[MISSAL]
Lyturgia Armena.
Rome, Typis Sacrae Congregatiionis de Propaganda Fide, 1677.£6,250.00
FIRST EDITION thus. Folio. pp. (ii) 20 [vi] 30. Roman and Armenian letter, printed in red and black throughout. Woodcut printer’s devices to t-ps, verso of first work with woodcut image of St. John Chrysostom, two further woodcuts depicting the Last Supper and Crucifixion, second work with woodcut of the Ascension of the Virgin Mary, all within typographical borders printed in red and black, red and black typographical head- and tailpieces, woodcut initials. Contemp. 44-line inscription in Armenian to final verso of first work and recto of blank leaf, comprising an additional prayer. Contemp. Armenian-style panelled orocco, blind design of diapered fillets within outer border of ‘tooth’ roll and fillets, silk tabs to edges, rubbed, lower cover stained, loss from head and foot of spine, joints slightly cracked. C19 ink number stamped to ffep. Candle grease spotting to a few ll. of first work, light waterstain to lower margin of next, affecting a few words, a few ll. with marginal foxing, a few marginal tears. The second work with light waterstaining to blank lower margin of t-p, just touching woodcut on verso, and to blank gutter. A very good, large, unsophisticated copy in the original binding.
First edition of this abbreviated Armenian missal containing the liturgy for the mass according to the rite of the Armenian Uniats, attractively printed and charmingly illustrated, in an Armenian style binding with manuscript additions. It also contains corrections to the divine office and hymnal: ‘The alterations are made to the texts of the Breviary printed in Amsterdam in 1664. [They] are purely doctrinal, designed to accommodate Catholic doctrines such as the procession of the Holy Spirit from the ‘Father and the Son,’ the exclusion of ‘who was crucified’ from the Trisagion, references to the Primacy of the Pope etc.’ (Vrej Nerses Nersessian, Catalogue of Early Armenian Books (London: British Library), p. 55). One of two issues in the same year, this has separate paginations for the two parts.
‘The Roman Church … saw the Eastern Christians as a fruitful field for proselytism … In the C17th the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, established by the Roman Catholic Church in 1622 as part of the Counter-Reformation, undertook a printing programme in Armenian and other languages designed to provide missionaries and new converts alike with texts to support evangelisation and Catholic devotion’ (Nersessian, The Parikian Collection of Early Armenian Printing at Eton College Library (Eton: 2016), p. 7).
All the Armenian types used by the Sacra Congregatio were those cut by Robert Granjon in 1579 (Jean-Pierre Mahé, Catalogue des ‘Incunables’ Arméniens (Genève: 1986), p. 153).
Mahé 180. Nersessian, Catalogue, 45. BM STC C17 It., p. 491.