post-byzantine armenian bookbinding

8/11/2019 Post-Byzantine Armenian Bookbinding

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Post-Byzantine Armenian Bookbindingand Its Relationship to the Greek Tradition

D I C K R A N K O U Y M J I A N

he choice o addressing Armenian bookbinding afer the feenth century is due to a mis-understanding on my part o the period to be considered by this conerence; I had thought it

was entirely devoted to the post-Byzantine period. Tis conusion has allowed me to address

what one might call late Armenian bookbinding, especially the very productive seventeenth

century, or which there has been no general study.1Tough Constantinople had allen to the

urks in , Armenia was not conquered until the eastern campaigns o Selim the Grim in

-. Due to these Saavid-Ottoman wars, which began at the inception o the sixteenth

century and continued intermittently until nearly the mid-seventeenth century, the sixteenth

century shows a net regression in Armenian manuscript production, especially in the rst hal

o the century.2Te progression in production, however, is regular afer , with a slight diprom - as a result o the Jelali movement in the Ottoman Empire, ollowed by a dra-

matic rise in manuscript production until the end o the seventeenth century afer which there

is a rapid decline.3

. Te ollowing are the most important previous studies on Armenian manuscript bindings: Sylvia Merian, Te

Structure of Armenian Bookbinding and Its Relation to Near Eastern Bookmaking raditions, Doctoral Tesis, Co-

lumbia University ; Garegin Yovsepean,A Page from the History of Armenian Art and Culture, Aleppo (in

Armenian); Babgen Arakelyan, Kazmeri zardarman arveste mijnadaryan Hayastanum, (Te Art o Bookbinding

Decoration in Medieval Armenia), Banber Matenadarani (), -, with illustrations. Abbreviations or

manuscripts: M=Matenadaran, Erevan; V=Vencie, Mekhitarist collection; J=Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate.

. Details can be ound in D. Kouymjian, Sous le joug des urcomans et des urcs ottomans (XVe-XVIe sicles),

Histoire des Armniens,Grard Ddyan (ed.), oulouse , -, and idem, Armenia rom the Fall o the

Cilician Kingdom () to the Forced Emigration under Shah Abas (), Te Armenian People from Ancient

to Modern imes,Richard Hovannisian (ed.), New York , vol. , -, reprinted as a booklet, Fresno , see

especially -.

. For statistics o Armenian manuscript production see D. Kouymjian, Dated Armenian Manuscripts as a

Statistical ool or Armenian History,Medieval Armenian Culture, . Samuelian and M. Stone (eds.), University o

Pennsylvania Armenian exts and Studies vol. , Chico CA , -.


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raditional Armenian bindings were ashioned well into the eighteenth century and even

occasionally in the early nineteenth century, even in distant Armenian diaspora communi-

ties. Even though the physical technique o traditional Armenian bookbinding the sewing oquires and headbands, the method o attaching the boards, the application o leather covers, and

the use o linings remained unchanged until late, eventually to be replaced at the end o the

eighteenth century and afer by western bookbinding ashions, the decoration o leather bind-

ings rom specic regions undergoes a radical change or changes in the seventeenth century.

Armenian manuscript production nally gave way to the printed book, but only at the end

o the seventeenth or early eighteenth century, more than years afer Armenian books were

rst issued in Venice (-). Even though the Bible in Armenian was printed in Amsterdam

in , it was simply too expensive an item with some engravings to be bought by any-

one but rich merchants. Even so, it was not the Bible which was the essential liturgical book,

but the Gospels, the most used and sought afer text o the clergy. When Gospel books were

printed in large quantities and successive editions, rst in Venice starting in the s and then

in Constantinople in and afer, their copying by the clergy dramatically dropped; by

the copying o Gospels, Hymnals, and Bibles had virtually stopped.4I manuscripts were still

copied in the late eighteenth century and even in the nineteenth century, they were done so not

out o necessity, but either as a pious act, an attribute associated with the work o scribes, espe-

cially amateurs, or in the case o Gospels and ritual books or the aesthetic quality and luxury o

