, in the Mongol period, beginning with the second half of the thirteenth century, caravan trade, through the Cilician port of Ayas to Tabriz and Sultaniyah, took on a great development. Italian merchants established colonies and factories in the Cilician cities of Ayas, Tarsus, and Adana. In this way, the rich Armenian merchants of Cilicia, who had trade connections with

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the Armenian heartland and the lands of the Muslim Orient, were drawn into the world trade with the West.65 Following the evidence of Venetian gold ducats in inscriptions, evidence for Genoese trading connections on the Armenian Plateau exist. Manandian quotes Alishan’s brief study about Armenian trade, which shows that north-eastern Armenia had trade relations with Genoa already in the beginning of the thirteenth century. Without revealing his source, Alishan reports that the Republic of Genoa had concluded a trade agreement with the ruler of Kars, and in 1257, a Genoese official came to Kars for trading purposes. Thus, the participation of the cities of Zacharid Armenia in the Black Sea trade is confirmed.66 Trade with China and central Asia from the second century BCE Armenia’s trade in Chinese silk and fabrics and central Asian goods had a tradition reaching back into the second century BCE when the great transit routes came into being.67 In the sixth century, for example, Procopius of Caesarea describes in detail the Armenian city of Dwin, “and many very populous villages are situated in very close proximity to one another, and numerous merchants conduct their business in them. As far as from India and the neighbouring regions of Iberia and from practically all the nations of Persia and some of those under Roman sway brought merchandise and traded with each other there.”68 Although the artistic sponsorship of the Armenian nobility and the clergy has been widely researched, Armenian merchants’ patronage has not been explored. Der Nersessian mentions some examples of private sponsorship of donor portraits in Gospel Books, one from 1033 with the depiction of the sponsor and his three brothers. Another case from ca. 1088 shows portraits of the sponsor, his wife, two children and four young men. It is not clear, however, if these sponsors were merchants.69 In any case, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there were numerous examples of private sponsorship. In the case of the painter of Hakob of Julfa, around the year 1600, the wealthy Julfan silk merchants Khoja Atibek and Khoja Awetik sponsored Bibles.70 The latter is portrayed in typical merchants’ rich dress in light blue and a fur-lined cloak. In the light of the long trading tradition reaching back to ancient times, it is no surprise that Pegolotti’s fourteenth-century itinerary taken by the caravans and merchants across the Armenian Plateau to Tabriz is identical with the ancient route of the Tabula Peutingeriana, dated by Konrad Miller into the fourth century.71 As Manandian points out, roads in mountainous countries were laid out according to natural conditions and “had to remain generally unchanged in subsequent periods.” Manandian quotes numerous sources regarding medieval trade in Armenian cities on the Plateau, where mainly Christians traded in wealthy cities. Until its destruction, Ani was such a centre and, together with the cities of Bagratid Armenia, on a considerably higher level of cultural development than contemporary medieval cities of western Europe.72 Silk production, silk trade and the exchange of luxury goods played a key role in this development. The commercial importance of the city of Berdaa, for example, comes up in the description of the Arab historian al-Muqaddasi calling it the Bagdad of that region . . . the houses are magnificent, made of fired bricks and stucco. It is a beautiful, pleasant and rich city! Part of the columns of the main mosque are made of stucco and brick, and part of wood . . . Silks and garments are sold at this market. Nothing can be compared to the skins, carpets, cochineal.

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At this point, the question arises of what the wealth and the growing European trade on the Armenian Plateau meant for what economic historians call the “commercial revolution” of the European Middle Ages. The history of early medieval Armenian trade with Europe needs further research. Western historians, for example, Michael McCormick, continue to ignore the importance of the ancient long-distance route of the well-known Tabula Peutingeriana when discussing the origins of European economy.73 While McCormick mentions the textile market of medieval Rome, the long history of silk imports there, Middle Eastern merchants in Rome and the Roman marketplace of international importance during Carolingian time, we do not know yet was the impact of the hugely successful trade along the Armenian Plateau as depicted in the Tabula Peuteringiana. As for the later period after 1200, the European and foremost Italian city states trading with and via Cilicia and the Mongol trading centres in north-western Persia seem to have been responsible for the new wealth starting to pour into the European cities and markets and raising the quality of life of its people. And what of the organisation of trade in the Italian city states compared to the Armenian? How did the Armenian trading family network compare to the Venetian colleganza (or commenda) in other cities? It is rather safe to say that, compared to Italian counterparts, the Armenian organisation lay more on the exclusivity of family members in trade. Petech discusses the enormous risks for the Italian long-distance merchants and the handling of their business in distant lands, according to several important sources, such as a testament by an Italian who died in Tabriz in 1292.74 It is certain that specialised merchants’ networks covered and dominated huge geographical areas. Christians favoured trade with Christians, with Cilicia being an important point of reference on the Mediterranean coast. Armenian merchants in Cilicia were connected with family members in cities on the Plateau and further East, trading goods which arrived from Asia as well as with goods produced on the Plateau and in northwestern Persia, such as raw silk, luxury fabrics and more. The pouring in of Italians via Cilicia into these cities meant stronger commerce, higher production and income and on the other hand an opening of European markets for spices, silk, luxury fabrics and so on. Italian paintings are proof of this assumption, with a new interest and focus on luxury fabrics and garments, new patterns, Oriental language inscriptions, new iconographical elements, and the use and depictions of gold and jewellery. The patrons’ wealth was especially exposed in these commissions. The common interest in luxury trade, the political alliances between Christian Europe and Christian Cilicia and the “relative” religious tolerance of the Mongols were mainly responsible for the huge success of the western Silk Road trade. While the Armenian part within the widely explored Levante trade is still rather sketchy, during roughly 150 years, from 1200 to the second half of the fourteenth century, the Cilician port of Ayas had been made the safest port of entry on the Levantine coast. Ayas was especially useful for Latin merchants during the times of trading embargos with the Muslims. Other important European trading centres were (Genoese) Caffa, and (a strong Genoese presence in) Trebizond, and various ports along the Black Sea coast. In Caffa, an important Armenian merchant and Diaspora community existed besides an influential Armenian church which leaned rather strongly towards Rome. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, trade between Asia Minor and Italy was in Armenian hands.75 In Smyrna, Genoese and Armenians had their own quarters. From here, until the eighteenth century, the Armenians brought their silks, cotton and spices to papal Ancona, where, in 1248, they built their own chapel. According to Alishan, still during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 100 Armenian merchant families in

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Venice had their representatives in Smirna. At the same time, there were Armenian families in Greater Armenia, in Agulis and Siunik, who were involved in Italian trade. The Armenian involvement into East-West trade with the medieval Roman popes and their ports of Civitavecchia and Ancona is not yet explored. After all, mission, trade, banking and papacy were deeply interconnected with the Latin merchants and missionaries moving into the new territories on the Silk Road and, together with the newly converted Catholics giving donations, indulgences and more in favour of the Church of Rome and its Dominican missionaries on a very grand scale. The fact that Pope Innocent IV, who was the first to send letters and envoys to the Mongol rulers, was a member of the Genoese merchant class certainly helped. In regard of the time of the papacy of Innocence XII, in 1696, a papal document shows the Armenian Sherimanian being allowed to trade in the papal lands’ ports of Civitavecchia and Ancona.76 The Sherimanian family were Catholics originating from Old Julfa,77 Nakhijevan, and the most influential and wealthy family of the town. Julfa was not far from the Ernjak valley, where as already mentioned the very successful Dominican missions started from the 1330s onwards. The fact that the wealthiest Julfan merchant family was Catholic means of course, that in Old Julfa, during the sixteenth century and probably before that time, there must have existed a Catholic church, where mass was celebrated according to Latin rite. Few references and information regarding the involvement of missionary friars and orders in Eastern trade exist with merchants financing the building of monasteries.78 Since the missions were located in an important trading centre, involvement into trade would have been almost natural for friars, too. Trade was the main base of Armenian and Mongol economy. Spuler describes how the Mongol rulers, starting with Genghis Khan, created trading companies among the Mongol princes already in the early years of their Empire. Tabriz, the Mongol Kingdom’s trading centre developed into the richest city of the Middle Ages. Khan Abaqa declared it capital in 1265.79 From 1307 onwards, a second capital called Sultaniyah was founded. Mongol toleration towards the Christian faith facilitated trade. Numerous Mongols had adopted Nestorian Christianity themselves, among them Hülagü’s Christian wife Doquz. Hülagü was Buddhist but took part in Christian life. Two of the Mongol rulers, Abaqa and his successor Ölgaitü, were baptised Christians renamed Nicolas. It is known that Abaqa’s Christian wife owned a portable chapel and had painters from Constantinople work on the walls of the Church in Tabriz, painters which would be later used also by Bar Hebräus.80 Church bells rang in Arghun’s Nestorian chapel. The Mongols profited from the help of the Armenians of Cilicia, who had opened their ports for the European merchants by granting them privileges. Spuler analyses the circumstances of the later bankruptcy of the Mongol Empire in detail which had, besides other reasons, devastating consequences on Italian commerce and banks, resulting in the well-known crash of the major Italian banks during the midfourteenth century. Armenian position in international silk trade Silk as a major trading good was the main connecting element between the long-distance merchants and between the arts, of which the merchants became powerful style-making patrons, as we shall discuss in the next chapter. Baghdiantz McCabe in her book about trade neither mentions the history of the ports of Cilicia, but Kaffa,81 nor do many others, such as Inalcik in his study about the silk trade in Bursa.

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When the Chinese production stopped reaching Europe in the thirteenth century, Iranian silk replaced the import according to Italian documents. This trade was mostly through Ottoman markets and was in Italian hands.82 However, the most important source of medieval trade through Cilician ports is the well-known Pratica della Mercatura by the Florentine Pegolotti, which dedicates considerable space to the different monetary and trading weights used by the merchants between Laiazo d’Erminia and Torisi di Persia. The Florentine Francesco Balducci Pegolotti was an influential employee of the wealthy Bank of the Bardi in Florence and an expert in long-distance trade. He was of the many whose interest ranged from his hometown of Florence and the quartiere Oltrarno, seat of the Bardi, to as far as Mongol dominated north-west Persia. Heyd’s History of the Medieval Levantine Trade mentions Cilicia as a major trading hub and otherwise mainly focuses on Pegolotti’s itinerary.83 Petech excludes Cilicia from his research into the Italian merchants in the Mongol Empire altogether.84 Trasselli’s explorations into the Europeans in Armenia only briefly discuss the Kingdom’s trade without putting any focus on its international connections.85 A strong focus on Italy is necessary since Italians were the biggest group of western European settlers in the Mongol Empire, of which Cilicia was a vassal state. But although Petech’s research into the Italians in the Mongol Empire, Europeans as Mongol ambassadors, as translators at the Mongol court and Mongol embassies in Europe is very useful, it gives a wrong picture. According to Pegolotti, the main trade went through the Cilician ports, but Petech excludes Cilicia as a major trading hub all together. Until this aspect is fully understood, it is impossible to gain a complete detailed image of how internationally connected commerce in the Mediterranean functioned. Still, the Armenian merchants of Cilicia remain nameless. The situation now is such that Italian names of merchants are known, but almost none of identifiable Armenians. But some aspects have attracted scholarly attention so far: the fact that Ghevond Alishan published highly interesting archival material at the end of the nineteenth century proves that there is still a lot to find. To my knowledge, several scholars have in the recent past unsuccessfully searched for the Armenian material in Venetian archives. Some of Alishan’s material will be discussed further on, as well as some of the material about Italians working in Cilicia, for example, that of the notaries. An exploration into Cilician trade is especially worthwhile, since it continued ancient traditions and lay the base for future Armenian success in international trade.86 By the mid-sixteenth century and despite continuing wars and destruction, the Armenian network was very tightly knit, as Aslanian quotes from a report from 1568 complaining about the difficulties of “breaking the trade between the Venetians and the whole company of Armenians.”87 Petech’s research into those Italian merchants settling in Mongol cities and capitals reflects back onto the situation in Cilicia, since these Italians must have arrived via the Kingdom, where their compatriots already lived. With the privileges allowing Genoese and Venetian communities to settle in Cilicia, many Italians followed the pull of lucrative trade there. Petech mentions Florentine, Venetian, Genoese, Sienese and many others in the Mongol cities. There, they must have worked with Armenians. Some Italians became skilled in languages, and cases are known when they even sent their sons to stay and be educated at the Mongol courts.88 The sources speak about problems with Mongol authorities and unrest within the Italian community of Tabriz during the 1330s. Armenians were the most important and influential community in the Mongol cities. They had their own churches and artists, had Bibles copied and illuminated and their churches decorated and embellished.

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Trading privileges and the Latins in Cilicia The main players here were Genoese and Venitians often involved into litigating with each other, and then also merchants from Montpellier, Marseille, Pisa, Florence, Catalonia and Sicily. Many others traded with Cilicia, too, but without having had privileges. The Italians started to move into Cilicia beginning with the Genoese in 1201, followed by the Venetians. They had their own church, fondaco, tribunal in a separate quarter in Sis (Genoese) and Mopsuete (Venetians). In 1215, the Genoese are allowed a bath, garden, forno in Tarsus. According to Trasselli, the Armenian mint accepted Venetian, Genoese and Sicilian currency. The rates could vary according to privileges, but it seems that the tax was about 1.1% of weight, while the Peruzzi might have had to pay up to 2%, others 4%. An even better deal was the one for Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, the influential employee of the wealthy Company or Bank of the Bardi in Florence: he received on January 10, 1336, a charter for the Company from the King of Armenia, with a pendant golden seal, releasing his company from customs dues.89 It is probable that Armenian merchants working in Italy received in return privileges by the Italian authorities. An Armenian merchant with shoes in his cargo is remembered in a vivid account by Alishan, from a document he found in a Venetian archive. Silks and the Armenian production of luxury textiles and dye, vordan karmir According to Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, many sorts of precious woollen and silk fabrics were produced in the cities of Greater Armenia and sold to European merchants. According to Marco Polo, it was the Armenians and the Greeks, who live intermingled among the Turcomans [who live off their flock, in clothes made of skins, and dwellings made of felt or of skins] in villages and towns and make their living by commerce and crafts, beside agriculture. They weave the choicest and most beautiful carpets in the world. They also weave silk fabrics of crimson and other colours, of great beauty and richness, and many other kinds of cloth.”90 Marco Polo starts his travel report in Ayas and dedicates the very beginning of his description to the principal cities in Armenia and his mercantile interests. Since we lack a wider range of written sources in regard to fabric production on the Armenian Plateau, one must of course question Marco Polo’s observation. But since he had the mind and eye of a Venetian merchant, we can probably trust his expertise. According to the Arab historian and geographer al-Mukadasi (tenth century) “Dabil (Dvin) is an important city, in it are an inaccessible citadel and great riches. Its name is ancient, its cloth is famous.” Dvin was famous for its wool and silk production, pillows, rugs and more. How the medieval Armenian fabrics looked, we do not know. It seems that many trading centres produced their own fabrics, for which they became famous, and many of these must have been silken. Manadian mentions the multicoloured, flowered silken cloth called božjun made in Bagratid times (roughly during ninth to eleventh centuries) in the Armenian city of Dwin mentioned by Manandian.91 The question of which fabrics were produced, where and which patterns and ornaments were used and where is a subject yet to be decided. Already in 1913, Otto von Falke states that it is, in general, impossible to

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define certain fabrics according to their location of production. And although numerous medieval sources praise the (silk) weaving workshops in certain cities, no document has differentiated the accuracy of location.92 Although Manandian gives some details about Armenian fabrics, rugs and dyes,93 von Falke’s argument is, unfortunately, still correct. The German Schiltberger reports in the fifteenth century that in Armenia, where he spent considerable time, the finest silk is made in the plain of “Karawag.”94 Pegolotti’s Pratica della Mercatura is the best source of information about the goods sold in Cilicia. The list includes spices, metals, incense, cotton, silk, linen and various sorts of fabric (such as canovacci and ciambellotti), and finishes with seta chermisi, saffron and oil. Chèrmiṡi (o chermiṡì) from Arabic qirmizī and Sanscrit kr̥mija (product from insects) is the Italian rosso scarlatto.95 Seta chermisi is especially interesting in our context, because it refers to the Armenian vordan karmir or carmine red. Silk dyed with Vordan karmir was a product of Armenia. According to Pegolotti’s list, it was only sold in “Laiazo d’Erminia” and does not figure in his list of goods on offer in Tabriz. The famous Armenian dye made from insects has been prepared in the Ararat Valley since ancient times.96 Noah’s descendants, it is said, wore garments dyed with it. Already in ancient times, garments dyed with the especially long-lasting karmir dye were used as trophies of war and were highly valued also in Europe. Zekiyan quotes Ibn-Hawkal (tenth century) who says that Armenians produce similar, but better silk than the Byzantines and that Armenian products are unique in the world. Strong fabrics, tents, carpets, cushions and throws are of unsurpassed quality.97 Vordan kamir was an exclusively Armenian dye used for silks, wool in carpets, saddles and pillows, and the pigment was used in Armenian manuscript production. Marco Polo’s reports that Armenian buckram (an important fabric for European export) is the best in the world and that it is produced as well as countless other crafts products in the (mostly) Armenian-populated city of Erzenka. Other early medieval sources speak of the pigment’s importance, for example, silk and wool were tinted especially in the city of Artaxata not far away from Dvin. It was so famous that the tenth-century Arab elBaladhori calls it the city of the red colour.98 Silk production centres were very numerous, in Georgia, in Transcaucasia, along the Caspian Sea shores, and in many other Armenian populated places. These centres of trade were very often multi-faith cities, where Christians and Muslims lived in close proximity, but separated from each other. Christian and Muslim villages must have each had a share in the production of these precious fabrics. But who produced what? Zoroastrians and Buddhists, who had their own traditions in weaving and fabric production and the variety of ethnic groups were all part of a complicated picture. According to Lopez, in the earliest document he found, it was in 1257 that Chinese silk appeared in the markets in Italy and the Champagne. Lucca advanced quickly to be the Italian industrial centre of silk production, to which most of the raw silk arrived from Genoa.99 This information is confirmed by Alishan in the previously mentioned source referring to Genoese merchants trading in Kars in 1257. The city of Kars was ideally located and well-connected with the silk-producing centres. It was once the Bagratuni kingdom’s capital before its move to Ani, traded silk from Karabagh, from the Talysh region and the Caspian Sea coast, all important centres of silk production. A rare example of Bagratuni royal imagery is a miniature dating from the mid-eleventh century.100 King Gagik-Abbas, with his wife and his daughter, sits cross-legged on a cushioned platform (Figure 3.1). The great variety of patterns and fabrics depicted on furniture and costume, I assume, included some Armenian produced fabrics. For example, the queen wears a crimson tunic, probably dyed with vordan karmir, patterned with green or gold alternating motifs of birds inside eight-pointed stars and floral polygons.

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Although the Tuscan cities of Florence, Siena and Pisa participated in the Silk trade of Tabriz and China, their exact degree is hard to pin down, since documentary sources from the late thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century are scarce.101 Until the fall of Cilicia, trade had been carried out most successfully among the Christians along the western Silk Road. Therefore, during the fifteenth century, it seems that Muslim merchants competed fiercely with the hitherto strong position of Christian and Jewish trade along the western Silk Road. But the Armenian role in silk trade continued even after the Fall of Cilicia in 1375. A famous example is the well-known silk city of Julfa, most important Armenian trading centre in Safavid Iran during the sixteenth century and as such desired by Sha Abbas. The relocation of the Armenian Community from Julfa in 1605 by Sha Abbas almost put an end to the long tradition of Armenian trade centred in Nakhijevan and created the new centre New Julfa/Isfahan. Regarding the seventeenth century, Jean Chardin, who travelled in Persia in 1673– 1677, says about the Armenians: “in Turkey, the Christians and the Jews carry on the main foreign trade: and in Persia the Christians and Indian Gentiles . . . the Armenians manage alone the whole European trade.” According to Chardin, the reasons for this were mainly religious: the reason whereof is, because the Mahometans cannot strictly observe their religion among the Christians with relation to the outward purity it requires of them; for Instance their law forbids them to eat Flesh either Dress’d or Kill’d by a man of a different Religion, and like wise to drink in the same Cup with such a one; It forbids to call upon God in a place adorned with figures; it even forbids in some Cases, the touching Persons of a different Opinion, which is a thing most impossible to keep among the Christians.102 The Cilician sources for the time of intense contacts and cohabitation between Italians and Armenians are numerous. It is therefore possible to recreate the circumstances of their lives in the arts of Cilicia. I shall call that mutual cultural knowledge, since our aim is to understand the circumstances under which artistic contact and borrowing could happen. These depended, also, on the ease or difficulties of living together in a city. Another problem is how the churches were decorated. How much did one know about the others?

Mutual cultural knowledge On a day-to-day basis, contact between the Catholics and Armenians, must of course have been manifold, proved by the diversity of common trading interests and by the diversity, even if scarce, of the sources. Contact was not always peaceful and could escalate into vicious conflicts, mostly because of insensitive Latin church politics and other conflicts. Probably, Armenians rented out houses to Italians in Cilicia. Or Armenians worked for Italian merchants: an interesting case is recorded by Alishan.103 The Armenian Avac, called Calamaci, meaning in Turkish and Tartar, dragoman or nunzio. This Avac led caravans between Trebizond and Tabriz (Persian Tauris) and back mostly for Venetians. In Venice, in 1333, he asked for the remuneration of his long services, that is one aspro for every “somma di mulo.” But he was not listened to and refused what he had asked.104 At the same time, in Venice, was a Persian called Azi Soleman Taibi, who engaged Avac as his dragoman, agreed to pay three aspri for damages which had occurred in Erzerum. This was fixed in writing in Persian and translated by Avac into Italian, after which it was signed by two Turks or Persians.

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Alishan reports about problems of Armenians with Italians.105 An Armenian called Aytone de Oria is mentioned as a sea captain of six “galee” in the service of the Genovese. He mentions another case in which Armenians sailing on a Genovese ship had lost property. In Provato or Citta Nova, in 1358, this was finally compensated and Berdi Chan’s wife Taideli Khatun had to pay 11,000 bisanzi, of which 500 went to the Armenians. Alishan reports numerous examples of notary interactions of Genovese and Venetians in Ayas, and quarrels and testaments show the variety of contacts between the different national groups and their lives in the foreign land. And letters from Venetian merchants addressed to the doge of Venice show difficulties these merchants had to face, such as varying rates of taxes, with the result that in 1333 the trading privilege between the Cilician king Leo IV and Venice was renewed. Regarding the presence of Italian merchants in Cilicia and vice versa of Armenian merchants in Venice, two rare fascinating documents give a glimpse into the circumstances the merchants had to deal with. A list from 1307 shows stolen goods from the Ayas castle’s warehouse, where Armenians and Italians both stored their belongings. Possessions of King Levon the Magnificent, his brother Baron Oshin, of some Armenian private citizens and several foreigners are listed. (During the reign of this King, the most important and precious manuscripts were produced in the monastic scriptoria of Cilicia.) The goods were stolen by the two Venetian sea captains Andrea Sanuto and Paulo Mauroceno from the castle (castro regis) of Ayas. They were to be restituted by the Venetian government.106 The list starts with the stolen goods of highest value of the King and his brother. Then follow the goods of six burghiensibus (citizens), some obviously merchandise, but also household items such as clothes, mattresses, knives and so on. The list includes at least six Armenian citizens: Tros Johaninus, correctly spelled Thoros Yovhannes, a certain Theros Paidar, that is, Thoros Paytar, an Armenian horsekeeper, who lost horse nails ferris de cavallo, hammer and more, the Armenian Constantino Vassarabam, the King’s servant (Mundschenk), and a certain Theroso Janni, or “Thoros.” Perhaps Armenian citizens were a certain Gregorio Gazat, a name probably referring to a place name, while Gregorio could be Italian, Greek or Armenian, and then a certain Constantio, who could also be Greek or Armenian “Constantin.” Yeusef de Baldaco could refer to an Armenian called “Hovsep” or Joseph. And Riza, probably an Armenian, who according to common use adopted a Persian name. Vasilli Gressechans could be an Armenian, too.107 The Italians in the list are Georgio Guardiani, who lost many items among which a presbyter’s vestment and a silver cross, and Nerucho de Bursa, perhaps an Italian called Neruccio from Bursa, and Pantaleonus Quirini “quidam nomine Avertaza,” probably an Italian from an Armenian place called Avertaza. Then follows Stephano Cosseri, and the two Pisans, consul Bindo Secha Marenda, and a certain Cosso de Argenta, and then Dame Margarite, followed by Vasilli presbitero, a Greek, and lastly a certain Janna Zachiz. It is indeed known that from 1304 onwards, a Pisan consul was stationed in Ayas. Pisan presence in Cilicia started in the late thirteenth century.108 The list of names shows how in the medieval period Armenian and Italian burghiensibus used first names added by place names or professions. While for example Thoros clearly is an Armenian name, others are unclear. The two professions named are both in Armenian, a horse keeper, paytar and a servant of the King, vassarabam. This is one of the rare sources on the life of the private, non-noble citizen class in Armenia.

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In 1201, Genoa in the capital of Cilicia Sis and Venice in the city of Mopsuete, both had their own administrative institutions and buildings, houses, fondaco, tribunal in a quartiere. In 1215, the Genoese left Sis and moved to Tarsus, where they had their own church, baths, public forno and gardens. Later in the century, in 1295, a consulate for the merchants of Piacenza in Ayas and in 1304, a consulate for Pisa would be opened. In 1307, in Ayas, the Venetians confirmed the use of their own church S. Marco. Alishan saw testaments of Italians who had died in Cilicia, for example, legacies for San Marco d’Ajas from numerous testaments, such as in 1315 by a Genoese called Giovanni Ruzzini detto Tataro.109 Testaments mention slaves freed after their owners’ death. There were also many Armenian churches and the Georgian church Madonna dei Giorgiani. In 1316, a will of a Venetian widow mentions donations to 11 churches in Ayas alone, one of them being the Genoese church of S. Lorenzo.110 According to Alishan, on the other hand, many embassies came from the court of Sis to Venice, whose gifts included golden fabrics. Interestingly, in Venice, in 1341, but already before, the Armenians in Venice received the right to be buried in their own cemetery of the Benedictines in S. Giorgio Maggiore, closely attached to its campanile.111 Although Rudt de Collenberg’s article about the documentary sources shed light on papal indulgences, on marriages, delegations, absolutions, and so on, in Cilicia, many questions still remain unanswered.112 Documents regarding the rights of Tuscans from Florence, Lucca, San Gimignano and Siena 1254 living in Acre in separate parts of the city under the Pisan consuls shed light on the many rights of these consuls. The consuls had a public space and a public court in Acre, and they had the right to take for themselves the possessions of dying people, “even of an unwilling owner . . . and by the right of the Pisan court they hold back from the aforementioned [owner] a third part of the dead person’s possessions.”113 Claude Mutafian in his article about the Latin ecclesiastical sees writes a brief history of the Latin churches in Cilicia.114 The Roman sees were situated north of Ayas, in Mamistra, where the Genoese had their own merchant quartiere with church, and in Tarsus. The Armenians of Cilicia were generally tolerant towards the Church of Rome, and the Armenian nobility married with members of the European nobility. The relationship was not always easy, and the history of the Roman bishop sees in Cilicia is a sort of barometer of the Latin-Armenian relationship. The especially Roman-friendly Armenian politics during the turn of the twelfth to thirteenth centuries were harshly criticised by certain members of the Armenian nobility, who feared too much Latin influence not only on Cilician politics, but also regarding a union of the Churches, and in their wake the Latin archbishops had to leave. When the Armenians tried to receive Mongol protection against the Mamluks when the Mongols had turned towards Islam, in 1295, Armenian politics became Latinophile. This helped Rome’s interest in the Orient missions. In 1306, an archbishop was back in Mamistra. In 1316, 11 Latin churches existed in Ayas, a sign that the European community in the city had grown. We can only assume that a certain number of Latinophile Cilician Armenians attended Mass in the Latin churches there. In 1318, Pope Benedict XII sent the publication of the 117 errors of the Armenians with the missionaries to Ayas to have them teach the Latin language and to start unifying the churches, which was received with hostility by numerous Armenians. Various historical sources help to create a rather detailed, though limited and patchwork-like picture of Latin life in Cilicia. Probably, these Italian quartiere, with their

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churches, houses, tribunal and fondaco in Ayas, Mamistra and Sis were set apart from their Armenian surroundings. That can be assumed, since the Armenian quarters in Venice were somehow separated from the rest of the city.115 Notaries and churchmen arrived from Italian cities to work in Ayas, for example, Felice de Merlis, a Venetian priest and notary.116 He worked as the cappellano del bailo of Venice in Ayas between 1316 and 1318. He was active in dealing with testaments, with legacies concerning all sorts of property, including Venetian slaves of Venetians living in Cilicia, with connections to other Near Eastern cities such as Famagusta, Tripoli and Acre. Church bells rang from the Latin churches, which must have been very well-equipped and outfitted with art works due to donations of the wealthy Italian merchant class. This was an important merchant colony, where without any doubt the Latins showed their wealth and social status especially in competition among each other and other city states. It is possible, though, that the furnishing of the Latin churches was “removable” in order to be taken away in times of danger. In 1316, a Venetian widow’s list of donations to 11 churches in Ayas alone, is revealing.117 Similar donations and burials are known from Famagusta sources, where at the beginning of the fourteenth century, processional crosses, mass and candles are known in four different possible burial places, the cemetery of St. Michael, the cathedral church of St. Nicolas, and the Franciscan and the Dominican monasteries.118 And the testament of the Venetian Vilione, written in Tabriz in 1296 and discussed later in detail, shows his donations, including masses for the dead, to the “new monastery” there. In the Italian quartiere in the cities of Cilicia, the Italian buildings and church furnishing had Italian appearance in style and iconography and probably included relief sculpture with Latin inscriptions and images of Latin saints, such as S. Marco. Possibly, the Venetians, skilled in organising their Mediterranean colonies, built their quartiere according to the model of the city of Venice, used for example in the Cretan capital of Kandia.119 Here, a transfer of some typical Venetian city features occurred, that is the church of S. Mark in S. Mark’s square side by side a loggia. A similar combination of buildings existed in the Cilician quartiere of the Venetians. In addition, it is known that Venetians in Crete preferred to be buried in the Dominican church of Kandia, which the Venetians used as a burial church. Imported saints The Venetians with their church of S. Marco introduced their own patron saints into Armenian Cilicia. Just like in other Italian colonies such as Galata and in the Genoese colonies of the fourteenth century on the coasts of the Black Sea, sculptural reliefs with “Schöne Madonnen” were sculptured on Latin churches, as well as reliefs with the saints Dominic, Bartholomew, Anthony, Nicolas, George and others.120 A similar “import” of saints can be expected for Cilicia. Venetians in Cilicia were allowed the use of certain city quarters, whereas Crete was a Venetian-ruled colony. An important difference to Latin churches are the church patron saints of Armenian churches. In contrast to Latin use, the Armenian church venerates few saints, mainly St. Gregory the Illuminator, St. Hripsime, St. Gayane and St. Vardan, whose tomb churches were all in ancient Armenian territory. With the Dominican missions in Nakhijevan in Greater Armenia, new local saints were created: Bishop Bartholomew who died in the Mother of God monastery of Krna in the Ernjak Valley, the abbot of the first Dominican monastic foundation, in 1333, was canonised.121 A “Madonna di Cherna” (Krna), a statue in baroque style from the monastery,

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which the last Dominicans took with them to Smyrna during the Turkish-Persian war of 1743, together with two lamps in filigrane silver, were the only parts of a formerly precious Catholic church furnishing.122 (When the missionaries had to leave, they usually hid these precious objects.) Also, the Holy Lance and the arm of Saint Judas Thaddeus, originally venerated in churches in Nakhijevan, reached Smyrna and were placed into the church of Saint Policarp. Interestingly, Longo mentions a Latin manuscript originating from central Italy and according to script and ornament from the fourteenth century. Today, it is preserved in the National Library in Baku. It had been hidden inside a wall of an unknown building in Nakhijevan, probably a Latin church.123 We can assume that, according to tradition, Armenian inscriptions and a few ornamental and figurative reliefs adorned the outside of the Cilician churches. In contrast with the Armenian Plateau, no khatchkars seem to have been produced in Cilicia. On the other hand, what is known today of monastic and military architecture in Cilicia does not seem to be typically Armenian, neither, but rather copying the Crusader style and European Gothic architecture more than Armenian, which, because of the closeness to the Crusader states and the availability of architects from there is not surprising. Furnishing the Armenian churches When looking at the outfitting of Armenian churches, Der Nersessian gives a glimpse of the great wealth based on the treasures of the church of St. Gregory of Hromkla.124 According to the historian Smbat the Constable, there were a gold and silver reliquary, a gold cross, a Gospel binding all adorned with pearls and other precious stones, and a silver lamp which hung from the dome of the church, costly vestments and so on. The fact that one single cross only was on the list is noticeable.125 The account of the German Johannes Schiltberger, who travelled and lived among the Armenians of Greater Armenia roughly between 1396 and 1427, gives a “Latin” perspective on the adornment of Armenian churches and Armenian customs. They have only one cross in their churches, and not more, and say, it is a sin to crucify our lord more than once in a church. They have no paintings on their altars, and their patriarchs and bishops grant no indulgence in their churches, and say, that pardon and remission belong to the living God, and if a man goes into the church with repentance and devotion, God, in his compassion, will grant him pardon and remission of his sins . . . They decorate their churches beautifully and have fine vestments of velvet and of silk of all sorts of colors . . . Priest and laymen eat like the Infidels, sitting on the ground.126 And importantly, “They have much confidence in our religion; they also willingly go to Mass in our churches . . . They say that between their religion and ours, there is only a hair’s breadth.”127 No altar painting, one cross only, fine decorations in the churches and fine vestments of velvet and silk of all colours are all characteristic of the Armenian churches. And, says Schiltperger, Armenians “go willingly to Mass in our churches.” How was the Italian merchants’ approach to the differences between Armenian and Latin dogma? Schiltberger’s view is sympathetic in this regard, since he says, The Armenians believe in the Trinity . . . Many of the articles that Gregory [the Illuminator] brought from Rome, have been changed, and they are now separated from

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Historical background the church of Rome. Their priests make the sacrament with unleavened bread . . . they communicate the Holy Sacrament with wine, and not with water . . . The priests do not shave their hair nor their beard.

And what did the Cilicians think about the Latin clergy and their way of adorning churches with relief, sculpture and wall-paintings? The typical and portable furnishing of a Roman Catholic archiepiscopal seat at the western Silk Road is described in a list from 1398 containing the stolen portable outfitting of the Cathedral in Sultaniyah, which had been taken away by thieves.128 The list, produced in Rome by the visiting Archbishop John of Sultaniyah, reads like an entire church inventory: it contains a “Baculum pastoralem, mitram, missale, breviaria, libros ecclesiasticos, calices, cruces, ornamenta ecclesiastica (reliquiary, candle sticks?), pannos laneos et lineos, vestes, lectos, lectisternia, domorum utensilia . . . vasa aurea et argentea.” Pope Boniface IX promises that everything would be prepared and sent back to Sultaniyah,129 ordered indulgences for financial help to the missionaries leaving for Armenia and gave order for the excommunication of the thieves. The list must be typical for any “portable” Cathedral furnishing sent to the Near or Middle East, all in Italian style and aspiring to impress the infidel Christian “heretics.” Armenians well-acquainted with Italian book illumination style Presumably, open-minded Armenians, in the tolerant pro-Latin atmosphere of Cilicia, were very well-acquainted with Latin or Italian artistic style. All these sacred objects carried Latin-Italian meaning, ornament and iconographic features, the cultural markers of the church of Rome. And if we translate the vague term “ornamenta ecclesiastica” with altar painting or sculptures, then this would have been a novelty in Sultaniyah, where neither Nestorian nor Armenian churches dared to use them “out of respect for their Muslim neighbors.”130 The Sultaniyah list does not contain clerical vestments, such as casubula or palium. These, in contrary, are mentioned in a list from about 1160 for the Roman Church of Mahdiyya in the Maghreb.131 Probably, tailors produced the vestments locally. But the Sultaniyah list mentions books: missale, breviaria and libros ecclesiasticos. Books were of utmost importance, since the Latin churches and monasteries not only cared for Italians living in Armenia and Iran, but were missionary, and therefore centres of language and translation. At the same time, all over Europe, in the universities in Paris, Bologna, Salamanca and Oxford Armenian and converted Jewish professors started teaching Oriental languages, that is by members of traditionally merchants and bankers families living in mixed-faith societies specialised in foreign languages. A typical furnishing of a portable Latin chapel travelled in 1249 from France probably via Cilicia, for sure through Nakhijevan: a red chapel tent with outfitting ordered by Louis XI as a gift for the Great Khan Eljigidei’s camp near Tabriz. According to the king’s biographer Jean de Joinville, a chapel which he had caused to be fashioned all in scarlet; and in order to draw the Tartars to our faith, he had caused all our faith to be imaged in the chapel: the Annunciation of the Angel, the Nativity, the Baptism of Christ, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, the Passion, and the Ascension, and the coming of the Holy Ghost; and with the chapel he sent also cups, books, and all things needful for the chanting of the mass.132

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It was a huge tent accommodating an entire series of paintings depicting events from the Life of Christ in the French Gothic style of 1249. The king’s gift was well received, and 13 years later, in 1262, the Ilkhan Hülegü133 mentioned it in his letter from Maragha to King Louis. Later in 1289, in a letter to Philippe le Bel, Ilkhan Argun requests a gift of “many-coloured paintings” from the “land of the Franks.” Was this chapel tent the one which, in 1254, William of Rubruck, saw in the great Khan Möngke’s camp in Karakoram, an oratory on a cart, “very beautiful and painted with sacred stories”?134 These gifts were crucial in their role as taste-makers in the multi-ethnic society of the Mongols. While the Italian merchants were busy trading in Cilicia, Dominican Armenian manuscript production in the Armenian compound at the Vatican started. Its artistic quality is inferior to the extremely refined Cilician manuscripts. Scribes and artists in the scriptoria at Sis and Hromkla were producing elaborate manuscripts and illuminations in the Cilician style of Toros Roslin, the most refined artist of his time. Firmly embedded in Cilician culture and art, his style incorporates various elements from non-Armenian cultures, including western Europe and China.

Notes 1 For example, Juliane von Fircks in the introduction of her catalogue of Mongol and other silks formerly in St Nikolai/Stralsund (Liturgische Gewänder des Mittelalters aus St Nikolai in Stralsund, Riggisberg, Abegg-Stiftung, 2008,) asks how Mongol-Italian trade may have functioned without considering an Armenian participation. The same problem is Anna Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving: AD 400 to AD 1200, Fassbänder, Vienna, 1997. 2 For the following, see Sirarpie Der Nersessian, The Armenians, Thames and Hudson, London, 1969, 11ff. 3 Robert H. Hewsen, ‘The geography of Armenia’, in Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, vol. 1, The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian, St Martin’s Press, New York, 2004, 11ff. 4 Hewsen, ‘The geography of Armenia’, 11ff. 5 See for the following Robert Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2004, 2. The focus of Hewsen’s historical atlas on Armenian maps is an exception. To my knowledge, none of the well-known geographical atlas’ on sale in England takes into special consideration the countries of Armenia and the southern Caucasus. The countries of the Caucasus are usually displayed on a small scale. 6 I am following here Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, pp. 2–5. 7 James Russell, ‘The formation of the Armenian nation’, in Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.), Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, vol. 1, The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century, St Martin’s Press, New York, 2004, pp. 19–36, 32f. 8 Russell, ‘The formation of the Armenian nation’, 34f. 9 Vrej Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art, exhibition catalogue, The British Library, London, 2001, 18f., with a detailed discussion of the fascinating circumstances of the Christianisation of Armenia. 10 Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, 18f. about the Church of Persia. 11 Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, p. 20. 12 Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, p. 19. 13 Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, p. 43. 14 For a detailed discussion of the Armenian-Byzantine Church Relations, see Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, pp. 43–48. 15 Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, p. 16. 16 Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, p. 16. 17 Robert-Gregory Bedrosian, The Turco-Mongol Invasions and the Lords of Armenia in the 13th and 14h Centuries, Ph.D., Columbia University, 1979. 18 For the following see Vladimir Minorsky, ‘The Middle East in Western politics in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries’, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, XXVII (1940), 427–461.

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19 For the following, see Bedrosian, The Turco-Mongol Invasions and the Lords of Armenia in the 13th and 14h Centuries, p. 1. 20 Bedrosian, The Turco-Mongol Invasions and the Lords of Armenia in the 13th and 14h Centuries, p. 1. 21 Minorsky, ‘The Middle East in Western politics in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries’, p. 434. 22 Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, p. 16. 23 Felicitas Schmieder, Europa und die Fremden: Die Mongolen im Urteil des Abendlandes vom 13.-15. Jahrhundert, Sigmaringen, 1994, 327. 24 Lisa Mayerhofer, Das Ende Kleinarmeniens im Mittelalter: der Untergang des Königreiches Kilikien (1375), Kitab, Klagenfurt, 2007. 25 For the following, see Hovannisian, Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, 269ff. 26 Bedrosian, The Turco-Mongol Invasions and the Lords of Armenia in the 13th and 14h Centuries. 27 Bullarium Franciscanum, Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, Rome, 1758–1904, vol. VII, n. 257. 28 Robert Hovanissian, Armenian Van/Vaspurakan, Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces, Mazda Publishers, Costa Mesa, 2000, 126. 29 Minorsky, 1940, 13. 30 Robert Bedrosian, T’ovma Metsobets’i’s History of Tamerlan and his successors, New York, 1987, 64. 31 Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, p. 17. 32 Theo Maarten van Lint, ‘Europe beyond Europe; The case of Armenia and the Armenians’, in Paul-Augustin Deproost and Bernard Coulie (eds.), Les Frontieres pour ouvrir l’Europe, L’Harmattan, Paris, 2004, pp. 153–179, 177. 33 Aziz S. Atiya, Crusade, Commerce and Culture, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1962, 227. 34 See Peter Halfter, ‘Das Papsttum und die armenische Kirche im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert’, in Drost-Abgarjan Armenuhi and Hermann Goltz (eds.), Armenologie in Deutschland: Beitraege zum ersten Deutschen Armenologen-Tag, Berlin, 2000, LIT, Münster, 2005. And see Vrej Nersessian’s analysis of the relationship between the Armenian Church and the Papacy at the time of the Cilician Kingdom, 2001, 51ff. 35 Minorsky, ‘The Middle East in Western politics in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries’, 432ff. 36 W. H. Rudt de Collenberg, ‘Les ‘bullae et litterae’ adressees par les papes d’Avignon a l’Armenie cilicienne, 1305–1375 (d’apres les registres de l’Archivio Segreto Vaticano)’, in D. Kouymjian (ed.), Armenian Studies – Etudes Armeniennes in Memoriam Haig Berberian, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, 1986, pp. 697–725, 709. 37 Claude Mutafian, ‘Les sieges ecclesiastiques latins en Cilicia orientale: XIIe – XIVe siecles’, L. Balletto (ed.), Oriente e Occidente, Genoa, 1997, pp. 903–913. 38 Mutafian, ‘Les sieges ecclesiastiques latins en Cilicia orientale’, 904ff. 39 Der Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, XIII. 40 Gabriele Winkler, Armenia and the Gradual Decline of Its Traditional Liturgical Practises as a Result of the Expanding Influence of the Holy See from the 11th to the 14th Century, Liturgie de l’Eglise Universelle, Rome, 1976, pp. 329–368. 41 See Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, for a detailed theological discussion, pp. 51–55. 42 Argam Ayvazian, The Historical Monuments of Nakhitchevan, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1990, 88. 43 See M. A. van den Oudenrijn, Uniteurs et Dominicains d’Armenie, Oriens Christianus, 40-43 1956–1959, p. 129, n. 9. 44 See L. S. Khachikyan, The Religious-Cultural Centre of Krna and the Scientific Activities of Yovhannes Krnetsi (in Armenian), Erevan, 1977. 45 Arthur Jeffrey, ‘Gregory of Tathew’s “Contra Mohammedanos” ’, The Moslem World, 32 (1942), 219–235, p. 222. 46 Jeffrey, ‘Gregory of Tathew’s “Contra Mohammedanos” ’, p. 231. 47 See my discussion in Chapter 2. 48 Anne-Dorothee von den Brincken, Die ‘Nationes Christianorum Orientalium’’ im Verständnis der lateinischen Historiographie, Böhlau, Köln-Wien, 1973, 204. 49 Sergio La Porta, ‘The history of the Filioque controversy in Armenia’, St Nerses Theological Seminary Review, 8 (2003), 85–116.

