Armenian Manuscripts

Date range: 11th-18th centuries

Medium: Manuscript

Number of items: 22 items.

A small but important collection, comprising 22 items on parchment and paper. Armenian MSS 1-19 were acquired by Enriqueta Rylands in 1901 with the Crawford collection.

Particularly noteworthy are:

• Armenian MS 3, a profusely illustrated 16th-century Romance of Alexander;
• Armenian MS 1, a Gospel Book, the oldest Armenian manuscript recorded in Nersessian’s union Catalogue of Armenian manuscripts in British Libraries;
• Armenian MS 10, a Gospel Book written at Chikbak in 1313 AD containing some unusual Armenian miniatures with Georgian inscripts, in a binding bearing the name of the binder 'Hakob' and dated 1636 AD;
• Armenian MS 20, a Gospel Book written by Yakob of New Julfa in 1587 AD, containing full page miniatures of Old Testament scenes.

Of the nine Gospel Books in the collection, six are illuminated. An Armenian miniature can also be found in a 14th-century manuscript of the Gospels in Arabic (Arabic MS 1 (651)).

Further information:

• Vrej Nersessian, A Catalogue of the Armenian Manuscripts in the British Library Acquired Since the Year 1913 and of Collections in Other Libraries in the United Kingdom (London: British Library, 2012).
• D. Talbot Rice, 'The Illuminations of Armenian Manuscript 10 in the John Rylands Library', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 43 (1960-1), pp. 452-8.

Location:

• The John Rylands Library, Deansgate  [Map]
• Find out how to use the reading rooms in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library