multicolored illuminations absent in the printed volumes. Nevertheless, the hand written book

tradition continued everywhere until the First World War; thousands o Armenian manuscripts

rom the eighteenth, the nineteenth, and the early twentieth centuries are kept in the most

important repositories in Armenia and elsewhere. Tese are ofen one o a kind items, dic-

tionaries, grammars, glossaries, travel accounts, contemporary histories, commercial registers,

journals, practical guides, biographies, and copies o older texts as yet unpublished made by

hand or or by scholars or their own research. Few o these are illuminated. Kurt Weitzmann

remarked orty years ago when speaking about late post-Byzantine Greek manuscript painting:

though some miniatures are executed with considerable skill, book illumination has ceased to

be a living and leading art.5Tis applies equally well to late Armenian manuscript production.

Let us review the similarities and differences between Armenian and Byzantine manuscript

production. Both were involved in the dramatic ourth century development o the codex, theByzantines more directly as inheritors o the Roman Empire, the Armenians only producing

. See the graph comparing the number o titles o printed books year by year plotted against the number o

manuscript Gospels, Bibles, New estaments in Kouymjian, Dated Armenian Manuscripts as a Statistical ool or

Armenian History, , g. II.

. K. Weitzmann, Manuscripts, Byzantine Art an European Art, catalogue o a Council o Europe exhibition,

Athens 1964, 294.



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their own books afer the invention o the alphabet in . We know o no attested use o scrolls

or papyri in Armenia (though clays seals that might have been attached to rolls have been ound

in pre-Christian excavations), so rather than a transition rom roll to codex, Armenia knowsonly the book with olded pages. Furthermore, in terms o ordinary as opposed to luxury bind-

ings, both traditions seem to have been inuenced by the Coptic manner o leather binding o

codices, Armenia perhaps through the intermediary o Syria and Byzantium. Leather covered

boards were the standard or both schools, rather than leather over papyrus lling as in early

Coptic bindings or over carton as in Islam or exible vellum as sometimes ound in the West.

In both variants the text block and the size o the covered boards are the same, no overlapping

or squares as in European bindings. Both traditions used a raised, embroidered headband

at both ends, which required that manuscripts be stored lying at rather than upright (g. ).

However, there were differences as pointed out rst, rather hastily, by Berthe Van Regemorter

and more thoroughly by Sylvia Merian.6Armenian binders always, or at least rom the twelfh

century onwards, used supported stitching to sew together the quires o a manuscript as did

European binders, perhaps because o a European inuence,7whereas in the Greek or other

Middle East traditions, the quires were sewn to each other. Te boards o Armenian bindings

were usually much thinner than Byzantine ones, usually - millimeters; they were also placed

with grain running horizontally, while the Greeks and other east Mediterranean crafsmen

placed them vertically. Te method o attaching the text block to the leather covered boards

was also different. Armenians always covered the inside ront and back boards with a cloth lin-

ing doublure o some distinction (g. ); Byzantine binders lef the wood naked showing the

holes and strings used to asten the binding to the text; Islamic bindings used a thin piece o

leather as lining.8Both Greeks and Armenians decorated the leather with blind tooling, using

a variety o stamping tools, but Armenians never used stamping irons with animals or heraldic

designs as did the Byzantines. Stamps or designs were not applied, however, to the spine o a

binding, which was only decorated with thin vertical llets. Furthermore, Armenian leather

bindings usually had a ap precisely the size o the gutter or ore-edge attached to the lower

cover orming a box-like container (g. ); unlike the Islamic envelop ap, it never reached

. Berthe van Regemorter, La reliure armnienne, Bazmavp(), nos.-, -; a ew o her observa-

tions were partly corrected in eadem, La reliure byzantine, Revue Belge dArchologie et dHistoire de lArt,XXXVI/- (), -; Merian, Te Structure o Armenian Bookbinding; Sylvie Merian, From Venice to Isahan and

Back: Te Making o an Armenian Manuscript in Early 18th-Century Persia, Te Complete Binder: Studies in Book

Making and Conservation in Honour of Roger Powell, John L. Sharpe (ed.), urnhout , -.

