В Матенадаране запущен цифровой проект по изучению армянских рукописей

In 405, Mesrop Mashtots invented the Armenian alphabet and thereby unleashed a literary, cultural revolution; by giving the Armenian people a written language, he made possible a translation of the Bible, and with it, not only the basis for worship with a liturgy in the mother tongue, but the means to develop a literary culture. Scholars at the Mesrop Mashtots Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts (Matenadaran) have launched an ambitious new project that might be seen as honoring the legacy of its namesake, by applying digital technologies to the study of illuminated manuscripts: The Armenian Manuscript Illumination (AMI) Project. Lusine Sargsyan, senior researcher in the Medieval Art Studies Department at the Matenadaran and the initiator of the project, spoke in July about its origins and aims. A graduate of Yerevan State University in Armenian Art History and Theory, Sargsyan has focused her research on Armenian manuscript art, and dedicated her 2023 doctoral dissertation (supervised by Prof. Levon Chookaszian) to the work of 14th-century Armenian miniaturist Awag (Avag). While conducting graduate research in Paris, with support from the Sirarpie Der Nersessian Foundation, she acquired skills in interdisciplinary methodology, studying Awag not only as a miniaturist, but as a scribe, calligrapher, manuscript binder, musician proficient in medieval Armenian musical notation (khaz), and an important church figure of his time. In parallel she launched a project dedicated to identifying, studying and cataloguing Armenian manuscripts preserved in Romania and, under the guidance of the late Gevorg Ter-Vardanyan, chief conservator of Armenian manuscripts at the Matenadaran, conducted systematic research in Romanian collections which led to scholarly publications. She acquired experience in the use of digital technologies for manuscript studies in 2017 as a Visiting Scholar at the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library in St. John’s University, Minnesota, home to one of the world’s largest collections of digitized manuscripts, including Armenian manuscripts from Iraq and Syria. In 2018, Prof. Karen Matevosyan, then deputy director of the Matenadaran, invited Sargsyan to join the institute. She also teaches art history, Medieval Eastern Christian Art, and Armenian-Byzantine artistic relations at Yerevan State University. The Bible of Sargis Pitsak, 14th c., Venice, 2026 AMS: Tell me more about illuminated manuscripts and why they are so important. Get the Mirror in your inbox: Sargsyan: Armenian manuscript illumination plays an important role in the history of Armenian art. With a tradition spanning more than a thousand years, it also occupies a significant place within the broader history of medieval Christian art. The earliest surviving examples of Armenian manuscript illumination are four illuminated pages painted on two parchment bifolia, dating to the 6th or 7th century. These leaves were later bound at the end of the so-called Etchmiadzin Gospel, a manuscript copied in 989 at Bgheno Noravank in the Syunik Province of Armenia. Their significance for the study of Christian art is comparable to that of the 6th-century Rabbula Gospels (Syriac) and the Rossano Gospels (Greek), which are internationally recognized as among the earliest surviving masterpieces of Christian manuscript illumination. Over the centuries, Armenian manuscript illumination developed into a rich, multifaceted artistic tradition, giving rise to distinct regional schools, individual artistic styles, and local workshops. In many periods, it evolved in parallel with the manuscript traditions of the Eastern Christian world, Byzantium and Medieval and Early modern Latin Europe, but still preserved its unique iconographic and stylistic characteristics. Richly illuminated manuscripts were produced especially in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, as well as in Armenian communities in Crimea and, in later centuries, in New Julfa and Constantinople. At the same time, the historic Armenian schools of Vaspurakan, Syunik, and Artsakh preserved regional artistic traditions, reflecting local cultural, religious, and aesthetic developments. Regardless of where, when, or within which artistic tradition Armenian manuscript art developed, it is without a doubt an integral part of the history of world art. Though it has distinctive characteristics that make it uniquely Armenian, it also shares many artistic, iconographic, and cultural features with the broader traditions of medieval Christian manuscript illumination. AMS: How did the Armenian Manuscript Illumination Project come into being? Sargsyan: It was the result of a learning process. First let me say that in scholarly literature there do exist episodic studies on illumination programs of Armenian manuscripts. By “program” we mean the criteria followed in planning all the illustrations for one manuscript; this includes the selection of images, their placement or layout on the pages, the relationship between images and letters, etc. I encountered a problem related to this while studying an illuminated Hymnal from the Academy Library of Romania in Bucharest in 2013. The main colophon of this Gospel was missing, so I was faced with the task of identifying the location and date of the manuscript myself. I examined the binding of the