Manuscript No. 25: Ritual Book

Item Overview

Title

Manuscript No. 25: Ritual Book

Uniform title

Mashtots'

Date Created

17th/18th Century

Date

1601/1800

Language

Armenian

Collection

Armenian Manuscripts

Notes

Description

Text in notragir, written in one column of 27-29 lines. Subtitles in red notragir, and initials throughout the text in large erkat’agir or notragir. There are many lacunae in the codex and numerous leaves have been misbound; hence a number of gatherings have an uneven number of leaves. The codex at one time had at least 15 quires, with gatherings of 12 leaves.

Colophon

None. Contemporary inscriptions: Fols. 35v, 46. Later inscriptions: Fol. 35v. In bolorgir. Fol. 35v. In left-hand margin in bolorgir. Fol. 102v. In upper margin in notragir. Fol. 130. In upper margin in modern sheghagir.

Provenance

The principle colophon is missing; hence the date of execution and provenance of the MS are unknown. However, two prayers (fols. 35v and 46), written by the same hand as the text, mention the same of the priest Ohan, who probably copied the book. The paleography suggests that the book was probably executed in the 17th or 18th century at New Julfa in Isfahan.Two inscriptions on folios 35v state that a 25-year-old man named Martiros was ordained into the priesthood on December 16, 1830; that a man named Awetik died in 1828; and that a woman named Khachkhat’un died in 1831. It is not known whether any of these individuals ever owned the codex; the same is true of Minas di Yakob, whose signature is found in the upper margin of folio 102v. Another inscription (fol. 130), however, reads: “This belongs to Abraham Grigor, 1877.” We can safely assume that the reference is to his ownership of the book.According to a notice on the inside front cover, the codex was purchased by Dr. Minasian on September 28, 1946. Yovik Edgarian is said to have acted as intermediary.

Physical Description

Extent

159 folios

Dimensions

20.5x13 cm.

Binding note

Traditional Armenian binding, damaged. Half of textblock is detached, and the other half is loose but is tied to the binding by string at the central board attachment loop. Spine rebacked with large piece of alum-tawed, yellowed leather which covers half of both wooden boards. Original dark brown leather (damaged) blind-tooled on front with guilloche borders and a central rectangle of knotwork. Back board has same guilloche borders and a central circular design with scattered concentric almond tool. Fore-edge flap extant, but is only half the thickness of the book. Two holes in back board are evidence of fastenings, but three holes can be seen on front board where there were once three closure pins. Fragmentary traditional red, white and black raised endbands. Cloth doublures of red, white, and brown floral printed design. Head only covered red. No notches.

Condition note

The book is in a poor state of preservation. Desides the damaged binding, some leaves have suffered damage from dampness; several leaves are partially torn, and a number of folios have been scribbled on.There are lacunae in the text and many leaves have been misbound. Folios are also missing at the beginning and end of the book. Folios 113-149, representing quires 2 through 6 (with a number of lacunae), should have been bound at the beginning of the codex, that is, before fol. 1.

Illustrations note

There is only one illustrated page (fol. 36) in the codex, consisting of a small headpiece (measuring 10.5 x 3.8 cm.) with corresponding birdform initial and barely preserved marginal palmette.The headpiece was hesitantly drawn in very fine black lines. Its frame follows the underlying rulings for the text and margins. The field is occupied by a rinceau of vines forming interlocking hearts, with trilobed buds centered in each. Colors are confidently handled; the framed field outside the rinceau is an even green, and the other forms are modeled in progressively lighter bands of red, gray-blue, or orange.The outstretched blue wing of the bird-initial, striped in red, is the only spot where directly juxtaposed colors survive. Only the inner edges of the marginal palmette survive.

Keywords

Genre

Manuscripts
Illuminations

Resource type

text