. Sylvie Merian suggests that this happened through Crusader inuence during the Armenian kingdom o

Cilicia. See, Cilicia as the Locus o European Inuence on Armenian Medieval Book Production,Armenian Review

, no. / (, issued ), -.

. I know o a single Armenian manuscript with a leather lining, M, a miscellany o religious texts copied

in but with a much later sixteenth or seventeenth century binding.

P O S B Y Z A N I N E A R M E N I A N B O O K B I N D I N G


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Fig.

Fig.

over the upper cover. On many covers in Greater Armenia rom the feenth to the rst years o

the seventeenth century, binders reinorced the designs o the tooled decoration with rounded

metal studs (g. a, b); these also might have served to protect the covers o the book, which

were kept lying at, rom wear.9

Te basic design o Armenian bindings differed dramatically and consistently rom those o

the Empire to its west. Perhaps this is in part due to the rarity o secular manuscripts, Chris-

tian texts, but especially the Gospel book, accounting or the majority o surviving Armenian

manuscripts up to . Te principal decorations on Gospel bindings are on the upper cover

a braided cross on a stepped pedestal (g. ), sometimes called a Calvary cross, enclosed in

a rectangular braided or guilloche rame and on the lower cover a vertical rectangle made o

. Te technical questions are nicely summarized by Sylvie Merian in T.F. Mathews and R.S. Wieck, (eds.),

reasures from Heaven, Armenian Illuminated Manuscripts, New York ; Bindings, -.


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Fig.

dense braided or rope work within the same guilloche rame (g. ).10Tese designs underline

the central theme o the Christian message, Crucixion on the upper cover and Resurrec-

tion on the lower. I have discussed elsewhere the interpretation o this abstract rectangle onthe lower cover as the Resurrection,

representing the empty tomb o the

risen Christ.11 Ofen on bindings

other than the Gospels hymnals,

rituals, and secular texts one or

both o these motis are replaced by

an elaborate geometric rosette (in-

tersecting triangles or squares with

corners joined by arcs producing

a lobbed gure) in the central eld

(g. ).12Tey are ormed with intersecting squares and triangles, the corners o which are

joined by arcs to give rosette designs o eight, six, or our petals; these are sometimes ound on

Gospel covers.13

Te braided cross-braided rectangle motis have a long lie on Armenian Gospel bindings.

Te paired motis seem to be the oldest decoration ound on surviving Armenian manuscript

bindings, going back perhaps as early as the eleventh and twelfh centuries,14but almost cer-

. Tere are some variants o these motis made entirely with stamping tools rather than the rope braid, orexample, M, works o Gregory o Skevra o with a rebinding o ; M. Lectionary o Hetum II,

with rebinding o , using rosette stamps; M, Gospels o , rebound in the late seventeenth century

by Bishop Pilipos; M, Gospels o , but with a later rebinding. For the abandonment o the braided cross

and rectangle design in certain regions in the seventeenth century see below.

. D. Kouymjian, Te Decoration o Medieval Armenian Manuscript Bindings, Colloque international. La re-

liure mdivale, (Paris, Institut de France, - mai ) (in press). See also D. Kouymjian, Inscribed Armenian

Manuscript Bindings: A Preliminary General Survey,Armenian exts, asks and ools. Papers o the Association

Internationale des Etudes Armniennes: Workshop on Priorities, Problems and echniques o ext Editions, H.J.

Lehmann and J.J.S. Weitenberg (eds.), Aarhus , , note .

. Similar designs, ultimately o Coptic origin, but reinorced by Islamic decoration, are ound in Mudejar and

other traditions. For example, a seven lobbed or petalled geometric gure on a feenth century Spanish binding,

Paris, Bibliothque Mazarine, Inc. , printed book o , Les reliures mdivales de la Bibliothque Mazarine,

exhibition catalogue, Paris , no. . Armenian examples are always with an even number o petals or lobs, ,

, or .