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50 M. A. van den Oudenrijn, ‘Der armenische Dominikaner Fr. Awetiq Augustin von Erzerum’, Handes Amsorya, LXII (1948), 588ff, 592. 51 Robert W. Edwards, The Fortifications of Armenian Cilicia, Dumbarton Oaks Studies, Washington DC, 1987, 23, and Mutafian, ‘Les sieges ecclesiastiques latins en Cilicia orientale’, pp. 903–913. 52 Robert W. Edwards, ‘The role of military architecture in Medieval Cilicia: The triumph a non-urban strategy’, in Richard G. Hovannisian and Simon Payaslian (eds.), Armenian Cilicia, Mazda Publishers, Costa Mesa, CA, 2008, pp. 153–244, 158ff. 53 Edwards, ‘The role of military architecture in Medieval Cilicia’, pp. 153–244, 163. 54 Edwards, ‘The role of military architecture in Medieval Cilicia’, p. 162. 55 Edwards, ‘The role of military architecture in Medieval Cilicia’, 167f. 56 Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century, 2 vols., Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington DC, 1993, vol. 1, XIII. Comptes du Tresor: (1296, 1316, 1384, 1477), edited by V. Langlois, Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1930, 88ff. See also Catherine Otten-Froux, ‘Le commerce cilicien du XIIe au XIVe siècle’, in Raymond Kevorkian (ed.), Armenie entre Orient et Occident: Trois mille ans de civilisation, catalogue de l’exposition de la Bibliotheque Nationale, 1996, Paris, 1996, 134ff. 57 H. A. Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia in Relation to Ancient World Trade, Lisbon, 1965, 187. 58 See Sebouh David Aslanian, ‘The circulation of men and credit: The role of the commenda and the family firm in Julfan Society’, JESHO, 50 (2007), parts 2–3. Sebouh David Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trading Networks of the Armenian Merchants from New Julfa, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2011. Also see Edmund E. M. Herzig, The Armenian Merchants of New Julfa, Isfahan: A Study in Pre-Modern Asian Trade, D.Phil., University of Oxford, 1991. 59 See for example, Kate Fleet, European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, focuses on the Ottoman role in Ottoman-European trade skipping out the Armenian presence. 60 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia, p. 187. 61 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia, p. 185. 62 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia, p. 188. 63 Tim Greenwood and Edda Vardanyan, Hakob’s Gospels: The Life and Work of an Armenian Artist of the Sixteenth Century, Sam Fogg, London, 2006, 21. 64 Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, p. 147. See the chapter about Clan and Kinship in Mercantile Networks. 65 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia, p. 175. 66 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia, p. 187. 67 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia, p. 78. 68 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia, p. 81. 69 Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, p. 156. 70 Greenwood and Vardanyan, Hakob’s Gospels, pp. 17, 20. 71 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia, 91ff. 72 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia, 145ff. 73 Michael McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, A.D. 300–900, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002, for example 624. 74 Luciano Petech, ‘Les Marchands Italiens dans l‘Empire Mongol’, Journal Asiatique, CCL (1962), 549–574. 75 Boghos Levon Zekiyan (ed.), Ad Limina Italiae, ‘In viaggio per l’Italia con mercanti e monaci Armeni, Eurasiatica/Quaderni del Dipartimento di studi eurasiatici dell’Universita degli studi di Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, Venice, 1996, 253. 76 Zekiyan, 1996, p. 231. 77 Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, p. 149. 78 Claudine Delacroix-Besnier, ‘Les prêcheurs en Europe centre-orientale (1370–1430): La société des freres pérégrinants et le domaine commercial génois’, in Michel Balard and Michel Ducellier (eds.), Le Partage du Monde: Echanges et colonisation dans la Meditérranée médiéval, Sorbonne, Paris, 1998, pp. 23–34, 25. 79 Bertold Spuler, Le Christianisme chez les Mongols aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles, Tractatus Altaica, edited by Walter Heissig, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1976, 621–631.

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80 Spuler, Le Christianisme chez les Mongols aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles, p. 627. 81 Baghdiantz McCabe, The Sha’s Silk for Europe’ Silver: The Eurasian Trade of the Julfa Armenians in Safavid Iran and India (1530–1750), University of Pennsylvania, Armenian Texts and Studies 15, Atlanta, GA, 1999, 16f. 82 H. Inalcik, ‘Bursa and the silk trade’, in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, vol. 1, Cambridge, 1997, pp. 218–255. 83 Wilhelm Heyd, Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter, J. G. Cotta, Stuttgart, 1879, 402–410. 84 Petech, ‘Les Marchands Italiens dans l‘Empire Mongol’, pp. 549–574. 85 Carmelo Trasselli, ‘Sugli europei in Armenia’, Archivio storico italiano, CXXII (1964), 471–491. 86 Bhaswati Bhattacharya, ‘Armenian European relations in India 1500–1800’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 48.2 (2005), 277–322. 87 Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, p. 27. 88 Petech, ‘Les Marchands Italiens dans l‘Empire Mongol’, p. 567. In 1288, nine Italian interpreters worked for the Mongols according to a papal letter, p. 562. 89 Allan Evans (ed.), Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La Pratica della Mercatura, The Medieval Academy of America, Cambridge, MA, 1936, XXII. 90 Ronald Latham (ed.), The Travels of Marco Polo, Penguin Books, London, 1958, 47. 91 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia, p. 152. 92 Otto von Falke, Kunstgeschichte der Seidenweberei, 2 vols., Verlag Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin, 1913, vol. 1, 108. 93 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia, 152f. 94 Elisabeth Geck, Herzog Ernsts Ausfahrt, G. Pressler, Wiesbaden, 1969. 95 See Enciclopedia Italiana. 96 Boghos Levon Zekiyan, La Porpora in Armenia tra Mito, Folklore: Arte e Religiosita: La porpora: Realta e immaginario di un colore simbolico, Atti del Convegno di Studi, Venezia, 1996. 97 Zekiyan, La Porpora in Armenia tra Mito, Folklore, p. 282. 98 Zekiyan, La Porpora in Armenia tra Mito, Folklore, p. 282. 99 R. S. Lopez, ‘Nuovi luci sugli Italiani nel Estremo Oriente prima di Colombo’, in Studi colombiani, Genoa, 1951, III, pp. 350–354, 74. 100 Lynn Jones, Between Islam and Byzantium: Aght’amar and the Visual Construction of Medieval Armenian Rulership, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007, 46–50. 101 Lopez, ‘Nuovi luci sugli Italiani nel Estremo Oriente prima di Colombo’, III, 350–354. 102 Baghdiantz McCabe, The Sha’s Silk for Europe’ Silver: The Eurasian Trade of the Julfa Armenians in Safavid Iran and India (1530–1750), University of Pennsylvania, Armenian Texts and Studies 15, Atlanta, GA, 1999, 117ff. 103 Alishan, 1893, p. 35 (without source). 104 Alishan, 1893, p. 32. 105 Alishan, 1893, p. 39. 106 George Martin Thomas, Diplomatarum Veneto-Levantinum, 1880, 63–71. 107 According to Vrej Nersessian, who kindly checked on the Armenians named in this list. 108 Trasselli, ‘Sugli europei in Armenia’, p. 489. 109 Alishan, 1893, p. 35. 110 Mutafian, 1997, 911. 111 Alishan, 1893, 35. 112 Rudt de Collenberg, ‘Les ‘bullae et litterae’ adressees par les papes d’Avignon a l’Armenie cilicienne, 1305–1375’, p. 698. 113 After documents published by R. Davidsohn, Forschungen zur Geschichte von Florenz, II, Berlin, 1900, 296–297, no. 2307. See also D. Abulafia, ‘Crocuses and crusaders: San Gimignano, Pisa and the kingdom of Jerusalem’, in Benjamin Zeev Kedar, Hans Eberhard Mayer, and Raimund Charles Smail (eds.), Outremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem Presented to Joshua Prawer, Jerusalem, 1982, 234, no. 29, pp. 235–236. 114 Mutafian, 1997, pp. 903–913. 115 Claudia Bonardi, Il commercio dei preziosi, Gli Armeni in Italia, edited by Boghos Levon Zekiyan, Rome, 1990, 110–114.

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116 Andreina Bondi Sebellico, Felice de Merlis: Prete e Notaio in Venezia ed Ayas (1315–1348), 2 vols., Il Comitato Editore, Venezia, 1973. 117 Alishan, 1893, n. 364, p. 209. See Mutafian, ‘Les sieges ecclesiastiques latins en Cilicia orientale’, p. 911. 118 Peter W. Edbury, ‘The Genoese community in Famagusta around the year 1300: A historical vignette’, in L. Balletto (ed.), Oriente e Occidente, Genoa, 1997, vol. 1, pp. 235–44, 237. David Jacoby, ‘Famagusta in the late thirteenth century’, in Studies on the Crusader States and on Venetian Expansion, Variorum Reprints, Northampton, 1989, VIII, pp. 154–155, no. 54. 119 Maria Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies: Architecture and Urbanism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001. 120 Edbury, ‘The Genoese community in Famagusta around the year 1300’, pp. 235–244. 121 Carlo Longo, ‘I Domenicani nell’Impero Persiano: Frati Armeni e Missionari Italiani’, Studi sull’Oriente Cristiano, 11.1 (2007), 35–77, 76 and figs. 1–3. 122 Longo, ‘I Domenicani nell’Impero Persiano’, 37. 123 Longo, ‘I Domenicani nell’Impero Persiano’, 76. 124 Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, p. 3. 125 The author discusses ‘Reordering the Catholic Armenian Churches of Rome and Nakhichevan: “Ho sentito la messa sua in Armenia et qui in molte volte”: Nicholas Friton (1560–1597) and Azaria Friton (1602–1604) of Aparan’, in Christiane Esche-Ramshorn (ed.), Reflections on Armenia and the Christian Orient: Studies in Honour of Vrej Nersessian, Ankyunacar Publishing, Yerevan, 2017, 131–149. 126 Karl Friedrich Neumann and J. Buchan Telfer (eds.), The Bondage and Travels of Johannes Schiltberger, Hakluyt Society, London, 1879, p. 95. 127 Neumann and Telfer, The Bondage and Travels of Johannes Schiltberger, p. 93. 128 Sultaniyah in north-west Iran, founded in 1303, was the Ilkhanid capital until 1335. From 1318, it was the centre of an archiepiscopal see covering the whole of inner Asia, Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, p. 135. 129 Loenertz, ‘Eveques dominicains des deux Armenies’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 10, (1940), 258–281, 265. 130 Schmieder, Europa und die Fremden, p. 204. 131 Henri Bresc, ‘Le Royaume Normand d’Afrique et l’Archeveche de Mahdiyya’, in Michel Balard and Alain Ducellier (eds.), Le Partage du Monde: Echanges et Colonisation dans la Mediterranee Medievale, Publications de la Sorbonne, Paris, 1998, pp. 347–373, see pp. 365–366. 132 J. R. S. Philipps, The Medieval Expansion of Europe, 2nd ed., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998, 118. 133 He is portrayed together with his wife Doquz Khatun in a Syriac Bible (1260), I Vangeli dei Popoli, catalogue Vatican City, 2000, fig. 75. 134 William of Rubruck, ‘The journey of William of Rubruck’, in Christopher Dawson (ed.), The Mongol Mission, New York, 1955, p. 180.

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A mercantile “colonisation” Sotto l’arca Noe: The Florentine merchant banker Francesco Balducci Pegolotti and his fellow Italians passed through the multi-ethnic cities along the western Silk Road, forming what could be termed a mercantile “colonisation.” His merchants’ itinerary and handbook Pratica della Mercatura (ca. 1335) is the only report giving insight into the concerns of an Italian traveller on the approximately 1,200-km-long road to Mongol Tabriz.1 Hewsen writes about the complicated historic background during the time of intense trading contacts with Italy and the Dominican missions and the frequent change of rulership in the provinces of ancient Armenia.2 “After the fall of the Seljuks in 1307, the Ilkhanids advanced into Anatolia, where they bordered what was left of the Byzantine Empire, the empire of Trebizond and Cilician Armenia. But as their grasp weakened, Turkish emirates emerged at Kastamonu in 1290 and at Sivas under the Eretnaids in 1335, and another at Dulgadir, arose with its centre at Elbistan. Within the remaining Ilkhanid lands lay the emerging Turkoman lands of the Ak-Koyunlu. The White Sheep were centred at Diyarbakir and the Kara-Koyunly Black Sheep had their seat at Maragha. Between them lay central Armenia organised by the Ilkhanids into the province of Armenia al-Akbar “Greater Armenia,” to the East of which lay the four semi-autonomous Armenian principalities of Gelam-Car, under the Dop’ean branch of the Siwnid house of Xac’en after 1182; Khachen itself, under the Vaxt’ankians, the senior line of the same house; Haband-K’t’is, still under the Aransahikids, the first royal house until 1261, when they became extinct in the male line and their lands passed to Khach’e; and Siunik’, still under the Awrbelids, placed in power by the Georgians before the Mongols came, which would remain under their rule until the fifteenth century. Mongol control over Georgia was lost sometime shortly after 1316. With the death of the last Ilkhan, Abu Sa’id Bahadur, in 1335, a welter of local dynasties emerged all over Iran and Anatolia. Among these new petty states, there arose a number of Kurdish emirates in Armenia, which were, in fact, little less than Kurdish reconstitutions of the Armenian principalities of old.”3 Behind this tumultuous political backdrop, the western Silk Road between Ayas and Tabriz was still kept relatively safe in the interest of international trade. And, written in about 1335, Pegolotti’s itinerary proves how well-acquainted Italian merchants were with the long-distance trading routes. Armenia’s biblical geography had always been of greatest interest for the Roman papacy: Noah and the Ark, the Apostles St. Thaddeus’ and St. Bartholomew’s burial sites, both huge monasteries and important pilgrim sites (Figure 4.1), all within reach DOI: 10.4324/9781003204619-5

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Figure 4.1 St. Thaddeus Monastery, Province of Maku, Iran Photo: Ara Melikian

of the main stretch of the western Silk Road, as explained by Pegolotti. Rome’s foundation of the Archbishop’s See in the faraway Mongol capital of Sultaniyah, south-east of Tabriz, was close to the tomb of the patron saint of the Armenian church Apostle Thaddeus south of Maku. This monastery was part of the tight-knit network of holy monasteries covering medieval Armenia. Close to the main trade routes easily accessible, Franciscan and later Dominican friars had permanent residences in the trading centres. The (renewed) church of St. Thaddeus with its black and white striped walls was built in 1318 and still stands today.4 But the Apostle Bartholomew’s church near Lake Van is in ruins.5 His relics were brought into safety to the church of San Bartolomeo all’Isola on the Tiber Island in Rome. Not far from the Apostle’s burial places was the ancient city of Nakhijevan in a major transit region for anyone on the way to the Mongol court. The Dominican missionaries settled in Nakhijevan in close proximity to the holy mountain of Ararat and of Noah’s tomb, at the eastern margins of Vaspurakan. As we have already discussed, Nakhijevan was believed to be the oldest settlement of mankind. In Armenian, “Nakh” means first and “ijevan” lodge. Until the eleventh century, the location of Noah’s Ark had been believed to be on the mountain of Judi Dagh in south-eastern Anatolia at the site of the Nestorian monastery “The Cloister of the Ark.” Through a new interpretation of the Bible, however, the Ark “moved” to the Araxes/Aras valley, where the landing of Noah’s Ark was now believed to have taken place on the area’s highest peak Ararat. In this way, the Ark stayed close to the heart of spiritual Armenia, the seat of the Armenian Catholikos in Edjmiadzin (“the Only Begotten is descended”),6 with the Cathedral of St.

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Gregory the Illuminator, marking the spot where, according to tradition, St. Gregory the Illuminator received a vision of God. Immediately, the maps produced in western Europe started to reflect that change, as can be seen in the Etymologiae by Isidore, showing the twin-peaked Ararat with the Ark on top in Armenia superior,7 and, as often, shaped as a house on top of a mountain in the centre of Armenia. According to myth, Noah and his family would have started the first human settlement in 60 miles away Nakhijevan and planted the first wine on the slopes of Mount Ararat. Outside of the city of Nakhijevan, according to tradition, was Noah’s tomb. Noah’s twelfth- or thirteenth-century mausoleum church8 was part of a medieval church structure, an Armenian monastery and important pilgrim site, probably equally for the Muslims. Today in Muslim Aserbaijan, the tomb mausoleum, which the Soviets destroyed in 1953, is rebuilt in the shape of a medieval Muslim-style mausoleum reflecting the country’s politics of complete denial of any Armenian role in the history of the region. Noah’s tomb church consisted of a centralised octagonal 10-m-wide crypt built out of small bricks and supported by a central pier.9 Like the Apostles’ churches, Noah’s octagonally shaped tomb appears on medieval European maps such as the map of Ranulf Higden, about 1342.10 Similar octagonal structures on this map reflect the mausoleum type so typical of Nakhijevan. The travelling Europeans obviously reported about this back home. The tomb of Noah’s wife in Marand, its shape unknown, possibly about half-way to Tabriz was still mentioned by an Italian merchant of the fifteenth century. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, octagons became a typical mausoleum building type of the area, for Christians and Muslims alike, and numerous Muslim octagonal mausoleums are known on the Armenian Plateau and in north-western Iran. In the Armenian province of Artsakh, for example, in 1314, the Armenian architect Shahik was employed in the building of a Muslim octagonal mausoleum and seven years later he built an Armenian church there (1321).11 A better-known Islamic example of such a tomb octagon is the elaborately colourfully tiled Seljuk octagonal mausoleum of Mumine Khatun in the city of Nakhijevan, finished in 1186.12 The Islamic mausoleums were all beautifully tiled and decorated with Kufic inscriptions running around their portals beneath their pyramidal roofs. Christian octagons such as Noah’s tomb were most likely to have shown Armenian inscriptions and ornamental and perhaps narrative friezes and were clearly distinctive from the Islamic counterparts. Western medieval travel sources, for example, Sir John Mandeville, mention the biblical mountain Ararat, for: “so that no man may go up there, nor ever did, since the time of Noah – save a monk that by the grace of God brought down one of the planks, that is in the monastery at the foot of the mountain. And beside is the city of Dvin which Noah founded. And fast by is the city of Ani, in which were thousand churches. . . .”13 The Dominican Jordanus Catalani in his Mirabilia Descripta, written after 1300, adds to the sacred geography of Armenia a church for the “Ten-Thousand Martyrs of Mt Ararat”:14 “Beside a lake at the foot of the mountain Ararat there is a church for the ten-thousand martyrs, at the place where the Mongols built the city of Semur.” Let us now return to the beginning of this chapter, Pegolotti’s Pratica della Mercatura. Manadian and Hewsen base and update their discussion of the report on the previous mentioned publications, mostly on Heyd.15 At about the time Pegolotti wrote his report, 1336, the Bardi bank of Florence sent food aid to Armenia, since the consequences of the wars often resulted in shortage of food, due to damaged fields and shortage of farmers, since the population was often led into slavery or killed. On April 10, 1336, the bank

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had received order from Pope Benedict XII at Avignon to send the Armenians, which were assaulted by the Turks, the sum of 10,000 gold coins in grains. A few weeks later, Bardi agents bought grain in Naples and in Bari through their branch offices and before the month was over ships with the food were on their way to the Black Sea. We do not know if the Bardi bank had trading agents in Tabriz, but this is very likely. The families of the Bardi and Peruzzi were both important patrons of Giotto in the Franciscan and Dominican churches of Florence, and there can be little doubt that the precious Oriental garments worn by the merchants played a role in the fresco paintings where precious Oriental fabrics appear. In 1288, the Dominican Ricoldo da Montecroce16 had departed from the Dominican monastery S. M. Novella in Florence, to Armenia and Persia. Documents prove that Italians travelling the Silk Road made their testaments in the favour of the Franciscan or Dominican churches in the Silk Road cities. Of course, problems occurred and needed to be solved. Alishan publishes a document, which speaks about an event in 1369, when Venetians were involved: the sovereign of Tabriz Shek Uveiz Khan, renewed the privileges given by his predecessors Busaid Chan and invited the Venetians and guaranteed safe travel between Tabriz and Trebizond, where many Venetians were waiting out of fear of assassins. Assassins had killed Venetians in Avnic near Erzerum. He wrote to the Italian bailo of Trebizond saying that he had sent Abaran (Abraham?) to Choggia to find and punish the thieves.17 According to Pegolotti, a caravan needed 40 days passing through 45 toll stations. From Ayas, the road led up to the border station between Cilicia and the Mongol Empire‚ of the signore de’ tartari, called Gandon. Many locations had Italianised place names due to the high frequentation of Italians, but still today mainly identifiable places, caravanserais, baths and cities, such as Tre Chiese, sotto l’arca Noe, piana de‘Falconieri, Fiume Rosso and many more. These place names give a vivid picture of the plains, mountain passes, up to an elevation of at least 2,000 m, valleys and river crossings such as the Araxes, on their way. The main cities the caravans passed through were Sivas, Erznka, Erzerum/Karin18 and further on to the foot of the Ararat to Maku. The road passed through a landscape sprinkled with many Armenian churches, monasteries and pilgrim sites. By the end of the thirteenth century, since the devastations of Genghis time, the cities and caravan stations along the main international trading routes in Persia had fairly recovered.19 The country side was mainly left unsown and derelict. In cities such as Tabriz and Sultaniyah, the town merchants and nobles were organised in trading companies, from whose ranks the principal city officials, mayor, kadi, imam of the mosque and police chief, craftsmen and artisans formed guilds. Local business was augmented by the presence of Indians, Latins and probably Chinese, whose fleets in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries reached across the Indian Ocean. Franciscans and Dominicans founded their monastic centres along the route, but the sources are rare and often inconclusive. Ricoldo da Montecroce20 reports about a Dominican residence at Sivas, where a Genoese consulate existed already in 1280, with Genoese houses and a church. This church was located “in fondaco Camaladini,” inside of the han (caravansarai) of Kamal ad-Din.21 Friar Marco da Montefeltro had founded a Franciscan mission in the city at about the same time. Documents report about a Franciscan centre in Tabriz and a residence in Selmas, a city not far from Urmia, where a Franciscan was martyred in 1284.22 Franciscan centres were established all the way along the major trade routes, between Trabzon, Tiflis, Sivas, Erzerum, Maku, Tabriz and Selmas.

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At the height of Italian trade in Tabriz, Spuler assumes that as many as 1,000 Italians lived in the city.23 For example, Buscarello de Ghizolfi, Genoese merchant and diplomat in the service of Khan Arghun (1284–1291) kept his private possessions in Tabriz.24 According to Ibn Battuta, who travelled during the 1320s, in the city of Sarai, capital of the Tatar empire of the Golden Horde, various groups of people lived beside the Mongols: Muslim Ossetians, Christians, Cumans, Circassians, Rus and Greeks. Each group, Arabs, Persians, Egyptians, Syrians and others lived in a separate quarter with its own bazaar surrounded by a wall for their protection in the city suburbs. In 1253, William of Rubruck estimated that along the western Silk Road, Muslims “to be only a tenth of the population”25. The mainly Christian population of Armenians, Greeks and Nestorians was mixed with Muslims, Zoroastrians, and Buddhists, and Italians. The trading city of Erznka was mainly Armenian and during the second half of the thirteenth century, together with the province of Ekegheats, an internally sovereign Armenian principality under Bishop Sargis and his descendants.26 Cities like Erzerum and Van, with their big fortresses, were surrounded by a double ring of walls and additional suburbs.27 While the wealthy population lived within the city walls, the poor remained outside. City quarters for foreign merchants were not allowed inside the cities, only in the suburbs.28 On their way to the various caravanserais, the Italian merchants passed churches, monasteries, mosques and mausoleums. The Italians compared, for example, the dome of an Armenian church with the one of the Church of the Franciscans in Venice.29 Armenians, on the other hand, admired European arts and architecture. We know from Martiros’ Erznkats’i’s pilgrim report, where he tells about the beauty of the cities and preciousness of the gilded and painted Cathedral sculpture and the beauty of city squares.30 Monneret de Villlard discusses the report of the Muslim traveller Hamd-Allah Mustawfi from Tabriz, who passed through the cities of Anatolia in 1340.31 In Erzerum, he mentions a very huge church with its 50 braccia wide dome, while opposite from the church, stood a mosque, which in width and length resembled the Ka’bah of Mecca. The architectural ensemble includes a church with an immense dome, which must have been an Armenian church, which stood across the road from a Ka’bah-like rectangle mosque, together an impressive sight for any visitor. The architecture of the western Silk Road cities impressed the European travellers, too, and was certainly an important part of the travel “experience.” Pegolotti mentions three caravanserais where the merchants would have stayed and paid taxes, gavazera dell’amiraglio, del soldano and di casa Jacomi, della montagna, fuori d’Arzerone. Indeed, we know from other sources that three Seljuk caravanserais existed between Kayseri and Erzerum, built along the major North-South routes through the Seljuk Empire.32 Christian-Muslim interaction and their coexistence in the cities were conflict-laden.33 The relationship between Christians and Muslims “harboured a deep anxiety towards cultural hybridity out of fear of losing their cultural identity.”34 The Italian merchants must have travelled through the Anatolian cities while careful manoeuvring within and beyond religious and cultural boundaries. The Christian and Muslim youth associations in the cities of the Armenian Plateau have been already mentioned. Ibn Battuta describes these associations of akhiyya (akhis were “leaders”) as a special example of the kindliness he claimed as being the essence of Anatolia.35 Did his contemporaries, the Italian merchants or missionaries, think the same? Initiated by the Armenian church in Erzenka, but existing also in other cities, the Armenian brotherhood had an inter-religious and inter-ethnic element.36 No European report exists on the nature of the intellectual and artistic life in the Anatolian cities and their peace- and charity-focused ethics. The poems

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of Hovhannes Erznkats’i (1250–1326) address the wealthy merchant class of Erznka criticising their shortcomings regarding community welfare, almsgiving and negligence in hospitality towards travellers. It is safe to assume that the Franciscan and/or Dominican missionaries in these cities, aware of differences of Dogma, knew the Armenian brotherhoods and their Muslim counterparts. They must have worked quite hard on offering an alternative Latin Christian view in their preaching. Rich artistic “interactions,” that is borrowings are typical for this time: The wonderful complex relief decoration and architecture of the mosque-hospital complex of Divriği (1228f.) draws heavily on Armenian decorative inventions and is one of the best testimonials of how Muslim patrons of that time admired Armenian architecture and relief arts and used Armenian craftmanship.37 In this highly creative atmosphere, the first known complete illustrated Armenian bible, the Erznka Bible, was copied and illustrated in 1269–1270 and remained the most copied Bible. Vrej Nersessian concludes that only two of the 38 miniatures, Moses receiving the Tables of the Law and David playing the harp, recall miniatures in Byzantine Psalters. All others are original creations by an independently spirited artist who drew from his contacts with Cilicia.38 Once passed Erzenka, the caravans reached the trading centre Erzerum. From here, the Trabzon road via Bayburt joined in. Although many of Pegolotti’s locations can be identified, a good number is unknown. Therefore, Manandian thinks the problem of the names of the stations needs to be studied anew.39 Before arriving in Erzerum, everyone passed the Bagni d’Arzerone, the Baths of Erzerum. As already mentioned, the Muslim traveller Hamd-Allah Mustawfi from Tabriz, who passed through the cities of Anatolia in 1340,40 describes the Armenian church in Erzerum. He says that there is a very huge church with a 50-braccia-wide dome and a mosque opposite, which in width and length resembled the Ka’bah of Mecca. The Çifte Minare Medrese in Erzerum carries a dragon composition on its facade with close analogies with contemporary Armenian stone carvings. Michael Rogers called these carvings “barely Islamicised versions of Armenian khatchkars (cross-stones).”41 Sara Kühn recognises a similar vishap-type (dragon) relief on a twelfth or thirteenth century khatchk’ar from Makaravank, Ararat.42 Rope, cross and star ornaments covered the surfaces of many buildings and artefacts of the cities of the western Silk Road (see Figure 4.2). The background of numerous Armenian manuscript illustrations, likewise, resembled beautiful and colourful fabrics “woven” with dots, circles, ropes, crosses and stars (Figure 4.3). Grabar characterises Islamic ornament: “Ornament brings us back with subliminal power to the force of life itself. Patterns keep on keeping on and they do it out of sheer joy: ornament implies that decorative forms are alive, that they breathe more easily than ponderous statues and endless Madonnas.”43 We have discussed (see above) the character of Armenian art as fundamentally different from Western arts. Vrej Nersessian points at the “bath of sight and hearing for those approaching the sparing peaks of God,” that is by focusing attention on largely abstract decorations and colours, the Armenian Canon Tables were meant to focus the powers of the soul on the central mysteries of Christian revelation. Between Erzerum and Khoy, the North-South international trade route crossed the western stretch of the Silk Road.44 Pegolotti describes the northern route to Maku. Once left Maku and turned towards the east, it followed the junction to the St. Thaddeus monastery in the Armenian province of Artaz-dasht (Armenian “plain”), east and south of the Ararat. A fortress stood on a gorge above the village.45 The German Schiltberger, a captured slave and traveller, mentions Makou or Makouyeh in his report. “There is also a city by the mountain called Magu; here is a Latin Bishop See and Latin priests.”46

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Figure 4.2 Yivli Minaret Mosque and portal, Erzurum, 1373 Photo: Patrick Donabedian

Maku was eventually ruled by Armenian Catholic feudal lords, since in 1426, the Turkomen “put an end to the fiefdom of Artaz in the Maku area of Vaspurakan . . . much to the joy of the Orthodox Apostolic Armenians, who, in one colophon, praise the Muslims for allowing them to make repairs on one of their churches, which had been forbidden by the Catholics.”47 The southern route was familiar to Marco Polo and to Galfried de Langele, who went to Persia in 1292–1293 as an ambassador of the King of England and returned from Tabriz to Trebizond through Khoy, Archesh, Manazkert and Erzerum.48 This route is also described by Pegolotti’s contemporary Hamdallāh al-Qazwini. The exact course of the southern route has so far been neglected by research and can only be roughly identified. It was much closer to the famous pilgrim site of the St. Bartholomew monastery south of the route and to the city of Van. This southern route passed through the area of the Mongol summer residence at Alatag, founded by Hulagu on a high plain north of Lake Van. Originally, he had intended Alatag as a commercial centre.49 This focus on the southern trade route resulted in a massive loss in trade of the cities of Ani and Kars. A mass emigration by Armenians to Italy resulted from it. It is useful briefly to describe Van, cradle of Armenian civilisation, and capital of the Armenian Kingdom of the Ardsruni during the tenth and eleventh centuries. Its layout was typical for the medieval multi-ethnic cities of the western Silk Road.50 Van had a Tabriz gate, quarters for the Kurds, the Turks and Armenians, and a good number of

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Figure 4.3 Dedicatory page, 1253, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Purchase – Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F 1944.17, fol. 12v

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mosques and churches. The fortress on the long high rock included the royal palace, and the lower town leaning against the rock was protected by a double city wall and a trench, residence for the city aristocracy and privileged citizens, caravanserais and bazaars. It is not known, if the exterior city where nomads, immigrants and popular classes lived, already existed during the Middle Ages. The streets and squares inside the lower city were irregularly laid out like in contemporary European cities. Close to the southern shore of Lake Van lies the island of Akht’amar with the tenth-century church Surb Khatch (Armenian “Holy Cross”). It served as the royal church of the Armenian Kingdom of Vaspurakan. This area was populated with numerous famous, now destroyed, Armenian monasteries.51 The southern route continued via the two important trading and major political centres of the Kingdom of Vaspurakan Arčeš and Manazkert. Towards the end of the eleventh century, during the ethnic and religious transformation of Anatolia and rise of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, Alp Arslan had Manazkert pillaged, most of the population killed and the city burned to the ground.52 During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the many ancient Armenian monasteries of the Lake Van area were fiercely anti-Latin. The route continued from Manazkert to Khoy and Agulis slightly north, and from Khoy, the northern and southern routes led, now united, further east towards the final destinations of Tabriz and Sultaniyah. The thirteenth-century invasion of Armenia had started in 1236 with attacks on the north-eastern and northern regions of historical Armenia and between 1242 and 1245 continued with the western and southern regions.53 During the period of the invasions, the Mongols tried to prevent trading caravans from being attacked. The Vatican “profited” from the destruction and destabilisation in the Armenian lands, both in Cilicia and in Greater Armenia. Gabriele Winkler discusses the consequences of the agreement to church union and the process of yielding of the Armenian church, especially in Cilicia, towards the Vatican.54 With the Mongol threat mounting, the Armenians had more and more surrendered to the Latins, although support had never arrived from the “West.” In 1341, Pope Benedict XII even blackmailed the Armenian King and the head of the Armenian church with the request, that only after the fulfilment of the Vatican’s requirements for a church union support by Rome and the Western allies could be expected.55 Winkler tells the story of the wasted hopes and the process of slow Latinisation of a good part of the Armenian clergy, mostly in Cilicia. Many of the Armenian monks and the clergy had been initially attracted by the knowledge and erudition of the Fratres Unitores, but their respect for them faded very soon when faced with the request to abandon their own liturgical uses and to adopt the Latin rite. The former interest in the Fratres Unitores changed into open distrust at their attempt to urge the Armenians into union with the Roman Church. Gradually relations between both parties became quite strained, and it was not long before the hostility of the Armenians led eventually to the persecution of the Latinising monks.56 The Dominican missionaries did not settle in the Lake Van area, where the anti-Latin attitude was strong,57 but found allies in the geographical “triangle” between the cities of Maku, Nakhijevan, St. Thaddeus monastery south of the Ararat and in the Mongol capitals of Maragha, Tabriz and Sultaniyah. The missionaries’ monasteries at St. Thaddeus and in Tabriz were the first centres of Latin learning and conversion of the Church

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of Rome. They did this to firmly link the Church of Rome to the ancient biblical sites of Armenia, as discussed above, and in order to help secure the international long-distance trade in luxury goods to the Italian merchants. Under Mongol rule, Maragha had grown into the biggest and most famous city in Azerbaidjan. It was a mixed-faith trading centre with numerous churches, temples and mosques.58 In Maragha, in 1294, the Nestorian monastery of St. John the Baptist was founded and its church dome was decorated with green tiles.59 Coloured roof tiles were also used for Mongol burial octagons, for example, the burial octagons for family members of Hulagu in Maragha, four of which are still in situ.60 In their capital cities, like the Seljuks before, the Mongols started huge building projects, such as monumental mosques and splendidly decorated burial monuments for their family members. In Maragha, Khan Hulagu had an observatory built. He was buried in 1265 on near-by Shahi island in Lake Urmiya. Rabban Bar Sauma, the Mongol Nestorian Christian from Peking, settled in Maragha, too, after returning from his European mission in the service of IlKhan Argun in 1287. Bar Saumas student Mar Yaballah III., Nestorian Katholikos until 1317, moved his residence from Baghdad to Maragha. And Bar Hebraeus had a monastery church in Maragha and one in Tabriz.61 The first Latin Bishop of Maragha was the influential Dominican Franco of Perugia, consecrated in 1318, together with six suffragan bishops. In its wake, all of the Bishops of Nakhijevan had to travel to Rome for their consecration.62 From 1265 on Tabriz had been Mongol capital of Iran, but in 1307 the foundation of Sultaniyah as new capital followed.63 The Mongol capitals were international trading, intellectual and artistic centres of immense wealth and population. With the Dominicans arriving in Tabriz and establishing a Latin Bishopric, religious controversies with the Armenians gained in heat. Documents report of merchants from Lucca belonging to the pontifical “Camera.” They travelled to Tabriz and on their way back passed through their offices in Rome.64 A Dominican monastery was installed in Tabriz. We don’t know its foundation year, but the Venetian merchant Pietro Vilioni, who died in 1263 and was buried in the “new monastery,”65 according to his testament. A Frenchman named Andrea and a certain Gustamonte de la Sala from Pisa were testimonies. In his “Mirabilia Descripta” (1330), Jordanus Catalanus tells about Tabriz “habemus ecclesiam satis pulchram” and about Sultaniyah “habemus ecclesiam valde pulchram.” And Loenertz has shown that the Franciscans and Dominicans of the city shared one church in Tabriz in alternative weekly turns.66 Perhaps, the missionaries had brought artists with them to decorate their church. But nothing is known of the church’s decoration. Numerous decorated churches existed in the area. For example, according to one document from 1286, the Greek wife of the Ilkhan Abaqa had a church newly adorned with wall paintings for which two Greek painters arrived especially from Byzantium. They were also commissioned to paint a Jacobite church near Niniveh.67 And the numerous Syrian churches were decorated, too, with icons on their altars, although archaeologists found nothing more than small remains of colour on the ancient church walls.68 In addition, tent churches were used by members of the Mongol court and by Christian nomads.69 A famous example is the Mongol khan’s Syrian Church tent with altar and icon mentioned by Rubruck.70 The great Armenian cleric and critical of Roman dogma, Esayi Nc’eci’ reacted with the Epistle to the Armenian Bishop Matt’eos of Tabriz from the 1320s saying that Frankish, Greek or Syrian clergy who urge the Armenians to renounce their traditions should not be welcomed, but be treated as “sowers of discord within the Church of Christ, as enemies of the truth, and as wolves hiding in sheep’s clothing.” Armenians who defect to them should not be received into one’s home.71

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From 1304 onwards, Genoa had a trading office in Tabriz and made immense profits.72 According to a contemporary Western source, Tabriz was the world’s richest trading centre in terms of quantity of goods. It was the bridge between Europe and Asia.73 Venice and Genoa used the Christian Kingdoms of Cilicia and Trabzon as intermediary ports on the way west. Saunders assumes that by the year 1300, Tabriz had some 300,000 inhabitants. Petech thinks that about thousand Europeans lived in Tabriz, some as bankers, merchants and translators in the service of the Khans, mostly coming out of the Genoese community of the city, which during 1289–1293 was especially well organised under the consul Raffo Pallavicini.74 The Venetians had their own consul later, too. They accompanied some of the Mongol embassies to Europe. The Florentines were equally active, of which for example a certain Guisciardo de’ Bastari acted as ambassador of the Khan at the Vatican during the Holy Year 1300, when he arrived with 100 companions all dressed in the Tartar way. No doubt, this was clever advertising for the luxury fabrics so much in demand on European markets. And it was a prove how well the Vatican’s strategy had worked with regard to the popes’ politics of intervening. In 1305, the Ilkhanid ruler Argun founded Sultaniyah as new capital and had it outfitted with palaces, mosques and huge city walls. “The most outstanding creations of the fourteenth century – such as Oljeitu’s mausoleum of 1307–1313 and the 30-volume Koran manuscript made for use in it (ca. 1302–1313) must be understood as part of a process that has its roots in the first 40 years of Mongol domination in the region.”75 The same is true for Rashid ad Din’s world chronicle, a visual dialogue with Christianity and Judaism, and the Mongol’s decision to convert to Islam. Although Tamerlane/Timur destroyed and rebuilt Sultaniyah, a Latin bishopric existed there until 1423. In 1398, the Archbishop brought the list of the stolen outfitting of the Latin Cathedral to the Pope of Rome in person, who promised to restitute the entire outfitting and send everything back to Sultaniyah. The Archbishop of Nakhijevan (including India and Ethiopia) in Sultaniyah, John III, in his Liber de notitia orbis (1404),76 calls the imperial city of Sultaniyah, “metropolis totius Orientis” during the pontificate of Pope John XXII. He speaks of his Cathedral church and of the missionaries’ great successes. The Archbishop helped Timur advertise as his envoy at the French court, and equally in Genoa, Venice and Milan, in favour of contracts allowing unhindered trade of the French in Timur’s Empire and in return by the Tartars in France.77 At the Vatican in Rome, in 1398, he convinced the pope to effect a bull which allowed indulgences for those Christians who helped restore churches destroyed by Timur in Georgia and Armenia, and to free enslaved Christians there.78 Christians could only receive freedom with Christian money. Dominican and/or Franciscan chapels or churches existed in Sultaniyah, where various groups of artists collaborated and competed and manuscript painting developed into a fine art.