manuscript, its paleography, the iconography and style of the miniatures, and then compared the manuscript’s illumination program with 61 other Hymnals. That led me to an approximate answer to my question. Later I studied the illumination program of the manuscripts of Awag for my PhD thesis: an Armenian Manrusmunq (Songbook) from the Berlin State Library, an Old Testament from the Mekhitarist Library in Venice, and a New Testament from the Bible of King Oshin. I studied the illumination programs of these manuscripts through a table showing both text and illumination in comparison with other Bibles. As a result, I realized there was a need to develop a systematic study of the complete illumination program of Armenian manuscripts, with their diverse iconography or differing imagery, and to do so by utilizing the tools provided by digital technologies. Whereas existing publications with tables of such illumination programs contain only figurative miniatures, the tables I have suggested display the entire illumination program, including not only figurative miniatures, but also the canon tables, title pages, ornamental headings, marginal ornaments, and ornamental letters. So, that was the genesis of the AMI Project; and it presents a complete illumination program of Armenian manuscripts (text and miniature) with varied content – and moving it from printed to digital format. Due to their physical size, printed pages impose limits on the researcher, whereas the digital realm has unlimited possibilities for including countless manuscripts, each with different content. AMS: How could a scholar, or even an interested layperson, like myself, see how the Project works? Sargsyan: You would visit the AMI website! We have produced the first-ever digitally illustrated website of Medieval and Early Modern Armenian manuscript illumination systems or programs through a comparative table representing the text with its miniature(s). This work was made possible by the Institutional hosting of the Matenadaran and a research grant provided in 2021-2022 by the Armenian National Science and Education Fund (ANSEF) based in New York. The AMI Project contains in its database a selection of illuminated manuscripts from the four largest collections of Armenian manuscripts in the world: The Matenadaran Research Institute of Ancient Manuscripts in Yerevan, The St. Theodoros Library and Treasury at St. James Armenian Cathedral in Jerusalem, the Mekhitarist Libraries in Venice and Vienna. With this, our first initiative, the Project has presented nine illuminated Gospel manuscripts stretching over a long chronological span, from the 9th to the 17th centuries. It also features a map illustrating the geographical development of Armenian manuscript illumination, covering historical Armenia, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, and Armenian communities throughout the diaspora. The choice of the manuscripts was based on the specific role that each of them has played in the establishment and development of the illumination program of the Armenian Gospels. AMS: How would I begin to study a particular manuscript? Sargsyan: First, you would look at the data available on that manuscript: a brief physical description of each Gospel is given, as well as colophon extracts that provide information about the creation of the manuscript. A brief commentary on the illumination program and artistic features of each manuscript is also provided. To enter these data, the project team used available literature (catalogues of manuscripts, monographs, articles), internet resources (if any), and in some cases archival documents. Sources are listed in the bibliography. AMS: That is the concept governing the website; how do I as a visitor/user proceed step by step? Sargsyan: You would choose between two main search areas: Advanced search (separately for “Table”, “Manuscript” and “Miniature”) and Quick search (entering a word or an inventory number, e.g. Jerusalem, 2568). The Advanced search for “Table” functions by browsing manuscript title and text/Gospel reading (e.g. Gospel, Matthew 1:10, 1st chapter, verse 10), for “Manuscript” by browsing: library, inventory number, century or year, place, scribe, script, miniaturist, patron, owner (e. g. Venice, Mekhitarist Congregation Library 1917, 14th, Syunik, Sargis, Toros Taronatsi, bolorgir, vardapet Davit, Esayi Nchetsi), and for “Miniature” by browsing the title of the miniature, manuscript, folio, type and text/Gospel reading (e.g. Annunciation to Mary, Vienna, Mekhitarist Congregation Library 242, 121r, ornamental heading, Luke 1:24). This kind of general description (with some similarities or differences) of each manuscript and its miniatures is often present on the websites of digitized manuscripts. AMS: Then what distinguishes the AMI from preexisting digital study tools in this area of research? Sargsyan: The special feature of the AMI Project is the comparison of illustrated pages from different manuscripts corresponding to the text, with the use of search tools: Gospel verses, Bible verses, Hymnal Canons, Lectionary readings, etc. By comparison, take, for example, the Princeton University Index of Medieval Art (https://theindex.princeton.edu/), which represents the largest archive of medieval art in the world, including illuminated manuscripts. The browsing list consists of 15 multifunctional tools, but without the correspondence of text and image as in the