. For example: V/, Gospels, seventeenth century, with stepped cross on the upper cover and an eight-

petalled rosette on the lower; M, Gospels o , rebound by Pilipos in , lower cover with eight-petalled

rosette; V, Gospels o and M, Gospels o with a later rebinding, both with our lobbed geometric

rosettes on the lower covers.

. Arakelian, Te Art o Bookbinding Decoration in Medieval Armenia, , lists three manuscripts, which

he claims have eleventh century bindings rom the Matenadaran in Erevan: M, Gospels o , but with a


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Fig. a

Fig. Fig.

Fig. b


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tainly rom the thirteenth century to at least . All but a hand-

ul o the or so bindings with this combination I have photo-

graphed are Gospels.15

In the eighteenth century, the scenes oCrucixion and Resurrection get translated on to silver binding

plaques (g. ) used on both manuscripts and printed books, but

the rectangle representing Resurrection is by then misunderstood

by many binders. It disappears on silver works and is replaced by

a European inuenced iconography o the Resurrection, usually

Christ bearing a staff and ascending rom above the tomb (g.

). In these silver bindings, the braided cross also gives way to a

Crucixion proper: Christ on the cross. Tere are many examples

o anomalous combinations on leather bindings: braided cross on

lower cover, rectangle on upper; braided rectangle on both cov-

ers; cross and geometricized rosette, geometric motis on both

covers (usually non-Gospel texts). On silver bindings, the pair Crucixion-Resurrection is not

always used even or Gospels, but other narrative scenes are common, Presentation o the Magi,

Presentation in the emple, Ascension, etc., on one or both covers.

Establishing a chronology o designs on leather bindings is hindered by the perpetual prob-

lem o dating. As in the Byzantine and other traditions, manuscripts were regularly rebound.

O course we are more ortunate when working with Armenian manuscripts because o the

strong colophonic tradition with memorials ofen, but not always, mentioning later binders.

Tese are usually dated. Nevertheless, we are sometimes lef with a dated text o say the twelfh

or thirteenth century with leather covers clearly much later in style, yet without urther inter-

nal evidence. Te binding must be dated by its design and tooling, but because so ew Arme-

nian bindings have been published we lack the necessary comparative data to make inormed

date attributions, and in many monasteries archaic traditions were very strong thus inducing

chronological errors. On the other hand there is, luckily, a series o inscribed and dated leather

bindings, which leaves no doubt about the moment o their creation. With a ew exceptions

binding that is much later, M, Gospels o , but with a later binders colophon o , M, Gospels

o -, but with a colophon o restoration o , yet even a thirteenth century date is hard to accept or

this binding. On the other hand, Arakelian in his g. , p. , reproduces a marginal drawing in the Gospels o

, M, ol. v, which shows a braided cross on a pedestal much like the crosses on the earliest bindings. A

similar polychrome braided cross on a pedestal within a partially braided rame serves as a ull-page miniature in

the Gospels o , J, ol. .

. Te others are a Bible, New estament, Psalter, Prayerbook, Hymnal, Ritual rom the collections o the Mate-

nadaran, Erevan, the Prelacy Museum, New Jula, Isahan, and the Mekhitarist Library, San Lazzaro, Venice. Te

examples rom rmly dated Gospels run rom (is the binding rom this date?) to as late as , with a jump

to , however, my sampling is ar rom balanced and not even properly random.


Fig.


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these are all rom a specic locality

and limited to a short period rom

the s to the s. Tey will bediscussed below. Silver bindings rom

all periods are also usually dated, and

though they help us understand the

evolution o the structure and sewing

o the codex, they are o less use or

the history o leather bindings.