“Obedient ornament to the Roman Church” This section will examine the Latin missions in Armenia and the attack on Armenian dogma. The eleventh-century European maps reflect the growing interest with regard to Armenia superior’s geography. During these years, as far as the Near East is concerned, the most important source of information for the Popes of Rome were the Christians of the Orient, who lived under Muslim rule. Details of their dogma, rites and the geography of their lands became known through the letters of Jacques de Vitry, Oliver of Cologne or St. Francis of Assisi. The Armenians were useful allies for the Latin mission and became their main targets. At that time, the Latin preachers had already reached Georgia

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and settled in a Dominican convent in Tiflis, which, according to Rubruck, existed in 1254. The Georgians had come into negotiations with Rome about a union with a positive attitude. St. Francis’ and St. Louis’ voyages to the Holy Land, in 1253, started new missions in Greater Armenia, central Asia and China. The Franciscan William Rubruck, in 1255, saw destroyed Nakhijevan on his way to the Mongol Khan in Karakorum. Here, he met a Hungarian Dominican on his way back from Tabriz where he had tried to receive a safe-conduct to travel to Khan Sartaq. Rubruck reports about Dominicans stopping in Ani.79 Meanwhile the popes continued to negotiate also with the Maronites and Chaldeens to achieve a union of the Churches, and in 1288, Pope Nicolas IV, after receiving monk Barsauma in Rome, succeeded in a union with the Chaldeens. Similar efforts were undertaken with the Nestorians, since the Nestorians and Syrians had already numerous establishments or outposts in central Asia, India and East Asia. The popes had great hopes that missions in Ethiopia would help establish Latin influence in East Africa, as well. Contact with the Ethiopian Church must have been established already via Jerusalem, but when exactly Latin missionaries reached Ethiopia is not clear, perhaps in 1315, when two Dominicans reached Ethiopia via the Indian Ocean.80 As will be discussed in a later chapter, Ethiopian arts went through a deep process of transformation once the Roman connection was established. Latin missionaries were established in the country during the fourteenth century. The success of the Latin mission in Greater Armenia largely depended on the Armenians themselves who supported the Latins from within the inner circles of the papacy in Avignon. For example, the Armenian bishop Nerses Palients (later Archbishop of Manazkert in Cilicia) wrote his famous treatise about the 117 Armenian errors at the papal court of Avignon. The response to it came from another Armenian, the Franciscan Daniel of Tabriz. By 1312, Franciscans and Dominicans both shared the trading centres and had their own houses, the Franciscans in Erzerum, Trebizond, Carpi, Porsico, Karakilisse, Selmas (Lake Urmia), Tabriz, Sultaniyah81 and the Dominicans in Tabriz, Dehikerkan and Maragha. The Dominican missionaries were the keepers of the new Archbishop See of the Orient (which included Tartars, Indians and Ethiopians) in Sultaniyah, the Mongol capital of western Iran founded in 1315. Four bishops, most of them Italians (from Bologna, Siena and Perugia – hence the artistic connections with these cities, as will be discussed further later) and Frenchmen, were elected and attached to the Archbishop Francone of Perugia, who himself reported to the Master General of the Dominican Societas Peregrinantium in Rome. The Archbishop served as permanent ambassador at the Khan’s court. As pointed out by Richard, the letters sent by Pope John XXIII in 1321–1322 to the Mongol Khan of Persia Abu Said, several emirs, and to important monasteries of Greater Armenia, had started this second phase of a Latinisation in the Orient. With the permanent new Archbishop seat in Sultaniyah, the focus was on the church union, which, by now had reached the Armenian Plateau. Out of these intense mutual contacts between Armenia and the “West” during the Middle Ages followed that: “The spread of Western civilisation and the modernisation of the non-Western world along Western lines have together been the single most important factor in the history of the past five-hundred years.”82 During the thirteenth century, papal missionary efforts concentrated on the North and the pagan peoples of the Prussia, Lithuania, on Latvia, Finland and the vast steppes of Ruddia, home of the Qipcaks or Cumans. Between 1280 and 1300, the Christianisation

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of the Baltic people reached a final phase with the help of the Teutonic Order, which was later supported by bishoprics, parishes and mostly actively preaching monastic communities. At the same time, in the near and Middle East, Rome had already a history of activities in regard to a union with the “heretic” Armenian and Jacobite Churches, which were all interacting in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Church embassies from China and Ethiopia reached Rome. Since their start during the twelfth century, the history of the Asian mission heavily depended on the Mongols’ goodwill. The Armenians as Mongol vassals had forged alliances with them. In 1242, the brother of King Hetum of Cilicia, Smbat, was the first monarch travelling to Karakorum out of his own will. The Armenian friendship and the Mongol network, interests and goodwill facilitated the Dominicans’ establishment of the first missionary monastery of Krna in the Ernjak valley of Aserbaidschan in the Mongol Empire during the 1330s. The establishment of the pilgrim compounds of the Armenians, Ethiopians, Hungarians and Germans at St. Peter’s in Rome went hand in hand with the Latinisation along the eastern and Oriental frontiers of Europe and included the peoples of Armenia, Ethiopia and Hungary, who were key factors and facilitators in the building of international trading routes for western Europe. In the meantime, the conquering of Constantinople brought a new perspective on the church union and opened the Black sea ports for European trade.83 And the Hungarians had become the crucial allies in expanding the Roman missions to their neighbouring people, mainly the Cumans. The Cumans fought with the Russians against the Hungarian expansion, but were defeated in 1222 by the Hungarians, the Teutonic order and the Templars. Helped by the Georgians, who were threatened by the Seljuk Sultan of Asia Minor, Pope Gregory IX started a Crusade into the lands of the Cumans. Since 1221, the Dominicans had entered the scene, and with the formation of the Dominican province of Hungary, the mission advanced towards the Cuman lands. Between 1228 and 1240, despite martyrdoms and slavery, this mission turned out rather successful, and a diocese, like the Baltic one, with an “episcopus Cumanorum” was founded. Encouraged by the missionaries to settle down, the Cumans started to establish themselves close to the newly built churches. The advancing of the Golden Horde to the Volga and Ural alarmed the Russians and Hungarians, and soon the Dominican missions were temporarily finished, while many Cuman Christians were killed or taken to central Asia. Even though, the missions continued, the missionaries took up the Cuman lifestyle in the camps, accompanied Christians to pilgrimage and administered the sacraments, when in 1399 the Pope confirmed the successful Cuman Christianisation. When considering the Latin missions and the Hungarian and Armenian pilgrim houses near each other and closely situated to the basilica of St. Peter’s, one has to remember that the Latin missions in the Mongol East were organised via Hungary and Cilicia, and targeted the Armenians as well as the Mongol pagans, mostly Buddhists, at least until 1295, when the Khan decided in favour of Islam and Christians started to be prosecuted. Until then, according to Richard, roughly between 1258 and 1295, the Oriental Christians in Mongol lands, lived through a period of prosperity and relative peace.84 In Nakhijevan, during the 1330s, the Dominicans produced the “Sour Petrosi” (Armenian “Peter’s Sword”), a guidebook for missionaries preaching to infidel Jews and heretical Christians. In the introduction, the role of the Roman Church is compared to that of Noah’s Ark. Rome has “adopted” the symbol of the biblical ship rooted and located in the Armenian homeland.85 The adaptation of symbols will be discussed in the next chapter.

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In Nakhijevan and north-western Iran, the missionaries became part of the multi-faith communities in mixed artistic landscapes, where Armenian, Greek, Jacobite and Nestorian churches coexisted with Muslim, Zoroastrian, Jewish and Buddhists sanctuaries and cemeteries, for example, the Buddhist caves near Takt-i-Suleiman86, or an ancient Zoroastrian site near a Mongol summer palace. As for Nakhijevan, from the eleventh to the early years of the seventeenth century with Shah Abbas’ deportation of the Armenian population, tribes of Turkish-speaking groups of Oghuz, Turkmens and Tartars settled here in great numbers, too. Greater Armenia, during that time, although dominated by Mongol and then Muslim rulers, was mainly populated by Christian Armenians in villages within one connected area, separately from other religious groups. In the towns, however, the groups lived in separated quarters.87 With the growing Latinisation, entire villages converted to Latin Christianity and Armenian and Muslim villages existed side by side.88 The Latin monasteries founded in the villages and towns of Nakhijevan enhanced the Catholic influence on other local inhabitants, and for a while, these activities were detrimental for a part of the Armenian population.89 At least 15 Armenian monasteries, if not up to 50 had become new Dominican centres. Rome’s influence increased steadily and, as discussed above, eventually the Armenian traditional liturgical practices slowly started to decline. Argam Ayvazian, who has meticulously reported the state of Armenian cultural heritage there, in his “Nakhijevan. The Patkeratzuytz (Armenian: Map of Monuments)” shows that today hardly anything is left from the once great number of Armenian monuments.90 That includes the world heritage site of Julfa cemetery, the once biggest agglomeration of originally 10,000 Armenian khatchkars from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries on the banks of the river Araxes. In 2005, they were destroyed by Aserbaijan’s soldiers.91 While the important Armenian monasteries were of great beauty and elaboration, the village and town churches of Nakhijevan were rather simple buildings, compared to the splendid Muslim minarets, mosques and mausoleums. Ayvazian lists the Armenian churches of Nakhijevan. The population of the Autonomous Republic of Nakhijevan, which was administered by Aserbaijan, had, from antiquity and the Middle Ages up to the nineteenth century, been mainly Armenian populated and was part of Armenia. . . . In the early nineteenth century in Nakhijevan there were only six mosques but over 200 Armenian monasteries, churches and chapels.92 Half-way between Erevan and Tabriz, the city of Nakhijevan lay by a small river, which some kilometres further south met the river Aras (Araxes). Today, the river marks the border between Aserbaijan and Iran. Almost all its Armenian heritage is lost. Since Nakhijevan has particularly suffered from the Mongol attacks, William of Rubruck who visited it in 1254 as an envoy of Louis XI later mentioned that the city was destroyed and that out of formerly 80 Armenian churches only two were still intact. Rubruck had a long conversation with the Bishop there which he recounts in his Journal. Four days later after leaving Nakhijevan, he “came to the country of Shahensa, once the most powerful Gurgian prince, but now tributary to the Tartars, who have destroyed all its fortified places. His father, Zacharias by name, had got this country of the Hermenians for delivering them from the hands of the Saracens. And there are very fine villages there, of Christians, and having churches, just like the French.” Rubruck’s Sahensa is Shahenshah, head of the powerful Zak’arian family and general-in-chief of the Georgian and Armenian armies. His vast domains comprised Ayrarat and Ani.

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“Churches, just like the French” refers to the churches in the towns, buildings similar to central European or French village churches. Ayvazyan also thinks, the common type of Armenian churches93 in Nakhijevan, in the villages, towns and the major centres such as Tabriz, Sultaniyah and Maragha were basilicas with nave and two aisles such as St. Hovhannes in Jahuk94 (Figure 4.4) or domed basilicas with nave and two aisles. Centralised, domed churches were the prototype used for monastic churches and for the monasteries further away from the cities, which varied in size, but always comprised at least one domed church and several adjacent buildings. Regarding the number of Armenian monuments in the province of Nakhijevan ranging from the fifth to the nineteenth century, Ayvazian’s survey numbers in total 310, of which 221 were already destroyed in the nineteenth century and before 1930. The other part, not restored during the Soviet period, was destroyed between 1998 and 2006. In contrast, the seven Persian-Seljuk sepulchres of the region were restored during the Soviet period. John of Krna was a nephew of an Armenian baron and student of Isaia of Gladzor, fierce defender of the Armenian tradition, who aimed at a sort of synthesis between the Latin and Armenian tradition with the foundation of Krna as a Dominican centre of learning in 1330. In its vicinity, Isaia had created Gladzor, a university-like monastery with a curriculum similar to European universities. With further support from Bartolomeo di Poggio, Bishop of Maragha, Krna became a centre of Latin theological studies, where Thomas of Aquinas treatises were translated, including his “Summa contra Gentiles.” By 1344, 12 convents in the Ernjak Valley of Nakhijevan (such as Aparan, Koshkashen, Jahuk, Shahaponk and more) merged into the congregation of the Fratres Unitores, the so-called Order of the Unitors, attached to the Dominican order. St. Thaddeus became

Figure 4.4 St. Hovhannes Church, Jahuk, 1325–1330 Photo: Argam Ayvazian

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one of them, too and like all other Latin Bishop seats, including the Archbishop of Sultaniyah, was occupied by Armenians of the Unitors order.95 For at least 60 years, the united Armenians played an important role in the church life of Nakhijevan and the neighbouring provinces of Greater Armenia. But the opposition to this Latinising movement grew steadily and since the late fourteenth century Latins started to be chased away, put into prison or threatened with death and the number of the united convents shrank. The See of Nakhijevan lasted until 1605. Due to the wars and earthquakes, just one of the Armenian united churches in Nakhijevan and north-western Persia has survived. Even entire cities, such as Sultaniyah or the old town of Tabriz, were destroyed. The ruined convent church of Krna is the only exception, as Argam Ayvazyan, in his list of Armenian monuments of Nakhijevan, points out.96 He identifies the convent church of Krna in a ruined building which the Azeris today call a “village mosque.” According to a source from 1890, in the church of the monastery of Krna were two tomb stones, now lost. In the year 1333, the influential Dominican Bartolomeo di Podio died in Krna and was made a saint a few years later.97 Presumably, one of the slabs belonged to the Saint’s tomb. Ayvazian reconstructs the domed square of the crossing (Figure 4.5)98 and observes that the convent was built quickly with a foundation of polished and semi-polished blocks of stone with the rest of the structure constructed of bricks. To the north, west and south are vaulted monastic buildings with more than 20 monks’ cells. An outer wall enclosed the complex, the typical layout of an Armenian monastery. Nothing is so far known about any decorations and paintings on altars or walls in the united Dominican monasteries and Bishop seats of Nakhijevan and north-west Persia.99 The decoration of the Dominican mother church in Rome, S. M. Sopra Minerva

Figure 4.5 Mother of God Church in ruins, Krna, 1325–1350 Photo: Argam Ayvazian

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Figure 4.6 Andrea Bonaiuto, Thomas Aquinas preaching to the infidels, wall painting, S. M. Novella, Florence, Spanish Chapel, 1366 Photo: Author

included a fresco cycle with the stories of St. Dominic’s and S. M. Novella in Florence has a scholarly fresco cycle in the Spanish Chapel focusing on the preaching of Thomas Aquinas (Figure 4.6). Numerous missionaries started their trip to the Orient from their cells in S. M. Novella. We shall focus on the artistic decoration of this Dominican church in Florence in the next chapters. A document from the sixteenth century tells of an Italian Dominican friar who reports that the church of the Latin monastery of Aparan had a dome “about half the size of the dome of the ‘Minerva’ in Rome,” the order’s mother-church S. M. Sopra Minerva. He adds that it has more than one altar, that the sacristy houses paramenti’100 and that the church has no bell tower or bells. Later, the Turks stole the church’s bacolo pastorale.101 According to Ayvazian, in Aparan, the grandiose complex of the All Saints Church stood on a small hill in the centre of the old town. Until 1970, the ruins could still be seen.102 The building types of Armenian churches of Nakhijevan are the same in the neighbouring Armenian district of Siunik, east of Nakhijevan and in the district of Vaspurakan/ Lake Van in the west and they belong to one artistic school. Compared to the splendid multi-coloured Muslim mausoleums, mosques and minarets of medieval Nakhijevan, the churches, in contrast, were rather simple and easily recognisable as Christian. They were, since forbidden by restrictive Muslim law, without bell towers or bells. Muslims restricted the freedom of Armenian Christians in many ways, especially with high head taxes, the wearing of blue patches on clothes, the forbidden riding of horses and more.103 According to a document from 1381, numerous Dominican friars suffered “cruelties, imprisonment and even death.”104 For example, because the Armenian vardapet (priest)

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Yakob of Kołb “went over to the heresy of the Franks” he had “to suffer terrible death with ten companions. They were boiled alive in those huge cauldrons that stood at the front door of Armenian churches for cooking ‘matagh’ or animal sacrifice.” The practice of matagh was especially condemned by the Latin Church. One of these tormentors is known by name, Maghak’ia Ghrimetsi, a native of Ghrim (Armenian Crimea). He was a defender of the Armenian church, a repressor of the union movement by using violent means. “He is said to have imprisoned Unitors and tormented them cruelly with his own hands.”105 Other sources tell about day-to-day life problems with the Latins, for example, in the city of Erzerum, where Latins prohibited the Armenians to repair their own churches. There, they asked Muslims for help. In 1443, the archbishop Benedictos III was kidnapped.106 In order to pay the Timurid rulers an extra tax and be free he sold the crosses of his church. On his way back to Rome, he died in a shipwreck.107 The turmoil and the wars of the Ilkhanids, during the time of the foundation of Krna, and the political turbulences of the reign of the Timurids about which Armenian colophons report in detail and Tovma Metsopetsis’s history of Timur of almost constant danger of life inside the monasteries. He describes a life in flight, hiding, returning and again hiding. But all the turmoil did not stop the Vatican’s emphasis on the missions, new Latin settlements and long-distance trade. Only the tribal wars of the Akkoyunlu and Karakoyunlu of the late fifteenth century finally, almost, put an end on European trade and mission. The richness of sacred sites and the presence of the Latins in their newly converted churches, chapels and oratories in important trading centres meant rich income for the papal treasury. The wealthy Western merchants certainly must have given good money to these Latin sanctuaries with burials in the churches and perhaps in decorated merchants’ chapels. Those Latins buried in Armenia, left to the church a part of their property, as can be seen in the testament of an Italian merchant in Tabriz as was discussed earlier. Indulgences from the newly converted Armenians, which included wealthy long-distance merchants, and the Latin merchant communities must have been a rich income for Rome. In return, the Vatican paid for all the churchmen’s travel expenses to and from Rome to Armenia, and in the case of pilgrims and friars added indulgences for those Christians who helped them during their trips. Arthur Jeffrey gives a brief list of medieval written sources concerning religious debates, including voices from Byzantines, Nestorians, Jacobites and Armenians, all those churches who existed in proximity to each other in the mixed-faith areas of the Near and Middle East. One of the major religious treatises came from Grigor Tathevats’i, 1340–1410, most renowned philosopher of late medieval Armenia and abbot of the monastery Tatev in Siunik and is called Contra Mohammedanos. It is a part of his well-known Book of Questions, written in 1397 and an answer to Thomas of Aquinas’ accusations against the Armenian faith. The book was written in Shahaponk/Nakhijevan. According to Ayvazian, the book’s colophon reports that Grigor describes his stay at the fortress of the Proshid princes “as a voluntary banishment in the stronghold of the fortress called Shahaponk.”108 The siege of the fortress which is compared with the days of the Last Judgement, lasted for three months. According to legend, the great philosopher personally went to Timur to persuade him to lift the siege and the bloodshed. Timur complied. His book was meant as defence against the Latin Church.109 The Muslim rulers had their own political interest in the Dominican missionaries, who received the role of negotiators for the Mongols, Tamerlane and the Pope. They spoke various languages, worked on translations of the Latin missal, breviary and martyriology

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and studied the Oriental cultures. Their new archdioceses in Sultaniyah covered the entire East. The Vatican worked on the production of “propagandist” literature for the resumption of the Crusades and a collaboration with the Mongols, and Dominicans and Franciscans both had a crucial role in spreading the propaganda.110 Whoever travelled along the Armenian centres of the western Silk Road during the Middle Ages could still visit and see the immense number of Christian monuments, be it buildings, carved reliefs, monumental paintings and more. But most of them are since lost. Avedis Sanjian published a collection of Armenian colophons.111 These unique historic sources document the loss of lives and artefacts observed and written by eye-witnesses in the Armenian medieval monasteries.

Notes 1 Pegolotti’s itinerary has been discussed in detail by H. A. Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia in Relation to Ancient World Trade, Lisbon, 1965, 190ff. Robert Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2001, fig. 116 gives a good map showing Pegolotti’s stations. 2 Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, p. 134. 3 See Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, p. 142, with regard to Armenia in the Turkoman Period 1378–1502. 4 Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, fig. 160. 5 Likewise, the Turkish army destroyed the most important pilgrimage site of (early) Christian Armenia, the St Karapet Monastery from the fourth century built by the founder of the Church of Armenia St Gregory the Illuminator, situated west of Lake Van not far from Mush. The John the Baptist church was said to host the relics of St John the Baptist, transferred here by Gregory the Illuminator. 6 Friedrich Murad, Ararat und Massis: Studien zur armenischen Volkskunde und Literatur, Nahapet Publishing House, reprint, Armenia, 2012. 7 Rouben Galichian, Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps, Yerevan and London, 2007, 55, fig. 22a. 8 Argam Ayvazian, The Historical Monuments of Nakhitchevan, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1990, 92, fig. 52. 9 Ayvazian, The Historical Monuments of Nakhitchevan, fig. 51. 10 Galichian, Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps, p. 191, fig. 80a, Higden, Polychronicon, ca. 1342. 11 Samvel Karapetian, The Islamic Monuments of the Armenian Architecture of Artsakh, published by Research on Armenian Architecture, Yerevan, 2010, without page numbers. 12 Friedrich Sarre, Denkmäler Persischer Baukunst, Berlin, 1910, describes the series of important monuments in Nakhijevan, 8–10 incl. photos. 13 Translation after Christopher J. Walker, Visions of Ararat: Writings on Armenia, I.B. Tauris, London and New York, 1997, 11. He quotes James Bryce, Transcaucasia and Ararat, London, Macmillan and Co., 1896, 218–220. 14 Mirabilia descripta: The Wonders of the East by Friar Jordanus, of the Order of the Preachers . . . , edited by Sir Henry Yule, Hakluyt Society, London, 1863. The story of the ‘Ten Thousand martyrs’ refers to a mass martyrdom in the year 303 ordered by Emperor Diocletian during the very first years of Armenian Christianity. During the thirteenth century it developed into a Dominican legend and was widely depicted during the Crusades. 15 Wilhelm Heyd, Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter, J. G. Cotta, Stuttgart, 1879, Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia in Relation to Ancient World Trade. 16 Ugo Monneret de Villard, ‘La vita, le opere e i viaggi di frate Ricoldo da Montecroce O.P.’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 10 (1944), 227–274. 17 Alishan Gewond, L’Armeno-Veneto: Compendio storico e documenti delle relazioni degli Armeni coi Veneziani: primo period, secoli XIII–XIV, Tipo-litografia armena, Venezia, San Lazzaro, 1893, p. 34.

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18 Christina Maranci, ‘The Architecture of the Karin/Erzerum Region’, in Richard. G. Hovannisian (ed.), Armenian Erzerum/Garin, UCLA Armenian History and Culture Series, 4, Mazda Publishers, Costa Mesa, CA, 2004, pp. 89–122. 19 The following according to J. J. Saunders, The History of the Mongols, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1971, 143. 20 Monneret de Villard, ‘La vita, le opere e i viaggi di frate Ricoldo da Montecroce O.P.’, p. 234. 21 G. I. Bratianu, Recherches sur le commerce des Genois dans la mer Noire au XIIIe siecle, Paris, 1929, 302, 312–314. 22 Jean Richard, La papauté et les missions en orient en Moyen Age (13e au 15e siècles), Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome 33, Ecole Française de Rome, Rome, 1977, 115. 23 For the discussion of European numbers, see Berthold Spuler, Die Mongolen in Iran: Politik, Verwaltung und Kultur der Ilchanzeit: 1220–1350, J. C. Hinrichs, Leipzig, 1939, 323. 24 Luciano Petech, ‘Les Marchands Italiens dans l‘Empire Mongol’, Journal Asiatique, CCL (1962), 562–565. 25 David Waines, The Odyssey of Ibn Battuta: Uncommon Tales of a Medieval Adventurer, I.B. Tauris, London, 2012, 45. 26 Seta B. Dadoyan, ‘A case study for redefining Armenian-Christian cultural identity in the framework of near Eastern Urbanism – 13th century: The Nasiri Futuwwa literature and the brotherhood poetry of Yovhannes and Kostandin Erzenkats’i: Texts and concepts’, in Murre Ginkel and Van Lint (eds.), Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, Peeters, 2005, pp. 137–264, 245. 27 V. Haroutiounian, ‘L’urbanisme en Armenie du Moyen Age’, Revue des Etudes Armeniennes, 5 (1968), 51–63. 28 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia in Relation to Ancient World Trade, 81f. 29 Monneret de Villard, ‘La vita, le opere e i viaggi di frate Ricoldo da Montecroce O.P.’, p. 249. 30 Saint-Martin, 1926, for example Cologne Cathedral, 38. 31 Monneret de Villard, ‘La vita, le opere e i viaggi di frate Ricoldo da Montecroce O.P.’, pp. 241, 245. 32 Robert Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture: Form, Function, Meaning, New York, 1994, 331. 33 Sergio Della Porta’s brief informative article summarises a wide range of aspects of the coexistence. Sergio Della Porta, ‘Conflicted coexistence: Christian – Muslim interaction and its representation in medieval Armenia’, in Jerold C. Frakes (ed.), Contextualizing the Muslim in Medieval Christian Discourse, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2011, pp. 103–125. 34 Della Porta, ‘Conflicted coexistence’, p. 114. 35 Waines, The Odyssey of Ibn Battuta, p. 48. 36 Dadoyan, ‘A case study for redefining Armenian-Christian cultural identity in the framework of near Eastern Urbanism – 13th century’, p. 245. 37 Oya Pancaroğlu, ‘The Mosque-Hospital complex in Divriği: A history of relations and transitions’, Anadolu ve Çevresinde Ortaçağ, 3 (2009), 169–198. 38 Vrej Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art, exhibition catalogue, The British Library, London, 2001, 178.f. 39 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia in Relation to Ancient World Trade, p. 192. 40 Monneret de Villard, ‘La vita, le opere e i viaggi di frate Ricoldo da Montecroce O.P.’, pp. 241, 245. 41 M. Rogers, ‘Calligraphy and common script: Epitaphs from two Muslim cemeteries, Aswan and Ahlat’, in Priscilla Soucek (ed.), Content and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World: In Memoriam Richard Ettinghausen, Colloquium New York University, 1980, The Pennsylvania State University Press, London, 1985, 105–126. 42 Sara Kühn, The Dragon in Medieval Christian and Islamic Art, Brill, Leiden, 2011. 43 Oleg Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament, Washington DC, 1989. 44 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia in Relation to Ancient World Trade, p. 193. 45 Karl Friedrich Neumann and J. Buchan Telfer (eds.), The Bondage and Travels of Johannes Schiltberger, Hakluyt Society, London, 1879, 159. 46 ‘Es ist auch ein stadt, die ligt in ainem perg und die haisset Magu; und ist ein pistumb do und halten do römischen glauben und die prister sein.’ Translation by the author.

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47 Richard Hovannisian, Armenian Van: Vaspurakan, Mazda Publishers, Costa Mesa, CA, 2000, 123. 48 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia in Relation to Ancient World Trade, p. 195. 49 Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia in Relation to Ancient World Trade, p. 201. 50 Hovannisian, Armenian Van, 2f., pp. 6–7 with image of inner city and garden city. And Paolo Cuneo, ‘Etude sur la topographie et l’iconographie historique de la ville de Van’, in D. Kouymjian (ed.), Armenian Studies – Etudes Armeniennes in Memoriam Haig Berberian, Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, 1986, pp. 125–184. 51 Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, map. . . . 52 Gary Leiser, ‘Manzikert’, in Josef W. Meri (ed.), Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, London, 2005, pp. 476–477. 53 See Robert Bedrosian, ‘Armenia during the Seljuk and Mongol periods’, in Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.), The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, 2 vols., Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 1997, pp. 241–271. 54 Gabriele Winkler, Armenia and the Gradual Decline of Its Traditional Liturgical Practises as a Result of the Expanding Influence of the Holy See from the 11th to the 14th Century, Liturgie de l’Eglise Universelle, Rome, 1976, pp. 329–368. 55 Winkler, Armenia and the Gradual Decline of Its Traditional Liturgical Practises, p. 356. 56 Winkler, Armenia and the Gradual Decline of Its Traditional Liturgical Practises, p. 353. 57 For example, Chaldeans lived in Van together with Jews, Nestorians and Muslims, see Paolo Cuneo, ‘Etude sur la topographie et l’iconographie historique de la ville de Van’, in Dickran Kouymjian (ed.), Armenian Studies in Memoriam Haig Berberian, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, 1886, p. 139. 58 Andre Godard, ‘Les Monuments de Maragha’, in Publications de la Societe des Etudes Iraniennes et de l’art Persan, Paris, 1934, no. 9, pp. 1–22, 1. 59 Monneret de Villard, ‘La vita, le opere e i viaggi di frate Ricoldo da Montecroce O.P.’, p. 249. 60 Robert Hillenbrand, ‘Seljuq Dome Chambers in North-West Iran’, Iran, 14 (1976), 93–102. Abbas Daneshvari, Medieval Tomb Towers of Iran: An Iconographical Study, Mazda Publishers, Malibu, CA, 1986. 61 John Bowman and J. A. Thompson, ‘The Monastery-Church of Bar Hebraeus at Maragha in West Aserbaijan’, Abr-Nahrain, 7 (1967–1968), 35–61, 38. 62 Loenertz, ‘Eveques dominicains des deux Armenies’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 10, (1940), 118. 63 Spuler, Die Mongolen in Iran, p. 323. 64 C. Desimoni, ‘I conti dell‘ ambasciata al chan di Persia nel 1292’, Atti della Societa Ligure di Storia Patria, 13 (1877–1884), 537–698. 65 Alfredo Studdi, ‘Un testamento volgare scritto in Persia in 1263’, L’Italia dialettale, 25 (1962), 23–37. 66 P. R. Loenertz, ‘Les Missions Dominicains en Orient au Quatorzième Siècle et la société des frères pérégrinant pour le Christ’, Archivum Praedicatorum, II (1932), 1–84, 75ff. 67 The Chronography of Gregory Abu’l Faraj, the Son of Aaron, the Hebrew Physician, Commonly Known as Bar Hebraeus: The First Part of His Political History of the World, translated from the Syriac by Ernest A. Wallis Budge, Oxford University Press, London, 1932, 27. According to v.d. Brincken, 1973, 211, the Jacobites, Nestorians and Maronites were all Syriac-speaking and part of the Syrian ‘nation’. 68 Jean Dauvillier, ‘L’Archéologie des anciennes églises de rite chaldéens’, in Histoires et institutions des églises orientales au moyen âge, Variorum Reprints, London, 1983, pp. 357–86. 69 Dauvillier, ‘L’Archéologie des anciennes églises de rite chaldéens’, p. 385. 70 Dauvillier, ‘L’Archéologie des anciennes églises de rite chaldéens’, p. 375. 71 Thomas F. Mathews and Avedis K. Sanjian, Armenian Gospel Iconography: The Tradition of the Gladzor Gospel, Washington, DC, 1991, 28. 72 Spuler, Die Mongolen in Iran, p. 436. 73 Spuler, Die Mongolen in Iran, p. 432. 74 Petech, ‘Les Marchands Italiens dans l‘Empire Mongol’, pp. 549–574. 75 Linda Komaroff and Stefano Carboni, Legacy of Ghengis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1265–1353, catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2002, 197. 76 Anton Kern, ‘Der “libellus de notitia orbis” Johannes’ III (de Galonifontibus ?) O.P. Erzbischof von Sultaniyah’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 7 (1937), 82–132, 116f.

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77 Kern, ‘Der “libellus de notitia orbis” Johannes’ III (de Galonifontibus ?) O.P. Erzbischof von Sultaniyah’, 85. 78 Kern, ‘Der “libellus de notitia orbis” Johannes’ III (de Galonifontibus ?) O.P. Erzbischof von Sultaniyah’, p. 84. 79 Richard, La papauté et les missions en orient en Moyen Age (13e au 15e siècles), p. 78. 80 Richard, La papauté et les missions en orient en Moyen Age (13e au 15e siècles), p. 115. 81 See the map in Richard, La papauté et les missions en orient en Moyen Age (13e au 15e siècles), p. 302. 82 Hewsen, Armenia: A Historical Atlas, p. 12. 83 See for the following Richard, La papauté et les missions en orient en Moyen Age (13e au 15e siècles), 20ff. 84 Richard, La papauté et les missions en orient en Moyen Age (13e au 15e siècles), p. 108. 85 M. A. van den Oudenrijn, “Le ‘Sour Petrosi’, vademecum pour les missions asiatiques du 14eme siecle”, Neue Zeitschrift für Religionsgeschichte, 1 (1945), 161–168. 86 Komaroff and Carboni, Legacy of Ghengis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1265–1353, p. 110. 87 Fikret Adanir and Bernd Bonwetsch, Osmanismus, Nationalismus und der Kaukasus, Wiesbaden, 2005, 13. This was still the case in the nineteenth century. 88 Ayvazian, The Historical Monuments of Nakhitchevan, p. 88. 89 Ayvazian, The Historical Monuments of Nakhitchevan, p. 88. 90 Agram Ayvazian, Nakhijevan: Map of Monuments, Yerevan, 2007. 91 Ayvazian, The Historical Monuments of Nakhitchevan, 303ff. 92 Rouben Galichian, The Invention of History, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the Showcasing of Imagination, Printinfo Art Books, Yerevan, Gomidas Institute, London, 2009, 73. 93 Ayvazian, The Historical Monuments of Nakhitchevan, p. 11. 94 Ayvazyan, The Historical Monuments of Nakhitchevan, Fig . . . . . 95 Hewsen, Robert H., Armenia: A Historical Atlas, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2001, map 63–64. 96 Ayvazian, The Historical Monuments of Nakhitchevan, 88f. 97 Monneret de Villard, ‘La vita, le opere e i viaggi di frate Ricoldo da Montecroce O.P.’, p. 249. 98 Ayvazian, The Historical Monuments of Nakhitchevan, fig. 69. 99 Wolfgang Schenkluhn, Architektur der Bettelorden: die Baukunst der Dominikaner und Franziskaner in Europa, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 2000. 100 Van den Oudenrijn, ‘Bishops and archbishops of Naxivan’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 6 (1936), 161–185, 211. 101 Van den Oudenrijn, ‘Bishops and archbishops of Naxivan’, p. 211. 102 Ayvazian, The Historical Monuments of Nakhitchevan, p. 70. 103 Hovannisian, 1997, p. 266. After 1600 and the forced ‘migration’ of the Armenian population out of Nakhijevan under Shah Abbas, in New Julfa/Iran, Armenian churches had to resemble mosques. 104 The following quotes are M. A. van den Oudenrijn, ‘The Monastery of Aparan and the Armenian Writer Fra Mxiţarič’, in Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, VII, 1937, pp. 265– 308, 285. 105 Later the Dominicans seem to have taken revenge on Małaqia Łrimeci by poisoning him in 1384. 106 F. Tournebize, ‘Les Frères Unitaires ou Dominicains Armeniens (1300–1794)’, Revue de l’Orient Chretien, 22 (1920–1921), 145–161, 249–279, 157. 107 Tournebize, ‘Les Frères Unitaires ou Dominicains Armeniens (1300–1794)’, p. 157. 108 Ayvazian, The Historical Monuments of Nakhitchevan, 104. 109 Arthur Jeffrey, ‘Gregory of Tathew’s “Contra Mohammedanos” ’, The Moslem World, 32 (1942), 222. 110 Aziz S. Atiya, Crusade, Commerce and Culture, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1962, 93, 123. 111 Avedis K. Sanjian, Colophons of Armenian Manuscripts, 1301–1480: A Source for Middle Eastern History, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1969.

5

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The next chapters will deal with Armenia as theatre of artistic exchange, looking at the artistic contacts between Armenia, Italy and beyond the Armenian borders between 1200 and 1600 CE.

Crossroads of languages and alphabets Contemporary to the growing cooperation between the Italian trading centres, the popes and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, a new intensity in language learning in the Italian cities, monasteries and universities gained momentum. This new interest is worthwhile exploring because it explains the phenomenon that since the late thirteenth century in the arts of Italy inscriptions in “orientalised” alphabets in paintings and on textiles appeared in growing numbers. These inscriptions, so it seems, were not intended to be translated or understood, but were part of the ornamentation. Therefore, the question remains why the painters took such great care in including them for example into the haloes of Saints, or onto textile borders. We shall see that the comparison between the Armenian use of (foreign) languages in the arts with contemporary Italy is illuminating and sheds light on some of the fundamental differences between these Christian arts, and on their mutual relationship. In addition, in the new trading centres along the western Silk Road, communication was the key for successful relationships between the various groups. The new trading networks required that merchants (and missionaries) knew languages. Misunderstandings could create dangers and barriers between people. Where artistic exchange and borrowing from “foreign” arts might happen visually and with no words, trading needed language skills. Both sides, the Armenians and the Italians, had great interest in foreign and especially Oriental languages, but the intentions and needs were different. The next question is then if mutual interest in each other’s languages meant an intellectual and artistic rapprochement. Another question is about the different uses of cultural markers such as alphabets in the arts in a merchant society. With the growing language skills of the Italians, mutual understanding, sympathy and friendship certainly increased. While previous scholarship has discussed inscriptions in Oriental alphabets in Italian painting in detail, it did not reach a conclusion and full understanding of why that is so.1 Be it in Armenia or in Italy, languages identify cultural groups. For works of art produced in multi-ethnic centres, inscriptions are sometimes the only way of identifying a work of art. A good example are Armenian carpets, often identifiable only and distinguishable from Islamic carpets by their Armenian inscriptions and Armenian date. The DOI: 10.4324/9781003204619-6

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Armenian language together with Armenian Dogma and the alphabet could act as an invisible border and territory marker. The use of non-Armenian alphabets in Armenian arts is very rare. Three early examples in the arts of the periods before, during and after the Kingdom of Cilicia are known. The earliest is a relief figure from the tenth-century Holy Cross church on Aght’amar island on Lake Van.2 The high number of patterned luxury fabrics depicted in the church’s exterior relief scenes still needs to be researched. These important reliefs depict biblical scenes within the context of the early Armenian church history and the Kingdom of Vaspurakan. The great quantity of patterned textiles depicted seems to reflect the production and the trade in fabrics during the time of the creation of the reliefs. One of these garment patterns is exceptional and does not seem to have any parallel in Armenian arts. The pattern of the coat of the figure identified as the turbaned Saul, the King of Israel, resembles kufic letters.3 His turban and belted robe probably indicate his royal status. But why is his coat patterned with kufic letters or pseudo-tiraz? Tiraz were the bands of cloth inscribed with honorifics and where distributed by Islamic courts acknowledging rank and status of the wearer.4 They appeared later in Italian arts, too. The Armenian inscriptions accompanying the scenes play a crucial role in the arts of the Aght’amar church. The second example is the aforementioned mid-eleventh-century portrait of the ruling family of Kars, Gagik Bagratuni with his wife and daughter (Figure 5.1). The King’s tunic’s upper arms are embellished with tiraz, and his daughter wears a blue scarf

Figure 5.1 King Gagik Bagratuni of Kars with his wife and daughter, parchment, eleventh century, Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate 5226 Source: Drawing by Karl-Heinz Koller

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Figure 5.2 Letter to the Ephesians, Bibliotheca Ambrosiana, Milan, Ms. B20 inf.a, f. 175v, thirteenth to fourteenth centuries Photo: Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana

decorated with tiraz as well. The tiraz bands worn by Armenian rulers were probably not that rare, but the number of royal portraits that has survived is small.

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The third example is the so-called Targmantchats Gospels copied in Erzurum, Greater Armenia, in about 1232.5 The Gospels, with ten Canon Tables, show hitherto undeciphered inscriptions in the Syriac or Arabic language around the margins of the rectangular headpiece and Canon Tables. The composition of the headpiece has a mostly carpet-like quality with its geometrical divisions of the main rectangular field, which are each filled with small repetitive ornaments. Two frames of the Gospels’ headpieces contain Syriac or Arabic inscriptions. And twice, these inscriptions fill the elegant canon table columns under the huge rectangular headpieces. In addition, there are several Armenian inscriptions filling the frames of headpieces and columns. These exceptional inscriptions in a non-Armenian alphabet (Syriac?) are very rare in Armenian manuscripts, contrary to the wide use of Orientalised inscriptions in (later) Italian arts. Whereas a textile pattern such as the one with Kufic letters on the relief in Aght’amar were unlikely to be purely ornamental, but rather part of a local or biblical iconography, and the tiraz on the ruler of Kars’ dress part of the ruler’s costume, the (probably) Syriac inscriptions perhaps made sense because of the close historical interaction of the Armenian and the Syrian Church. Both belonged to the group of Oriental Churches and were “targets” of the Latin missions. Armenians studied the languages of the fellow churches. A thirteenthor fourteenth-century Letter to the Corinthians, Galatians and Ephesians, kept in Milan (see Figure 5.2) shows the text written in all of the five Christian Oriental languages, Armenian, Arabic, Coptic, Syrian and Ethiopic together side by side on a single page.6 An early canon table from 1193, kept in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore (ms. 538, AD 1193, fol. 5A). belongs to an early “type of Canon arcade that was to become the norm in Cilician manuscripts. . . .”7 Generally speaking, in Cilician painting, no foreign scripts were included into illuminations, but foreign artistic elements entered the Armenian repertory. This, however, seems to be an exception. The ornaments of this particularly early canon table were perhaps Kufic-inspired. Bright-red and green triangles appear with inscribed highly stylised letters. It is possible that certain ornaments used in Armenian canon table decoration had been inspired by the letter ornaments used in the neighbouring Islamic cultures. The richness in the invention of ornaments of both arts is almost boundless. The most influential and extraordinary among Armenian miniature painters is the work of Toros Roslin of Cilicia (ca. 1210–1270), the “renewer” of Armenian arts. His role in the history of Armenian painting was equally important as half a century later Duccio da Buoninsegna in Siena for Italian painting. We can only briefly point at Roslin’s complex and highly innovative art. Sirarpie Der Nersessian’s extensive chapter on Roslin, who had worked in several important monastic scriptoria in the Kingdom of Cilicia, discusses his innovation of a new style of Canon Table decorations “different from all those known so far.”8 For example, Roslin invented new ways of depicting prophecies and added inscriptions using Armenian script on the scrolls held by the prophets and in the background in the headpieces of Canon Tables, such as the one painted in 1262 as in Figure 5.3. With Roslin’s art, the different uses of Armenian script as a part of the ornamentation of headpieces and canon tables reached a new height. The focus was exclusively on the Armenian language. The first known example of pseudo-Arabic inscriptions in Italian painting is Duccio’s Madonna Rucellai from 1285 for the church of the Dominicans S. M. Novella in

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Figure 5.3 Canon Table, Toros Roslin, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore 539, fol. 6 Source: www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/W539/data/W.539/sap/W539_000017_sap.jpg

Florence (see Figure 5.4).9 Halo, garment border and curtain border all contain orientalised inscriptions. Again, 20 years later, in 1316, Duccio painted orientalised inscriptions on his altar painting of the Madonna and the Christ child for the Cathedral in Massa Marittima in Tuscany, showing off a luxurious golden fabric with a cross and star pattern (Figure 5.5). What could be the reason for the inclusion of these “letters” which were obviously not intended for translation? If these pseudo-letters, which are used like an incomprehensible and fascinating ornament, had no meaning why would an artist represent them in his painting? There must have been a purpose, and the painter must have been asked to include these pseudo-inscriptions. While for the Italian beholder who was unable to translate Oriental languages, these orientalised inscriptions had no meaning other than ornamental; on the other hand, for those Franciscan and Dominican missionaries versed in copying the languages of the Oriental Churches, they were perhaps a subject of special interest. The Vatican Library is in the possession of a Bible written in Persian in 1338. It is an example of the endeavours of these translation efforts of the Latin monks. Another such example is the Codex Cumanicus of Venice in Italo-Latin with translations into the Kipchak and into Persian was produced in Shokhat on the Crimea for the use of missionaries. Piemontese discusses this fascinating and complicated case of elaborate collaboration between local speakers and Latin missionaries. The circumstances of its production and original location are unknown. In 1612, the book came into the possession of an Armenian, who had it bound in leather. Its fourteenth-century glosses could perhaps be by Giovanni of Florence, who died in 1347, a Dominican priest who

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Figure 5.4 Duccio, Madonna Rucellai, 1285, S. M. Novella, Florence, panel painting Photo: Scala

had served as the bishop of Tiflis and had been active in the Dominican missions in Krna, Azerbaijan.10 Figure 5.6 shows the portrait by Giovanni di Paolo depicting Saint Hieronymus translating from 1430. For a moment, Hieronymus has taken off his glasses and looks at the pages in front of him written in various scripts. The painters Duccio and Giovanni di Paolo must have looked over the shoulders of language-learning monks. But the painters did not copy alphabets. They adjusted what they saw into a pseudo-orientalising, yet meaningless, “alphabet,” perhaps with the guidance of learned monks.

