Description

The rare first edition of Armenian poetry by Simon Eremyan, with a beautifully designed cover, printed in colour, was printed by the Mekhitarists press in Venice.  

The author Simon Eremyan (1871-1936) was an Armenian author and editor, who in 1895 entered the Armenian Mekhitarists monastery on the island San Lazzaro in Venice. He was especially known for his publications on the natural science in the Armenian Language.  

The book was printed by the press of the Mekhitarists, a congregation of Benedictine monks of the Armenian Catholic Church, on the island of San Lazzaro in Venice.  The order was founded in Mkhitar Sebastatsi, in 1717, with a goal to nourish the Armenian culture, and mostly preserve the literature under the Ottoman Empire. In the same year, during the tensions between the Ottoman and Venetians, Venice gave an island San Lazzaro to the order, where they established their centre. In the next decades they translated and printed books, pamphlets, prints and maps in Armenian language, meant for export among Armenians around the world. The monastery also collected an important valuable library. Another big Armenian centre was the Mekhitarist Monastery (Mechitaristenkirche), founded in 1810 in Vienna, Austria.  

The pamphlet is very rare. We could not find any institutional examples neither in Worldcat neither in the database of the Armenian libraries.