In general one can say that Arme-

nian decoration went its separate way

in bindings and was hardly touched

by the Byzantine tradition, quite di-

erent rom the strong inuence o

Byzantine art and iconography on the illuminations in these same manuscripts. But beore

discussing the late evolution o the decoration o Armenian bindings, this conerence is the

perect occasion to present a ew isolated eatures that are directly related to Byzantine book-

binding. Icons were not a part o the Armenian artistic tradition. Tus, to nd an icon-like

painting on the cover o a late seventeenth century Armenian Gospel manuscript in the Venice

Mekhitarist collection (g. ) is quite remarkable, especially since it is painted directly onto

leather that had already been blind tooled.16I suspect it is due to Greek inuence, even though

the iconography o the Crucixion is probably copied afer European models o the time, with,

or example, a single nail used to asten both eet to the cross.17Tere is a painted binding on

a provincial mid-Byzantine Lectionary in the Andover-Harvard Teological Library with the

Crucixion and the symbols o the Evangelists in the our corners, but lacking the Virgin and

John as in the Armenian example.18

. Venice, V/, Four Gospels, dated to the seventeenth century, upper cover; Barsegh Sargisian,Master

Catalogue of Armenian Manuscripts of the Mekhitarist Library in Venice, vol. I, Venice , no. , without colo-

phons. Tough Sargisian dates the manuscript to the seventeenth-eighteenth century, Sahak Djemdjemian, in his

tables o concordance between the old manuscript numbers o the Mekhitarist collection and the printed catalogue

numbers, gives the date as seventeenth century, vol. VI, Venice .

. Sirarpie Der Nersessian commenting on a miniature o the same period and similar disposition in a Hymnal

(FGA., . v) copied in in Agulis observes, []he intrusion o western European iconography can be

detected in the Crucixion, where Christs eet are nailed with a single nail instead o two,Armenian Manuscripts

in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington , , g. .

. Cambridge, MA, Andover-Harvard Teological Lib., Codex Z, G. Vikan, Illuminated Greek Manuscripts

from American Collections. An Exhibition in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann, Princeton , no. , -. Vikan dates

the work to the sixteenth century. One must add that apparently painted Byzantine bindings are not so rare in the


Fig. Fig.


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Tere is also a very small group o Armenian bindings rom

the second quarter o the eighteenth century decorated with

three or our concentric rectangles lled with continuousoral scrolls, the inner most band sometimes inscribed with

a dated inscription, as in an example dated (g. a,

b); in the small central eld is a western inspired Crucixion

stamp.19Such Armenian bindings are similar in design to nos.

- in the study o Federici and Houlis on Byzantine bind-

ings in the Vatican collection.20Similar concentric rectangle

decorations are also known in early Latin bindings.21Just how

or why this style was adopted in New Jula, ar removed rom

the Greek world o the Mediterranean, is not clear; perhaps

through Amsterdam, since the Dutch inuence on the Ar-

menians o Iran was strong in the late seventeenth and eight-

eenth centuries, witness the rst printed Bible in Armenian

in Amsterdam in .22One should also mention a series o

late bindings rom several locales with simple intersecting di-

agonal, horizontal, and vertical llets, much like Byzantine bindings in Federici and Houlis and

van Regemorter (g. );23Babgen Arakelian has associated these simple patterns with binders

rom the Armenian colony in the Crimea, but they can be ound in late bindings rom several

regions. Te simple decoration is also well attested in the earliest western bindings o the ninth

to the eleventh centuries.24

Greek realm since a paper in this conerence seems to be devoted to them: Anastasia Lazaridou, Hand-painted

Bindings o the Post-Byzantine Period.

. New Jula, Isahan, Armenian Prelacy, NJ, Sermons o Gregory o atev, sixteenth or seventeenth cen-

tury; colophon missing, but binding inscription offers date and patrons name, the monk Atans. See also, D.

Kouymjian, Te New Jula Style o Armenian Manuscript Binding,Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies

(, pub. ), , g. .

. C. Federici and K. Houlis, Legature Bizantine Vaticane, Rome , g. ; illustrated examples, pls. III, VI,

XIII. O course the Greek examples are not inscribed; see also the earlier van Regemorter, La reliure byzantine,

type a. on pl. XII.

. An example o about on the lower cover o a Gospel in the Bibliothque Mazarine, ms , Les reluires

mdivales de la Bibliothque Mazarine, no. .