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Figure 5.5 Duccio, Madonna delle Grazie, Cathedral, Massa Marittima, ca. 1316, panel painting, detail Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut

The unique “multi-layered” iconography of Filarete’s famous Renaissance bronze doors of St. Peter’s, dated 1433–1445, surpasses all other doors of its kind. The door represents an iconographical climax of the papal politics of church union and expresses the Vatican’s need to communicate among the churches in each other’s languages. The door is unique in its first known depiction in Italian art of Coptic Christians and Ethiopians, and it bears hitherto unknown inscriptions in Armenian and Persian. While the doors’ iconography has been researched in detail, a complete analysis of their various Oriental inscriptions (i.e. other than Latin and Greek) such as Armenian, Persian, Arabic

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Figure 5.6 Giovanni di Paolo, St. Jerome in his studio, panel painting, 1430, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena Photo: “Su concessione del Ministero per i Beni Culturali e per il Turismo – Direzione Regionale Musei della Toscana”

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and perhaps even Ethiopian letters resp. inscriptions still does not exist.11 A few efforts have been undertaken by linguists to decipher the “Oriental” inscriptions, but with little results.12 In the following chapter, we shall discuss the door’s iconography in greater detail, but in the context of this chapter, we shall focus on inscriptions only. Surrounded by a complicated ornamental framework, each wing is divided into three panels, two bigger and one smaller, with historical reliefs underneath the two upper panels, which were added to the iconographical programme at a later stage. An Armenian inscription, probably added later, is underneath the relief “Arrival of Abbot Andrew in Rome” on the lower frame: “Surb Krikor” (Saint Gregory the Illuminator) in Armenian letters (Figure 5.7). On the left wing are Christ on top, St. Paul below and his martyrium depicted in the panel underneath. On the right side is Mary and St. Peter on the panel below, who is given the keys of the Church by pope Eugene IV, and St. Peter’s martyrium underneath. In his article from 1897, Bruno Sauer writes that he noticed the pseudo-Arabic letters on the door’s inscriptions and asked Ignazio Gnudi, who knew Arabic, for help. Gnudi’s answer was that the artist had used a good number of Arabic letters and Hebrew letters “hidden” in the ornamental decorative frames. I asked Vrej Nersessian, who kindly examined photos of the inscriptions of the doors.13 He found out several new interpretations of the inscriptions on the doors. He corrects Gnudi’s remarks saying that two of these letters which Gnudi thought were turned around are in reality two letters from the Armenian alphabet.14 Angelo Michele Piemontese examined the lower part of the long inscription band on the Paul panel set between the Apostle’s feet and to the right of his left foot (Figure 5.8). It could be translated. The text on the right contains five groups of letters nested together in the way of Persian words. Piemontese15 reads the colophon “1445” and “Florentia, in loco,” written from right to left. This is a brief version of the other colophon written in Latin on the back of the door. Vrej Nersessian made an important observation on the panel with St. Peter’s. Also, on eye-level like the colophon in the Paul panel, a prominent place, on the left of the left foot, he recognised an Armenian inscription. In the middle, the letters are slightly bigger, and on the right side small: they are the words on the cross Y.K.N.T.H. in Armenian letters, the Latin I.N.R.I., Jesus Christ of Nazareth King of the Jews (Figure 5.7). These Armenian letters all appear distorted or upside down, and therefore unlikely to have been designed by an Armenian. Hopefully, in the future, the letters between Peter’s feet, probably of great importance, will also be deciphered. Repetitive inscriptions with the beginning words of the “Ave Maria” in Greek and Latin are inscribed in Mary’s halo and on the base of her throne. The base of Christ’s throne, however, carries the inscription “Salvator Mundi,” while Christ’s halo is covered with letters/words which have not (yet) been translated. Several Armenian, Arabic and possibly Greek letters are recognisable, though, but could not be translated. Christ’s nimbus has three similar looking letter combinations of similar length, perhaps the same word in different languages or letter combinations. St. Paul is shown with a similar nimbus than the one on the panel with Christ, letter combinations or “words” of the same length, divided by circular “full stops,” which are known from Islamic manuscripts. Nersessian believes that the upper left part of Paul’s nimbus probably shows Armenian letters. Since all four parts of the halo are of equal length, they could contain the same word in a different language. The fringed carpets behind the figures of Christ, St. Peter and St. Paul also carry letters. Nersessian examined parts of the long borders of the carpets. He could single out

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Figure 5.7 Filarete, bronze doors of St. Peter’s, Rome, 1433–1445, detail, St. Peter panel Photo: Scala

certain letters in Greek, Armenian, Hebrew and Arabic. He was able to translate words in the carpet border (see Figure 5.8). Next to Paul’s arm with his sword, and between the floral festoon and the lilies, is another circular full stop. On the left of the full stop are Arabic letters, while and on its right is the Armenian inscription “God and Christ,” interrupted by Arabic letters, and the Armenian script is written the wrong way, from right to left instead left to right. This combination of diverse scripts and letters was not new, as we have seen earlier (see Figure 5.2) in our discussion of the Letter to the Ephesians. Another early example is the multi-lingual inscription in Latin and Sanskrit which appeared on a pillar with cross on top in Malabar.16 It was built up in 1342 by the missionary John of Marignolli and showed the papal and his own arms. He even painted religious images on the walls of the church. Filarete, who spent his early years in Florence, must have been acquainted with inscriptions in foreign alphabets on panel paintings there, which artists used since the thirteenth century. Giotto used for his painted Crucifix in S. M. Novella the titulus “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” as a trilingual inscription in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Its frame and halo all contain so-called “pseudo-Arabic” inscriptions.17 Since Nersessian’s findings which show that Filarete included linguistic “riddles,” more of these what research hitherto called “pseudo-Arabic” inscriptions will probably be translated in the future. Another article of Piemontese’s discusses several documents concerning the relationship of the Roman popes with Uzun Hasan, “the Prince of Persians and of Armenia.” A letter from March 1471, sent by the Turcoman headquarter in Kharabagh, in Armenia, to pope Paul II, mentions an Armenian mediator: “ac mediante quodam Armeno nomine Colli de Soltania civitate Persarum. . . .”18 This Armenian translator was a certain Khawja Qulī from Sultaniyah, working for Uzun Hasan who had been on several occasions in Caffa. The translation took place in Theodosia, a Genoese colony, in the office of Girolamo Panisseri, a Genoese Dominican

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Figure 5.8 Filarete, bronze doors of St. Peter’s, Rome, 1433–1445, detail, St. Paul panel Photo: Scala

and the city’s last bishop.19 According to Platina, Calistus III, in 1457, had initiated the friendship with Uzun Hasan, by sending his envoy Ludovico da Bologna with rich presents. The introduction to the letter includes an interesting lengthy description of the translation technique used. It says that “In the name of the Lord, amen,” this is a translation into Latin of the letter of the Lord Uzun Hasan, written in the Arabic tongue, and that it was translated into Latin by the translators of the community of Caffa, and with the mediation of the aforementioned Armenian called Quli from Sultaniyah, most

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knowledgeable in the Arabic tongue. A certain Giovanni of Vesima wrote the letter in Latin. The translation technique worked as follows: And this Giovanni had the said letter translated two and three times so as to avoid the incursion of any error in the said translation or transference, but the true tenor, to the letter, appears in the Latin tongue just as it does in the Arabic tongue. And so to you, our Blessed Lord, may it be absolutely clear, and may it be noted, that just as I, the aforementioned, so did Hieronymus Panizarius Bishop of Caffa: we looked at, held, tested the said letter, written in the Arabic tongue, and while we were present we had the letter set out and made clear by the translators of the community of Caffa through clearer words, through which the substance of the said letter might more clearly be understood. And lest any suspicion might possibly be entertained, we arranged to understand concerning the truth of the things enjoined and needing to be understood, and for that reason we caused to be summoned the Nobleman Antonius Secquarzaficus our fellow citizen, and Stephen of Saint Romulus, a citizen of Janua, who were present at the giving of the said letter to the said Master Brother Ludovicus; and [we summoned] the said translator Antonius, who was in the entourage of the above mentioned Lord Uzun Hasan, and the said Brother Ludovicus, who both swore by the Holy Gospels of the Lord that the said letter, written in Arabic, originated from the court of the said Lord Uzun Hasan, and that they saw the letter given into the hands of the said Lord Brother Ludovicus, and that they heard it read in the presence of the above mentioned Lord Uzun Hasan, as well as the said Lord Brother Ludovicus; and these witnesses testified to the veracity of the said letter, and therefore all suspicion is removed from me, since it was diligently determined that the said Antonius is a man of the best reputation, and the noble Giovanni son of Secquarzaficus is of the same sort, according to the accounts of the citizens of the state of Caffa, and the said Stephen is also a citizen of Janua known by all and a man of the highest and deserved reputation; on account of which the said letter we approve and confirm, and we testify that it is genuine. And so the letter, thus translated into the Latin tongue we ordered to be transcribed into a lucid form, and to the truth of these statements we ordered the letter to be corroborated with the Impression of our Seal.20 Between 1471 and 1474, this Armenian translator had translated several letters from Uzun Hasan at Caffa.21 This is an example of good collaboration in translations showing the sincere wish to correctly understand one another. The traditional Armenian role as translators and intermediaries cannot be over emphasised. In contemporary Italy, experts in Arabic and Persian lived. Not only Armenian immigrants, but also Italians, such as Beltrami Mignanelli in Siena, much-travelled author of the biography of Tamerlane’s. During the fifteenth century, Siena had developed into a true centre of studi orientali. The library of the convent of S. Francesco in Siena had translations of works of Avicenna, Averroes, al-Kindi, parts of the Koran and others.22 Piemontese discusses another document (Milan, Archivio di Stato, Archivio Ducale, Registro Ducale 214, fol. 73, p. 145) probably from 1471. It is a list of official titles for the use of Italian envoys to the Turcoman court and includes Armenians, too. It contains the names of Uzun Hasan’s family members including his wives, daughters and sons, various officials of the court, and a Russian, a Maronite and a Franciscan from Mount Libanon.

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Four Armenians are listed, a certain Aseuazadur, “captain of the great and powerful prince Assmabech.” Vrej Nersessian corrects the spelling of the name as Astuacatur. Then follows a certain Cozamirat, correctly spelled Khvājah Mir’āt, the treasurer and chamberlain. The third name is Mangher armeno, Armenian captain in catholic Abaruner (Aparan), and as last Rabam, Holy Armenian bishop in Carpeto. Conclusion Like the trading and missionaries’ networks, the knowledge of languages created new contacts between Europe and the Near and Middle East, between Latins and Armenians enabling and improving communication and deepening contacts. The Vatican became a centre of language-teaching where monks, pilgrims and missionaries from the Christian world gathered. Perhaps, the pilgrim compounds of the Oriental Christians had a leading role. The small number of examples discussed here about the use of languages in the arts ranges from the tenth to the fifteenth century and includes two documents which are especially interesting in relation to the complexity of translation techniques and communication. From the start, Armenians had the role of agents and intermediaries in Cilicia as well as in the western Silk Road trading centres. They had been experts in languages to ensure their own successful trade and coexistence with the Mongols and Muslims. In addition, they became translators and intermediaries between western European courts and the Mongol Khans.23 But they did not indulge in the depiction of foreign and “fantasy” script as did the Italian painters, beginning in the late thirteenth century. The following chapter concerns the Dominican missions in Greater Armenia. It will deepen this point. In terms of non-Armenian script, the artistic boundaries of Armenian arts were much tighter than in western Europe and had no interest in including other alphabets. Foreign elements could be integrated into the Armenian artistic concept, but not foreign languages. Anne Müller believes that the possibilities for interaction between Franciscan and Dominican missionaries moving into Armenia and establishing monasteries with Muslims must have been minimal,24 but that this was not the case with the Arabic- and Armenian-speaking Christians. Jean Richard has discussed the aims and the programmes of language studies in the Occident.25 Since Roger Bacon at around 1270 formulated the need for the Latin world in learning Oriental languages with his “De utilitate grammaticae,” he knew that the science practised by the Latins, to a great part, had reached Europe form other civilisations from the East, and that it was useful to be able to read texts in their original languages, not only in Greek, but also in Arab and Hebrew. When Duccio painted his Maesta in 1285, language studies were already in full swing. In Bacon’s view, the Latin Church had full jurisdiction over the Greek, Chaldean, Armenian, Syrian and Arabic Christians. He believed that the knowledge of Arabic would be especially helpful in addressing the Christian-Muslim controversies for example over Hell, Paradise and the Apocalypse. In the middle of the twelfth century, the Koran had been translated with the help of a former Jew, a Muslim from Spain, an Englishman and a Dalmatian. Although the Roman Curia wanted to encourage the Cilician youth to learn Latin, that does not seem to have succeeded, although Latin schools existed at the Latin Cathedrals in Tarsus and Mamistra.26 In 1248, Innocence IV created ten student grants for those who studied Arabic or other Oriental languages in Paris. More and more friars left for foreign countries in order to learn Oriental languages, for example, in 1237, when friars went to Armenia for language

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learning. The Franciscan convent in Tiflis, created in 1240, had doubtless facilities for the learning of Armenian, too. In his romance “Blanquerna,” Raymond Lulle even suggests establishing a monastery where 50 Tartars would be living and studying with 20 Dominican monks. There they would teach each other’s languages. And in 1292, in his “Tractatus de modo convertendi infideles,” he expresses his wish to found Oriental language centres in Rome, Paris, Genoa, Venice, Spain, Prussia, Hungary, Caffa and Armenia. In the 1330s, Armenian became one of the major languages to be learned by missionaries. In addition, between 1321 and 1322, Armenians such as Renier de Costansa and Alexandre Petri taught their own language. And from 1340 onwards, the Dominican Armenian Nerses Balients taught Armenian at the curia. The Latinised Armenians were the main promoters of instruction in Armenian. All in all, the leading thought and aim of these efforts were the introduction of “Western” beliefs into the Oriental Christian world, and since the 1330s especially into Greater Armenia. The agents of these efforts were the Armenians and often also converted Jews. At the same time, efforts were made to understand the Oriental cultures, so that the missionaries could react accordingly and use their knowledge about the other cultures. The numerous reports about the Oriental Christians and the Mongols of central Asia, their beliefs, culture, country’s geography and ways of life, written by European travellers, mostly Franciscans and Dominicans, are well known. Anne-Dorothee von den Brincken has catalogued and interpreted these reports in her “Die ‘Nationes Christianorum Orientalium’ im Verständnis der lateinischen Historiographie.”27 With these reports, an enormous pool of knowledge about the East reached the Europeans. The discourses and controversies that followed were manifold and addressed pressing questions regarding the co-existence of the Churches and their followers, as well as the pending threat of the forceful coming-up of one world religion.28 Mongol religious toleration started to be discussed the variety of Christian “tongues,”29 their genealogy and qualitative ranking. In 1283, Burchard of Monte Sion discusses in detail the Christian groups in Jerusalem and especially praises the Armenians’ piety in his search for positive forces which could prevent the threat of one single world religion. The immense number of Oriental Christians is noted and the fact that they can so easily be run over by Sarazens and Tartars because of their lack of weapons. Especially interesting is also for Burchard that it becomes clear to him that the Catholicos of the Nestorian Church has the jurisdiction about a much greater geographical area than that of the Church of Rome. The Nestorians, towards the late thirteenth century, had sensed the danger for Christianity in the eastern Orient and were eager to unite with Rome. But this slow process of rapprochement and mutual understanding, for example, the Florentine Ricoldo da Montecroce from S. M. Novella, who travelled around the years 1290, was the best-informed Dominican writer about the dogmatic differences between the Churches, resulted in questionable assumptions, such as his thesis, that God had sent the Mongol destroyers first in order to have the Latin missionaries teach and rebuild the destroyed East. Relating to our discussion about the depiction of puzzle-like letter combinations in Italian paintings, two aspects are especially important to remember. On the one hand, in the “West,” during the thirteenth century, the Christian Oriental alphabets and languages had become a source of study and the history and different Dogma of the Oriental Churches gained great interest. It seems that with the depiction of single letters or certain letter combinations the painters were safe and did not risk giving meaning to certain words or sentences which could have been understood as heretical. On the other hand, since these ancient Churches were thought to belong into the womb of the universal Church of Rome, the depiction of their alphabets meant intellectual appropriation. The Latins had learnt these languages, understood their inherent

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thinking and learnt how to use it to their advantage. How this showed in the Armenian Dominican arts will be our subject in the following chapter about the missions. Filarete’s bronze doors are a highlight of this learning curve in linguistic development. We know that Armenians taught their language, if not other Oriental languages, to the Latins. How did they do that? At the end of his article, Richard briefly notes that due to the lack of Oriental grammars, vocabularies and course books, we don’t know how exactly Oriental languages were taught. Two documentary sources from the fifteenth century, one Armenian and one Timurid, at least, shed light on their way of foreign language transcriptions. Not unlike the “Florentia” carved in Arabic letters on the Filarete door, European city names are spelled in Armenian and Persian according to their European pronunciation. The Armenian pilgrim Martiros Erznkat’si travelled to Rome and Santiago between 1489 and 1496. Saint-Martin translated the Armenian original travel report into French.30 The Armenian narrator presents a matter-of-fact, straightforward text with fascinating observations, which I will discuss and annotate in another publication. Martiros, skilled in languages, wrote his Armenian text by adding Persian words, and took great care of transcribing European names into Armenian, such as Venice, which he calls in the German form Vénédik ւքե՚նկՀէք. The Italian Ancona becomes Ankonia, San Giovanni in Rome is Sandjowan, Sant’Elena is Santh-Elina. The German city of Cologne is presented in the Italianised form Golonia and, for example, Saint Denis close to Paris is San-donij. This way of transcription guaranteed the Armenian fellow future pilgrim an easier access to the geography of Europe. Similarly, a probably Timurid Persian geographical description from the reign of Sharuk (1405–1447) of European lands uses a similar way of transcription.31 Janawah for Genoa or Qustantiniyah for Constantinople and so on.32 The Persian transcription for Florentia on the Filarete door was done in a similar way. Of course, European pilgrims were interested in languages, too, and it is the German pilgrim Bernhard von Breydenbach, who about at the same time as Martiros wrote his pilgrim report. For the first time, the report includes the Arabic, Armenian, Syriac, Coptic and Ethiopic alphabets and has proved to have been of great importance for the history of Armenian printing.33 The Filarete doors with their narrative historical reliefs were truly new in showing Rome’s programme of the one united Church of Christendom and the Occident’s new concept of knowledge through the intellectual “appropriation” of Oriental languages at the papal court. It is therefore impossible to follow Mack’s assessment of the pseudo-Arabic inscriptions as being “exotic” and “innocently and accidentally” and that the Italian painters “simply transferred them to an early Christian context.”34 The meaning of Giotto’s pseudo-script is not that “puzzling.”35 It is certainly wrong to assume, as we have seen, that “Europeans knew very little about written Semitic languages other than Hebrew until the sixteenth century.”36 The inscriptions resulted from a precise intellectual moment in the history of Western Christianity who had come into contact with the Christian Orient on various levels such as trade, church union, mission and knowledge transfer. The interest in Oriental languages, and the wish to learn them, had been extraordinarily intense.

Fabrics, silks and patterns In regard to the artistic give and take between the arts of the Latin West and Armenia, scholarship has hitherto focused on iconographical traditions and the mutual influences

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of paintings related to the Franciscan order and Venice’s “Mediterranean Commonwealth,” that is the arts of the Crusader Kingdoms, Cilicia, Cyprus and Italy.37 Cilician manuscript art and Armenian art in general always had a creative force which distinguishes it firmly from the traditions of the Latin West and Byzantium. In addition, there was not one contemporary artist in Europe of equally high level as the Cilician miniaturist painter Toros Roslin, who worked during the second half of the thirteenth century. His art was unsurpassed by any contemporary. In the difficult political situation of Cilicia, in which, as we have seen, the survival of the Kingdom was hoped to be saved by collaborative efforts and mutual closeness with the Western royalties, Cilician arts thrived. What defined the artistic give and take between Armenian and Latin artists, each belonging to a different church and dogma and in regard to the efforts of Latin missionaries to “Latinise” the Armenians in their country? Despite the numerous controversies between the Latin and Armenian churches, fruitful creativity started in the wake of Rome’s efforts of a union of the Churches. This chapter will focus on the main exchange goods of Armenians in Cilicia, luxury fabrics. Two groups of textiles will interest us in the following discussion: the sumptuous fabrics of the garments of the Armenian ruling class and the simpler patterned fabrics for garments and furnishing affordable to non-ruling classes. A close look at the fabrics displayed in Cilician miniatures and Italian painting shows that in Cilicia starting at about 1250, the depiction of beautiful fabrics played an everimportant role. Artists displayed them so carefully and often gave them a major place in their miniatures so that the fabrics at times resembled a merchant’s “advertising” their wares. Certainly, we must be careful with such a modern statement, since garments are very much part of daily life and widely used as curtains, covers, spreads and so on, and hence they are part of a chamber’s decoration in painted scenes. However, one thing is for certain, the interest of the artists in patterned fabrics reflects the immense interest of the merchants and their clientele and they show how people wore these textiles and how contemporary homes on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea were outfitted. We shall see that Cilician manuscript illuminations have displayed patterned fabrics much earlier than they appeared in Italian paintings. As we have discussed, the same happened on a much smaller scale in the display of foreign alphabets in painting before its wide use in Italian arts. Armenian fabrics According to the medieval sources quoted by Der Nersessian, fine fabrics were produced in Cilicia’s textile industry, but their patterns and colours are not known.38 Some will have followed ancient Armenian traditions, such as those fabrics dyed with traditional Armenian vordan karmir. Without doubt, the Armenian fabrics and luxury fabrics must have had recognisable features, be it in quality, ornament and/or patterns. Levon Chookaszian briefly discusses the subject of Cilician fabric production in his article about Toros Roslin’s well-known portrait of Prince Lewon of Cilicia from about 1250 (Erevan, Matenadaran, Ms. 8321). Chookaszian states that research into silks and other fabrics in medieval Armenia is still in its infancy.39 And despite of the many Cilician and Greater Armenian miniatures depicting people dressed in patterned fabrics, research has still not been able to define the fabrics produced locally in Armenia. Garments of Armenian nobility have not survived, but a few medieval fabrics serving as manuscript bindings with Armenian inscriptions exist and need to be examined with regard to their provenance.40 Research into these numerous pieces of medieval silks used to embellish the covers of Armenian manuscripts is still missing. Similar to the problem of Armenian

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carpet weaving, Armenian inscriptions are the most important evidence for deciding Armenian identity. Of course, the fact that Cilicia was a centre of import and export of fine fabrics from Asia complicates research into Armenian-produced fabrics, since even if we distinguish certain fabrics depicted in Armenian miniatures, we cannot be sure that these were Armenian of origin or imported. As Dickran Kouymjian41 states that Our knowledge of pre-seventeenth century woven textiles stems mainly from their representation in art, sculptured reliefs such as those of Aght’amar and especially Armenian miniature painting, but also from actual fragments preserved on the insides of the covers of manuscript bindings. These textile fragments are made of various types of cotton, silk, linen and other fabrics and have both woven and stamped patterns. Many are from cloth fashioned outside Armenia: Iran, India, even Byzantium and the West. Because nearly every manuscript up through the seventeenth century used such cloth pieces to hide the unattractive exposed wood on the inside of bindings, there are thousands of these textile samples preserved. Fewer than a hundred have been published. Once available, they will serve as the major resource in reconstructing the history of textiles used in Armenia from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. An important source of Armenian intense involvement in the production of silks comes from documentary sources relating to the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries in the Transylvania. But Chookaszian shows that Cilician ruler portraits can be an exception to the general lack of research. Prince Lewon (Figure 5.9) wears sumptuous attire with a coat patterned with Byzantine style medallions. But here the medallions are filled with an image of sun and lion combined, an “ornamental composition originated from the Bagratids’ coat of arms and includes the Prince’s genealogical peculiarities.”42 This clearly shows an Armenian fabric with Armenian historical iconography originating from an Armenian weaving workshop. According to Der Nersessian, animals in roundels were frequently depicted on textiles in Cilician portraits from an early period, and the Byzantine ceremonial costumes were adopted in Cilicia “as they were in other medieval courts, such as the Balkans or Norman Sicily.”43 Her description of the portrait of the wedding couple Levon and Queen Keran of Lambron gives an idea of the sumptuousness of dress at the Cilician court. Depicted in their extraordinary richness of sumptuous costumes with tunic, chlamys, dress and golden shoulder pieces, it shows an immense variety of different patterns and ornaments including eagles and lions in red, gold and blue, embroidered with jewels. But none of the medieval princely fabrics worn in Cilicia have survived, although images of princely portraits in miniature painting are quite numerous, compared to princely portraits of contemporary Europe. According to twelfth-century sources quoted by Der Nersessian, also panel paintings portraying the Cilician royal family, must have once existed. In her discussion of the three portraits of Archbishop John, the abbot of Grner, Der Nersessian stresses how the royal family of Cilicia was “fond of rich and rare textiles.”44 The variety of textiles depicted here ranged from import silks from Sicily to silk from China: the Archbishop appears dressed in Sicilian silk woven with an Anjou fleurs-de-lis (1272), and in another portrait, we see him in Chinese silk (1289) woven with a huge golden dragon motif on white ground.45 Not only did the Archbishop wear imported fabric in these miniatures, the iconographic schemes of the depicted fabrics lead directly to the weaving workshop of the Kings of France as Cilicia’s political allies and to the Mongol Khans, to whom Cilicia paid tribute.

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Figure 5.9 Toros Roslin, Prince Levon of Cilicia, ca. 1250, parchment, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 8321, fol. 25

According to a so-called Lower Rhine Orient report from around 1335, discussed by von den Brincken, the Cilician nobility all wore silken gowns, long and wide, like “the Three Kings bringing the Christ child their offerings.”46 Also, the fact that many of these medieval fabrics have reached European markets via Ayas followed a long tradition, since the famously fine Armenian fabrics had been traded with Rome already

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during ancient times.47 Only much later, in return, during the fifteenth century, Italian luxury fabrics had reached a high enough level of quality to become attractive enough to be sold in Turkey.48 In the light of the numerous specialising Cilician and Armenian centres of fabric production, there can be no doubt that special Armenian fabrics and patterns existed during the Middle Ages. What were the features of an Armenian fabric? The only ones to be safely called Armenian fabrics are the ones with Armenian inscriptions. Armenian nobility and their garments A close look at two miniatures representing Armenian nobility during the eleventh century show the variety of patterns on their garments. The first shows Byzantine emperor Nicephoros Botaniatis (1078–1081) with smallscaled Armenian high-rank officials standing beside him.49 They all wear sumptuous fabrics with big medallion and leaf and small repetitive geometric patterns based on squares. Compared to the mid-eleventh-century portraits Gagik Bagratuni of Kars and his wife and daughter (Figure 5.1), the combination of fabrics is the same: small repetitive square-based patterns combined with big medallion and leaf patterns.50 Sadly, the family’s head dress is missing, a potentially important sign of ethnic identity. And frustratingly, it is not possible to distinguish any specifically Armenian elements in the fabrics of the two miniatures. The medallions are filled with elephants, ibexes, birds and therefore all of these fabrics could be Armenian, Arabic or Byzantine.51 Armenian dress patterns could also appear on ceramics. A bowl from Ani, eleventh/ twelfth century, now kept in the Historical Museum in Erevan, shows an exemplar of a beautiful long and belted dress with green, white and yellow stripes on a standing female. No inscription identifies her, but probably she belonged to the wealthy social classes. This special dress style continued to be worn, as evidenced in a manuscript dated 1317 of the school of Vayots Dzor.52 While research has focused on Armenian rulers’ garments such as the two mentioned above, a closer look on less precious fabrics, small patterns and commoners’ dress is interesting because it brings us to the questions of taste and market. These less precious fabrics were worn by non-noble members of the society and as such are also featured in Armenian miniatures. Numerous Cilician miniatures depict these “less-expensive” fabrics used in garments, furnishing and carpets. Simple patterns cover the garments of commoners depicted in Armenian miniatures, and various seemingly modest fabrics are shown as altar cloths, chalice covers, curtains, cushion covers and so forth. Carpets can be precious or simple, too. Marco Polo admires the high quality and finesse of carpets woven in Armenia: Armenians “weave the choicest and most beautiful carpets in the world. They also weave silk fabrics of crimson and other colors, of great beauty and richness, and many other kinds of cloth. . . .”53 One can only try to imagine the great beauty of these carpets. None of them or even the description of one, exists. But it is possible that those carpets are depicted on certain Cilician manuscript illuminations. It could well be that the beautiful intricately glistening, at times gilded, geometric ornaments of certain Armenian canon tables are modelled after medieval Armenian weaving and embroideries. How did Cilicians dress, and what could be found in Cilician markets for export to Italy and further north to the Champagne markets? The fabrics for export in Cilicia were not exclusively meant for the highest ranks of European nobility. While luxury textiles

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were going to the richest members of society and for the high ranks of clergy, the merchant class and wealthy commoners equally liked to dress in beautiful textiles. Garments, fabrics and their meaning in Cilicia and Italy But the common people were also surrounded by beautiful fabric. Chookaszian believes that “despite the tremendous cultural losses and disasters, we have information on the fabrics and garments of the Cilician Armenians.” He thinks that many of the images of persons from the Old and New Testament wear clothes worn by common people, and that the artist Sargis Pitsak included these multi-coloured patterned clothes in his miniatures.54 We can very well call the use of silk as the major link between the Armenian and Italian markets and cultures. Silk “transported” identity, and different ethnic groups wore the same silks. Silk textiles could be taste-makers, open new markets and desires, develop and change artists’ minds and inspire creativity. Linda Komaroff’s remark that “Fabrics were perhaps the principal transmitters of East Asian (primarily Chinese) visual culture to the West. . . ” feeds into our discussion about cultural transmissions and the Armenian role.55 But Komaroff, like Western art historians in general, did not include the Cilician-Armenian part in the East-West discussion of cultural transmittance. Since recent scholarly interest has mainly focused on Islam, almost all scholars interested in East-West contacts have “overlooked” Cilicia’s role as cultural transmitter. Also, Anna Contadini has completely overlooked the fact that the majority of Mongol luxury trade and export passed through Cilician ports, not to speak of Armenian textiles.56 Although she briefly mentions Pegolotti’s merchant’s manual for the Silk Road Pratica della Mercatura, she focuses on trade with Constantinople alone. Of course, Constantinople and its Black Sea coastal colonies were important centres of Oriental trade, but during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Cilician impact on East-West trade, due to its geographical position and Mongol political and trade connection, had been much greater. A close look at a small group of widely used fabric patterns depicted in Cilician miniatures and in later Tuscan painting proves this. A variety of beautiful and colourful patterns laid out side by side please the eye of the beholder of illuminations and paintings showing a great variety of patchwork-like arranged patterned textiles. Great enthusiasm on fabrics is shown in a portrait of St. Mathew, 1253 (Figure 5.10) with the Apostle’s study fitted with several carpets and cushions, all brightly patterned.57 The Evangelist’s cushion is decorated with medallions filled with birds, two carpets cover the floor, another carpet hangs over the table and a decorated curtain adorns the right side of the image. This arrangement is typical for Cilician miniatures, while colours and patterns vary. The carpet pattern consists of medallions, rows of small jewel-like decorated squares and pearl-like dots. Cushions can be striped or have floral, leaf or cross patterns. In a similar way, three patterned fabrics are set side by side in the Italian Angelo Puccinelli’s later painting (Figure 5.11) from 1360 to 1365. Many of the characteristic elements of these patterns can be found in the decoration of Cilician canon tables. However, the distinct quality of the combination of patterns in the headpieces of Canon tables is their unique feature. The display of ornament in Armenian art has a religious meaning. The most magnificently developed illuminations of Cilicia are the ornamental Canon Tables and incipit pages. Their “richness in pattern and iconography is unparalleled and has invited comparison with Armenian theological meditations.”58 The beautiful effect on the beholder of these decorations has a specific religious meaning. Vrej Nersessian calls the illumination

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Figure 5.10 St. Mathew, Cilicia, 1253, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Purchase – Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1944.17, fol. 14v

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Figure 5.11 Angelo Puccinelli, St. Michael enthroned, panel painting, ca. 1350, detail, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena Photo: “Su concessione del Ministero per i Beni Culturali e per il Turismo – Direzione Regionale Musei della Toscana”

of Armenian Canon Tables a “Theology of Color and Ornamentation.” For the twelfthcentury theologian Nerses Shnorhali, the symbolism of the Armenian Canon Table is paradisiacal. The luxurious floral pictures and colourful splendid ornaments resemble the garden of paradise. Nerses calls the Canon Tables “bath of sight and hearing for those approaching the soaring peaks of God.” Therefore, the beholder is called upon

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bathing his eyes in the beauty of these tables. By focusing attention on largely abstract decoration and colours, the Canon Tables were meant to focus the powers of the soul on the central mysteries of Christian revelation. The artist was free to explore the limits of ornamentation and colour when illustrating his subject.59 The profound meanings hidden in the Canon Tables must be left hidden. The Canon Tables were designed for contemplation only. The colour used by the Armenian artist had specific meaning: for example, blue symbolises the spiritual in corporal life and gold the ecclesiastical. And flora and fauna such as pomegranate, date, palm, olive tree, cock and bird, all have a special meaning. Cilician Canon Table ornament is full of interest and variety with an often-dazzling effect. Figure 4.3 shows a dedicatory page painted in Cilicia in 1253 with crosses, stars, medallions, swirls, rosettes, knotted bands and the floral-like globe on top swirling like a ball all in blue, red and gold.60 While the frame encloses the almost motion-like bursting effect of the “rotating” decorated small squares, vases are placed quietly for admiration on both sides of the top page. Beneath, besides the text, two birds sit on top of elegantly painted trees adding a sense of stability and almost realism. Birds, wheel, rosette, chain and flower petals, all belong to an ancient vocabulary of pre-Christian Middle Eastern ornament. While in medieval western Europe narrative scenes and Aristotle’s concept of the arts as imitating reality prevailed, Armenian arts focused on the “bath of sight and hearing for those approaching the soaring peaks of God” and therefore focused on emotion with the use of exquisite ornament as visual commentary on the text of the Gospels. Narrative scenes were important, too, but not to teach and persuade the faithful. The composition of narrative scenes changed little during the centuries while they continuously reached back into the repertory of the beginnings of Armenian Christian art. In contrast, Arabic culture with its almost sole focus on ornament had another meaning. Doris Behrens-Abouseif’s in her analysis of the meaning of Arabic arabesque and geometrical pattern states that “Reality is less impressive than its artistic image; is this not the quintessence of the Islamic visual arts?”61 Not the eye alone, but the intellect is excited as well, and most of all because God’s power is absolute over all things and all events, God did not allow humankind to create, but “the human field of action was focused on elaboration.”62 The endless interlace of Arabic ornament, the endless movement encircling entire pages and surfaces dazzles the beholder, too, and thanks to its sense of geometry never becomes incoherent or chaotic. Geometry adds a systematic intellectual dimension to art. Its use is pervasive: it rules calligraphy, subjugates floral motifs into methodic geometric compositions of linear patterns, and sections vaults into muqarnas.63 In contrast to Muslim arts, Armenian arts did not intellectually dazzle the beholder, but through the “bath of sight” the artist helped the beholder to achieve “theosis” with its creator. Armenian arts have developed a distinct and original individuality. The use of certain cultural markers, such as the Armenian alphabet, helped create a tradition to be distinguished and identified often while Armenians were living under non-Christian rule. This artistic identity was constructive and continued to exist in a sea of ever change and decline. Thus, Armenian art, compared to the often-stark stylistic changes in the West, tended to keep firmly to its traditions. Combined with a strong focus on ornament, cultural markers created the Armenian tradition. Typical components of the Armenian incipit Gospel page are the headpiece, a marginal vignette, a little Armenian temple and Armenian letters.

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The Canon Table decorations and the patterned fabrics depicted in Cilician miniatures go back to the same source, to Armenian fabric production and the fabrics offered in Cilician markets. The Armenian combination of decorative elements of fabrics combined with Armenian cultural markers can also be found on Armenian cross-stone (khatchkars) and on carved wooden doors and stone reliefs. A small selection of Cilician and Tuscan fabrics depicted in paintings reveals a number of similar, widely used patterns such as three-petal pattern, rosettes, flower, geometric patterns and cross and star pattern. A three-petal flower pattern resembling abstract lilies are used on a cushion covering the seat on a St. Luke page (Figure 5.12) and on the dress worn by the Christ child painted by a follower of Simone

Figure 5.12 St. Luke, Cilicia, 1253, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Purchase – Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F1944.17, fol. 92v

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Figure 5.13 Master of the Madonna of Palazzo Venezia, Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine, panel painting, ca. 1340–1350, detail, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena Photo: “Su concessione del Ministero per i Beni Culturali e per il Turismo – Direzione Regionale Musei della Toscana”

Martini, the so-called Master of the Madonna of Palazzo Venezia, dated 1340–1350 (Figure 5.13).64 Equally widespread was the use of patterns with rosettes, such as in the well-known portrait of the Cilician royal family of King Lewon III, 1272 (Figure 5.14). The youngest son wears a red coat decorated with golden rosettes.65 Fabrics with rosettes are widely used on curtains in scenes on the Pala del Carmine by Pietro Lorenzetti of Siena, painted sometime during the first half of the fourteenth century (Figure 5.19). The same fabric pattern appears here, too, behind the pope. Geometrical patterns were often used by artists and equally worn, as seen on a Cilician page with St. Luke sitting supported on a cushion with beautifully coloured lozenges, dated 1253 (see Figure 5.12). A similar pattern is on various throws covering benches in the “Good Government” fresco in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, by Pietro Lorenzetti in 1338–1339. A geometrical pattern combining stripes and narrow bands filled with small geometrical elements was used for the dresses of three of the five children depicted in the family

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Figure 5.14 King Lewon and his family, Cilicia 1272, Jerusalem Armenian Patriarchate 2563, fol. 380 Source: Drawing by Karl-Heinz Koller

Figure 5.15 Pietro Lorenzetti, Pala del Carmine, panel painting, before 1345, detail, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena Photo: “Su concessione del Ministero per i Beni Culturali e per il Turismo – Direzione Regionale Musei della Toscana”

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Figure 5.16 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Piccola Maesta, panel painting, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena Photo: “Su concessione del Ministero per i Beni Culturali e per il Turismo – Direzione Regionale Musei della Toscana”

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Figure 5.17 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Dancing Girl, wall painting, detail from the Good Government, Siena, Palazzo Pubblico Photo: Scala

portrait of King Lewon III, 1272 (see Figure 5.14). A carpet with similar pattern is painted covering the steps of the throne of the Virgin in the so-called “Piccola Maestà” by Ambrogio Lorenzetti from the mid-fourteenth century (Figure 5.16).66 At about the same time, one of the dancing girls in the “Good Government” fresco wears a dress covered with little trapezes (Figure 5.17). Artists used flower patterns in many Cilician miniatures and Tuscan paintings covering carpets and throws. A Cilician example from 1256 shows a carpet beneath the footstool of the Apostle’s John covered with elegantly painted flowers (Figure 5.18).67 Likewise, 100 years later, the aforementioned Pala del Carmine shows flower carpet and throws over a balustrade and the papal throne in the smaller panels (Figure 5.15 and 5.19).

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Figure 5.18 St. John, Cilicia, 1256, Matenadaran Erevan, Inv. Nr. 10450, fol. 311v

The cross-star pattern was used already in Cilicia in 1173 (Figure 5.20).68 Duccio used it for his “Madonna Rucellai” in 1285 (Figure 5.4), and Giotto in 1266 in the Arena Chapel in his Last Supper on the Apostle’s mantle seen from the back. Similarly, in Armenian architecture decor, for example, in Ani, a diamond pattern appears on the arched entrance of the so-called merchant’s house. It is inserted into a richly inlaid panel where eight-pointed diamonds of pink and grey stone alternate. 69

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Figure 5.19 Pietro Lorenzetti, Pala del Carmine, panel painting, before 1345, detail, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena Photo: “Su concessione del Ministero per i Beni Culturali e per il Turismo – Direzione Regionale Musei della Toscana”

This list of examples has shown that Cilician miniatures show great focus and joy in fabrics and a hitherto unknown quantity of beautiful fabrics as dress or soft furnishing. The way in which Armenian and later Italian artists used these patterns in their images has three common characteristics: firstly, a similar fondness in fabrics and patterns; secondly, a certain sense of “horror vacui” with various fabrics and patterns displayed side by side which has the effect of sumptuousness and richness. And thirdly, the quantity of fabrics and patterns displayed almost reveal a wish to “advertise” and show off not only the exquisite fabrics but also the wealth of the owner or patron, who was able to afford these riches. Starting at about 1300, this new focus on display of fabric by Italian painters, reflects not only the textile-rich markets of contemporary Cilicia, described in detail by the Florentine Pegolotti, but it also shows that Armenian manuscripts were studied by Latins, clerical patrons and merchants. These decorative elements first appeared in Cilician miniatures and only later became prevalent in Italian painting and this can only be explained by the many contacts, open-mindedness and curiosity between Italians and Cilicians. Christian Oriental or Muslim fabrics? The wide use of non-Italian or “Oriental” fabrics, mostly sumptuous silks, in the furnishing of medieval Italian houses as displayed in contemporary paintings is well known.70 However, Mack, as most art historians have focused on what is broadly termed as Islamic textiles. Armenian trade and fabric production have not really been in the focus, and hence an important research element in the history of international medieval fabric trade is still missing. It could well be claimed that Armenian (silk) weavers had

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Figure 5.20 Gregory of Narek writing, 1173, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 1568 fol. 7v

been influential in the origin of silk weaving in Italy, generally dated around 1300, just when fabrics begin to attract the attention of Italian painters. Mack claims, for example, that the Stories of St. Francis on the walls of the Upper Church of S. Francesco in Assisi, dated around 1300, “are the first Italian paintings to reflect a massive influx of Islamic textiles.”71 But these fabrics lack inscriptions, we cannot be totally certain of their provenance. What we can be certain of is that these fabrics were traded in markets in the Christian Orient by Armenian merchants. And Giotto’s and his contemporaries in Siena, as the examples of this chapter show, obviously followed the much older Oriental Christian tradition from Cilicia in depicting wonderful fabrics in their paintings. And although Mack mentions “Lajazzo as the important departure point for Tabriz and the Caspian region,” she ignores Armenian arts altogether. But Cilicia acted as an artistic “filter” and intermediary for the Italians. And, as mentioned before, until we know more details, other than mere descriptions in medieval written sources about Armenian fabrics and their production, the whole problem of the history of “Oriental” silks and fabrics remains incomplete. In addition, the questions about Spanish and Syrian silks also need to be seen in a different light.