AMI Project (Gospel reading and miniature) with its comparative table. AMS: Why are comparative manuscripts important? Sargsyan: There are many project websites that display Armenian digitized manuscripts from various collections: these are scanned copies of manuscripts, or digitized catalogues usually with limited information on each manuscript or its miniatures. But they do not provide answers to any specific issue in manuscript art study. The comparative analysis we provide through the AMI, on the contrary, raises a number of research questions. For example, what similarities and differences can be observed among 14th-century Armenian Gospel illumination produced in Cilicia, Vaspurakan, and Syunik? How did regional artistic traditions influence the selection and arrangement of illuminated cycles? It enables scholars to trace the development of illumination programs of Armenian manuscripts across centuries, and to examine the contribution of individual artistic schools and masters. It also enables users to explore a wide range of detailed research questions, such as the recurrence of specific marginal ornaments accompanying the same verse or reading across different illuminated Gospel manuscripts. Lusine Sargsyan with the Bible of Avag, Venice, San Lazzaro, 2012 AMS: How has the AMI Project been received? Sargsyan: Following the launch, I received very positive feedback from my colleagues — including international scholars — and students, who use the website data in their research. The Project was also presented at the First International Armenology Congress in a paper entitled “From Tradition to Innovation: New Approaches in Armenian Manuscript Studies,” held at the Matenadaran, July 19-22, 2024. The presentation generated considerable interest and received strong encouragement from specialists in the field, who recognized the Project’s scholarly value and potential. Subsequently, several distinguished scholars expressed their support for the initiative; among them, Dr. Christina Maranci, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University, and Dr. Ioanna Rapti of the École Pratique des Hautes Études joined the Scientific Council of the AMI Project. Their participation brings additional expertise and further strengthens the Project’s international research network. AMS: Where does the AMI stand today? What are your plans for the future? Sargsyan: I am pleased to announce that this year the Project has been awarded a grant from the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) and the Collaborative Heritage Management grant by the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). These grants will enable us to expand our database with new illuminated manuscripts from the collections of the Matenadaran and the Mekhitarist Libraries of Venice and Vienna. The funding will also support the development of the website’s search tools, maintenance, and IT services. Thanks to the generous cooperation of the conservators at all three repositories, the database will be enriched with more than ten times more illustrated manuscript pages then are currently displayed on the website. In this regard, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Directorate of the Matenadaran, especially Director Dr. Ara Khzmalyan and Deputy Director Dr. Vahe Torosyan, Head of the Medieval Art Studies Department Dr. Nazenie Garibian, as well as to Father Vahan Vardapet Ohanean of the Mekhitarist Congregation of Venice, for their invaluable support and collaboration. The AMI team’s research trip to the Mekhitarist Library in Vienna is coming up very soon, in the second half of August. And, the Project’s team has continued to grow. Art historians Lusine Barseghyan and Siranush Beglaryan from the Matenadaran, together with Dr. Erin Piñon of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence – Max Planck Institute, have also joined. I see the future of the AMI Project not only in enriching its database with new manuscripts (by expanding collaboration with other repositories of Armenian manuscripts around the world) and developing advanced search tools (including AI-based methods), but also in addressing a specific scholarly challenge in the study of Armenian manuscript art – the very challenge for which this digital database was conceived. In the long term, this work will contribute to generating a series of scholarly volumes dedicated to Armenian manuscript illumination programs. I envision this series organized according to manuscript content – such as Gospels, Bibles, Hymnals (Sharaknots), Ritual Books, Psalters, Lectionaries (Chashots), and other categories. Each volume (for example, The Illumination Program of Armenian Hymnals) would present the manuscripts in chronological order, reflecting the historical formation and development of their illumination programs over time. To summarize, the AMI Project is not merely the creation of a digital database. Rather, it poses new research questions, proposes original approaches to answering them through digital scholarship, and ultimately lays the foundation for a comprehensive printed series on the illumination programs of Armenian manuscripts. As Principal Investigator of the AMI Project, I believe that the realization of this ambitious vision requires collaborative, interdisciplinary teamwork involving specialists from both Armenia (first and foremost from the Matenadaran) and the international scholarly community.