. On early Armenian printing including the various volumes issued in Amsterdam see, R. Kvorkian, Cata-

logue des Incunablesarmniens (/) ou chronique de l imprimerie armnienne, Geneva .

. Federici and Houlis, Legature Bizantine Vaticane, g. , types to , pl. XIX; Van Regemorter, La reliure

byzantine, pls. XVI-XVII.

. J. Vezin, Le dcor des reliures de cuir pendant le haut Moyen Age, Bulletin du bibliophile, no. I (Paris ),

-, g. , Paris, BnF, Lat. , afer A.D.; g. Gttweig , tenth-eleventh century.


Fig.


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Fig. a Fig. b

Fig.

Fig.


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Yet these are isolated examples o direct affi nities with both the Byzantine and earlier Eu-

ropean decorative system. Te mass o Armenian leather covers, even in the post-Byzantine

period, demonstrate a clear and immediately recognizable native approach to decoration, eveni motis and stamping tools are occasionally copied rom the European traditions, especially in

the case o New Jula bindings. What is most interesting in the internal development o the Ar-

menian style or styles is the dramatic change in design in the post-Byzantine period, especially

in the seventeenth century and especially in Armenian diaspora colonies.

Te most important o which were those o the Crimea, dating back to migrations rom the

ormer Bagratid capital Ani in the thirteenth century,25New Jula, the Armenian suburb o the

Saavid capital Isahan, where the victims o the orced migration o Shah Abbas rom Jula on

the Arax in - were settled, and Constantinople in the late seventeenth, but especially the

eighteenth century and afer, when the old Armenian community was reinorced by waves o

immigrants eeing historic Armenia during the century and a hal o Saavid-Ottoman wars.26

In addition to these more amous centers, later Armenian bookbindings were ashioned in all

the major centers o historic Armenia or manuscripts but also or printed volumes. Tere is

a radical break in the main centers in the seventeenth century and afer with traditional blind

tooled designs o Armenian bindings; the braided cross on a pedestal and the braided rectangle

are virtually abandoned as primary motis o Gospels and Bibles or entirely new ones.

Te most characteristic regional style is ound at New Jula a ew decades afer the ound-

ing in . Te leather used is lighter in color than the dark hued bindings o the earlier pe-

riod in Greater Armenia or Cilicia. New stamping tools are employed, ofen western in style

and historiated, principally Christ on the cross and the Virgin. About the mid-seventeenth

century, a very elaborately blind stamped design is created (g. ) with, on the upper cover,

a crucix stamp sometimes with other gures within a circle rom which radiate tongues o

ame. In a study devoted to this type, I have coined the term sunburst to describe it. On the

lower cover, there is a stamp o the Virgin within a similar circle with star designs replacing

the ames o Christ (g. ), which I call a star burst. 27Finally, a great number o these bind-

ings are inscribed, in most cases with the date o execution.28Almost all the inscriptions are

. Tough the illuminations o Armenian manuscripts rom the Crimea have been well studied, no special

article has been devoted to bindings. A useul but partial enumeration o dated Armenian manuscripts rom the

Crimea lists items dating rom to with more than hal rom the ourteenth century; Nira Stone, Te

Kaffa Lives of the Desert Fathers. A Study in Armenian Manuscript Illumination, Louvain , -.

. Historical, social, and economic analyses can be ound in Kouymjian, Sous le joug des urcomans et des

urcs ottomans (XVe-XVIe sicles), and idem, Armenia rom the Fall o the Cilician Kingdom ().

. Kouymjian, Te New Jula Style o Armenian Manuscript Binding, -.

. Te dated New Jula bindings in my inventory are rom to , with a straggler o . Among my

list o 120 inscribed bindings dated rom to , are rom New Jula and o them date rom to

.