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Display of magnifcence The wish to display splendour, including precious ornament and fabric as shown in the decoration of Cilician bibles, survive as a testimony to Cilician arts. They are of truly spectacular splendour and must have served as much when they were made as they do today as symbols of cultural excellence . . . The vast predominance of Gospel books suggests that these were pre-eminently presentation copies, intended far less for scholarly or ritual use than for the display of magnificence. It is apparently for this purpose that books became receptacles of art in Cilicia.72 In contemporary Europe, nothing like existed in terms of artistic quality, exquisiteness of ornament and beauty. One can only imagine the impression these works of art had on the Italian merchants and ambassadors who saw them during their stay in Cilicia. The display of magnificence stressed by Der Nersessian is visible in the ornamental exuberance and in the precious material these Cilician miniatures are made of, especially the miniatures of the greatest Cilician artist of all, T’oros Roslin, unsurpassed by any contemporary European artist. It must have been normal for the Armenian eyes to see many different patterned fabrics side by side. Furnished with international taste and style These Cilician examples show the taste of the Cilicians, how they liked to dress and how they furnished their rooms with a variety of patterned fabrics. A century later, Tuscan artists depicted the same designed fabrics in their paintings. The selection of the Tuscan paintings discussed, belong to the first generations of what we generally call the birth of Italian painting, at a time when the western Silk Road trade was at its height. With regard to contemporary trade connections between Italy and the western Silk Road, the similarity of taste comes as no surprise. The lack of documentary evidence of the types of fabric exported from Cilicia for the Italian markets leaves only one conclusion: The cultural taste for patterned fabrics for dresses and furnishing on both sides of the Mediterranean was very similar. As already discussed in length, we do not have a prove or samples of the fine fabrics produced in Cilicia and of the fine fabrics and carpets made in Greater Armenia. It could well be that these fabrics and carpets are depicted in the Cilician miniatures of the thirteenth century, because they were Armenian and traded in Armenian markets. However, as we have already discussed, the setting up of Diaspora communities all over the Italian peninsula during the thirteenth century was intense, for example, in Florence, Siena, Pisa and Perugia. In Siena, since 1270, and according to documentary evidence in 1341 and 1370, Armenian friars can be traced in the “Conventus Senensis SS. Apostolorum Simonis et Judae,” for example, the Armenian “Mkhitar Shahaponetsi.”73 Shahaponk was one of the Uniate Dominican monasteries in Nakhijevan, about which we have already spoken. In Florence, the “domuis Florentina Sancti Basilii memoratur sub annis” existed from 1250 until 1491. In Rimini, an Armenian church is mentioned since 1263.74 And Cilician manuscripts were sent as gifts to Europe, for example, in 1279 a Lectionary came to the church of St. Mathew in Perugia.75 We can assume that Armenians brought their own cultural taste for dress and furnishing fabrics to Italy, where, in a natural process, painters started to include these fabrics

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in their paintings as they saw them on their contemporaries and in the market stalls in Italy. Or it could well have been that Italian merchants saw Cilician miniatures depicting the beautiful fabrics sold in Cilician markets and inspired by them turned to commission at Italian painters to include those designs in their paintings. The artistic evidence seems to support this. The facade decoration of the Doge’s Palace in Venice decorated with repetitive pattern resembles walls of mosques or mausoleums in central Asia. This too proves similar cultural taste.76 The pale brick facades of the East decorated with ornamental bands resemble stripes of fabric. They show a sense for ornament and of people who admired fabrics and specialised in its production. Linda Komaroff calls this phenomenon the “Spread to other Media.”77 Weaving reveals an archetypical structure in Christian iconography in the image of the Virgin Mary holding spindle and thread: “She becomes the spinning goddess of destiny and her child the fabric of her body.”78 In 1350, the German cleric Ludolph von Seuchem reports about the “glorious city of Acre,” “built of square hewn stones,” with “streets exceedingly neat, all the walls of the houses being of the same height and alike built in hewn stone, wondrously adorned with glass windows and painting . . . The streets of the city were covered with silken clothes, or other fair awnings, to keep out the sun rays.”79 Nobles walked the streets “each of them like a king . . . their clothing and that of their warhorse wondrously bedecked with gold and silver, all vying one another in beauty and novelty of device, each man apparelling himself with the utmost care.”80 What a superfluity and sheer splendour for the eyes these must have been, when silken fabrics were hung across the streets to keep the heat of the sun away. By around 1300, these fabrics with ancient and timeless patterns, such as the star and cross patterns with circles and those with birds and pretty flowers, were used equally by Latin Christians, Oriental Christians, Armenians and Muslims. In the arts of the Franciscan and Dominican orders, the well-known phenomenon, that is the almost “explosion” of colour and ornament can be observed in miniatures and monumental painting, in architectural features and sculpture. Anne Derbes discusses the link between paintings of the Sienese painter Duccio and Cilician artists in terms of small iconographic borrowings.81 Der Nersessian notes that Duccio’s Madonna of the Franciscans resembled certain Cilician compositions. Franciscan missionaries into Armenia probably brought altar paintings with them and had their new churches and chapels decorated with images from home. On the other hand, for example, in Florence, Armenian monks celebrate mass in a church fitted in Latin style. The fourteenth-century church of the Armenian monks of the order of St. Basil in Florence was fitted solely with works of art made by Florentine artists. The Italian merchants buying and selling Cilician fabrics in Italian markets, igniting desires and creating new markets and money, were the crucial intermediaries and main actors in the East-West fabric trade. For them, the special event during the Holy Year of 1300 in Rome, when 100 Mongols dressed in Mongol or Tatar fashion, probably in most sumptuous clothes/silks, must have seemed something like an “advertising campaign” for their trade. Together with the great quantity of silks and luxury fabrics pouring into Europe, silks had reached the middle ranks of urban Italian society, who played a key role in the establishment and consolidation of capitalist economies started to enjoy the new “mass market” of luxury consumption.82 This process went hand in hand with the extremely lucrative Silk Road trade of medieval Cilicia until 1375.

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Figure 5.21 Sindukht becoming aware of Rudaba’s actions, detail, Great Mongol Shahnama, Tabriz?, 1330s?, ink, colours and gold on paper, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Washington, DC: Purchase – Smithsonian Unrestricted Trust Funds, Smithsonian Acquisition Programme, and Dr. Arthur M. Sackler, S1986.102

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Artistic evidence of patterns of dress fabrics and furnishing of houses shows how similar consumer taste had become in the “West” and “East.” Mosher Stuard dispels some older orthodoxies about top-down influence of fashion and distinguishes between court and elite style and common fashion.83 The wide use of beautiful fabrics had become a common phenomenon, no longer exclusive for courts, as seen in inventories of houses such as the well-known merchant Datini in Prato, Tuscany.84 What Mack calls common taste85 should perhaps be called international taste, spreading from central Asia to Mongol Persia, Cilicia and Europe. This international taste and style had swept across continents. When Chookaszian says that “The similarities between Armenian and other examples of medallion motifs reveal an international character in medieval textile production,” he refers to the higher classes of society.86 The element of transculturality in the Armenian arts had developed long before this phenomenon reached the Mongol courts at Tabriz and Sultaniyah. Concerning our discussion of fabric patterns in Armenian miniature painting, first, and in the painting in Tuscany later, a similar phenomenon happened around 1300 in Mongol painting as well. Similar style and fabrics are displayed on dresses and furnishings, such as abstract floral, stars, cross-star, stripes and so on, visible in so many of the Great Mongol Shahnama manuscript illustrations, produced probably in Tabriz during the 1330s (Figure 5.21).87 The “horror vacui” or patchwork-like depiction of fabrics side by side dazzles the eye. The three Mongol khatuns shown in their court chamber give an impression of the immense need for luxury objects. The joy in ornament is boundless: everything is ornament, frieze, windows, door step and spreads seamlessly from one media to the other, from architectural detail to dress.

Notes 1 Rosamund E. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300–1600, Berkeley, London, 2002, 71, highlighting, what she calls ‘‘the misunderstanding of Eastern scripts’.’ 2 Lynn Jones, Between Islam and Byzantium: Aght’amar and the Visual Construction of Medieval Armenian Rulership, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2007. 3 Marielle Martiniani-Reber, ‘Les tissus médiévaux arméniens: essai d’identification’, in Barlow Der Mugrdechain (ed.), Between Paris and Fresno: Armenian Studies in Honour of Dickran Kouymjian, Armenian Studies, No. 13, Mazda Publishers, Costa Mesa, CA, 2008, 141–54, 146, fig. 2 (after Der Nersessian, Sirarpie and Vahramian, Herman, Aght’amar, documenti di architettura armena, 8, Milan 1974, pls. 39–40). 4 First Encyclopedia of Islam, 1919–1936, ‘tiraz’, 786ff. 5 Erevan, Matenadaran, MS n. 2743. Tatiana A. Izmailova, ‘The origin and date of a ritual manuscript (N). 1159/321) in the Mekhitarist Library, Venice’, in D. Kouymjian (ed.), Armenian Studies: In Memoriam Haȉg Berbérian, Calouste Gulbenkian Fiundation, Lisbon, 1986, pp. 333–55, 337. 6 Gabriella Uluhogian, Catalogo dei manoscritti armeni delle biblioteche d’Italia, Istituto poligrafico e Zacca dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, Roma, 2010, 208f. 7 Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century, 2 vols., Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington DC, 1993, fig. 7, p. 4. 8 Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, p. 65. 9 Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, fig. 48. 10 I Vangeli dei Popoli, La Parola e l’immagine del Cristo nelle culture e nella storia, Vatican City, catalogue, Tipografia Vaticana, Vatican City, 2000, 338f. 11 See Hannes Roser’s discussion of the doors’ literature in St Peter in Rom im 15. Jahrhundert Studien zu Architektur und skulpturaler Ausstattung, Hirmer Verlag, München, 2005, 62–69. 12 Still in 2002, for example, Andreas Thielemann misses the point: ‘‘Unterstützt wird der Eindruck des altertümlich Fremden durch Details wie das arabische Schriftband, das sich in Form einer Aureole um den Kopf Christi windet und das lange Band mit kufischen Buchstaben, das

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13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35 36

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die Borten der Tuniken der Heiligen Petrus und Paulus schmückt.’’ Altes und Neues Rom. Zu Filarete’s Bronzetür. Ein Drehbuch, Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch, LXIII (2002), 33–70, 54. Bruno Sauer, ‘Die Randreliefs an Filarete’s Bronzethür von St. Peter’, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, 20 (1897), 1–22, 22. I am very grateful for the great interest Vrej Nersessian showed in the inscriptions. It is very special to be helped by a linguist knowledgeable of the various Oriental Christian languages. Bruno Sauer, ‘Die Randreliefs an Filarete’s Bronzethür von St. Peter’, pp. 1–22, n. 64. Angelo Maria Piemontese, ‘Le iscrizioni arabe nella Poliphili Hypnerotomachia’, in Chales Burnett and Anna Contadini (eds.), Islam and the Italian Renaissance, London, 1999, pp. 199– 219, 201ff. Hans-Joachim Klimkeit and Ian Gillman, Christians in Asia Before 1500, Curzon, Richmond, Surrey, 1999, 174. Vera-Simone Schulz, ‘Intricate letters and the reification of light: Prolegomena on the pseudoinscribed haloes in Giotto’s Madonna di San Giorgio alla Costa and Masaccio’s San Giovenale Triptych’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, (2016), 59–95, 81. Angelo Michele Piemontese, ‘The Nuncios of Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) in Iran’, in Kanbiz Eslami (ed.), Iran and Iranian Studies in Honour of Iraj Afshar, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1998, pp. 90–108, 96. The following is according to Piemontese, ‘The Nuncios of Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) in Iran’, p. 93. Piemontese, ‘The Nuncios of Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) in Iran’, p. 99. Piemontese, ‘The Nuncios of Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) in Iran’, p. 99, n. 35. Angelo Michele Piemontese, ‘Beltrami Mignanelli senese biografo di Tamerlano’, Oriente Moderno, Brill, (1996), 213–226. Jean Richard, ‘L’enseignement des langues orientales en occident au moyen âge’, in Croisés, missionaires et voyageurs: Les perspectives orientales du monde latin, Variorum Reprints, London, 1983, pp. 149–164, 154. Anne Müller, Bettelmönche in islamischer Fremde: Institutionelle Rahmenbedingungen franziskanischer und dominikanischer Mission in muslimischen Raeumen des 13. Jahrhunderts, Münster, 2002, 279. For the following, see B. Altaner, ‘Sprachstudien und Sprachkenntnisse im Dienste der Mission des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts’, Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenscchaft, 21 (1933–1934), 113–135. B. Altaner, ‘Die fremdsprachliche Ausbildung der Dominikanermissionäre während des des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts’, Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenscchaft, 23 (1933), 233–241. See for the following Richard, ‘L’enseignement des langues orientales en occident au moyen âge’, pp. 155–163. Anne-Dorothee Von den Brincken, Die ‘Nationes Christianorum Orientalium’ im Verständnis der lateinischen Historiographie von derMitte des 12. bis in die zweite Hälfte des 14. Jahrhunderts, Böhlau, Verlag Köln, Wien, 1973. Von den Brincken, Die ‘Nationes Christianorum Orientalium’, especially pp. 420–443. Arno Borst, Der Turmbau von Babel: Geschichte der Meinungen über Ursprung und Viuelfalt der Sorachen und Völker, 4 vols., Stuttgart, 1957–1963. Jean Saint-Martin (ed.), Relation d’un voyage fait en Europe et dans l’océan atlantique, à la fin du XVe siècle, sous le règne de Charles VIII, par Martyr, évêque d’Arzendjan. Librairie Orientale de Dondey-Dupré Père et Fils, Paris, 1927. Peter B. Golden, ‘A Timurid Persian geographical abridgement on the lands of the Northern Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts’, in György Kara (ed.), Between the Danube and the Caucasus: A Collection of Papers Concerning Oriental Sources on the History of the Peoples of Central and South-Eastern Europe, Budapest, 1987, pp. 63–82. Golden, ‘A Timurid Persian geographical abridgement on the lands of the Northern Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts’, 73, 75. Vrej Nersessian, ‘Bernhard von Breydenbach’s Peregrination in Terram Sanctam and its significance for the history of Armenian printing’, Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, 5 (1990–1991), 91ff. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, p. 56. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, p. 69. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, p. 53.

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37 See various articles by Valentino Pace, such as, Fra la Maniera Greca a la Lingua Franca. Su alcuni aspetti e problemi delle relazioni fra la pittura umbro-toscana, la miniatura della Cilicia e le icone di Cipro e della Terrasanta, Il classicismo medievo, rinascimento, barocco, Atti del colloquio Cesare Gnudi, Niova Alfa Ed., Bologna, 1993, 71–89. We have seen in a previous chapter, that Sirarpie Der Nersessian was the first to start a discussion of Western elements in Cilician and Armenian painting. 38 Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, 155f. 39 Levon Chookaszian, ‘Remarks on the Portrait of Prince Lewon (Ms Erevan 8321)’, Revue des Etudes Armeniennes, 25 (1994–1995), 299–335, 306f. 40 Chookaszian, ‘Remarks on the Portrait of Prince Lewon (Ms Erevan 8321)’, p. 307. 41 Dickran Kouymjian, Armenian Textiles: An Overview, Trames d’Armenie: tapis et broderies sur les chemins de l’exil (1900–1940), Dominique Serena (ed.), Museon Arlaten, Arles, 2007, 29–35. 42 Chookaszian, ‘Remarks on the Portrait of Prince Lewon (Ms Erevan 8321)’, p. 327. 43 Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, p. 154. 44 Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, p. 158. 45 Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, XIII and p. 158. 46 Von den Brincken, Die ‘Nationes Christianorum Orientalium’, p. 206. 47 H. A. Manandian, The Trade and Cities of Armenia in Relation to Ancient World Trade, Lisbon, 1965. 48 Anna Muthesius, ‘Silk in the medieval world’, in David Jenkins (ed.), The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, vol. 1, 338f. 49 Chookaszian, ‘Remarks on the Portrait of Prince Lewon (Ms Erevan 8321)’, p. 307. The identification of the small-scaled officials as Armenians goes back to Volkmar Gantzhorn, The Christian Oriental Carpet, Taschen, Köln, 1991, 114, 116. 50 Gospel of King Gagik of Kars, mid-eleventh century, Jerusalem Armenian Patriarchate MS 2556. 51 For a more detailed discussion of the family’s portrait, see Jones, Between Islam and Byzantium, 46ff. 52 Vrej Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art, exhibition catalogue, The British Library, London, 2001, 114. 53 Ronald Latham, The Travels of Marco Polo, Penguin Books, London, 1958, 47. 54 Chookaszian, ‘Remarks on the Portrait of Prince Lewon (Ms Erevan 8321)’, p. 306. 55 Komaroff, 2002, 169f. 56 Anna Contadini, ‘Artistic contacts: Current scholarship and future tasks, Burnett, Charles’, in Anna Contadini (eds.), Islam and the Italian Renaissance, The Warburg Institute, London, 1999, pp. 1–61, 12. 57 Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, p. 168. 58 Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, XIV. 59 Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art, p. 80. 60 Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, p. 168, Dedicatory page. Washington, Freer Gallery of Art 44.17, fol. 12v. 61 Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Beauty in Arabic Culture, Princeton Series on the Middle East, Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton, NJ, First American ed., 1999, p. 141, see her chapter on the Visual Arts, 105–181. 62 Behrens-Abouseif, Beauty in Arabic Culture, p. 143. 63 Behrens-Abouseif, Beauty in Arabic Culture, p. 147. 64 Pietro Torriti, La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, i dipinti dal XII al XV secolo, Sagep Editrice, Genova, 1977, p. 91, fig. 83. 65 Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, fig. 641, Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate 2563, fol. 380. 66 Torriti, La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, i dipinti dal XII al XV secolo, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Siena, 1977, p. 123. 67 Der Nersessian, fig. 185, Erevan, Matenadaran 10450, fol. 311 v. 68 Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, fig. 21, Gregory of Narek writing, Erevan, Matenadaran, 1568, fol. 7v. 69 See M. Brosset, Ruines d’Ani, St Petersburg, 1860, fig. XXI Porte du Palais des Pahlavides’where the entire fassade is covered partly with a cross-star pattern and diamond pattern. And also see fig. IV ‘Porte méridionale de la ville’ covered with diamond pattern.

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For example, Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, 31f. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, p. 31. Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, XIII. Van den Oudenrijn, ‘Notulae de dominibus Bartholomitarum seu fratrum Armenorum citra mare consistentium’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 22 (1952), 264. Van den Oudenrijn, 1952, p. 252. Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, p. 93. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, p. 14, ‘‘common taste’’. Komaroff, 2002, p. 175. Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, Princeton, NJ, 1972, 233. Latham, The Travels of Marco Polo, p. 35. Latham, The Travels of Marco Polo, p. 35. Anne Derbes, ‘Siena and the Levant in the late Dugento’, Gesta, 28.2 (1989), 190–204. Susan Mosher Stuard, Gilding the Market: Luxury and Fashion in Fourteenth-Century, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2006. Mosher Stuard, Gilding the Market, p. 224. Iris Origo, The Merchant of Prato. Francesco di Marco Datini, 1335–1440, Nonpareil Books, Boston, 1986, 250ff, 280ff. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, p. 14. Chookaszian, ‘Remarks on the Portrait of Prince Lewon (Ms Erevan 8321)’, p. 307. See the numerous illustrations in Linda Komaroff and Stefano Carboni, Legacy of Ghengis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1265–1353, catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2002.

6

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The papal missions to Greater Armenian lasted for about 400 years. They had, as we shall see, a huge impact on the artistic and cultural transfer between Armenia and western Europe. At the same time, the Vatican’s efforts to bring the churches into union enhanced the division between the churches, their dogma and even their arts. In a previous chapter, we have discussed how due to its geographical position at the international crossroads of the southern Caucasus and its traditional openness towards non-Armenian arts, Greater Armenia became a main arena of the “East”-”West” artistic transfer between these Christian arts. Also exchanges with Islamic arts were important. The question is then about the ways of exchanges between western and Islamic arts in Armenia. Were they similar? In 2011, Vrej Nersessian’s in his article about the Marcy-Indoudjian Cope rightly concludes that “Armenian culture has been in close proximity with Islamic art since the seventh century, with the high points being during the Ottoman and Safavid periods. The borrowings from Islamic art were never simple plagiarism, for the objects produced in an Islamic style were for the Islamic market and those closer to the Armenian style were for Christian patrons and were made for the use in Christian institutions. The result is not an amalgam but a new creation in which the artist, while fully appreciative of current creative styles in neighbouring countries, is guided throughout by a sense of his own Christian tradition.” He observes the familiarity of Armenian artists with Western models, from which they borrowed details and which they integrated into their compositions. These details never dominated their compositions, “because the content of the composition was dictated more by theology than by iconographic themes.”1 We shall see that Nersessian’s observation that the artist was guided throughout by a sense of religion is crucial in our discussion of artistic transfer. In the following discussion, we shall need to ask about the artist’s spiritual orientation. This will be our compass. We shall discuss a chronological list of selected works of art and discuss the ways they show artistic transfer. Like Nersessian earlier, we shall see that the finished “products” were not simply artistic “amalgams,” as has been often claimed in the past, but “new image creations.” The following list of examples is presented in chronological order because only in this way we understand the contemporaneity of artistic production and reception in Italy and Armenia and we are able to compare. The last and conclusive chapter will focus, in contrary, on international styles.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204619-7

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Thirteenth century New image creations in Armenian manuscript illuminations in Rome As we have seen, an Armenian house existed at the Vatican at least since the beginning of the early 1220s, contemporary with the Mongol attacks on Greater Armenia. But documentary evidence shows that numerous Armenian pilgrims travelled to Rome already during previous centuries. Libraries in Armenia and Rome possess a few Armenian manuscripts which were produced in medieval Rome.2 Of the 70 Armenian manuscripts produced in the scriptoria of other Italian cities, only a few are illustrated. Twenty-eight of these illustrated ones are kept in the collection of the Matenadaran in Erevan. The others are dispersed between Italian, Israeli, Austrian and Russian collections. The decorations of the manuscripts were not necessarily finished in Italy. In several cases, a manuscript décor was left unfinished in Italy and then taken back to the East, for example, to the Armenian Diaspora in the Crimea, and finished there. According to the colophon in a book produced in 1226 in the monastery of SaintMenas in an unknown city, a certain Thaddeus brought it to Rome and (he) “donated my book to the hospice of Rome.” This is the oldest Armenian book kept in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.3 It contains the Sermons of Grigor Narekatsi,4 canonised saint of the Armenian church (died in 1003), in total 95 prayers of his “Book of Lamentations.” It is one of the gems of Christian literature, an important example of the Narek school of Armenian mysticism. It was a precious gift to the Armenian hospice. The two earliest known Armenian manuscripts produced in Rome are decorated in the Armenian style, one in 12405 and the other in 1254.6 The decoration of the Gospels of 1240 is in blue, red and yellow in authentic Armenian style. A monumental flowering cross made of knots and bands under an arch surrounded by an ornate frame with the typical knot and band ornaments fill the left page. On the right, two elegant peacocks, symbols of immortality, face each other under a lobed arch decorated with square and petal-like ornaments. Between their beaks a chalice is placed, the symbol of the incorruptible body of Christ. Compared to the high quality of contemporary manuscript illuminations in the Armenian homelands, it is rather of simple style and unlikely to have come from an important scriptorium. I cannot follow Sebouh Aslanian who sees a combination of Western and Cilician artistic elements here. He does not offer an analysis of the various elements.7 Clearly, it is the work of an artist who was not (yet) strongly influenced and controlled by the Roman Dominicans. The Gospel of 1254 was copied by a certain “Hovhannes” in Rome. Here, too, the painter followed ancient Armenian models of Canon Tables in a simple style. However, it is not clear why the catalogue entry of “Gli Armeni in Italia” “sees two artistic styles side by side, that is in the difference between colour and design, the first occidental with the framing of the Canons, the other Cilician with the heads in the incipit.”8 No specific models are mentioned, though. It seems to me that two artists worked side by side, rather than different stylistic traditions coexisting in one manuscript. However, all of the Armenian manuscript illuminators working after 1254 in Italy borrowed Western artistic elements. While the earlier manuscripts were all produced in Rome, scriptoria in other cities with an Armenian Diaspora produced Armenian manuscripts as well, starting with the so-called Lectionary of Bologna from 1324 (Figure 2.1).

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The artists of this new style married Latin and Armenian artistic elements and cultural markers. Here, a new religious identity was expressed in unison with the intentions of the Vatican. The Holy Book of Armenia, when translated by the Dominicans, was not any longer part of the Armenian church, but became an “obedient ornament”: the colophon of 1338 in a Calendar and Breviary from Krn’a/Nakhichevan calls it “ornament to the Church . . . and obedient to the decree of Rome.”9 It was aimed for the use of Catholic Armenians. The first known Armenian manuscript where the artist tried to create something new by borrowing Latin artistic elements was a Gospel illuminated “in the great and famous city of Rome” in 1254, according to the colophon.10 The décor of the headpieces of St. Luke and St. Mathew pages is of simple artistic quality. Although text, initials and the decorative framework are in the Armenian style, other elements are not Armenian. The decorative scheme with the three-lobed arch is typical for Cilician illuminations, for example, in the Gospel of Queen Keran (Figure 6.1) but is unusual in Italian manuscript illumination of the mid-thirteenth century. Arabesque scrolls were widely used in European and Oriental arts since ancient times. Armenian art with its strong focus on ornament used a special scheme for its Canon Tables with the headpieces beautifully and intrinsically decorated and with arabesque scrolls. They did not contain narrative scenes. Canon Tables were designed for contemplation only, different from the didactic systems of Western art where each element is labelled with specific meaning. Here, the artist worked with a typical thirteenth-century decorative Armenian scheme by filling the scrolls of the Luke Gospel page with scenes he took from a contemporary Latin model. Then he added short Latin inscriptions under the three-lobed middle arches, the three small narrative images of the Life of Christ and the Latin cross with the Lamb of God in the St. Mathew headpiece. The usual portraits of the Evangelists in Armenian Gospel illuminations covering the entire page are missing. However, the typical components of an Armenian incipit Gospel page are all there: the headpiece, a marginal vignette, the Armenian initial letters. They are the cultural markers, which defined an Armenian manuscript. By adding Latin text, Latin narrative scenes and adding a lion within a Latin cross as a part of the typical Armenian vignette, the artistic main effect of these two pages has lost its Armenian character. It expresses the artist’s wish to create something new out of both arts of the Latin and Armenian church traditions. The clumsiness in the décor of the scheme perhaps mirrors this invention and artist’s unfamiliarity with his new subject. This artist had access to Latin Bible illuminations, where the possible model for the three small narrative scenes in the Roman Armenian Bible can be found. Such a possible model could be the splendid mid-thirteenth-century Bible in the Vatican,11 originating possibly from Bologna or the Umbro Roman area.12 The three scenes are in the bas-depage medallions: Crucifixion, flanked by Mary pulling her hair and by John, and a warrior saint with a white head cloth and a sword with three other warriors, two of whom hold shields. The Armenian headpiece shows the crucifixion, too, but the lateral scenes are different: Mary and the Christ child and Mary with her arms up in despair and John. The image of the Crucifixion of Christ, in Armenian arts, is very rare, but depicted much more often in the contemporary arts of Italy. In addition, in 1240, the General chapter of the Dominicans ordered that only the Master General had the right to use his seal decorated by the crucifixion of Christ.13 The important role of the Dominicans in the Oriental missions, first of all in Armenia, could have had an impact on the choice

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Figure 6.1 Gospel of Queen Keran, Skevra, Cilicia, 1283, parchment, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 6764, fol. 127

to depict the crucifixion on such a prominent place in a headpiece. The intention was to Latinise the Armenian original, contemporary to the earliest Franciscan mission in Cilicia in 1246 and the migration of numerous Armenians to the cities of Italy due to the Mongol wars in eastern Armenia.

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Fourteenth century Contemporaries: Momik and Giotto Momik, Armenian painter, architect and sculptor, died in 1333. He is a contemporary of Giotto, who died four years after Momik in 1337. As one of the most inventive artists of medieval Armenia, Momik worked at a time of great political and religious upheaval during the reign of the Mongol Khans.14 His patrons were from the ruling Orbelian family in the province of Vayots Dzor. His work was based on the relief style of Vayots Dzor of the second half of the thirteenth century, but he modernised contemporary relief sculpture by inventing a well-informed, careful synthesis between the Armenian tradition and the pictorial elements of western Europe. This phenomenon needs to be described in detail. Several high-quality khatchkars are attributed to him, such as the one for Prince Elikum Orbelean in the Regional Museum in Yeghegnadzor (see Figure 6.2),15 originating from Noravank monastery founded by the Orbelian family. Two other khatchkars with Momik’s signature are kept at Etchmiadzin. The monastic complex of Noravank includes two churches, the Orbelian mausoleum, a memorial church with family tombs and a series of khatchkars. The tympana of the churches contain a highly original iconographic programme on a series of reliefs. The khatchkar for Prince Elikum Orbelian dated between 1300 and 1312, is made of tuff and measures 222 cm in height and 80 cm in width. The inscriptions on top and bottom refer to the donor, to Elikum’s wife Princesse T’amt’a Khat’un, and to their children. It shows half-busts of Apostles in lozenges flanking the Cross in a relief carved in great precision on several levels of depth. The stone is covered with different and most intricately worked lace patterns resembling fine fabric: “The influence of works of tissue-cloth which already existed in that early period [tenth century].”16 We have already discussed various aspects of the tissue-cloth work of the Armenian artists, fabric-like background surfaces, two- or three-dimensional covering “pages” in stone and woodwork. But, in contrast to Muslim artists, they cover only limited spaces and are always measured and very clear and never overtake a composition. The khatchkar’s main compositional parts are all arranged in great clarity. In the middle appears the holy cross with floral extensions, set in vegetal patterns with floral elements resembling roses. The cross is placed on top of a slightly convex very elaborate carved (sun) disk. Above the cross is a relief field entirely decorated with a different lace pattern. In the middle of this field, under a lobed arch, the figure of the blessing Christ in Majesty is seated surrounded by the Evangelists’ symbols. His left hand holds a book with the inscription: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). In comparison, the earlier Holy Saviour khachkar in Haghpat from 1273 shows a relief in painterly style with figures spread loosely across the space (see Figure 6.3). The praying Apostles appear in a row of small double niches along both sides over the ornamental background of intricate floral carving flanking the main image, a Crucifixion. In comparison, Momik’s composition is much more structured, precise and refined, and resembles the composition of the aforementioned illuminated page of a Latin Bible of 1250–1275. It shows a very similar row of lateral medallions filled with scenes from the Genesis. In the middle at the bottom is a slightly bigger medallion with the Crucifixion.17 Momik’s composition with its lateral rows of lozenges flanking a monumental cross in the middle resembles this possible model from Italy. Both Momik and the Italian illustrator created a structured composition by distinguishing each part with great clarity. The creative intention of the compositions is very similar.

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Figure 6.2 Khatchkar of Prince Elikum Orbelian, 1300–1312, Museum Yeghegnadzor Photo: Patrick Donabedian

Momik’s sculptures are part of a group of high-quality relief sculptures of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Vayots Dzor, which both Donabédian and Zakarian discussed with regard to their additions of Western elements.18

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Figure 6.3 Holy Saviour Khatchkar, 1273, Haghpat monastery Photo: Author

In 1957, Sirarpie Der Nersessian first discussed the problem of Western iconographic themes in Armenian manuscripts. She concludes that Armenians used only

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very little Western motifs. Donabédian in his article of 1980 about style and iconography of the group of thirteenth-century khatchkars of Vayots Dzor, in particular the relief tympana on top of khatchkars, reverses her statement and points out more “Latin” elements than previously acknowledged, such as the dove above the head of the Madonna and the book in her left hand on the Ełegis tympanum, a previously unknown combination in Armenian arts. He calls these “empreints” “transmis de l’Occident à l’Arménie orientale.”19 The khatchkars Donabédian discusses all date from the second part of the thirteenth century and are mostly connected with the Orbelian family. Numerous images of Mary and the Christ child are depicted on these reliefs, in half-portrait, sitting on thrones, carpeted stools or cross-legged on the floor. And they all, in one way or another, show artistic elements so typical for the Latin “West.” In 2007, in a next step, Lilith Zakarian discusses the relief sculpture of Vayots Dzor believing that Momik’s and his contemporaries’ tympana reliefs are “un echo très lointain et indirect des portails gothiques.,”20 repeating the Madonnas of the Gothic cathedral sculpture of Europe. The question we need to ask is how exactly the elements amalgamate with the local Armenian art. Zakarian traces back the Western elements to the intensified contacts between Armenians and Latins at that time. She discusses a series of four relief tympana with Madonna and Child in the Province of Vayots Dzor/Siunik’ from the turn of the fourteenth century: the tympanum of the Church of the Mother of God in Areni, and the tympanum of St. John in Noravank, lower church (Figure 6.4) both show Mary and the Christ child in a flat relief, yet

Figure 6.4 Madonna and Christchild, tympanum, ca. 1300, Mother of God Church, Noravank Photo: Author

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voluminous and with rather hard Byzantine-style lines. Four Armenian inscriptions are carved into the tympanum, two on each side of the Virgin’s head: “Mother” and “God” and “Gabriel” and “Michael” in the lower corners to the feet of the Angels. The tympana of the Church of the Mother of God in Spitakavor and of the Upper Church of the Mother of God in Noravank are similar.21 We can further extend Zakarian’s observations by stating that without the Armenian letters the style of some Madonna reliefs could hardly be labelled “Armenian.” However, these Madonna reliefs in good proportions, voluminous and simple express tender sensitivity towards their child, sit on carpeted seats “surrounded” by their Armenian inscriptions, elaborate vegetal ornamentation and muqarnas in an entirely Armenian environment. Therefore, we can call the relief art of Vayots Dzor “Latinised” or italicised style. Even if new and modern Armenian artistic qualities, such as clarity of composition and volume of body, appear similar to contemporary Latin art, the reliefs, due to the Armenian cultural markers inscription and ornament/muqarnas, remain Armenian. But whatever the borrowed artistic elements looked like, without the Armenian letters, these art works would most probably have been rejected by the Armenian patrons. These Armenian images speak of well-informed artists and careful change or modernisation. These reliefs created something new. As mentioned earlier, there can be no doubt that Armenian artists must have been able to see Latin works of art in Armenia brought by the missionaries, such as miniature painting or perhaps wooden sculpture. The negative attitude of numerous Armenian churchmen, such as Momik’s patron Bishop Orbelian towards the missionaries, did not mean that modern Latin art was entirely rejected. In the contrary, what seemed appropriate was adopted. It is well known that Western art had arrived into medieval Armenia through the Franciscans of Cilicia during the thirteenth century. The manuscript painter Toros Roslin, “one of the most accomplished painters of the entire Middle Ages . . . and was extremely receptive to imagery he found in manuscripts arriving from the West.”22 Momik’s patron at Noravank. Stepanos Orbelian (ca.1250–1305), important bishop and patron in Siunik’, was involved in the construction of Noravank’ and Tat’ev monasteries, both important centres of learning. He had studied at close-by Gladzor, the “second Athens” of its time. Gladzor monastery contributed immensely to the advancement of Armenian thought and introduced Western thought while waging a sustained philosophical, theological and pedagogical campaign against the movement for the union with Rome, when in 1317–1318 Catholicos Kostandin threatened to deny the chrism if they did not confirm with the policy of the Cilician Church. Based on scriptures, tradition and theological reasoning, extensive refutations were compiled as to why the Armenian church should remain independent. The education at Gladzor monastery-university resembled somewhat the newly found medieval European universities with similar faculties and curricula of instruction.23 In ca. 1287, Orbelian was consecrated in Cilicia. A few days after his return to Siunik’, as he writes in his “History of the Province of Siunik,” “we went to present ourselves to the victorious King Arghun,”24 presumably in the capital of the Ilkhanate Marâgha, constructed during the reign of Hülagü Khan (1217–1265). Here, the khan invited Orbelian “to stay to consecrate the royal church established by the great Pope of Rome. The Nestorian Catholicos with 12 bishops were present, too. We joined with them in a solemn ceremony of consecration. And Arghun himself robed us in the patriarchal gown, which he had had designed for us and for all the bishops by the Catholicos. . . . After a short time, the same pope sent a new bishop.”

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During the consecration, he could well have seen the books and other “ornamenta ecclasiastica” belonging to that church, such as illuminated Latin books and more. A list of the outfitting of the Roman Cathedral in the Mongol capital of Sultaniyah, further East of Maragha, from 1398, describes it as: “Missale, breviaria, libros ecclesiasticos, cruces, altarium paramenta, ornamenta ecclesiastica” and more. The church outfitting had been stolen and on his visit to Rome, the Latin Archbishop of Nakhijevan took the list to the pope who promised to replace the objects.25 The list includes the typical objects of a church outfitting, as can be seen in the contemporary lists of church treasures, for example, of Cologne’s St. George church or the Basilica of S. Marco, Venice.26 At the time of the creation of Momik’s khatchkar, great numbers of Latin merchants and missionaries had settled in the Mongol capitals of north-west Iran. Already in 1263, the Italian Pietro Vilioni was buried in the “new” monastery of Tabriz.27 Orbelian’s mentioning of the royal church of the pope of Rome is the first source relating to a Latin church in the Mongol capital. Only a few years after Orbelian’s death, the Dominicans possessed churches in Tabriz, Dehirkan and Maragha, and the Franciscans were present in numerous other places.28 Around 1330, Tabriz is said to have had 35 churches, of which some were Latin. Orbelian’s architectural ensemble of Noravank is a monument of decidedly Armenian iconography, character and identity, yet its relief style has western European elements. The Madonna reliefs of Vayots Dzor as an expression of the Mariology in the “Orient” are contemporary to the numerous Mary and Christ child sculptures of the European Romanesque and Gothic portal tympana for example in the Cathedrals in Reims, Paris, Cologne or Freiberg.29 It is the genius of the Armenian illuminator that he was able to expand the repertoire of Christian imagery in so many directions while enunciating one large theme. The common theme underlying all these images is the intercessory role of the Mother of God.30 In this respect, the arts were clearly in line with Rome. As for the beautiful “fabric reliefs” of Momik’s khatchkar, a similar interest can be found in contemporary narrative painting of artists such as Giotto: fabrics played an ever-bigger role in the narrative compositions with beautiful detailed curtains and tentlike wall hangings. Likewise, fabric-like ornamental relief patterns cover the entire surfaces of burial octagons of family members of the Khans, for example, in Marâgha/ north-west Persia. In the search for prestigious status symbols, the Orbelian relief style of Momik, despite the fundamental dogmatic differences with Rome, shows an intellectual alignment with Latin Europe. Momik’s inventive talent and effort was to modernise the local style based on tradition. He felt free to adjust it in a new manner by taking up ideas from outside his culture. At the same time, the Armenian artistic system remained as strong and “safe” as ever. After Orbelian’s death, the Latin missionary movement took off in great speed: In 1330, the initial event of the Dominican mission was when Bishop Bartholomew left his residence of Marâgha and transferred it to the monastery of Krna in the Ernjak river valley, not far from Noravank, the first monastery of approximately 15 more of the “Fratres Unitores,” the united Armenian Dominican order. Since the beginning of the century, the Bishops of Nakhijevan had to travel to Rome for consecration.31 The Dominican missionaries acted as catalysts. Like earlier in Gladzor, the monastic university of Tatev became a leading institution, where on the model of the literary legacy of Bartolomeo di

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Bologna, Thomas Aquinas, Peter of Aragon and Armenian members of the Fratres Unitores compiled the Book of Questions, a Treatise against the Turks, the Book of Golden Content and the Book of Homilies to protect the Armenian church in the confrontation with the Latins. Translations were produced in great numbers and learning included logic as requirement for higher level of vardapet, according to the Dominican “logica vetus.” Aristotle’s philosophy and occidental scholastic methods were taught, a sort of sower of the seeds of modernity. At that time, the contact with western Europe, especially with the important Dominican convents of Rome and Florence, flourished.32 The stylistic and iconographic changes in the relief art of Vayots Dzor are the signs of an artistic and intellectual high, a search for new ways of developing Armenian artistic tradition on the strong base of its local arts. Just like the Latin Bible decoration discussed at the beginning of this chapter, which was perhaps the model used by the Armenian artist working in the scriptorium of the Armenian house in Rome in 1254, Momik, too, used a very similar composition in an entirely Armenian artistic context. Momik, by borrowing compositional structures, created new images. Giotto di Bondone’s famous image inventions, roughly for about 40 years (before 1300 until his death in 1337), fall into the time of the Oriental missions of the Dominicans and Franciscans and the transition of Armenian into Dominican monasteries in the Ernjak valley. This is also the time of the invention of the biblical scenes which the Preaching Order needed for their missions.33 The tents painted with biblical scenes, for example, one from Paris, sent 1254 into the regions of the oriental missions in Armenia and beyond have already been discussed. There can be no doubt that especially those new Dominican Bishops for the Nakhijevan Diocese, all Italians originating from the cities of Florence, Bologna, Siena and Perugia knew well what Giotto had been painting in the Dominican and Franciscan churches of Florence and elsewhere. The theological synthesis sought by these Bishops with their aim of Latinising the “heretical” Armenians may have fuelled Rome’s interest in sending out art works for the “heathens” and “infidels” they wished to convert. And in these Italian cities, Armenian Diaspora communities were founded with their united Armenian Latin churches. Giotto, the most ground-breaking and inventive artist of Florence and Rome, worked for Dominican and Franciscan patrons in the huge mother Order Churches of Florence and Rome. It is therefore possible that a detail Giotto used is of special importance (see Figure 6.5): the rectangular décor panel appearing on the breast of the chasuble of the Saint Stephen altar painting, dated 1320–1325, kept in the Museum Horne in Florence. The decorative system of the panel resembles that of Armenian Canon Table décor, for example, the first page of the Gospel of St. John in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington (56.11, CE 1263, fol. 243).34 A similar textile panel appears in Paolo Veneziano’s Coronation of the Virgin, ca. 1350, in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice (Figure 6.6). Although the décor is different, its aesthetic expression is similar. It resembles the décor on the top of a book page of 1331 (Figure 6.7) showing a meandering décor band. All examples have a clearly defined middle section. During the latter part of his career, Giotto created the Navicella Mosaic design for the façade of St. Peter’s in Rome, the large Ognissanti Madonna altar painting for Florence (1320), and four Florentine family chapels for the Franciscan church S. Croce in

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Figure 6.5 Giotto, St. Stephen, 1320–1325, panel painting, Museo Horne, Florence Photo: Scala

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Figure 6.6 Paolo Veneziano, Coronation of the Virgin, panel painting, ca. 1350, detail, Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice Photo: Cameraphoto, Venice

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Figure 6.7 Bartolomeo da Bologna, Homilies, Top of page, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 725, fol.1r

Florence. Pilgrims to Italy must have seen at least some of these works. One of these chapels is the Bardi family chapel painted with scenes from the Life of St. Francis, a masterpiece, 1325–1328. The donor was Ridolfo de’ Bardi, one of the major Florentine bankers until his banking house went bankrupt in the 1340s. Pegolotti, who in 1333 wrote his travel and trading report, was his employee.

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We do not know what had inspired Giotto to include a textile band resembling Armenian decor, if it had a special meaning or not or was perhaps an almost playful quote of an important Armenian artistic element he had somewhere seen and liked. Giotto-adaptation When the anti-Latin artist Toros of Taron painted his Virgo Lactans in Gladzor in 1321 by opening his artistic repertory, in the Armenian Diaspora of Bologna, Perugia and Genoa something similar happened: Giotto’s inventions became quickly models for fellow painters and sculptors, illuminators and wall painters who copied his image inventions and incorporated them like quotations into their own compositions. These quotes could vary from proper copies to soft adjustments. The Armenian illuminators in Italy also used Giotto’s inventions. The Armenian Latin lectionary (see Figure 2.1) was produced in Bologna in 1324 and adorned with one miniature in contemporary northern Italian style. Mary in the foreground, the kneeling praying Apostles and the crowd of onlookers are dressed in brightly coloured clothes. They look up towards the miraculous scene of the Christ ascending. But only Christ’s feet and the seam of his dress are visible where Christ ascends high up above their heads in the light-blue sky. According to the colophon, “this book was written in the land of the Italians, in the city which is called in their language Bolonia, in the year of our time 773” (CE 1324).35 The sources prove the presence of Armenians in Bologna since 1303, and during the fourteenth century, it became a centre of Armenian immigration with three Armenian churches.36 Uluhogian briefly describes the church-political situation in fourteenthcentury Bologna.37 Only three Armenian Latin manuscripts produced in Bologna exist. Bologna with the tomb of Saint Dominic was an important Dominican centre. Bartolomeo da Bologna became first Bishop of Maragha in the 1330s. According to Uluhogian, there were various Armenian scriptoria of the CatholicArmenian Basilian Order in Bologna, to where the monks had fled from Muslim persecutions in Cilicia. From 1365 onwards, they were under the jurisdiction of the Generals of the Dominican Order. The painter did not follow the traditional Armenian models for the Resurrection scene but followed two of Giotto’s pictorial inventions realised in the Arena chapel scenes of the Life of Christ in Padua, painted 1305–1306: Ascension (Figure 6.8) and Crucifixion.38 Although the Armenian composition is less elaborate than Giotto’s scene, the parallels to Giotto are obvious. The Armenian artist followed the composition of Giotto’s Ascension, but only used the lower half. And from the Crucifixion or Entombment scene he copied the two Angels (see Figure 6.9). While the script and the ornaments of initial letters and margins make the codex Armenian, the figure’s head in the Initial and the scene are contemporary Italian elements, altogether which makes this scene a new image invention. The catalogue text in “Roma-Armenia” simply calls the miniature’s style “molto più italiano che armeno.”39 And Emma Korkhmazian ridicules the Apostles’ emotional expressions as “l’air stupide et stupefait”40 and calls the painterly style naïve, naturalistic and characteristic for the Latin world. The quite simple style of the Bologna illumination could be the work of an Armenian or Italian miniaturist. The copying of Giotto’s models was not at all unusual in the contemporary artistic climate of Bologna and has been studied in detail.41 For example, Giotto’s Lamentation scene from the Arena Chapel could appear in a miniature produced a little later in Padua.42

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Figure 6.8 Giotto, Ascension, 1305–1306, Arena Chapel, Padova Photo: Scala

Still during the fifteenth century, Giotto’s Angels were also borrowed by the important Armenian painter Minas, who worked in Vaspurakan/Armenia.43 More of the manuscript art of Minas will be discussed later in detail. Here, too, “foreign” artistic influences were used.44 Minas Crucifixion (in Mat. 6390) from 1467 (see Figure 6.10) borrows Giotto’s crying Angels from the Padua Arena Chapel, too, just like the Bologna illuminator before. Minas’ Crucifixion is one of 15 beautiful miniatures from the Life of Christ, whose patron was Sultanshay, portrayed kneeling beside the image of the Triumphal Cross.45 Latin-Armenian illumination made in Italy In the Latin Armenian scriptoria of Genoa in 1325, a Gospel of St. Mathews was copied. The composition of the headpiece follows the classical Cilician model, like the 1254 Bible copied in Rome discussed earlier, whereas this one is of simple quality. The décor of the headpiece is non-symmetrical with two floral scrolls on the right and three on the left, made by an unskilled Armenian artist called Astudsatur, according to Hovsepian.46 The pretty star décor at the top middle, however, proves Armenian artistic joy. The page’s décor shows no Latin elements, whereas all the other Armenian manuscripts produced in Italy, do.

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Figure 6.9 Giotto, Entombment, detail, 1305–1306, Arena Chapel, Padoa Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut

In Perugia, in 1331, two headpieces each in a St. Luke and St. Mark Gospel were painted (Figures 6.11 and 6.12),47 which show artistic borrowings from contemporary Italian art.48 This is the year before the first Dominican convent in Krna/Nakhijevan was founded. The illuminator, following the classical Cilician model, borrowed Italian “elements.” Like a translator, the artist knew both artistic languages. According to the colophon, the scribe and priest Eremia K’ahana produced it in the church of Saints Mathew and Barnabas in Perugia. The Bible contains four title headpieces for each Gospel on pages 4r, 47v, 76v and 124r. The four symbols angel, lion, bull and eagle are set at the feet of the Evangelists within their small wooden seat and lectern. The background square and rectangular of the decorated Armenian initial letters is borrowed from Latin models. Other than the Armenian letters, the Gospel has none of the Armenian cultural markers such as vignettes, palmettes, zoomorphic initials and anthropomorphic letters. Joanna Rapti believes that the overall ensemble follows the Armenian tradition, but that its single components are Italian.49 But what exactly does this mean? In the Perugia Gospels, the evangelists, which in Armenian tradition are placed on the opposite page of the headpiece at the beginning of the Gospel, have been “moved” into the n-shaped headpieces with their symbols at their feet. Armenian and Italian elements exist side by side: the face of God in the middle of a headpiece and the star of David in the other one are Italian, but the initial with three eagles (although this is not the Gospel of John), one

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Figure 6.10 Minas, Crucifixion, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 982, fol. 217b

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Figure 6.11 Gospel of St. Luke, Perugia 1331, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 7628, fol. 4a

of which holds a book, and the two birds and flowers on top of the headpiece are typically Armenian. The foliate decoration of the headpiece shows great interest in three-dimensionality of foliage, the small face in the left top of Luke’s headpiece, the angel on top of the slender

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Figure 6.12 Gospel of St. Mark, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 7628, fol. 47v

stem and the playful white arabesques on blue ground are however painted in contemporary Italian style. This is unknown in Armenian art. The little face with red hood in the upper row of foliate scrolls reflects ideas of contemporary Italian miniaturists like Lorenzo Monaco.50

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The Perugia Gospel shows great care in its painterly execution. A skilful artist simplified the Armenian scheme and created a new Armenian Italian composition by adding new elements. These three examples of Armenian-Latin manuscripts in the Armenian language produced in Italy between 1254 and 1331 all show the same type: they follow the classical, traditional Cilician models of headpieces, at times with Armenian vignettes and decorated initials. With the only exception of the Genoa Gospel, they all added contemporary artistic Italian elements. Armenian Latin illuminators borrow Latin elements for the decoration of initials The Latin Books of Ordination for the newly converted Armenian Latin friars needed to find new creations, too, since the Ordination ritual in the “East” and “West” was different. How did patron and artist solve the problem? The British Library owns a Book of Ordination in Armenian. But it is the translation of a Latin Ordination Book, which is according to the Latin order or law. It was written and illuminated in the fourteenth century.51 A bishop named T’adeos, native from Kaffa/ Crimea translated the ordinal from Latin into Armenian. He had been consecrated by Pope John XXII (1316–1334) in Avignon. The small initial images are painted in a simple style, possibly by the scribe who copied them together with the text from the Latin original. The original Latin initials with their rectangular frames were adjusted to look like Armenian letters, but the small scenes inside the initials were copied in such a way that in the Armenian version the clergy wears Roman robes.52 The Bishop’s mitre is clearly distinguishable. Here, a bishop ordains a “dpri” (Armenian, clerk), a singer. Possible Italian models exist, for example, the artist called “Master of the Dominican Effigies,” a “dominant figure in Florentine illumination in the second quarter of the fourteenth century” painted a similar Florentine Ordinal, where the Letter “N” of a choir book is decorated with a Latin Bishop.53 In comparison, an Armenian Book of Ordination, 1248, shows the different garb of an Armenian vested bishop holding the Gospel above the head of the ordained (future) deacon.54 A Latin Missal from Mainz (German)/Magonza, produced in 1392, copied by an Armenian in Mainz shows a similar solution by the artist to the problem of combining Latin initials with Armenian text translation (see Figure 6.13).55 The manuscript in the library of the Augustiner-Chorherrenstift Sankt Florian in Austria contains 20 illuminated initials, while another four are cut out and lost. The missal’s format and layout are western European with Armenian text. Page 464 with a long colophon shows a rather crudely painted scene, two eagles sitting on a dragon holding a cross in their beaks, possibly an Armenian “U” which means an English “A,” the beginning of the first word, English “thus.” On the right side of the page is an equally crude knot decoration ending on the top in a cross, a reminiscent of Armenian marginal decor. Perhaps the unusual image of the eagles and the dragon could be interpreted as the united Latin and Armenian churches fighting the infidels. A priest called Sargis copied the missal. According to the colophon, he was “from faraway lands, of the Armenian nation and Catholic faith.” His Catholic name was Yakob and his parents were Tirac’u K’ahanay and Hilal. He calls himself an old man, who copied the missal in “Magontia” under the protection of the Virgin Mary, St. Martin and St. Christopher. He wanted the book very badly, because he loved books, he writes. The original missal belonged to an old man named Toros from Sis, who had carried the

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Figure 6.13 Martyrs from Mount Ararat, Latin Missal produced in Magonza, 1392, Stiftsbibliothek, St. Florian, ms. 2307, XI, 464

book to Mainz. Perhaps, Toros and his companions were pilgrims on their way from Basel to Köln stopping in Mainz. Sargis complains that the missal from Sis was uncomplete and that it was difficult to find the missing pages. He excuses his inadequacies in the Armenian language and grammar. Indeed, the text contains numerous mistakes and corrections.56 Toros wanted to move on quickly but had to wait three months until the copy was done, while Sargis lodged him and his companions. The host complains bitterly about his guests’ insatiability in food and drink, and calls them beggars and thieves “in this cold and windy time.” A later annotation in Persian, at the end of the missal, by Salman Tahan “dar an ketab kuandeh-am,” translates “I have been reading in the margins including Latin.” The missal’s décor is organised in chronological order according to the church calendar, but text and image, kindly checked by Vrej Nersessian, are not linked and don’t correspond. This was probably due to the later decoration done by a non-Armenian. No Armenian missal in the Armenian homeland would have been illuminated with such scenes. Some of the scenes in the margins representing feast days include Latin script and were borrowed from European manuscripts in the International Gothic style of fourteenth-century Europe. They are of good quality. Two of these images refer to Armenian history, “King Abgar and the Mandylion” and “The Ten-thousand martyrs of Mount Ararat” (Figure 6.13), where Christians are slaughtered by the Roman army and crucified on trees, while the text does not refer to the martyrs, but to the Last Judgement: “The innocent will be rewarded before the Lord in the last hour.” The image illustrates a medieval Dominican legend, widely depicted during the times of the Crusades. The Dominican Jordanus Catalani travelling through Armenia tells of a place by the big mountain (Ararat), where it is said that once 10,000 martyrs have died. He writes in his Mirabilia Descripta (after 1300):57 Here was the great city of Semur, destroyed by the Tartars. “I have been in almost all of these places.”

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Toros of Taron and Awag While Giotto painted his iconic new pictorial inventions onto the walls of Italian churches and chapels, Armenian miniaturists, contemporaries of Momik, illustrated the so-called Gladzor Gospels in the Armenian Province of Siunik, at that time part of the Mongol Empire (1256–1353). Mathews and Sanjian discuss the teaching curriculum at Gladzor and the work done by the vardapets there in detail.58 The main painter at Gladzor was Toros of Taron (worked 1307–1347), who illuminated 18 manuscripts. Despite working in an anti-Latin centre of studies, he borrowed elements from Western arts, which he had studied. In terms of borrowing from the West in the Gladzor Gospels, conclude Mathews and Sanjian, there are only “minor details of peripheral importance, such as the tonsure of Peter, the Crusader banners on ships, the widow’s coverchief, the pilgrim’s garb of Christ.”59 Even if these are “minor” details, Western culture and dress have by now entered “faraway” Armenian artistic imagination and illumination, and the fact that these belong to daily fashion is of great interest. The artists knew well the objects of contemporary daily life in the European “West.”60 Toros of Taron created new images. Like various other examples in contemporary Armenian manuscript illumination, his “Virgo Lactans” borrows from European models.61 He combines the throne of Mary and the Christ child with the traditional Armenian decorative floral elements of a title page, with a vignette and with decorated Armenian letters. Two winged angels stand at both sides of Mary’s throne, a typical motif of Cinabue or Giotto’s contemporary monumental Italian paintings of the same subject. Here, however, the angels resemble Byzantine-style royal angels. According to Mathews and Sanjian, Toros of Taron’s “only true artistic successor,” was the remarkable artist and priest Awag (ca. 1300–1360).62 He was an itinerant artist moving between Gladzor, Siunik, Tabriz, Sultaniyah, Crimea and Tiflis. He opened up his artistic repertory towards realism, narrative power and emotions in gestures, equally strong features of the art of his contemporaries in Italy like Giotto. Another example for borrowing from Giotto and his contemporaries is in the “Four Gospels and Revelation” from 1329/1358 in the British Library.63 It includes the scene of the “The Holy Women at the Sepulchre,” where two soldiers lie in the foreground, one on his back, the other on one side. There can be no doubt that Awag borrowed the idea of these soldiers from earlier Italian examples, where this motif had become a standard scene, for example, in the art of Giotto and of the Florentine illuminators, who had translated his scenes from walls into books. Awag’s training at the university monastery of Gladzor probably exposed him to Latin manuscripts, from where he might have taken up the model for the soldiers.64 The strong anti-Latin and “national” stance of Awag did not hinder him in any way to borrow artistic elements from non-Armenian cultures and this artistic flexibility served his art well. Lilit Zakarian in her article about Awag discusses a pictorial invention in the scene of the “Purgatory” from 1337, which was in line with his criticism of the politics of the popes of Rome (Figure 6.14).65 The Armenians did not believe in the existence of the purgatory.66 But this scene shows a mixed Latin-Armenian image invention. The left part of the image, highly structured, slightly abstract and visionary is divided into three parts. Six shrouded figures fill the top left side, of which three are in the process of being resurrected. Underneath, in a bright red rectangular field, we see a man in half portrait, while a cleric in a cope with black crosses on white ground falls head-down across the red field into hell. The Armenian inscription calls the falling cleric “Nest[orius] and Arius,” denotion of the Latin clerics who were considered heretics by the Armenians.

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Figure 6.14 Awag, Last Judgement, 1337, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 212, fol. 79v

The right part of the image shows two tall Angels approaching the purgatory scene, their wings cutting through the picture frame. This scene is in the Armenian tradition and reminds us of Adam and Eve with Christ holding Adam’s hand taking him out of Hell.

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Giotto died in the same year of the painting, and one year later in 1338, the first known Persian translation of the Latin Bible was produced.67 The (Latin) Armenian dominican scriptoria Compared to the strong didactic element of the arts of the Latin west, the images of the medieval Armenian books were not meant to be didactic, were neither educational nor aimed at persuasion. The Dominicans’ activities in the new monasteries of Armenia were mostly translations for study, teaching and preaching. Van den Oudenrijn describes the missionaries as well-prepared and making a strong first impression on the Armenians, which led to great success. Entire communities asked to be united with the congregation of the Unitores.68 But the national movement against the Unitores originated from the region where they were strongest, the Ernjak Valley of Nakhijevan. Here, at Krna, Thomas Aquinas’ scholastic teachings were translated into Armenian.69 One of these books has a beautiful and rather modest decorative band as headpiece at the beginning of the Tertia Pars of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae.70 In this treatise about the sacraments, Aquinas states that Baptism can’t be repeated, an important controversy between Armenians and Latins. The translation of the text started in 1347 in Krna and was finished in 1415.71 The rectangular carpet-border-like headpiece and marginal décor in blue, green and red shows typical features of an Armenian title page illumination with floral motifs, stylised tulips and birds picking, and the margin includes a small Temple. It was done by an Armenian artist working in the Armenian tradition, but was written by a non-Armenian, who, typical for those manuscripts, made numerous mistakes.72 According to the colophon, the writer Fra Grigor finished his work in 1415 and tells about the first writer: “Our very reverend and distinguished spiritual father, Fra Yosep/Joseph Sahaponetsi (from Shahaponk), had begun this divine book on the operation of the Sacraments, but he did not reach the end, because of the difficult times and the Mohammedan persecutions.” He was one of the Superiors of the Dominicans in Nakhichevan and not Armenian, but of western European origin.73 The manuscript belongs to a group of translations from the Latin which were produced in Nakhijevan. Emma Korkhmazyan describes the décor of a similar example, the fourth book of Sentences written at Gladzor by Toros Taronats’i in 1325 (Mat. 560).74 And Gabriella Uluhogian describes still another very modest title page décor with small marginal designs in pen and three incipit letters in red ink.75 A third example of a similar decoration is in the above-discussed (Figure 6.7) book of the Sermons of Bartolomeo dal Poggio/da Bologna, vescovo of Maragha76, translated from Persian in the monastery of Krn’a (“in provincial Naxivana”) by his pupil Yakob, who finished the translation in 1331.77 It is well known that the newly converted Armenian friars changed their monastic garb for the habit of the Dominicans.78 We do not know if the Dominican monasteries in Nakhijevan were outfitted in Latin style. The well-prepared friars perhaps have left the Armenian artistic outfitting of the church intact, including any tomb decoration. We have discussed the list of the stolen “outfitting” of the Cathedral of Sultaniyah, which reached Rome in 1398, and which the pope intended to replace. It shows that the Latin Bishop in the Orient only used Latin outfitting in his Cathedral and during mass.79 Certainly, the Dominicans, likewise, must have used

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these “Baculum pastoralem, mitram, missale, breviaria, libros ecclesiasticos, calices, cruces, ornamenta ecclesiastica (reliquiary?, candle sticks?), pannos laneos et lineos, vbestes, lectos, lectisternia, domorum utensilia . . . vasa aurea et argentea” produced in Italy. The colophon of a Calendar and Breviary for the whole year according to the Dominican right which was written in Krna/Nakhijevan in 1338 (kept in the Collection of Armenian manuscripts in the British Library, Add.16, 408) by a Latin friar little acquainted with the Armenian language, states that the book was an “ornament to the Church” and “obedient to the decree of Rome.” And since the text was indeed according to and “obedient to the decree of Rome,” all was fine. Thomas Aquinas’ first book of his ‘Summa Theologica’ presents an intellectual base to understand the main differences between Latin and Armenian art. Aquinas’ main ideas about the criteria of beauty, integras, perfectio, harmonia, claritas, in contrast to Armenian ideas about beauty refer to three-dimensionality and realism of the human body.80 In contemporary Italy, the extensive fine fresco cycles of Franciscan and Dominican churches were teaching tools for the preachers and included scenes from the Lives of the orders’ founders, St. Francis and St. Dominic. By recurring to artistic models from Rome’s ancient past and to scholasticism, influential artists such as Giotto, who was a member of the Franciscan Order, and Fra Angelico, a Dominican, reinvented “Western” painting in the centres of Latin Christianity. And together with the missionaries, these artistic inventions reached Armenia, too. Armenian artists absorbed non-Armenian artistic elements, without changing their own artistic traditions. Armenian arts are “preserving as they were the national identity, proved to be involved in one cultural sphere or another”81, such as Cappadocia, the Syrian-Arabic countries, Persia and Mesopotamia, Crimea and Europe. Still, artists created something new! Western maps adjusting biblical geography of Armenia. Saints With the opening of the western Silk Road for European merchants and missionaries and with new travel reports and maps the knowledge about these regions increased and quickly deepened. The visual experiences of the long-distance travellers entered these new detailed maps drawn not only by European cartographers, but also by Arabs. Medieval Arab maps focused on sea-land relationship and climatic zones of central Asia and the Middle East82, as shown for example Al-Mustawfi’s map dated 1339/1340, which includes Armenia Minor and Major and the lands of the “Franks,” Europe. Other Arab maps show geographical landmarks in great details such as Mount Ararat, Tigris and the river Euphrates. The Cottonian Map, however, dated around 1050, was drawn “at the time, when strict Christian topography was the rule”83 and for the first time shows a tower-like looking Noah’s Ark (“Arca Noe”). It rests on the “Montes Armenie,” the typical twin peaks of the Ararat, just as the mountain will be depicted on future maps. The tower resting on the twin peaks will remain the major Armenian symbol. Likewise, an Armenian map dated between 1206 and 1360, includes numerous Christian topographic details within the network of long-distance trade routes reaching from China to Europe84, while European mapmakers continued depicting monuments belonging to the Armenian sacred geography, for example, the Vercelli Map (ca. 1200) with the twin peaks of the Ararat and the church-like Sepulchre of St. Bartholomew85 with a tambour and a cupola.

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The Ebstorf Mappa Mundi86, dated around 1232, too, shows architectural features which resemble resembling typical monuments of the area: the Sepulchre of St. Bartholomew is right next to the Ararat in the map, however, not a church-like building like in the Vercelli map, but the structure of a small “temple” (no. 6 of the map) combined with an altar looking like a tomb. It resembles the typical temple in the border decor of Armenian manuscript illumination, a true cultural marker like the Armenian vignettes running along the side of manuscript pages. This rich sacred geography of Armenia included the Apostles’ tomb churches of Thaddeus and Bartholomew and John the Baptist.87 They all lay close to the main stretch of the western Silk Road, the monastery of St. Bartholomew not far from the city of Van and St. Thaddeus not far from Maku. St. Bartholomew’s remains were brought into safety to Rome during the sixth century, where they still are today in the church of San Bartolomeo all’ Isola, the Tiber Island. Its foundation stands above the ancient Aesculap temple.88 The ancient Armenian monastery of St. Thaddeus with its church, rebuilt in 1318 with black and white striped stone walls, still stands. It is on Iranian territory. First Dominican, then Franciscan missionaries had taken over it. The tomb church of St. John the Baptist stood close to Mush, west of Lake Van. It was one of the oldest Armenian monasteries but destroyed in 1915. Did Italian worshippers of the fourteenth century, who admired the fresco cycle of the life of St. John the Baptist in the Peruzzi Chapel of S. Croce know where the Apostles’ tomb churches were located? Perhaps not. The events depicted in the cycle do not inform us about it. Islamic faith has partaken John the Baptist, too. Until 708, the St. John’s church of Damascus kept the Apostle’s head. It was then transformed into an Oumaiad Mosque.89 As discussed earlier, Armenia’s sacred geography also included the city and province of Nakhijevan with its connection to Noah. He is said to have lived here and planted wine on the slopes of the Ararat. A medieval octagonal crypt-like chapel and tomb structure of Noah existed in the city. Noah’s wife, however, according to a fifteenth-century Italian travel report, was believed to have been buried in Marand, half-way between Nakhijevan and Tabriz.90 This sacred geography is closely related to the Garden of Paradise, from where Tigris and Euphrates flow from their sources located in Armenia. Alessandro Scafi91 discusses the growing interest in Armenia and neighbouring Mesopotamia with regard to the location of the Paradise and of Noah’s Ark. Although the subject has not been researched in depth, it seems that missionaries in Armenia “created” new saints. We know that the founder of the first Armenian Dominican monastery Krna, Hovhannes, after his death, around 1340–1350, was made a saint. There must have been a funerary chapel in the monastery church erected for his memory. Likewise, the famous abbot of Tatev monastery was sanctified and a chapel adjacent to the main aisle of the church was built for him. Due to the growing Armenian Diaspora communities in medieval Italy, reflections of subjects or themes related to Armenia in the arts of contemporary fourteenth-century Italy exist, but despite the growing number of Armenian immigrants in Italian cities, it surprises that we hardly find any Armenians depicted in Italian paintings.92 In Italy, only one Armenian saint, St. Gregory the Illuminator, is venerated in S. Gregorio Magno in Naples. The catalogue Roma-Armenia dedicated an entire section on the Armenian Catholic Saints93, and Michele Bacci studied the history of St. Davinus of Lucca.94 Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s altar of the Maesta in Massa Marittima, originally for San Pietro all’Orto, 1335, shows the Armenian Benedictine saint San Simeon of Mantua standing to the right of the Virgin (Figure 6.15). He was an Armenian on pilgrimage to Rome

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Figure 6.15 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Maesta, Cathedral, panel painting, Massa Marittima, 1335 Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut

and Santiago and was canonised during the eleventh century.95 He can be identified by his Armenian veghar and his beard, standing on the Virgin’s right side in the first row. Fourteenth-century painting in Italy shows a greater number of images related to Christian martyrdom, especially of Dominican monks, for example, there is an image by the Dominican painter Fra Angelico of the stabbing of a Dominican by a Muslim, while a crown of martyrdom appears from heaven.96 Martyrdoms happened not only by the hands of Muslims, but documents show that Armenians, too, took deadly revenge on the missionaries. In Nakhijevan in 1381, numerous Dominican friars suffer “cruelties, imprisonment and even death.”97 Because the Armenian vardapet (priest) Yakob of Kołb “went over to the heresy of the Franks” he had “to suffer terrible death together with ten companions. They were boiled alive in those huge cauldrons that stood at the front door of Armenian churches for the purpose of cooking ‘matał’ or animal sacrifice.” Matał was especially condemned by the Latin Church. One tormentor was Maghak’ia Ghimets’I (from the Crimea), a defender of the Armenian church and repressor of the union movement by using violent means. “He is said to have imprisoned Ounitộrq (united Dominican) friars and tormented them cruelly with his own hands.”98 Competition between the churches did result at times in violence. Sources tell of Armenians asking more friendly Muslims to help them against the Latin missionaries. For example, various sources tell about day-to-day problems with the Latins for example in Erzurum, where they prohibited the Armenians to repair their own churches.

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Fifteenth century This selection of fifteenth-century works of art includes two of the most extraordinary and well-known Italian Renaissance art works and are closely connected with the main subject of this book: The frescoes of the Story of Noah in S. M. Novella in Florence and the Doors of the Union created by Filarete for Old St. Peter’s in Rome. The other examples in the list include Armenian miniature painting from Vaspurakan, and especially Minas, equally famous painter of the most influential Armenian painting school of the century. Florence, Santa Maria Novella During the fourteenth until the late fifteenth century, the most important didactic decorative painting programme of the Dominican order in Italy was painted in S. M. Novella. The unique iconography and style of the iconic frescoes of the stories of Noah in the Chiostro Verde of the Dominican Church of Florence, attributed to Paolo Uccello and collaborators, are well known. They are an artistic iconographical “by-product” of the Council of Florence, held in the monastery of S. M. Novella in 1438–1443 under the leadership of Eugene IV. The popes’ banker Cosimo de Medici influenced the decision of taking the Council from Ferrara to Florence. His portrait is shown in the monumental figure standing in the right foreground looking up towards the sky (Figure 6.16). It is possible that he was the patron of the Noah frescoes, since he had already commissioned the frescoed Battle of San Romano by the same painter earlier for his own house in Florence.99

Figure 6.16 Paolo Uccello, After the Flood from the Stories of Noah, wall painting, 1431–1446, Chiostro Verde, S. M. Novella, Florence Photo: Scala

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The stories of Noah from about 1431 to 1446 face the wall of the church. They are part of a large fresco cycle of the Genesis, which was begun in 1348. The Noah stories include “The Deluge and the water subsiding and leaving the Ark” and “Noah’s sacrifice and Drunkenness.” The main subjects of the frescoes in the chiostro verde were papal politics of the union council and the Dominican mission in the lands of Noah mixed with motifs, for example, realistically painted camels, of the Middle Eastern Silk Road trade. But understandably, for the Latin Dominicans and Latins in general, the story of Noah had a slightly different meaning than for the Armenians, since Mount Ararat is located in Armenia, where the ark had landed, Noah had founded the oldest settlement on earth in Nakhijevan and was later buried in a tomb monument.100 The focus of the Dominican missionaries, as we have seen, was on this biblical area through which the western stretch of the Silk Road passed through. It was of great interest for merchants and bankers like the Florentine Medici. And the Roman Church, too, claimed that Noah himself stood for Christ and that the ship of the ark had become a figure for the Church protected by Christ. The “Sour Petrosi” or Peter’s Sword (see above), vademecum for the Latin Asian missions, directed at the Armenians of the fourteenth century, compares the role of the Church of Rome with that of Noah’s ark, point of salvation. It claims that there is no salvation outside the universal Church of Rome, built on St. Peter’s.101 The council of the church union in Florence promoted exactly this, too: a union under the leadership of Rome and acceptance of the Latin dogma. So, what would an Armenian, perhaps an Armenian Dominican Unitore or a member of the numerous Armenians of the Florentine Diaspora, had in mind when looking at Uccello’s fresco of the Chiostro Verde. First, he would have been surprised to see Noah and the ark depicted, since Armenian painters did neither depict the story of Noah, nor were they especially interested in Renaissance perspective, but a prevalent part of Uccello’s art, nor the wide spectrum of depicting human drama, including, for example, a man in the foreground in deep water holding on to the feet of the Medici trying not to drown. Second, since the early Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi in his History of the Armenians (Moses of Khoren, probably fifth century), the father of Armenian historiography, gave Armenians a long and continuous sense of history that was integrated in world civilisation and in the biblical narrative . . . He was also the author of the Armenian myth of origin . . . The myth asserts that Armenians are direct descendants of Noah, through his son Japheth. Haik, the father of Armenians, comes from this lineage. Being a righteous man, he rebelled against Bel, the evil leader of Babylon. Haik then moved from Babylon back to the land of the Ark where he settled along with his family and followers . . . The roots of the Armenian nation were thus established around Mount Ararat with Haik and his family.102 The legend makes Armenia the cradle of civilisation, connects Armenians to the biblical narrative and makes Mount Ararat a powerful national symbol. There were also attempts to trace back the Armenian language to biblical times. It was believed that the ark had been decorated with paintings, and the talent of fifteenth-century painter Minas was compared to the artist who had once painted the ark! In the Armenian spectator’s imagination, the Noah story would have evoked very strong feelings of Armenian homeland and identity and most certainly would have evoked strong images of the majestic mountain raising above the Armenian plains and

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perhaps even images of Noah’s tomb. Gebhardt’s interpretation of the Medici portrait figure as new Noah or descendant of Noah in the sense of Pax Medicea and a Golden Age of Florentine is not entirely convincing. For the Florentine Dominicans, the Noah story as a part of the other Genesis scenes of the Chiostro Verde had a specific missionary meaning that is the union of the churches gathered in the ark as proclaimed by the Florentine church council. This claim had already been the subject of the earlier artistic decoration of the Dominican church S. M. Novella. Since the fourteenth century, its walls and the adjacent refectory were painted with didactic cycles with images showing the scholastic philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Andrea da Firenze had painted the Triumph of the Roman Church on the walls of the refectory with the Apotheosis of Thomas Aquinas, Scenes from the Life of Peter Martyr and scenes of preaching to non-believers, that is, Oriental Christians (Figure 4.6). The Strozzi chapel inside the church shows an eschatological cycle including crowds of non-believers with “Oriental” facial features. The entire pictorial programme served the Dominican missions on the base of the Roman dogma. A few years later, in 1487ff, Filippino Lippi painted an African on the wall of S. M. Novella, a monumental figure (Figure 6.17). His portrait features stand out from the crowd of people painted in the scenes of the Life of St. Philipp on the wall of the Strozzi chapel in the choir of the church, and is clearly visible from the main nave, but he can’t be identified.103 The defined face of the black man looks like a portrait and is unique in contemporary Italian painting. He appears to be of high rank, in rich clothes and adornment, whereas all the other peoples’ clothes in the Philipp frescoes seem “fantastic.” The sombre-looking African has a powerful presence through his height, severe attitude and the amazing richness of his exotic clothes and his silken folded dress. This dress resembles the Ethiopian royal Toga with gold embroidery.104 His high cone shaped woollen head gear resembles the one of an African in Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut “Flagellation,” after 1502. Here, an African with this distinct head dress stands at the left in the foreground pointing with his finger at Christ.105 Although Lippi’s African can’t be identified, his presence can only be linked to the various Ethiopian embassies to Italy and Florence especially. Lippi painted two huge fresco cycles in the Dominican churches of Florence and in Rome, both symbolic triumphs of Christianity, from where the dogmatic “vaticanisation” of the Oriental Christians took start. The imposing figure of the black man in S. M. Novella appears at a time, when several contemporary Italian artists like Carpaccio had reached great skill in representing gatherings of foreigners in an eyewitness style by painstakingly painting Oriental costumes and physiognomy. The patron of this burial chapel, to the right of the main altar is another influential rich banker, Filippo Strozzi.106 Forty years before, the Ethiopians had attended the Council of Florence in the convent. The Noah cycle overlaps with the creation of Filarete’s contemporary bronze doors for S. Peter’s in Rome, next in our list. As we have seen the door’s programme includes Armenian inscriptions. It may be proof that Filarete was aware of the Oriental Christians there speaking their languages. Rome, Old St. Peter’s The main features of the unique “multi-layered” iconography of Filarete’s famous Renaissance bronze doors of St. Peter’s (1433–1445) are the “riddles” of Filarete the artist, the focus on Pope Eugene IV’s church political “historia” in representing scenes from his pontificate’s greatest successes and a certain “assimilation” of the Christian Oriental letters and languages as part of the “family” of all the Christian languages.

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Figure 6.17 Filippino Lippi Ethiopian, 1487ff., S. M. Novella, Florence, choir chapel, detail Photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut

In the previous chapter “crossroads and languages,” we have discussed these “riddles” in detail. Before recapitulating, a focus on the historical scenes is necessary, since the door is also unique in its first known depiction of Coptic Christians and Ethiopians, and it bears hitherto unknown inscriptions in Armenian and Persian (Figures 5.14 and 5.15). But a complete analysis of their various (other than Latin and Greek) Oriental inscriptions (they are placed on both wings of the door) in Armenian, Persian, Arabic and perhaps Ethiopian letters/inscriptions, still does not exist.107 Only few efforts have been undertaken by linguists to decipher the Oriental inscriptions, but with little results.108

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Each of the two wings is divided into three panels, two bigger and one smaller, with historical reliefs underneath the two upper panels, which were added to the iconographical programme at a later stage. On the left wing are Christ on top, St. Paul below and the martyrium of the Apostles underneath. On the right side is Mary with St. Peter below, who is given the keys of the Church by Eugene IV, and St. Peter’s martyrium underneath. Under each of the four upper panels are historical scenes: The Emperor John VIII Palaeologus on the sea voyage to Italy and his reception by Pope Eugene IV; a session of the Council of Ferrara-Florence and the departure of the Greeks from Venice; the coronation of Sigismund and his procession with the pope through Rome; Copt abbot Andrew of the monastery of St. Anthony in Egypt receiving the bull of union in Florence and arrival of Abbot Andrew in Rome together with Ethiopians to worship at the tombs of the Apostles (Figure 5.7). Four Copts had travelled to Rome together with four Ethiopian monks.109 The Oriental Christians are easily to be identified since they are depicted in eyewitness style in their individual dress, simple robes slung around their bodies and covering their heads. Indeed, other delegations from the Oriental Churches had also attended the council. They are listed in the inscriptions on Eugene IV’ tomb monument: Armenians, “who had accepted the pope as head of the Church by following the example of the Greeks.” The Ethiopians “who had accepted the Roman creed” and the Syrian, the Arab and Indian Christians as well.110 Indeed, Maronite, Druse and Syrian delegations arrived in Rome, and Indians seem to have attended the council, too. While in 1433, when Filarete had already started work on the bronze doors, invitation letters to the Armenian Catholicos were sent off. The Armenians present in Florence, however, did not have the authority to sign any union agreement with Rome, and neither the Armenian nor the Ethiopian Church ever agreed on the church union, although Latin-friendly Armenians in the Diaspora of Caffa/Crimea or Lvov in Poland were favourable to the union.111 Documents report who arrived from the Crimea to attend the Council in Florence: two Bishops, a certain Vartaped Sarkis, chaplain of the pope, a Franciscan called Basile, a Unitarian named Nerses, and the Dominican interpreter Thomas Simeon. Aside from the humanistic iconography typical of the Renaissance, the doors’ main church political message is the “successful” union of the Eastern and Latin Churches, and the celebration of the successes of the life of the donor Pope Eugene IV. It is not by chance that the pope’s life events shown on the bronze doors and in the pope’s tomb monument’s inscription are the same: for the pope and his Renaissance historians, having received the emperors of the “West” and of the “East” and having “united” the Eastern and Latin Churches under the Roman leadership with their representatives present at the Curia, were the most important events of his papacy. The doors’ iconographical programme celebrates these events and “opens” the basilica for the pilgrims arriving from the (united) Christian nations of the Eastern and Western world. It speaks in their languages to these Christians from the far frontiers of Christianity. At the same time, the pilgrim compounds for the Armenians, discussed earlier, continued of course to receive the Armenians. As discussed in the previous chapter, we find inscriptions in Greek and Latin, Armenian, Arabic and Persian. The Armenian letters all appear distorted or even upside down, and therefore unlikely to have been designed by an Armenian. So, where was Filarete’s source of inspiration? He could easily have obtained help from the Armenians living in Florence or Rome and at

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the union council he could have had access to the translators for the Oriental delegations. Translators helped, for example, the Copt Abbot of St. Anthony monastery in Egypt when he held a speech in Arabic. It was then translated into Italian and into Latin.112 These Armenian letters, often distorted or sometimes upside down, are a sign that the creator of the bronze doors inscriptions was no linguist. Did he simply copy letters from various alphabets without understanding their meaning? On the other hand, the Armenian inscription mixed with Arabic letters is clearly something like a “riddle,” which only a linguist could have understood. If this is so, then Filarete (or a collaboratorconsultant) used the various letters and “words” and consciously “mixed” the letters of Oriental alphabets by placing them side by side. But why did he do this? Piemontese quotes an interesting passage from Filarete’s architectural treatise, in which he mentions his love of transcribing Hebrew, Arabic and Greek letters.113 Filarete, who spent his early years in Florence, was perhaps acquainted with inscriptions in foreign alphabets on panel paintings of Florence, used by artists since the thirteenth century. Giotto, like Filarete, used for his painted crucifix in S. M. Novella the titulus “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” as a trilingual inscription in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Its frame and halo all contain so-called “pseudo-Arabic” inscriptions.114 In the light of Filarete’s linguistic riddles with mixed letters and words, upside down letters, read from right to left, and so on, probably more of these so-called pseudo-Arabic inscriptions will be translated in the future. The need to insert Armenian inscriptions lasted beyond Filarete’s time, since there is a later one, though non-dated, underneath the historical relief “Arrival of Abbot Andrew in Rome” on the lower frame: “Surb Krikor” (Saint Gregory the Illuminator) in Armenian letters, again on eye level. Vaspurakan Minas painted his “Adoration,” which fills an entire page of the lectionary (31.4 cm high and 21.5 cm wide) between 1460 and 1465 (Figure 6.18).115 The composition is clearly structured and rather calm and is divided into two registers. The bigger upper part, taking about two-thirds of the page, shows the Adoration with Mary and the three Kings and in the left corner on top is the Annunciation to the Shepherds. Three angels look down to the scene from the sky. On the left Mary and the Kings appear before a bright blue background covered with small golden stars, and on the other side sits Joseph, and three loaded horses in beautiful colours calmly move towards him. The style is fluent and linear, and the colours are bright. The expressive soft gestures and the round pretty faces seem almost doll-like. There is no focus on perspective or three-dimensionality, but only on the main characters of the scenes, except for the young king’s cloak. Minas was the style maker of the Vaspurakan school of painting. Vardanyan describes the miniatures “based on symbolic dogmatism accompanied by certain elements of folk imagery.” Figures are of essentially linear character, expressive with lack of perspective, presented in frontal view with energetic gestures.116 Vardanyan notices the differences to traditional Armenian illuminations of the subject, for example, the ornate robe of the young king, the fact that the focus is on the Adoration and not on the Nativity, and the combination with the scene of the shepherds. This is not entirely true. In contrary, Minas adjusted Cilician thirteenth-century models by showing Mary and the Christ child sitting on a cushioned bench and not lying beside the crib.