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rendered in large majuscules with stamping

tools either ashioned rom moveable type

or specially made by the same dye makersresponsible or the ashioning o the onts

or the Armenian printing establishment set

up by the prelate o New Jula, Khatchatur

o Caesarea. From to seven titles

were issued by this pioneering effort; three

additional works were published in -

. I suspect the tools used to blind stamp

the inscriptions were recuperated rom type

onts no longer being used afer , har-

monizing well chronologically with the rst

recorded inscription o .29

Another important regional group o

seventeenth century or later bindings are a

number o silver covers ashioned by Arme-

nian jewelers in Caesarea/Kayseri (g. ).30

Te careully ashioned and rather large

silver covers eschew the usual Crucixion-

Resurrection motis or very elaborate Biblical scenes ofen enclosed in rames with busts o the

apostles and prophets. Tus ar twenty such covers are recorded dating rom to , plus

another rom .31Te binder-silversmiths names are clearly indicated along with date in

the inscriptions o these silver plaques; these names suggest that they were members o several

amilies o crafsmen who probably immigrated rom New Jula-Iran to Caesarea in the rst

hal o the seventeenth century.32


Fig.

. Tese were the rst books printed in any language in Iran. Te venture was started by Khatchatur Vardapet

Kesaraci, Armenian Prelate o New Jula (-). Khatchatur even manuactured his own paper.

. Due to the western immigration o Armenians during the Ottoman-Saavid wars, Caesarea received a major

inusion o Armenians rom the east. By the end o the sixteenth century, nearly o the population in the inner

walled city was Armenian; Kouymjian, Armenia rom the Fall o the Cilician Kingdom, -.

. A number o studies have been devoted to them, the most recent provides the earlier bibliography: A. Mal-

khasian, From the History o the Bookbinding Art o the Armenians o Caesarea, Etchmiadzin- () -

(in Armenian); see also Sylvie Merians section on silver bindings with excellent reproductions in Mathews and

Wieck, reasures from Heaven,-. Another binding dated (my reading) should be added to the list; it was

published by Frdric Macler, Documents dart armniens, Paris , g. , on a Gospel book. Macler read the

inscription as , Merian in reasures from Heaven, , read or ; the item is missing rom Malkha-

sians list.

. Malkhasian, From the History o the Bookbinding Art o the Armenians o Caesarea, -.


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As indicated above the Armenian colony o the Crimea was active in copying manuscripts;

Kaa bindings (g. ) on the whole appear much less complicated than either the tradition

bindings rom Armenia or those o New Jula. Te designs are made mostly with llets orming

diamond patterns, with a sparse use o stamps; sometimes the lines are made with small oval

stamps instead o simple lines. Te other major center, Constantinople, the most important

Armenian diaspora community in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries seems not to

have produced a distinctive style in leather bindings. By that time, standardized western bind-

ing techniques had replaced conventional Armenian ones, especially or the covers o printed

books, which ofen came ready bound rom European centers o Armenian printing.

Tere were holdouts here and there; occasionally one nds a traditionally bound and deco-

rated Armenian book or manuscript in the early nineteenth century (g. ).33Fine binding

continued until the twentieth century, however, it was almost always with silver plaques. Li-

turgical books, whether manuscript or now more requently printed ones, still valued items

especially when used during liturgical services, or as in the case o the Gospels, displayed on

the altar, had silver covers, ofen gilded (g. a, b). Scores o these rom the nineteenth centurysurvive in patriarchal collections in Etchmiadzin, Antelias, Jerusalem, Venice, and Vienna. Tis

phenomenon was the same in all Orthodox and

Fig.

. Kekelidze Institute o Manuscripts, bilisi, Armenian MS, dated , the upper cover is blind tooled

with triple llets orming lozenges with a large clover like moti in the center made rom a tear shaped tool used

our times.


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Catholic Churches in the East and the West. Te tradition continues today: ancy silver bind-

ings as well as other liturgical objects necessary or Sunday services are purchased rom spe-

cialized international companies, usually now by internet, and because in most cases these

are Greek Orthodox suppliers, a Greek connection in the Armenian binding tradition conti-

nues.34

. For instance Eastern Christian Supply Company, http://www.easternchristian.com/.


Fig. a Fig. b