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Figure 6.18 Minas, Adoration, 1460–1465, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 982–4b

In fact, the entire composition of the Adoration resembles Gentile da Fabriano’s famous altar painting of the “Adoration” in Florence, 1432 (Figure 6.19). In both cases, in the upper left and right part of the composition, additional scenes are painted. Gentile’s figures wear beautiful Renaissance brocade dresses with real gold and precious

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stones. In Italy, imported velvets, brocades and silks were omnipresent, and fashion adopted Eastern garb. In Minas’ Adoration, too, the young king’s garb clearly stands out, an extravagant short coatdress with a feathered leaf pattern which is pure ornament, flat and decorative, added by red boots, like the other two kings, and green pants. The coat is entirely covered with an upside down leaf or feather pattern in red, violet, green and blue and around his shoulders hangs a red cloak fastened by a brooch. The figure of the youngest king is similar to his counterpart in the Florentine altar painting almost a “cut out” of the Florentine model. They both stand in the foreground and turn towards the spectator. Only their hands gesture in a different way. The coat of Gentile’s young king in red boots is covered with an elaborate floral pattern, a second one hangs from his shoulders. Rosalind Mack117 believes that Gentile’s Adoration is the first example of “Christianised” Tartar fabrics in Italian painting, when Oriental palmettes and lotus flowers were exchanged with grenade motif. Minas’ king probably wears fabric made in Armenia, since the leaf-feather pattern is not modelled after Tartar fabric. Above, we discussed the leaf pattern of a coat dress of one of the members of the Cilician royal family (Figure 5.14). Minas left his signature on the Crucifixion page of the Lectionary. Vardanyan translates the manuscript’s colophon, which notes its provenance as the city of Archesh/

Figure 6.19 Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration, 1432, S. Trinita, Florence Photo: Scala

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Vaspurakan and the scribe Yovhannes, who copied during the Catholicosate of Zak’ariay of Ejmiadsin. The manuscript was then presented to the monastery of Aght’amar in honour of the beginning of the reign of the newly elected Catholicos, the future King Smbat of Vaspurakan, nephew of Zak’ariay. Minas was one of the most celebrated and influential artists of fifteenth-century Armenia who worked in monasteries around Lake Van for the highest clergy. He used gold extensively and created a new elegant style, different from his contemporaries. He was a court painter. Minas’ style is characterised by a calculated control of thirteenth-century Cilician compositions after which he modelled his images by adjusting and modernising. The special attention on the young King and his dress in the “Adoration” falls into an era of national Armenian Renaissance. Vardanyan calls Minas’ art the auxiliary to the ecclesiastical politics with the task of confirmation of the power of the national Church, which in the end was the response of the Armenian church to the Catholic missionaries and the Unitarian movement.118 Contemporary to the reign of Pope Pius II, the creation of the Lectionary for Catholicos Zak’ariay of Ejmiacin falls into the period of the restoration of the Kingdom of Vaspurakan and the long-interrupted reunion of the Armenian church, but also according to the colophon, during a time of “incredible calamities by the Infidels against the Christians.” Despite these destructions, the painting schools in the monasteries of Vaspurakan were the only ones surviving. The Timurid Jihan Shah (1437–1467), although a cruel ruler involved in Christian persecutions, allowed some Armenian churches to be rebuilt, the catholicosate of Ejmiadsin re-established, and the Akhtamar clergy relative freedom, while taxes, especially for the Christians, remained extremely high. At that time, Christians had to wear a blue mark for identification.119 Meanwhile, the Latin mission went strong in Nakhijevan and in the Crimea. Minas’ young king and its earlier Italian model prove the artist’s interest in Italian arts. But how come he used a Florentine inspiration? After his coronation in 1466, King Smbat’s court in Akhtamar existed only for one year. Certainly, foreign embassies must have been received there, gifts exchanged. Armenian pilgrims to Rome and beyond must have travelled through and from the monasteries and the court of Vaspurakan. Did Minas travel with one of these to Italy? The contacts between Rome’s papacy and the court of Akhtamar must have been intense.120 Catholicos Zak’ariay of Ejmiadsin died poisoned in 1464, in the same year as Pius II. Especially Pope Pius II entertained contacts with the Turkoman Uzun Hassan, ruler of Greater Armenia including Vaspurakan. In 1460, while Minas painted, Uzun Hassan sent the well-known embassy led by Ludovico da Bologna to Florence and Rome, including an ambassador from the King of Trebizond, two Georgian Kings and an Armenian called Murad, “who wore a big cloak and a pointed hat.”121 The goal was to gather a European army to fight against the Mamluks and the Turks. Ludovico da Bologna’s long political career in the Orient did not reach its aim, since the situation in all of the countries of the Christian Orient was becoming more and more desperate due to the ever-growing Muslims’ strength. Is perhaps the young King wearing a dress made of Armenian fabric a symbol of the new King and Kingdom of Vaspurakan? Just like Gentile da Fabriano’s young King, precious fabric expressed the wealth and sumptuousness of the princely courts. The patron of the “Adoration” in S. Trinita in Florence was the banker Palla Strozzi, who was like the Medici involved in long-distance trade. The precious outfitting of the caravan of the Three Kings shows the patron’s love for luxury fabrics, foreign animals, such as monkeys, camels and leopards. He had his access to the Oriental markets via Venice and Trebizond.122

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The (painted) luxury fabrics are the commercial link between the two paintings. And the “voyage” of the motif of the young king is the counter part to the luxury fabric “travelling” from East to West. The “Adoration” of Minas, however, its purity, sobriety, colouring and restrained expressive qualities, could hardly be more different from the sheer excesses of luxury shown almost “aggressively” in a “horror vacui” style in the earlier Italian painting commissioned by a banker. Eschatological themes In the arts of the Latin “West,” prior to the fifteenth century, depictions of the Last Judgement, Hell and Purgatory were widespread. Armenian art, in contrary, had adopted eschatological scenes only during the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Only then, the extension of the Armenian repertory of the 16 bible images could be extended.123 During the Council of Florence, the subject of purgatory was discussed. At least we know that Cardinal Cesarini told the Greek “that those who die in charity but not without sin go to Purgatory and the wicked and the just respectively to hell and heaven and that immediately after death.”124 The Vaspurakan school of painting extended their repertoire by creating new scenes like the “Suffering of the Damned before the Throne of Satan,” “Second Coming” and “Harrowing of Hell.” Interestingly, these scenes show details which we know from monumental fourteenth-century Italian paintings like Last Judgement, Hell and Purgatory. Armenian artists borrowed certain details from Latin models, for example, the condemned in the Armenian miniatures are shown sitting on the ground of Hell with legs embraced by their arms, others have cords tied around their necks or burn in fire with only their heads sticking out of the flames. An Armenian Gospel illuminated in Berkri in 1475 shows the “Souls in Hell” crouching on the floor with their legs embraced.125 The manuscript has 23 full-page miniatures, and four of them illustrate the Last Judgement. According to Der Nersessian, the depiction of Hades clasping a soul to his breast, while the two-headed monster on which he sits is vomiting souls, derives from Byzantine art, for example, from the mosaics of the eleventh-century Cathedral of Torcello. However, other features are new, and they are variations of Italian fourteenth-century paintings. The scene “Souls in Hell” crouching on the floor with their legs embraced repeats illustrations of the Hell of Dante, for example, as painted by the Italian painter Orcagna, in his fourteenth-century monumental eschatological painting in the Dominican church of S. M. Novella in Florence. In the Berkri Gospel, the three rows of sinners are each filled with three crouching nude figures seen from the front. The inscription above the upper row is illegible, but over the left half of the second is written “sleepless awake.”126 And above the right part is written “Fire of Hell.” The inscription above the low register, where serpents crawl around the sinners, reads on the left “whore,” and to the right “they are listening” and “tongues of sin.” The figure of the whore shows its tongue hanging out of her mouth. Below on the margin’s left part are eight semi-circular objects and on the right two little demons carry those semi-circular “loads” on their backs.127 Below the representation of Hades, on the margin, are four nude sinners drawn with ropes around their necks. These ropes are similar to representations of the Last Judgement, for example, as seen on French Cathedral tympanums.

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Martiros, the Armenian pilgrim travelling in late fifteenth-century to Rome and Santiago, describes such enchained sinners being led into hell. He was fascinated by the tympanum of the facade of Notre-Dame in Paris, and its realism left a deep emotional effect on him. This was accentuated by the relief figures’ colour, which he describes. He writes, The two wings of the portal in the middle show Christ standing. Above that door Christ presides over the (Last) Judgement. He sits on a golden throne and is all decorated with layers of gold plate. . . . Satan and all the demons follow him; they lead the enchained sinners into hell. Their faces are so horrible that they make the beholder tremble and shudder. In front of Christ are the apostles, prophets, patriarchs and all the saints, painted in different colours and decorated with gold. This represents paradise and looking at it enchants the beholder.128 Another illustration of Hell in the same manuscript from Berkri shows standing sinners whose tongues are sticking out (the ones in the middle), who put their hands to their ears (right) and to their breast (left).129 The figures bound together by serpents are shown from their front have counter-parts in the upper register which appear mirror-like. With the serpents’ heads and tails in a repetitive slow motion, the scene is almost decorative. This eschatological image is an image of “Harrowing of Hell” and has no connection to the Bible. The inscription underneath the scene simply reads “This is hell where the sinners are tortured.” Could this scene refer to life in times of war and especially under Muslim rule? Is this scene perhaps understood as life as it was and its suffering? The character of the illuminations in the style of Vaspurakan is expressive and decorative with their clear repetitive lines and the reduction of the gestures. While the subject is dramatic, the artists avoid any chaos and emotional exaggeration.

Sixteenth century Armenian Renaissance woodcuts In early sixteenth-century Venice, several woodcuts and paintings proof the existence of the Armenian foreign minority in the city. Besides the Armenian existed Greek, Jewish, Dalmatian and Albanian Diaspora communities. The Armenian settlements in Italian cities, and elsewhere, normally consisted of a church, a convent and a group of houses, closed towards the outer side. Here, mostly Armenian merchants originating from Cilicia, Constantinople and the Caucasus lived. The Venetian Armenian Diaspora was the most numerous and is the best documented one in Italy.130 At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Italian Renaissance style appeared in Armenian woodcuts in the Venetian Diaspora, probably cut by Italian artists, and were a consequence of the Armenian Diaspora community’s growing identification with the Roman Dogma. On the other hand, the outfitting and décor of the Armenian churches in Italy, which were Roman Churches anyway, were (of course) Italian, as for example documented for the Armenian Basilian church in Florence, S. Basilio in Via S. Gallo, outfitted with altar paintings and sculptures done by the workshop of Giotto.131 Here, the Armenian delegation from the Crimea had lodged during the Council of Florence. The Basilian order with its close ties to the Dominicans, had convents in various Italian cities, such as in Rome, Florence, Siena, Milano and more.132

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Belonging to the complex and well-researched Armenian printing production, three Armenian woodcut images made in Venice are of special interest for the art historian.133 The earliest Armenian woodcut print appeared in the first-ever printed book in the Armenian language in Venice in 1512, the so-called “Book of Fridays,” a prayer book for merchants (Figure 6.20).134 The printer was Hakob, called Meghapart (the Sinful).135 A box-like room in a Renaissance style environment shows a bearded man in bed, his slippers in front. The bed is on an elevated podium. Three clergymen approach from the left. Two are without beard and the one in front is bearded reciting from a book in his hands and wears an Armenian veghar, the conical shaped hood of the Armenian priest. In addition, on the opposite page, a folded band with Armenian inscription decorates the top, which is an Italian, not an Armenian motif. Another Armenian cultural marker is the wall covering, an arabesque décor resembling the Armenian vignettes. This profane scene is unusual for Armenian art. Here, an Italian artist has followed contemporary Italian models by making this woodcut and simply added the veghar and the arabesque décor to a Renaissance three dimensional “box room.” The Armenian monk assisted by two “Latin” clergymen reflects the real situation of a merchant in a Venetian (Latin) environment receiving priestly assistance perhaps at his home or hospital. The second woodcut image is in a Psalter produced in Venice, 1566.136 It shows two choir boys singing psalms, grouped in front of a huge open book placed on a high carved wooden lectern. A second closed book leans on top of the lectern’s base. Two of the older one’s gaze towards the spectator, the others look up to the open book. All wear long ecclesiastical dresses with wide sleeves and the older ones also small soft caps. The only architectural details of the room are two small round windows with little columns. The only Armenian hint is the initial “B” in the bottom right corner of the picture. The

Figure 6.20 Book of Fridays, 1512, Mkhit’arist Congregation, San Lazzaro

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script is clearly carved Armenian bolorgir. Here, too, an Italian artist has collaborated with an Armenian scribe. No detail of the image, except the letters, point to an Armenian context. While Voskan (in the second case) used the woodcuts of non-Armenian engravers making no attempt to “Armenise” them, Hakob, in the first case, is attempting to familiarise the images for the Armenian reader. The third woodcut was printed in Venice in 1587, a title page of a Book of Psalms with the two portrait heads of father, patron and printer of the woodcut, and his son.137 The father, bearded Yovhannes Terznts’i is on the left, holding an unidentified subject in his right hand and gesturing with his left as if speaking to his son Khatchatur on the right. Yovhannes Terznts’i had started printing in Rome in 1580, and in 1583, together with his son, moved to Venice. The composition, most presumably also cut by an Italian artist, modelled after the contemporary fashionable Italian scheme of a double-portrait, unknown in contemporary Armenian arts. For example, Raffael painted his famous selfportrait with a friend in 1519, which is kept in the Louvre.138 The artist made no attempt to emphasise their Armenian identity and no inscription is helpful. Like the earlier-discussed fifteenth-century Noah frescoes in the Chiostro Verde in Florence, a subject tied to Armenian history and geography, the legend of the “TenThousand Martyrs of Mount Ararat” (discussed previously) appeared in Venice in 1514 and 1515. Two altar paintings show two versions of the legend. They are painted by Carpaccio for the same church, S. Antonio in Venice and commissioned by the prior’s nephew, Francesco Ottobon.139 The subject of the painting was evoked by a vision during prayer of the patron’s uncle, who was the prior of the now demolished S. Antonio monastery of Castello. To prevent pestilence from further spreading, Ottobon assigned Carpaccio to paint two altar paintings. Since the most important epidemic of plague occurred around this time was that of 1510, the vision, in fact, may have occurred then. Figure 6.21 shows Carpaccio’s side altar painting for S. Antonio from 1514, today in the Galleria dell’ Accademia in Venice, a huge panel of 307 × 20.5 cm. The painting’s story unfolds between past and present time probably reflecting a tense political situation of Venice during the years just after 1500 with Mamluks and Persian sultans on horseback, SPQR (a reference to the Holy Roman Empire) written on a flag held by a horseman and the Muslim crescent. While lightning strikes and a storm begins seen on the right side of the painting, they all watch the Christians being crucified on the branches of trees. Angels receive the newly converted Christians on top of Mt Ararat underneath a luminous disc of seven concentric rings indicating heaven, after they had fought against the infidel armies. A few years before, Dürer had made a woodcut of the same subject.140 Contemporary Venitians interpreted the 10,000 martyrs as military saints.141 The painting was destined for the patron’s family funerary chapel. Relics of the 10,000 would then be given to the main altar. Several Ottobon family members including the patron and other Venetians buried in the church were involved or died during the wars between Venice and the Ottoman armies at sea. And in 1513, during the very year of the commission to Carpaccio, Imperial as well as Ottoman troops practically stood at the gates of Venice. This iconological concept refers to a precise Venetian family’s worship and memorial. Three years after the first printed Armenian book with the image of a sick Armenian in need and helped by an Armenian monk, Carpaccio finished his other altar

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Figure 6.21 Vittore Carpaccio, formerly in S. Antonio, Venice, 1514, Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice Photo: Cameraphoto, Venice

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painting with the “Ten-Thousand Martyrs of Mount Ararat,” also kept in the Galleria dell’Accademia. In the 1515 version of the subject, the dead martyrs with their crosses on their shoulders march in pairs towards the altar of Ottobon’s church where St. Peter receives them. Like in S. M. Novella Florence, it is not clear if, although related to Armenian land, past and identity, the choice of subject had any connection to the Armenian Diaspora of Venice.142 Other references lead to the Armenian community of Venice, for example, a record of the Venetian church of S. M. in Celestia having said to have relics of the 10,000 Martyrs of Mount Ararat.143 And according to documents, a now lost fresco in the Franciscan church of Venice S. Giobbe depicted King Hetum II (1299–1304) in Franciscan habit and with inscription.144 During Ottobon’s time, Ararat and Armenia were in the hands of the “infidel” Safavid dynasty. Venetian travellers had passed the Ararat and recalled the non-accessibility of it. It was very well known in the “West” that biblical Mount Ararat was Armenia’s sacred mountain. But any reference to contemporary Armenian history is missing. During the years 1510–1520, the small Armenian church of S. Croce in the sestiere di S. Marco was renovated a few times. The Ottobons perhaps knew this. While Carpaccio painted, more wars between Ottomans and Safavids were going on Armenian territory destroying the nation to the brink of existence. The Venetians often tried to make alliances with the Safavids to put pressure on the Ottomans, for example, during the 1470s when envoy Caterino Zeno tried to negotiate with Uzun Hassan.145 In any case, the assimilation of Armenians into fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Venetian society was well under way. Alishan found about 200 mixed marriages during the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in the city’s lists. Nonetheless, the Armenian language (and alphabet inscriptions) were allowed during mass in the united Armenian churches. By “annexing” the iconography of Mount Ararat into the iconographic repertory, artists transferred it into the “Latin” iconography of Italy. This could have been a tool to help assimilate Armenians into the Roman Church. Armenian-made gift for the Doge of Venice Gabriele Caliari painted a monumental wall canvas in one of the reception halls in the Doge’s Palace in Venice with the reception ceremony of the Persian embassy of 1603, still in situ today (Figure 6.22). The painting is important for us because of its references to Armenia. For the first time in Western arts, in eyewitness style, Armenians are depicted on a monumental scale. And one of the embassy’s gifts to the Doge was probably produced by an Armenian workshop: a velvet and gold cloth with the images of Mary with the Christ child and one King adoring carrying a gift, a (piece of) fabric.146 The important Persian embassy from March 4, 1603 received great attention. The Safavid merchant-envoy of the Shah was Fathi Bayg, who arrived with three Armenians and six Persians.147 The scene in eyewitness style shows Doge Marino Grimani surrounded by three elderly turbaned Persian envoys with the Senators sitting along the wall of the reception chamber, the “Sala del Consiglio dei Dieci.” The walls are covered with shiny silk decorated with repetitive floral volutes which reflects the blue, yellow gold and light orange fabric of the dress of the attendants of the ceremony. In the foreground, one of the gifts is unpacked from a wooden box, a piece of white fabric with a golden arabesque pattern.

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Figure 6.22 Gabriele Caliari, Reception of the Persian Embassy, 1603, Doge Palace, Venice Photo: Cameraphoto, Venice

A translator (?) is leaning towards Fathi Bayg, dressed in golden silk, while a Venetian with a letter in his hand attends them. In front of the Doge and of the Persians, two Armenian merchants dressed in silks wearing slightly pointed fur-trimmed hats, face the Doge.148 Painted during this time of the reign of Shah Abbas I the Great and strong commercial ties between Iran, Venice and other Italian cities, the scene shows the specific seating order of the attendants during the reception ritual and the introduction of Armenian merchants, as subjects of the Shah, to the Doge. During the same year, 1603, the troops of Shah Abbas launched a general offensive and occupied Tabriz, Eastern Armenia and parts of the Transcaucasia. Before, various Persian missions to Europe tried to convince the Europeans to help against the Sultan, but in the end the Shah succeeded alone. The Persian troops, in 1603–1604, using scorched earth policy, with force drove away Armenians from the areas of Erzurum, Lake Van, Manazkert, Maku and especially the Armenian merchant city of Julfa to Isfahan, in total, about 350,000 Armenians. The inducing motive of these forced resettlements from Old to New Julfa was that with the Armenian help the Shah promote the production of raw silk in Persia and its sale abroad.149 The Armenians depicted in the painting were probably from Julfa or Isfahan, where already during the fifteenth century various Armenian merchants were granted trading privileges by the Persian kings.150 According to Vrej Nersessian, “in an age when European power was growing, simply to be a Christian gave an Asian merchant a significant advantage in any dealings with

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Europe or with Europeans.”151 In the painting’s foreground, two other Persians have taken a piece of stunning white silk decorated with golden arabesque flowers out of a wooden box.152 The 1603 embassy brought various precious gifts. The most interesting for us is a golden velvet cloth, which, according to Angelo Scrinzi, is now in the possession of the Museo Correr, Venice.153 Repetitive images of Mary with the Christ child and one “King” who carries a substantial piece of fabric in his hands are woven into it. Its width is approximately four metres and a half: “Un panno di seta ed oro a figure, lungo 3 braccia circa con 14 figure . . . alla persiana,”154 that is, the image of Mary and the Christchild and one “King” was woven into the fabric 14 times. The figures were set into a “poetic” landscape with lake, fish and birds all executed in beautiful colours. The style is what may be called “international,” that is, softly designed figures with Mary sitting cross-legged on the ground. She is surrounded by an “Eastern” style flame like halo. The dresses are all Persian, but the gift bearer’s head and profile are clearly inspired by Western painting. The Shah asked that the precious fabric should cover the ducal throne in S. Marco. And he sent the same gift to the King of the Moghuls: “Ne ha fatto fare un altro simile a questo, e lo ha mandato a presentare al re di Mogol suo grande amico.” In the previous embassy of 1600, the Persians had brought another precious golden cloth with the image of the Annunciation repeated 16 times and measuring four and a half by five metres. Because of their Christian images the golden velvets were most probably produced in Armenian workshops perhaps at the court of the Shah. The two huge precious pieces of luxury fabric with Christian imagery were probably made in the way shourdjars, Armenian liturgical vestments were made. However, the Venetian commentators say nothing about Armenian inscriptions, which were usually woven into the fabric of a shourdjar. Vrej Nersessian’s article about the so-called Marcy-Indjoudjian cope in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, dated late seventeenth century (late reign Shah Abbas), contains the image of another shourdjar from 1601 with inscriptions and with the images of Christ sitting on a throne supported by an angel, eagle, calf and lion, in an equally repetitive pattern as the Venetian piece.155 Given by a Persian embassy aimed at mutual trade contacts and with the introduction of Armenian merchants as subjects of the Shah to the Doge of Venice, the precious Armenian gift makes good sense. In Venice, Fathi Bayg had bought weapons and Italian paintings. On the way back to Isfahan, he was taken prisoner in Turkey. Some of his things were saved by a Venetian, such as Italian paintings of female portraits and devotional images and sent back to Venice. The remaining possessions were taken home by an Armenian a few years later, in 1609.156 Indeed, for example, the rich Armenian merchant of New Julfa/Isfahan khodja Safar, as documented by a Venetian receipt in 1610, purchased Venetian paintings: Nativity, a Madonna, the Saviour, a female nude undressing, the Magdalen nude and in a habit, a Venetian female portrait, a woman with dishevelled hair, Cassandra, and the last queen of Cyprus Caterina Cornaro.”157 Alishan reports (as usual without source) of another Armenian ambassador’s giftgiving of golden fabric, but now to the pope: “una volta l’ambasciatore Armeno portava varie pezzi con altri tessuti d’oro per regulare al Papa; arrivate a Venezia, furono trovate nascoste nella mare”158 Foreign embassies’ giving of precious fabrics was no rarity.

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Armenian “Silk Road Painting”: Jughayets’i, Michelangelo, Dürer and Italy

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Dürer’s art was widely used as models by artists who worked far beyond the borders of Europe. Dürer’s creations were conforming to the needs of the Vatican even before the existence of the control by the Roman institution of the Propaganda Fide led by the Jesuits. While the two embassies of Shah Abbas to Venice in 1600 and 1603 negotiated trading conditions and while political turmoil due to the Ottoman-Persian wars in Greater

Figure 6.23 Hakob Jughayets’i, Descent from the Cross, 1587, Matenadaran, Erevan, Inv. Nr. 6758, fol. 28v

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Armenia steadily grew, Hakob from (Old) Julfa, one of the most talented Armenian artists of all time created his master pieces. Firmly grounded in the Armenian artistic tradition, especially in the painting school of Vaspurakan, he invented new images and he borrowed from non-Armenian (more or less) contemporary artists. He was the inventor of a new highly individual style which we may call Armenian Mannerism, because of its stylistic parallels to western European Mannerist painting. His art is located in the artistic environments of contemporary Armenia and its spirituality, and the luxurious colours and shiny fabrics and décor depicted in his miniatures reflect the culture of his hometown at a crossroads of the Silk Road, Julfa. He borrowed elements from Buddhist art as well. In Hakob’s case, too, art historians were unsure of his models: “It seems likely that Hakob was influenced by Western models,” “Western influence,” “Western inspiration,” without having established any precise models, though.160 In the context of this chapter, the discussion of one of Hakob’s illuminations must suffice, the “Descent from the Cross,” 1587 (Figure 6.23).161 The scene with Joseph of Arimathea flanked by two angels holding the sunken down dead body of Christ in his lap while sitting on the ground with legs crossed has a long tradition in Western painting, but not in the traditional artistic repertoire of Armenia. Hakob shows a variation of the German-originating Vesperbild with striking similarities to the slightly earlier Pieta Bandini of Michelangelo (ca. 1547–1555, in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence).162 Dürer’s Trinity from 1511,163 too, as well as earlier fifteenth-century models all repeat a similar-looking composition of the holding of the dead body of Christ. In Armenian art history, Hakob’s style is the first unhindered preoccupation and a free and loose borrowing process of Western and non-Western artistic elements, while his art rested firmly in the Armenian artistic tradition. The result was a new individual style, previously unknown. It was also the starting point of a more “free” and independent use of Dürer’s woodcuts, which, in the future, became artistic icons widely used in the arts of the Christian Orient, as far as Ethiopia.164 Tempesta’s woodcuts after Dürer’s models from 1590/1591 were used for illustrations of an Arabic Bible produced in Rome.165 The same model was used later, for example, in 1665 by Takla Maryam in Ethiopia and in 1666–1668 in Voskan’s Armenian Bible printed in Amsterdam. The latter also used Dutch engravings and models inspired by Dürer.166

Notes 1 Vrej Nersessian, ‘The Marcy-Indoudjian cope’, Ars Orientalis, 40 (2011), 236. 2 Gabriella Uluhogian, Cataloge dei manoscritti armeni delle biblioteche d’Italia, Istituto poligrafico e Zacca dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, Roma, 2010. 3 (Vat.Arm.4), paper, 12.5 × 17.6 cm, ff. 3499v and 350. Catalogue Roma – Armenia, cat. no. VII 24, p. 211 and Tisserant, 1927, p. 224. 4 In 1915, the tenth-century monastery of Narek south of Lake Van in the Armenian province of Vaspurakan was destroyed and today a mosque stands at the site of the ancient church. 5 Claude Mutafian (ed.), Catalogue Roma – Armenia, Rome, De Luca, 1999, VII, 24. 6 ms. 1374/90. See Levon Zekiyan (ed.), catalogue Gli Armeni in Italia, de Luca Edizioni, 1990, p. 146. Parchment, 216 ff, 231 × 180 mm. 7 Armenia: Imprints of a Civilization, catalogue, Gabriella Uluhogian, Boghos Levon Zekiyan, and Vartan Karapetian (eds.), Milan, 2011, p. 214 (Sebouh Aslanian). 8 Gli Armeni in Italia, 2, n. 2. 9 A Holy Book as “ornament to the Church” (. . .) and “obedient to the decree of Rome” is what the colophon calls the Calendar and Breviary from K’rna/Nakhijevan from the year 1338 which is kept in the Collection of Armenian manuscripts, British Library Add.16, 408. See Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare, A Catalogue of the Armenian Manuscripts in the British Museum, British Museum, London, 1913, 159.

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10 S. Lazzaro, Venice, Ms. 1347. Parchment, ff.6 and 134. 15.2 × 23.3 cm. 11 Latin Bible, Vat.Lat. 20, f.3v., I Vangeli dei Popoli, La Parola e l’immagine del Cristo nelle culture e nella storia, Vatican City, catalogue, Tipografia Vaticana, Vatican City, 2000, n. 76. 12 I Vangeli dei Popoli, 2000, p. 312. 13 Giacomo Carlo Bascapé, ‘Iconografia dei sigilli dei Domenicani’, L’arte: Rivista di storia dell’arte medievale e moderna, N.S. 27 (1962), 125–138. 14 Literature about Momik is rare. An extensive discussion about Momik’s paintings and sources is in Thomas F. Mathews and Avedis K. Sanjian, Armenian Gospel Iconography, Washington DC, 1991, p. 61ff and Karen Mat’evsoyan and Lilit’ Zak’aryan, Momik Manrankartch (Momik the miniaturist), 13th – 14th centuries, (in Armenian with English summary, Erevan, 2010. 15 Armenia sacra, Jannic Durand, Dorata Giovannoni, and Joanna Rapti (eds.), Paris, Louvre, 2007, 320. 16 Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Armenian Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery, The Trustess, Baltimore, 1973, 15. 17 Vatican Library, Vat.Lat. 20, f.3v. I Vangeli dei Popoli, 2000, fig. 76. 18 Patrick Donabédian, ‘Le Tympan du Monument a deux Xač’kars d’Ełegis’, Revue des Etudes Arméniennes, N.S. 14 (1980), 393–413, and Lilit Zakarian, ‘Les arts en Grande Arménie (XIIIe-XVe siècle)’, Armenia sacra, (2007), 323–329. 19 Patrick Donabédian, ‘Le Tympan du Monument a deux Xač’kars d’Ełegis’, Revue des etudes armeniennes, N.S. 14 (1980), 393–413. 20 Lilith Zakarian, ‘Les arts en Grande Arménie (XIIIe-XVe siècle)’, Armenia Sacra. Memoire chretienne des Armeniens (IV–XVIII siècle), Louvre, Paris, 2007, 323–329. 21 See Figs. 3 and 4, Zakarian, ‘Les arts en Grande Arménie (XIIIe-XVe siècle)’, p. 325. 22 Mathews and Sanjian, Armenian Gospel Iconography, p. 58. 23 Mathews and Sanjian, Armenian Gospel Iconography, pp. 17–26. 24 J. Agop Hacikyan, The Heritage of Armenian Literature, vol. 2, Detroit, 2002, 534ff, p. 556. 25 Loenertz, ‘Eveques dominicains des deux Armenies’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum (10), 1940, 265. 26 Bernhard Bischoff, Mittelalterliche Schatzverzeichnisse I. Von der Zeit Karls des Grossen bis zur Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts, Veröffentlichungen des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte IV, München, Prestel, 1967, 144, 132, 135. 27 Luciano Petech, ‘Les Marchands Italiens dans l‘Empire Mongol’, Journal Asiatique, CCL (1962), 549–574. 28 Jean Richard, La papauté et les missions en orient en Moyen Age (13e au 15e siècles), Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome 33, Ecole Française de Rome, Rome, 1977, 170ff. 29 Otto von Simson, Das Mittelalter II, Propyläen Kunstgeschichte, Berlin, 1990, figs. 45, 50, 211. 30 James R. Russell, ‘Truth is what the Eye can see: Armenian manuscripts and Armenian spirituality’, in Thomas F. Mathews and Roger S. Wieck (eds.), Treasures in Heaven: Armenian Art, Religion and Society, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, 1994, pp. 147–175, 172. 31 Loenertz, 1940, pp. 140, 118. 32 The wide-spread, tight networks between the centre Rome, and the religious orders, their regular contacts and rules are discussed in Gisela Drossbach and H. J. Schmidt (eds.), Zentrum und Netzwerk: Kirchliche Kommunikation und Raumstrukturen im Mittelalter, Scrivium Friburgense, vol. 22, Berlin and New York, 2008, 7–41. 33 Anne Derbes, writing about the Near East, Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), catalogue, Helen C. Evans (ed.), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2004, pp. 449–462. 34 Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century, 2 vols., Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington DC, 1993, fig. 295. 35 Emma Korkhmazian, Deux Manuscrits Arméniens écrits et illustrés à Bologne, Atti del Quinto Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena, San Lazzaro, Venezia, 1988, 517–521, figs. 8–9. 36 Levon Zekiyan, ‘Le Colonie Armene del Medio Evo in Italia e le Relazioni Culturali ItaloArmene’, in Atti del Primo Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena, Bergamo 1975, San Lazzaro, Venezia, 880f. 37 Gabriella Uluhogian, Bologna e Gli Armeni, Atti del Quinto Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena, Venezia, Milan, Bologna and Florence, 1988, 1992, 531–538. 38 Giancarlo Vigorelli, Giotto: L’opera completa, Milano, 1994, 104, fig. 88.

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39 Mutafian, Catalogue Roma – Armenia, p. 221. 40 Korkhmazian, Atti del Quinto Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena, p. 521. 41 Antja Middeldorf-Kosegarten, ‘Beiträge zur sienischen Reliefkunst des Trecento’, MFI, XII (1966), 211–214, Helmut Köhren-Jansen, Giottos Navicella: Bildtradition, Deutung, Rezeptionsgeschichte, Römische Studien der Bibliotheca Hertziana, 1993. Almut Stolte, Der Maestro di Gherarduccio kopiert Giotto: Zur Rezeption der Arena-Fresken in der oberitalienischen Buchmalerei zu Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistoirschen Instituts in Florenz, 40 (1996), 2–41. 42 Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work, New Haven and London, 1992, 122. 43 Edda Vardanyan, Catalogue des Manuscrits du peintre Minas (XVe s.), REA, 1998–2000, 378. 44 Shiemenz, ‘A rare scene in the manuscript illumination of Vaspourakan: Local development or foreign influence?’, in Atti del Quinto Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena, San Lazzaro, Venezia, 1991, pp. 617–630 and Tanja Velmans, ‘Influences Orientales sur la Miniature du Vaspourakan du XIII au XVe Siècle’, Atti del Quinto Simposio Atti del Quinto Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena, San Lazzaro, Venezia, 1988, 637ff. 45 Vardanyan, Catalogue des Manuscrits du peintre Minas (XVe s.), n. 28. 46 Garegin Hovsepian, Colophons of manuscripts (in Armenian), Antilias, 1951, 36–46, Mutafian, Catalogue Roma – Armenia, p. 219, and Levon Zekiyan (ed.), Atti del Primo Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena, Bergamo, San Lazzaro, Venice, 1978, p. 642. 47 The Matenadaran owns four manuscripts produced in Bologna and Perugia. Lilit Zakarian, Irina Drampian, Emma Korkhmazian, and Hravard Hakopian, La Miniature Armenienne: Collection du Matenadaran, Erevan, 2006, 207ff. 48 Uluhogian, Bologna e Gli Armenia, Atti del Quinto Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena, p. 535. 49 Armenia Sacra, 2007, no. 124. 50 See for example the half-hidden faces in the décor foliage, Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, Laurence B. Kanter (ed. and others), catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994, 217, 240. 51 Vrej Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art, exhibition catalogue, The British Library, London, 2001, 214. 52 La Magie de l’Ecrit, catalogue, edited by Claude Mutafian, Marseille, 2007, 299, 5.13. British Library Add. 7941, fol. 5v-6, 22×16, parchment. 53 Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, p. 59. 54 Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, image p. 185. 55 Burchard Brentjes, ‘Eine Mainzer Handschrift von 1391 mit Miniaturen’, REA, 25 (1994– 1995), 353–368. 56 I thank Dr Vrej Nersessian for discussing the colophon with me. 57 See Christine Gadrart, Une image de l’Orient au XIVe siècle: les Mirabilia Descripta de Jordan Catala de Severac, Ecole des Chartes, Paris, 2005, 272f. 58 Matthews and Sanjian, Armenian Gospel Iconography, 17ff. 59 Matthews and Sanjian, Armenian Gospel Iconography, 184f. 60 See also Emma Korkhmazian, Toros Taronaci, ein armenischer Buchmaler des 14. Jahrhunderts und seine französischen Vorbilder, Wiener Jahrbuch fur Kunstgeschichte XLII, 1989, 81–100. 61 Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark, fig. 145a. 62 Mathews and Sanjian, Armenian Gospel Iconography, p. 67. 63 Nersessian, 2001, 213. 64 Vrej Nersessian, Armenian Illuminated Gospel Books, The British Library, 1987, 28. 65 Lilit Zakarian, ‘Un artista anti-unitore del XIV secolo’, in Mutafian (ed.), Roma-Armenia, Edizioni di Luca, Rome, 1991, pp. 176–180, VI 79, 176. 66 See the discussion on the invention, history and scholastic belief in purgatory and the accusation of heresy in Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1984. 67 I Vangelo dei Popoli 338, no images. Piemontese, 2000, 125, mentions a manuscript from 1338 in the BAV showing the first formal attempt of a transcription system. The author of

A chronology

68 69

70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

93 94 95 96 97 98

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the glosses may possibly be identified as Giovanni of Florence (d. 1374), a Dominican priest who served as the Bishop of Tiflis and was active for many years in the monastery of Krna in Aserbaijan. M. A. van den Oudenrijn, ‘Les adversaires de l’union’, Oriens Christianus, 45 (1961), 95–108, 95. Ayvazian (or Bernard Coulie, Repertoire des Bibliothèques et des Catalogues de Manuscrits Armeniens, Brepols-Turnhout 1992) quotes: M. Smbateants, Nkaragir Surb Karapet vanits Ernjakay ew srja kayic nora (Description du monastère Saint-Karapet d’Ernjak et de ses environs), Tbilisi, 1904, pp. 112–316, étudie et édite les colophons de manuscrits du Nakhijevan; 5 hors-textes présentent, liste de 226 manuscrits (liste établie en 1901) copies dans les monastères et les églises de Nakhijevan. M. A. van den Oudenrijn, Eine alte armenische Übersetzung der tertia pars der theologischen Summa des hl. Thomas von Aquin, Francke Verlag, Bern, 1955, fig. IV. See M. A. van den Oudenrijn, ‘Uniteurs et Dominicains d’Armenie’, Oriens Christianus, 40–43, 1956–1959, p. 122. Handes Amsorya, 52 (1938), 66, about the General Superiors of the United Brethren in Armenia during the fifteenth century. Oudenrijn gives a list of the superiors which with Maghak’ia K’rnets’i/from Krna, reaches up to the year 1471. Korkhmazian, Atti del Quinto Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena, 1984, pp. 53–81. Uluhogian, Cataloge dei manoscritti armeni delle biblioteche d’Italia, cat. no. 34, dated before 1361. Photo bought in Matenadaran. Uluhogian, Cataloge dei manoscritti armeni delle biblioteche d’Italia, cat. no. 34. Gabriele Winkler, Armenia and the Gradual Decline of Its Traditional Liturgical Practises as a Result of the Expanding Influence of the Holy See from the 11th to the 14th Century, Liturgie de l’Eglise Universelle, Rome, 1976, 350. Loenertz, 1940. See Umberto Eco, Kunst und Scönheit im Mittelalter, DTV, München, 1993, 128ff. Hravard Hakobyan, Miniatura Vaspurakana, Erevan, 1989, 95. Rouben Galichian, Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps: Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, London, 2007, 129. Galichian, Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps, p. 133. Galichian Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps, 153ff., fig. 67. Galichian, Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps, fig. 69a, p. 159. Galichian, Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps, 161f. V. Haase, Apostel und Evangelisten in den orientalischen Überlieferungen, Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen, IX, 1, Münster, 1922, 273ff. Bibliotheca Sanctorum, vol. 2, Rome, 1962, 874. Bibliotheca Sanctorum, vol. 6, Rome, 1965, 607. Argam Ayvazian, The Historical Monuments of Nakhijevan, Wayne State University, 1990, 90f. Alessandro Scafi, Mapping Paradise, A History of Heaven on Earth, British Library, London, 2006, especially 131ff. The wall painting scenes in the great cloister of S. M. Novella Chiostro decorated with scenes from the Life of Thomas Aquinas have been already discussed. The painting where he is depicted preaching to the infidels, portraits of Oriental Christians are depicted, but none are clearly identifiable as Armenians. Mutafian, Catalogue Roma – Armenia, pp. 238–240. Michele Bacci, ‘An Armenian Pilgrim in Medieval Italy: Cult and Iconography of St Davinus of Lucca’, in Armenian Studies Today and Development Perspectives, International Congress, Yerevan, September 2003, pp. 548–558. Mutafian, Catalogue Roma – Armenia, p. 241. Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, p. 333. The following quotes in M. van den Oudenrijn, ‘The Monastery of Aparan and the Armenian Writer Fra Mxiţarič’, in Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, VII, 1937, 285. Later the Dominicans seem to have taken revenge on Maghak’ia Ghrimetsi by poisoning him in 1384.

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99 See the discussion in Volker Gebhardt, ‘Ein Porträt Cosimo de’ Medicis von Paolo Uccello’, Pantheon, 9 (1990), 28–36. 100 See Friedrich Murad, Ararat und Massis: Studien zur armenischen Alterskunde und Literatur, C. Winter, Heidelberg, 1901, and Scafi, Mapping Paradise, who discusses the location of paradise in the lands of Armenia. 101 See above, M. A. van den Oudenrijn, “Le ‘Sour Petrosi’, vademecum pour les missions asiatiques du 14eme siecle”, Neue Zeitschrift für Religionsgeschichte, 1 (1945), 164. 102 Razmik Panossian, The Armenians: From Kings and Priests to Merchants and Commissars, Columbia University Press, New York, 2006, 50. 103 Patrizia Zambrano and Jonathan Katz Nelson, Filippino Lippi, Milano, 2004, 550. 104 Simon D. Messing, ‘The Non-Verbal language of the Ethiopian Toga’, Anthropos, 55 (1960) Anthropos Institut Freiburg (CH), 558–561. 105 J. Raby, Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode, Islamic Art Publications, London, 1982, fig. 15. 106 His son Filippo’s wealth as a banker for the Medici popes rivalled the wealth of the Fuggers. 107 See Hannes Roser’s (2005, pp. 62–69) discussion of the doors’ literature. 108 ‘Bruno Sauer, Die Randreliefs an Filarete’s Bronzethür von St. Peter’ Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 20 (1897), 1–22, 22. 109 Joseph Gill, The Council of Florence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1959, 324. 110 For the complete inscription on Eugene IV’s tomb monument see Gill, The Council of Florence. 111 Richard, La papauté et les missions en orient en Moyen Age (13e au 15e siècles), 266ff. 112 Gill, The Council of Florence, 323. 113 Angelo Maria Piemontese, ‘Le iscrizioni arabe nella Poliphili Hypnerotomachia’, in Charles Burnett and Anna Contadini (eds.), Islam and the Italian Renaissance, London, 1999, 201. 114 Vera-Simone Schulz, ‘Intricate letters and the reification of light: Prolegomena on the pseudoinscribed haloes in Giotto’s Madonna di San Giorgio alla Costa and Masaccio’s San Giovenale Triptych’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, (2016), 81. 115 Mat. 982. Edda Vardanyan, Catalogue des manuscrits de peintre Minas (XVe s.), REA, 27 (1998–2000), 359–78, 367f. 116 Vardanyan, Catalogue des manuscrits de peintre Minas (XVe s.), 14ff. 117 Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, 38f. 118 Edda Vardanyan, ‘Un mastoc’ d’ordination et de sacre royal du XVe siècle’, Revue des Etudes Arméniennes, 29 (2003–2004), 167–233, 218f. 119 Kouymjian, Dickran, ‘Armenia from the fall of the Cilician Kingdom (1375) to the Forced Emigration under Shah Abbas (1604)’, in Hovannisian, 1997, vol. 2, pp. 1–50, 8. 120 Kenneth Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–1571: The Fifteenth Century, 1976, 222, FN 77ff. See Pius II, in his commentaries regarding Ludovico da Bologna. 121 See L. Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 3, London, 1894, 246. And Richard, La papauté et les missions en orient en Moyen Age (13e au 15e siècles), p. 275. 122 See the Strozzi family’s historical trading background discussed in detail Patricia Lurati, Mitteilungen des Florentiner Instituts, 49 (2005), 1, 101–111. 123 Sirarpie der Nersessian, ‘An Armenian Version of the Homilies on the Harrowing of Hell’, in Etudes Byzantines et Armeniennes, Louvain, 1973, 437–455. 124 Gill, The Council of Florence, p. 285. 125 Sirarpie Der Nersessian, ‘An Armenian Gospel of the fifteenth century’, The Boston Public Library Quarterly, (1950), 3–20, fig. 5. 126 I thank Dr Vrej Nersessian for his help in translating the inscriptions. 127 Der Nersessian, ‘An Armenian Gospel of the fifteenth century’, 10. 128 Jean Saint-Martin, Relation d’un voyage fait en Europe et dans l’océan atlantique, à la fin du XVe siècle, sous le règne de Charles VIII, par Martyr, évêque d’Arzendjan. Librairie Orientale de Dondey-Dupré Père et Fils, Paris, 1927, p. 43f. 129 Hravard Hakobyan, Armenian miniature, Vaspourakan (in Armenian), Erevan, 1978, The four Gospels, dated 1489, Khizan, scribe and artist Mkrtich Kahanay, The Destruction of Hell, fol. 9a. 130 See Alberto Tenenti and Ugo Tucci (eds.), ‘Gli stranieri e la citta’, in Storia di Venezia, vol. V, Il Rinascimento, Enciclopedia Italiana, Roma, 1996, pp. 928–936. Giorgio Nubar Gianighian,

A chronology

131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141

142 143 144 145 146 147

148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161

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‘Segni di und presenza’, in Zekiyan and Aldo Ferrari (eds.), Gli Armeni e Venezia, 2004, pp. 59–91. See the drawing of the convent in the Codex Rustichi (1425 ca.) together with San Basilio seated entitled ‘Santo basilio digrecia’, Mutafian, Catalogue Roma – Armenia, p. 204 (Italian edition). See Mutafian, Catalogue Roma – Armenia, map 22: Armenian communities in Italy. Vrej Nersessian, Catalogue of Early Armenian Books 1512–1850, British Library, London, 1980. See catalogue Armenia: Imprints of a Civilization (Uluhogian, 2011), 265. Venice, Library of the Mechitarist Fathers of San Lazzaro. See catalogue Armenia: Imprints of a Civilization (Uluhogian, 2011), 247 and 265. Vrej Nersessian, The Bible in the Armenian Tradition, The British Library, London, 2001, fig. 11 (The British Library, Or. 70.a.9.). Nersessian, Catalogue of Early Armenian Books 1512–1850, fig. 3 and 14ff. Vincenzo Golzio, The Complete Work of Raphael, Reynard and Co., New York, 1969, 197. Peter Humfrey, Carpaccio, London, 2005, 132ff. Erwin Panofsky, Das Leben und die Kunst Albrecht Dürers, Rogner und Bernhard, München, 1977, fig. 166. Also, a follower of Benozzo Gozzoli painted an altar piece ‘Crucifixion with Ten Thousand Martyrs’, today in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa. The prioress of S. Domenico, Pisa, for whose main chapel the painting was made, vowed to celebrate the feast day of the saints and stage a procession, assuring their intercession in Pisa’s siege of 1504. The sisters possessed a relic of the Ten Thousand Martyrs of Mount Ararat, see Appendix 6 in Ann Roberts, Dominican Women and Renaissance Arts, Routledge, London, 2008. Peter Dreyer, ‘Bodies in the trees: Carpaccio and the genesis of the woodcut of the 10.000 Martyrs’, Apollo, 145 (1997), 421, 45–47. Zekiyan, ‘Le Colonie Armene del Medio Evo in Italia e le Relazioni Culturali Italo-Armene’, n. 278. Zekiyan, ‘Le Colonie Armene del Medio Evo in Italia e le Relazioni Culturali Italo-Armene’, n. 278a after Alishan, 1893, 43–44: Alishan copied the portrait which appears in print at the beginning of the Armenian version of Hay-Venet. Ennio Concina, Dell’arabico: A Venezia tra Rinascimento e Oriente, Venice, 1992, 7ff. Only parts of the precious cloth have survived, according to Angelo Scrinzi, ‘Un dono dello Shah Abbas il Grande al Doge di Venezia’, Rivista della Citta di Venezia, 9 (1930), 551–559. See also Rodolfo Gallo, Il tesoro di S. Marco e la sua storia, Venice-Rome, 1967. Giorgio Rota, ‘Safavid envoys in Venice’, in Ralph Kauz, Giorgio Rota, and Jan Paul Niederkorn (eds.), Diplomatoisches Zeremoniell in Europa und im mittleren Osten in der frühen Neuzeit, Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte, vol. 141, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, 2009, pp. 213–249. ‘Armenian Merchant’ see Uluhogian, 2011, 223, after Grevembroich’s ‘Gli Abiti’, eighteenth century. Edmond Schütz, ‘An Armeno-Kipchak Document of 1640 from Lvov and its background in Armenia and in the Diaspora’, in György Kara (ed.), Between the Danube and the Caucasus, Budapest, 1987, pp. 260ff. Vrej Nersessian, ‘The Marcy-Indoudjian cope’, Ars Orientalis, 40 (2011), 207. Nersessian, ‘The Marcy-Indoudjian cope’, p. 209. Guglielmo Berchet, La Repubblica di Venezia e la Persia, 1865, 43–46. Scrinzi, ‘Un dono dello Shah Abbas il Grande al Doge di Venezia’, p. 551. Gallo, Il tesoro di S. Marco e la sua storia, p. 261, n. 2. Nersessian, ‘The Marcy-Indoudjian cope’, image 18A. Berchet, La Repubblica di Venezia e la Persia, No. 105. See this and more on Safavid-European artistic connections in J. M. Rogers, Islamic Art and Design 1500–1700, British Museum, London, 1983, 50. Alishan, 1893, p. 27. The author is preparing a separate study on the artist Hakob Jughayets’i. Tim Greenwood and Edda Vardanyan, Hakob’s Gospels: The Life and Work of an Armenian Artist of the Sixteenth Century, Sam Fogg, London, 2006, pp. 48ff. Greenwood and Vardanyan, Hakob’s Gospels, fig. 24.

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162 Claudio Gamba, Michelangelo scultore, Milan, Rizzoli-Skira, 2005, 164–165. 163 Costantino Porcu, Dürer, Milan, Rizzoli, 2004. 164 See for example, G. E. Marrison, The Christian Orient, catalogue British Library, London, 1978, Figs. 24 (Arabic, Christ healing two blind men, 1590–1591, with Tempesta’s woodcuts after Dürer) and fig. 25 (Takla Maryam, Christ healing two blind men, 1665, after Tempesta/ Dürer). 165 Nersessian, Catalogue of Early Armenian Books 1512–1850, pl. 24. 166 Nersessian, Catalogue of Early Armenian Books 1512–1850, p. 28.

7

International styles

Excursus: Ethiopia and Italy At this point, the presence of Ethiopians in fifteenth-century Italy needs to be discussed as well as what they left behind in Italy, for example, various fifteenth-century manuscripts written in Geez like the Ethiopian Psalter, Vat. Etiop. 20 in the Vatican Library. How it came into the possession of the Vatican Library in the late fifteenth century, maybe from the Ethiopian convent in Jerusalem, is still a matter of uncertainty. The manuscript is widely held to have inaugurated Ethiopian Studies in Europe.1 The Ethiopian Cross in the Bargello Museum in Florence originates from the Medici collection (Figure 7.1).2 The cross is a typical late fifteenth-century example of a combination of Ethiopian and Italian artistic style, used by the best-known fifteenth-century Ethiopian court painter Fre Seyon, who borrowed from Italian artists such as Fra Filippo Lippi. According to Heldman, “Fre Seyon’s panel paintings appealed to the noble class, those patrons and clients who recognised the relationship between the cosmopolitan nature of this style and the foreign policy aspirations of the Ethiopian court.” She also discusses his quotation-making style.3 It is unclear how the cross reached Florence, perhaps as a gift related to one of the Ethiopian embassies of this time. It is the only Ethiopian fifteenth-century cross in an Italian collection. According to the inscription, it dates from the reign of Ethiopian King Baeda Mariam 1468–1479, which overlaps with Sixtus IV’s (1471–1484) reign, when the Ethiopian pilgrim house at the Vatican was installed. The cross is made of gilded brass and is 61 cm high. The main scenes on the cross are on one side a central picture with Mary, Christ, Ss. Gabriel and Michael and on the other side the crucifixion with Mary and St. John. In addition, three smaller crosses are attached at the extremities each showing a haloed angel holding a cross. The two scenes combined were a usual feature of Ethiopian processional crosses of this time. The inscription around the lattice work tells us the terminus ante quem and the dedication. On Mary’s side, the inscription goes:4 “The cross belongs to our king. . . (name erased) . . . May he have life, salvation and remission of sins. Amen. On the crucifixion side is written: This cross king Baeda Maryam, who is called Dawit, gave to Amhara.” The style of the central scenes differs clearly from the small attached crosses. While the small crosses are of more primitive simplicity and frontality, the central scenes are complex, three-dimensional and with attention to proportion, all elements that Italian artists introduced into Ethiopia during the fifteenth century. In addition, the Christ child sits untypically on the right side of Mary,5 another indication of Italian borrowings. DOI: 10.4324/9781003204619-8

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Figure 7.1 Ethiopian Cross, fifteenth century, gilded bronze, Bargello, Florence

Contacts between Ethiopia and Europe reach back to the ancient Ethiopian kingdom of Axum. Dominican and Franciscan missionaries reached Ethiopia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.6 Homer speaks about Ethiopia in the Odyssey (I, 22ff) of “the farthest outposts of mankind, half of whom live where the sun goes down, and half where

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he rises.” This division seems to indicate that the name Etiopes (Greek, “burnt faces”) referred to all people with dark skins, from Nubia to India. During the European Middle Ages and during the fifteenth century, the term Indian and Ethiopian not always meant the geographical areas we today think of. “Prester John of the Indies” was a mythical figure, although even Europeans who returned from Ethiopia called the Ethiopian king “Prester John.” European rulers used the term correctly, for example, King Alphonse of Aragon in 1450 in a letter to Pope Nicolas V mentions the “imperatoris Etiopi.”7 In contrary, at the same time, a papal scribe still used the widely used term “Presti Johannis de India.”8 Areas beyond the Mediterranean Sea were hard to distinguish without precise mapping, and in the end, three Indies existed parallel in late medieval and Renaissance minds. Herodotus uses two versions. He locates Ethiopia south of Egypt, and in another passage, he uses the expression as a generic term for Asians and Africans of dark skin. Indeed, Ethiopia was traditionally well-connected with the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, Arabia, India, Malacca and Persia via its ancient port Adulis. And although being certainly somewhat disconnected from the West, Christian Ethiopia had many outposts on the way to Europe, for example, Coptic monasteries in Egypt. During the fifteenth century, Ethiopia shared a trading post in Malacca together with the Persians. While a small community of Ethiopians formed in the late fifteenth century in Lebanon, a community of Ethiopians existed already on Cyprus and in Jerusalem.9 “The most important contribution to the medieval image of ‘the African’ came from Ethiopia through Jerusalem.”10 From there, the Ethiopians travelled to Europe, mostly to Italy as pilgrims and embassies. Italian Dominican and later Franciscan missionaries arrived in Ethiopia during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.11 It is not clear when Ethiopians started to visit medieval Italy. In 1395, an Ethiopian messenger lodged in Milan, and in 1402 Ethiopian ambassadors were in Venice offering leopards and aromatic herbs and asking for clerical clothes, crosses and more “vestes sacerdotales, pontificia, cruces et reliquia sanctorum.” According to documents, this embassy has bought a silver-gilt chalice from Venice for a pearl of 12 or more carats.12 Possibly following eyewitness observations, in contemporary Italian painting tamed leopards appear sitting on horseback. More embassies followed in 1407, when seven Ethiopian pilgrims stopped in Bologna on their way to Santiago. In Bologna, they celebrated mass in the Ethiopian language. Other delegations reached Barcelona and Valencia, in 1418 and 1427. And Europeans in the service of the Duc de Berry, of Portugal, of the king of Aragon started to travel to Ethiopia, likewise. Ethiopians were present at the Council of the Union of the Churches in Basel and Florence, as has been discussed previously. And finally, the Ethiopian King asked the Italians to send him craftsmen and artists. An eyewitness reports the Ethiopians’ entry into Florence: “about forty Indians from l’India Maggiore sent by Prete Janni . . . one was a king carrying a cross in his hand; and a cardinal or abbot and a ‘cavaliere.’ ” The abbot wore around his head white linen cloth in great volume. They were black men and very “disforme dalle portature et qualita di qua . . . ma nel vero a vederli parevano uomini molto deboli.”13 After the Florentine Council, the Ethiopians and Copts went for a short visit to Rome where they arrived on October 10, 1441. According to documentation, about eight Ethiopians and Copts reached the Roman Porta del Popolo and were received by the Government of Rome and led to the basilica of St. Peter’s. They were shown its most precious relic, the Veronica. They logged in the palace at S. Lorenzo in Damaso (which preceded the Palazoo della Cancelleria), not in the Borgo. They left again for Florence three days later.14

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In Italy, humanists, churchmen and mapmakers had been most interested in northern and eastern Africa. One was the humanist traveller Ciriaco d’Ancona who had travelled widely in Egypt between 1412 and 1418, the first European to draw a giraffe, and in October 1441, Ciriaco d’Ancona wrote to Eugene IV and Cosimo de’ Medici asking for funds and allow him to visit Ethiopia. He had gathered first-hand knowledge about the country by the Ethiopians at the Council, about its climate, equinox, the ocean and so on. Poggio Bracciolini dedicated his “De varietate fortunae” to Pope Nicolas V, in which we find the hitherto most detailed description of Ethiopian culture and nature. Pope Callistus III (Alonso Borgia) sent relics to the Ethiopians, for example, a relic of the famous Madonna della Febbre in Old St. Peter’s in 1427. In 1439, he led Aragon’s delegation to Florence, and three years later, Alfonso V’s entry into Naples took place, and the king started a vivid relationship with Zara Yacob of Ethiopia, sending him craftsmen and artists, for example, the influential Brancaleone. During the 1450s, several embassies from Ethiopia reached the King of Portugal Affonso V. In 1454, King Affonso invested the Order of Christ with spiritual jurisdiction “over the lands of Guinea, Nubia and Ethiopia.”15 Portuguese even employed Ethiopians as interpreters on their voyages along the coast of Africa and in 1454, the Ethiopian Jacob was sent from the Senegal.16 European interest in Africa was and remained considerable, in terms of both trade and mission. Documents relate to names of Italian artists and craftsmen who were sent to Ethiopia. Although during the fifteenth century many Italian artists travelled outside their country and dispersed Renaissance style, travelling such wide distances into an unknown African culture seems rather unique. These artists left a strong legacy behind in the arts of Ethiopia. Six Ethiopian sites can be identified where Italian artists and craftsmen worked: Church of Mertola Maryam (Mary) left incomplete by Zara Yaecob’s widow,17 Church of Makana Selassie (Trinity),18 Macham Celacem/Makana Selassie monastery, district of Gese (Gesche) Were Ilu (north of Addis, Dese), Church of Day Giyorgis (Georg),19 Church of Enselale20 and the lost Church of Birbirsa on the site of the Addis Ababa Cathedral S. George.21

Renaissance, periodisation and “International” style While artists in fifteenth-century Ethiopia took up numerous ideas from contemporary Renaissance Italy and created a truly Ethiopian-Italian artistic style, we have seen that the situation in contemporary Armenia was fundamentally different. The definition of Renaissance and artistic periodisation, generally, in Armenia cannot be compared to those in Italy or Latin Europe. Due to different geographical, historical and religious circumstances and needs, non-Latin cultures like the Armenian developed in individual rhythms raising and declining (although there never were anything like “dark ages” in Armenia), and again and again returning to their own individual fertile and identitycreating roots. The Italian Renaissance, beginning in the early fourteenth century with the new painting style of Giotto di Bondone in Florence, was initiated by new wealth and rich patrons (merchants and clergymen) whose wealth depended in part on the Silk Road trade via Greater and Lesser Armenia. We have discussed in a previous chapter how Silk Road trade took off and reached Italy with its Oriental and luxury fabrics, many of which were produced in Armenia. Cilician painting reflects this “modern” taste in fabrics, which then wandered westwards together with these fabrics in order to reappear in Tuscan

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markets and on Tuscan paintings. Italians liked these commodities and wore clothes made from these fabrics and they furnished their houses with them. Cross-fertilisation was strong, as we have seen, while each artistic “system” Latin and Armenian kept its identity and remained intact. The great exception were those Armenian artists who were united with the Latins and worked in Italian scriptoria. But it was the artist’s religious orientation which was always crucial in his choice of artistic borrowing. The huge body of literature describing the famous Italian Renaissance focuses on one of the main elements of cultural identity in the Latin West, “the Renaissance,” but much less exists about the “other” Renaissances. Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich in The Renaissance in National Context analyse in each location the elements which combined to stimulate an extraordinary outburst of cultural production including the Low Countries, Germany and England.22 But Western literature has hitherto not discussed Armenian Renaissances. For example, Jack Goody’s (1996 and 2010) multi-cultural study of Renaissances leaves Armenia out, but includes “Rebirth in Islam” only, without discussing Christian contributions to Arab Renaissances.23 Armenian arts have their own periodisation and prime, golden ages and Renaissances. Vazgen K. Tchaloyan concludes in his extensive study about Armenian Renaissance that there were several Renaissances before the Italian Renaissance in other cultures, including the Armenian.24 His main points are the different periodisation of Armenian arts and Renaissances covering the post-Arab period from the flourishing of the arts in the capital city of Ani down to the Cilician Kingdom. The extraordinary Toros Roslin who worked in Cilicia expressed emotions long before these were painted or sculpted in Western arts. And poets like Frik, Grigor Narekatsi and others reached a very high artistic standard well before the time of Dante. A contribution of Armenian arts to Western “Renaissance” art is therefore feasible. But the life time of the country was short compared to the Latin West and the wars of the fifteenth century fought on Armenian land already started the nation’s (political and) artistic decline. On the other hand, the Renaissance of Armenian printing in the sixteenth century was initiated by the Italians and Germans. The give and take “movements” between East and West cannot be overrated enough. In the Armenian case, according to Tchaloyan, even Iranian Arab culture with great poets like Firdausi need to be taken into consideration since they came up at the same time, partly due to cross-fertilisation. Renaissances in the entire Middle East need to be discussed to find the precise position of any Armenian Renaissance/s. Lilit Zakarian convincingly discusses a thirteenth- to fourteenth-century Renaissance in Armenia. We have discussed Momik’s three-dimensional Madonna reliefs with Armenian inscriptions and their style so similar to Giotto and his contemporaries.25 And she calls the painter Avagh’s style “universal.” In a previous chapter, we have discussed “international taste and style in fabric furnishing.” What spread from central Asia to Mongol Persia, Cilicia and Europe should be called international taste and style sweeping across continents. This included fabrics and artistic style, as we have discussed in our study of the relationships between Italian and Armenian arts. The element of artistic borrowing from non-Christian models in Armenian arts had developed long before this phenomenon reached the Mongol courts at Tabriz and Sultaniyah. With regard to our discussion of fabric patterns in Armenian miniature painting first and in the painting in Tuscany later, a similar phenomenon happened around 1300

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in Mongol painting as well. Similar style and fabrics are displayed on dresses and furnishings, such as abstract floral, stars, cross-star, stripes and so on, visible in so many of the Great Mongol Shahnama manuscript illustrations. International taste and style or “cosmopolitanism” in multi-confessional and multicultural Tabriz and Sultaniyah have been accounted “in part for the truly unique openness to Christian images found in the Great Mongol Shahname. Gospel archetypes such as the Adoration of the Magi, Entry into Jerusalem . . . are freely adopted and adapted.”26 However, these artistic borrowings were only formally borrowed and randomly taken out of the religious context of the most iconic images of Christian arts. Like paper cut-outs, they appeared and disappeared again in Mongol arts reflecting a time of intense international trade contacts with the “West.” They helped create an artistic prime, an Iranian Renaissance: “The Il-Khanate represented the rebirth of Iran and the re-establishment of Persian culture in the forefront of Islam.”27

Notes 1 Renato Lefevre, ‘Su un codice etiopico della Vaticana’, La Bibliofilia, 42 (1940), 97–107. 2 Salvatore Tedeschi, ‘Una storica croce processionale etiopica conservata in Italia’, Africa (Roma), 46 (1991), 163–183. Getatchew Haile, ‘The Mariology of Emperor Zara Ya’qob of Ethiopia: Text and Translation’, Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 242 (1992). 3 Marilyn E. Heldman, The Marian Icons of the Painter Fre Seyon, Wiesbaden, 1994, 163. 4 thanks to the friendly translation provided by Prof. David Appleyard, SOAS. 5 Lefevre, ‘Su un codice etiopico della Vaticana’, p. 394. 6 Hans Werner Debrunner, Presence and Prestige: Africans in Europe: A History of Africans in Europe Before 1918, Basel, 1979, 25, and Jean Richard, La papauté et les missions en orient en Moyen Age (13e au 15e siècles), Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome 33, Ecole Française de Rome, Rome, 1977, p. 218: 1334, 1337, 1340 and 1344. 7 C. M. de Witte, ‘Une ambassade ethiopienne a Rome’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 21 (1956), 286. 8 De Witte, ‘Une ambassade ethiopienne a Rome’, p. 296. 9 Tadesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia 1270–1527, Clarendon Press, 1972, 256. 10 Debrunner, Presence and Prestige, p. 24. 11 Debrunner, Presence and Prestige, p. 25 and Richard, La papauté et les missions en orient en Moyen Age (13e au 15e siècles), p. 218: 1334, 1337, 1340 and 1344. 12 Marilyn E. Heldman, ‘A chalice from Venice for Emperor Dawit of Ethiopia’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 103 (1990), 442–425. 13 Eugenio Cerulli, ‘Eugene IV e gli Etiopi al Concilio di Firenze nel 1441’, Rendiconti della R. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei: Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche, S.6, 9 (1933), 347–368, 349. 14 Georg Hofmann, ‘Kopten und Äthiopier auf dem Konzil von Florenz’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 8 (1942), 5–39, 19. 15 Debrunner, Presence and Prestige, p. 35. 16 Debrunner, Presence and Prestige, p. 48. 17 Stephen Bell, ‘The ruins of Mertola-Maryam’, in Tadesse Beyene (ed.), Proceedings of the 8th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa, 1988, pp. 125–129, n. 11 re. lost fifteenth-century Italian architecture. And Paul B. Henze, ‘The monastery of Martula Maryam: Questions and speculations about its architecture and ornamentation’, in Bovida Ramos (ed.), The Indigenous and the Foreign in Christian Ethiopian Art, 2004. And see extract from Book III, ch. 2, description of the church of Martula Maryam, in Some Records of Ethiopia 1593–1646, Jesuit sources, London, Hakluyt Society, 1954. Good images of Godjam, Mertule Maryam, in Ewald Hein und Brigitte Kleidt, Ethiopia: Christian Africa, Ratingen, 1999. 18 Heldman, The Marian Icons of the Painter Fre Seyon, p. 87, small site, not worked on, north of Addis, West of Debre Birhan. See Stanislaw Chojnacki, ‘Day Giyorgis’, Journal of Ethiopian Studies, VII, no. 2, (July 1969), 43–48.

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19 Chojnacki, Journal of Ethiopian Studies, 7 (1967), re. rope pattern, 35: “After much excavation the exact form of the old church became discernible. It was almost a square building of 9 metres 40 by 8 metres 80, divided into 3 naves. Such construction was very rare at that time in Abyssinia. Naves were divided by pillars of cut stones, decorated with pilasters on the four faces. The whole building appeared to be of Greek style, very simple but heavy. The stones were very smooth but without any carvings except a “rope” pattern of decorative carving on the pillars and around the porch, made in oriental fashion.” ’ 20 Richard Pankhurst, Hartwig Breternitz, ‘Barara, the royal city of 15th and 16th century Ethiopia’, Annales d’Ethiopie, 24 (2009), 209–249. 21 Père Emile Foucher, ‘Autour du Centenaire d’Addis Abeba: Le Lieu di Birbirsa en 1868– 1869’, in Quaderni di Studi Etiopici, Asmara, 1987–1988, pp. 48–59. English: Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Centenary of Addis Ababa, 24–25 November 1986, pp. 33–39. 22 Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich, The Renaissance in National Context, Cambridge, 1992. 23 Jack Goody, The East in the West, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996 and Renaissances: The One or the Many?, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010. 24 Vazgen K. Tchaloyan, Hayakan Renesans (Armenian Renaissance, in Armenian), Erevan, 1964. I warmly thank Vrej Nersessian for this information. 25 Lilit Zakarian, ‘Les arts en Grande Arménie (XIIIe-XVe siècle)’, Armenia sacra, (2007), see our Chapter 2 above. 26 Robert Hillenbrand, ‘The arts of the book in Il-Khanid Iran’, in Komaroff, The Legacy of Genghis Khan, New York, 2002, pp. 135–167, 162f. 27 George Edmund Lane, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A Persian Renaissance, Routledge, London and New York, 2003.

Conclusion

Armenian arts as one of the “big” arts of the Near and the Middle East and the arts of the first Christian nation have a strong sense of character and identity and its Renaissances depended on cultural highs which were not necessarily connected with the Renaissances of the “West.” Armenia, global before globalisation, due to extremely successful lucrative long-distance trade and, compared to early medieval Europe, saw much earlier medieval artistic peaks in the wealthy and perhaps biggest capital of its time, the city of Ani, situated at a crossroads of the western stretch of the Silk Road. During the artistic peak of the Cilician Renaissance Armenia “exported” taste and the refinement of fabrics to Italy, where fabrics that had travelled across the Armenian Plateau quite suddenly appear in Tuscan painting. Contacts with Europe were close, merchants, missionaries and migrants travelled into both directions bringing their artistic ideas and “identity” with them. And travellers into both directions described what astonished, pleased and impressed them of the new things they saw and experienced. Around the year 1300, these contacts appear to have been very close. The famous Armenian artist Momik and his contemporaries started to produce sculptures with elements borrowed from Giotto. At the same time, in Rome, artists produced Armenian manuscript paintings with elements borrowed from Latins. Likewise, only those pilgrims were invited into the pilgrim compounds at St. Peter’s, who expressed their Christian faith conforming to the Dominicans’ rules and dogma whose aim was to promote Latin Christianity. Dogma was the one key to identify a “Christian” artist. The popes of Rome with their efforts to Latinise and unite the Churches with their missionaries moving into monasteries of the Armenian heartland, in the end, had created an ever-wider separation between the Churches and their arts. The Church of Rome’s appropriated Armenian biblical symbols like the Ararat, Noah’s and the Apostles tombs in arts and in its maps, and patron Eugene IV included Armenian letters and words into the iconographical programme of Filarete’s famous bronze doors of St. Peter’s. Armenian inscriptions and Armenian cultural markers identified Armenian arts. Armenian artists were rather free to choose their models. If an Armenian artist used Latin artistic elements for example from Giotto, Paolo Veneziano or Dürer, he had to make his art Armenian with the help of adding Armenian inscriptions. Otherwise his art would have been rejected by Armenian patrons. It is impossible to define an artist without considering his faith. Just looking at an artist’s style would not be enough. Unlike Latin arts, Armenian art was not produced to persuade. The Armenian artistic compass was always faith. Yes, he borrowed elements such as composition, motif, style DOI: 10.4324/9781003204619-9

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and iconographical adjustments. But Latin artists adopted Armenian biblical and legendary scenes and Armenian saints into their repertory. The history of Armenian painting is a story of an independent art breathing from a strong centre while constantly recurring to its own roots and being open to adjust and borrow from non-Armenian artists. One of these borrowing sources were the works of art of Latin artists, who appeared in Cilicia and on the Plateau together with the merchants and missionaries. Although both were of Christian faith, their attitude to the arts, as we have seen, was rather different. Different dogma defined their attitude and characterised to which church they belonged. This is what their arts always mirrored. On the other hand, Latin artists could also borrow from non-Latin sources like China, for example, Chinese clouds and landscapes or certain architectural elements form Muslim arts. They portrayed foreigners from the Orient, for example, in the populated scenes by Pinturicchio in the Vatican or the Armenians and Persians in the Doge Palace in precise eye-witness style but did not succumb to the extraordinary beauty and contemplation of the Armenian canon tables. The true and ancient homeland of Christian arts lies in the “East,” but we tend to ignore this together with the qualities of Armenian arts. We obliterate its memories. “Sharing St. Peter’s” has a different meaning according to where (culture and church) each of us belongs to. The Armenian church venerates St. Peter as main Apostle and the pope as its placeholder, but without believing in his infallibility. The Latins, on the other hand, treated Armenians as heretics, who needed to be Latinised.

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Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate a figure on the corresponding page. Alexander VI, pope 35 Alfarano, Tiberio 16, 26, 30; map of Old St. Peter’s (1571) 16, 17 alphabets 3, 10, 33, 46, 61, 114, 123, 128, 136, 185, 194 Aquinas, Thomas 108, 162, 176 Arabic 27, 53, 61, 80, 117, 120, 132, 177, 183 Arabs 44, 53, 96, 177 Ararat 4, 24, 60, 80, 93–100, 115, 137, 177, 192 Armenia between “East” and “West” 42–59; (and Cilicia) as cultural transmitter 9, 133 Armenian art, character 44–47; current state of research and problem definition: brief overview 47–58 Armenian churches in the Diaspora, outfitting 24 Armenian Church of the United Order of St Basil in Via S. Gallo in Florence 24 Armenian diaspora 1, 11, 20, 24, 47, 55, 153, 162, 166, 178, 190, 194 Armenian merchants 31 artistic crossroads 114–152; Armenian fabrics 129–132; Armenian nobility and their garments 132–133; Christian Oriental or Muslim fabrics? 143–144; crossroads of languages and alphabets 114–126; conclusion 126; display of magnificence 145; fabrics, silks and patterns 128–129; furnished with international taste and style 145–152; garments, fabrics and their meaning in Cilicia and Italy 133–143 artistic exchanges 10, 42, 53, 114 artistic ‘languages’ 42 artistic transfer 1, 8, 42, 52, 57, 61, 152 Ascension of Christ, Lectionary, Armenian, Bologna, 1324 48 Awag 174; Last Judgement, 1337, 175 Ayas 44, 60, 65, 69, 79, 84, 92, 131

Bardi of Florence 78, 94, 165 Bartolomeo da Bologna, Homilies 165 Basilian Order 25, 36 Benedict X, pope 28 Bodroghi, Filippo, procurator of the King of Hungary Ladislas II 50 Bonaiuto, Andrea, Thomas Aquinas preaching to the infidels, wall painting, S, M. Novella, Florence, Spanish Chapel, 1366 108 Boniface IX 24, 36 Book of Fridays, 1512 191 Brocchi da Imola, Giovanni 35 Bufalini, Borgo map 22 Caliari, Gabriele, Reception of the Persian Embassy, Doge Palace, 1603 195 Carpaccio, Vittore 182, 192; Ten-thousand Martyrs of Mount Ararat, 1514 193 chapel tent 86 Charlemagne 18, 31 China 2, 44, 57, 61, 75, 81, 87, 103, 130, 177, 213 chronology 152–205; Thirteenth century 153 (new image creations in Armenian manuscript illuminations in Rome 153–156); Fourteenth century 156–180 (contemporaries: Armenian Latin illuminators borrow Latin elements for the decoration of initials 172–174; Giottoadaptation 166–167; Latin-Armenian illumination made in Italy 167–172; the (Latin) Armenian Dominican scriptoria 176–177; Momik and Giotto 156–167; Toros of Taron and Awag 174–176; western maps adjusting biblical geography of Armenia. Saints 177–179); Fifteenth century 180–190 (Eschatological themes 189–190; Florence, Santa Maria Novella 180–182; Rome, Old St. Peter’s 182–185; Vaspurakan

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185–189); Sixteenth century 190–205 (Armenian Renaissance woodcuts 190–194; Armenian-made gift for the Doge of Venice 194–197; Armenian “Silk Road Painting”: Jughayets’i, Michelangelo, Dürer and Italy 197–205) colonies, mercantile “colonisation” 92–102, “Obedient ornament to the Roman Church” 102–114 compounds at Old St. Peter’s 14–42; administration and inhabitants of the compounds 34–42; architecture, decoration, administration and inhabitants 20; Armenian compound 20–25; former site 22; early medieval monasteries 33; Ethiopian compound with S. Stefano Maggiore 25–28, 26; German “compound” and the Campo Santo Teutonico 31–34; history, setting, function 14–20; Hungarian compound with S. Stefano Minore 28–31, 30; women and children in the compound 22 Coptic 27, 35, 63, 117, 183, 207 Copts 3, 27, 184, 207 Corvinus, Matthias 29 Council of Florence 2, 71, 180, 198 Cruyl, Lievin, view of the Borgo (1667) 4, 41 cultural taste 68, 73, 145 Dedicatory page, 1253, Freer Gallery of Art 99 Dehikerkan 51, 103 Diocletian 43 Dominican missionaries 3, 49, 61, 93, 97, 100, 109, 118, 126, 161, 181 Dominicans as “Maestro del S. Palazzo” 34 Duccio, Madonan delle Grazie, Massa Marittima, ca. 1316 120 Duccio, Madonna Rucellai 117, 119, 119, 142 Dürer 10, 182, 192, 197, 212 Egypt 27, 35, 64, 66, 96, 184, 207 Elizabeth of Hungary, saint 29 Erevan, Formerly Ministry for Transport and Communication, Republic Square, built 1933–1956 49 Erzurum 51, 103, 117, 179, 195 Ethiopia and Italy 205–208 Ethiopian Cross, fifteenth century, Bargello, Florence 206 Ethiopians 15, 27, 35, 103, 182; in Rome 48 Eugene IV 27, 31, 122, 180, 208, 212 Filarete 6, 10, 120–124, 128, 180–185, 212; bronze doors of St. Peter’s, 1433–1445, St. Peter panel 123, Paul panel 124

Florence, S. M. Novella 25, 108, 117, 180, 194 Fra Filippo Lippi 205 Franciscans 3, 8, 31, 34, 95, 101–103, 110, 127, 146, 160–162 Fratres Unitores 4, 43, 100, 106, 161 frontiers 11, 60, 68, 104, 184 furnishing 56, 84, 129, 132, 143, 148, 209 Geez 2, 9, 27, 205 Gentile da Fabriano 186; Adoration, 1432 187 Germany 1, 6, 9, 16, 209 geography of the dogma and the Christian Orient 1–14 Giotto 10, 25, 49, 95, 123, 128, 142, 156– 168, 174, 190; Entombment, 1305–06, Arena Chapel 168; St. Stephen, 1320–25 163; Ascension, 1305–06, Arena Chapel 167 Giovanni di Paolo 119, 121; St. Jerome in his study, 1430 121 Gladsor 50 Gospel of Queen Keran, Skevra, Cilicia, 1283 155 Gospel of St. Luke, Perugia 1331 170 Gospel of St. Mark, Perugia 1331 171 Great Mongol Shahnama, Sindukht becoming aware of Rudaba’s actions, ca. 1330s 147 Greek 5, 8, 15, 34, 43, 53, 62, 69, 96, 101, 105, 120, 183, 189, 207 Gregory the Great, pope 16 Gregory XIII, pope 33 Gregory of Narek writing, 1173 144 Greuter’s map 27 Hierusalem, monastery at the Vatican 26 historical background 60–91; “Against the Tachiks” 70–71; Armenian position in international silk trade 77–79; Armenians and luxury trade 72–73; Armenian merchants’ family palaces 73–74; Armenians as Europe’s intermediaries 61–64; Armenians as specialists in longdistance East-West trade 72; Armenians well-acquainted with Italian book illumination style 86–92; Armeno-French society and culture of Cilicia 65–67; Ayas, the safest harbour in southern Anatolia and the Levant 71–72; geography: centre and borders 61–63; Christendom’s longest frontier 63–64; imported saints 84–85; Cilician Silk Road trade and a church union with Rome 64–65; The Catholics in Armenia 67–81; Dominicans’ most

Index successful missions of the Latin Middle Ages 69–70; furnishing the Armenian, churches 85–86; luxury trade and the Kingdom of Cilicia 69; mutual cultural knowledge 81–86; Rome criticises the Armenian dogma 71; Rome’s missionaries in the new heart of the Mongol empire 68–69; Silk Road trading colonies 64–67; silks and the Armenian production of luxury textiles and dye, vordan karmir 79; trade with China and central Asia from the second century BCE 75–77; trading privileges and the Latins in Cilicia 79 Hungary 1, 6, 19, 28, 60, 104, 127 India 19, 27, 61, 75, 102, 130 indulgences 6, 32, 69, 71, 77, 83, 86, 102, 109 international styles 205–212 Isaia da Gladsor 106 Islamic art 56, 61, 152 Isola Armena 24 Jahuk, St. Hovhannes Church, 1325–1330 106 Jughayets’i, Hakob 197; Descent from the Cross, 1587 197 Karakilisse 51, 103 Khatchkar 45, 70, 85, 97, 137, 156, 159; Holy Saviour Khatchkar, Haghpat monastery, 1273 158; of Prince Elikum Orbelian, 1300–1312 157 King Gagik Bagratuni of Kars with his wife and daughter, parchment, eleventh century 115 King Lewon and his family, Cilicia 1272 139 Korykos, port, Cilicia 65 Krna, Mother of God Church, 1325–1350 107 Kufic 94, 115 Ladislaus II Jagiellon, King 28 Ladislaus the Posthumous, King 28 Leo II, pope 16 Leo IV, pope 16, 82 Leo V the Armenian, Emperor 47 Leo IX, pope 31 Leo X, pope 27, 35 Leo Africanus 27 Letter to the Ephesians, thirteenth to fourteenth centuries 116 Lippi, Filippino 182; Ethiopian, 1487 183 Lorenzetti, Ambrogio 140, 179; Dancing girl 141; Maesta, Massa Marittima 179; Piccola Maesta, ca. 1350 140

223

Lorenzetti, Pietro 138, 143; Pala del Carmine, before 1345 139, 143 luxury goods 75, 101 Maku 66, 93–100, 178, 195 Martin V, pope 31 Martiros Erznkats’i 36 Martyrs from St. Ararat, miniature, 1392 173 Masolino 29 Master of the Madonna of Palazzo Venezia, Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine, ca. 1340–50 138 Mesopotamia 43, 47, 54, 61, 64, 68, 177 Michelangelo 14, 16, 197 Minas 71, 167, 169, 180–189; Adoration 186; Crucifixion 169 Momik 156–162, 174, 209, 212 Mongol Khans 51, 126, 130, 156 Mongolia 19 Nakhijevan, city and region 6, 14, 49, 61, 69–73, 77, 81–86, 93, 100–107, 161, 168, 176 Nicolas III pope 16 Nicolas V 19, 25, 35, 207 Noah 71, 80, 92, 178, 180, 192, 212 Noravank monastery 50, 54, 156, 159–161; Mother of God Church, Madonna and Christ child, tympanum, ca.1300 159 Patterns (fabric) 76–80, 128, 130, 141, 141, 209 Pax Mongolica 15 Pegolotti 75–80, 95–98, 133, 143, 165 Periodisation 10, 49, 100, 106, 161; periodisation and “International” style 208–212 Persians 43, 53, 62, 81, 96, 123, 194, 207, 213 Piero di Cosimo, Adoration 19 Pius II 188 Pilgrim compounds see compounds Porta de’ Cavalleggeri 14 Pucinelli, Angelo, St. Michael enthroned, ca. 1350 135 Renaissance 3, 5, 9, 18, 28, 33, 49, 120, 180–190, 207, 212 Rome, Borgo: Canonica, canons 16; early history 18; renovation 23; scholae 18; S. Maria degli Armenia/S. Maria de Harmenis de Portica S. Petri 20–243; S. Giacomo degli Armeni 38, 42; S. Gregorio degli Armeni/S. Gregorio Illuminatore 41; Isola S. Gregorio

224

Index

38–40; S.M. della Pieta 33; S. Spirito in Sassia 31; S. Stefano Maggiore/Ecclesia Sancti Stephani Indiae 26, 26; S. Stefano Minore 33, 30; SS. Giovanni e Paolo 26 Rome, caput mundi 35 Rome, commercial centre 15 Rome, contrada Archenohe 24 Rome, ‘national’ churches 15 Rome, Old St. Peter’s restored 19 Rome, Porta de’ Cavalleggeri 18, 20–22, 31 Rome, S. M. de Arca Noe 43 Rome, S. M. Egiziaca 23, 24, 36–37 Rome, Vatican, pilgrim compounds: Obelisk, Vatican 14; St. Peter’s Chapter 31; see also compounds, early medieval monasteries Roslin, Toros 72, 87, 117, 129, 131, 160; Canon Table 118; Prince Levon of Cilicia, ca. 1250 131 Rubruck 50, 87, 96, 101–105 rules for convent life in Ethiopian compound 35 St. Gregory the Illuminator 32, 43, 63, 73, 84, 94, 178 St. John page, Cilicia, 1256 142 St. Luke page, Cilicia, 1253 137 St. Mathew page, Cilicia, 1253 134 St. Thaddeus Monastery, Province of Maku, Iran 93 Saracens 16 Schola Francorum 18, 31 Schola Frisonum 18 Schola Saxonum 18 Sigismund of Luxemburg, Emperor 28 silk trade 72, 75, 77, 81 Silk Road trade 20, 46, 60, 76, 145, 181, 208 Sixtus IV, pope 29, 35

Siunik 49, 62, 67, 70, 77, 92, 108, 159, 174 Stephen II, pope 49 Stephen I King of Hungary, saint 28 Strozzi of Florence 182, 188 Sultaniyah 3,7,44, 51, 68, 73, 77, 86, 93, 100, 106, 210 symbols 8–11, 153, 156, 168, 212 Syria 43, 64, 72, 74 Syriac 47, 117, 128 Tatev 50–54, 67, 109, 161, 178 Tempesta, map of the Borgo (1593) 22–25, 33, 198 Toros of Taron 50, 166, 174 trading privileges 60, 73, 79, 195 Trdat, King 43, 63 Trebizond 68, 76, 81, 92, 95, 98, 103 Turkey 81, 132, 196 Turkmen 62, 66, 105 Turks 53, 62, 70, 81, 95, 98, 108, 162, 188 Uccello, Paolo, Stories from Noah, S. M. Novella, Florence, 1438–43 180 United Armenian Archbishops 35 Urmia, Lake 51, 62, 103 Van 23, 36, 62, 96–98, 178 Van, Lake 1, 54, 62, 93, 98, 100, 108, 115, 178, 188, 195 Vaspurakan 54, 66, 93, 98, 100, 108, 115, 167, 180 Vegio, Maeo 27 Veneziano, Paolo 162, 164; Coronation of the Virgin, ca. 1350 164 Yivli Minaret Mosque and portal, Erzurum, 1373 98