San Lazzaro degli Armeni
|Adjacent bodies of water||Venetian Lagoon|
|Area||3 ha (7.4 acres)|
|Province||Province of Venice|
|Population||17 (as of 2015)[a]|
San Lazzaro degli Armeni (Italian: [ˈsan ˈladdzaro ˈdeʎʎ arˈmeːni]; lit. "Saint Lazarus of the Armenians", Armenian: Սուրբ Ղազար, Surb Ghazar)[b] is a small island in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It lies to the southeast of Venice and immediately west of the Lido and covers an area of 3 hectares (7.4 acres).
A leper colony during the Middle Ages, the island has been home to the Armenian Catholic Monastery of San Lazzaro[c] since 1717. It is the headquarters of the Mechitarist Order and, as such, one of the world's prominent centers of Armenian culture and Armenian studies. From the late 18th century to the early 20th century it was a major center of Armenian printing.
The island is one of the best known historic sites of the Armenian diaspora. The monastery has a large collection of books, journals, artifacts and the third largest collection of Armenian manuscripts. Over the centuries, dozens of artists, writers, political and religious leaders have visited the island. Nowadays, it attracts tens of thousands of tourists annually.
In 810 the Republic of Venice allocated the island to the abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of St. Ilario of Fusina. In 1182 a leper colony (hospital for people with leprosy) was established at the island. It was chosen for a leper colony since the island is relatively far away from the principal islands forming the city of Venice. It received its name from St. Lazarus, the patron saint of lepers. In 1348 the leper colony was renovated and a church dedicated to San Lazzaro was built. The hospital was moved to Venice in 1595 and the island was gradually abandoned. In the 17th century the island was leased to various religious groups. By the early 18th century only a "few crumbling ruins" remained in the isle.
In 1701 Mkhitar Sebastatsi (Mechitar or Mekhitar), an Armenian Catholic monk, founded a Catholic order in Constantinople that would later be called after him. The order moved to Modon (Methoni) in the Green peninsula of Peloponnese in 1703, after repressions by the Ottoman government and the Armenian Apostolic Church. In 1711 the order received recognition by Pope Clement XI. In April 1715, a group of twelve Armenian Catholic monks led by Mkhitar Sebastatsi arrived in Venice from Morea, Peloponnese, following its invasion by the Ottoman Empire. The Venetian Admiral Mocenigo and Governor of Morea, Angelo Emo "sympathizing deeply with the fearful distress of the unfortunate community, yielded to their earnest entreaties for permission to embark on a government vessels which was about to leave for Venice."
On September 8, 1717, the Venetian Senate ceded the island of St. Lazarus to the Mechitarist order. "The Armenian Monks at once hastened to occupy the ruins on the Island... and the Abbot ordered the most necessary repairs to be at once made on the crumbling and dilapidated buildings which still remained." The Armenian monks were required not to rename the island. Upon acquisition the construction of a two-storey Armenian monastery began. The preexisting church of St. Lazarus was renovated. Gardens, residency buildings, a seminary and other structures were constructed. The construction of the monastery was completed by 1740. Mkhitar Sebastatsi died in 1749 and was succeeded by Stepanos Melkonian of Constantinople whose tenure as abbot ended 1799.
The Venetian Republic was disestablished by Napoleon in 1797, however, the Mechitarist congregation was "left in peace", allegedly because of the "presence of an indispensable Armenian official in Naopleon's secretariat." In 1810 Napoleon signed a decree, which declared the congregation may continue to exist as an academy.
William Dean Howells described the island and the monastery in 1866 as follows: "As a seat of learning, San Lazzaro is famed throughout the Armenian world, and gathers under its roofs the best scholars and poets of that nation. In the press of the convent books are printed in some thirty different languages; and a number of the fathers employ themselves constantly in works of transition."
20th century and beyond
The island was enlarged twice in the first half of the twentieth century. First, in 1912 the old canal was filled in and the shoreline was straightened. Following the Second World War, between 1947 and 1949 significant land was reclaimed in the southeastern and southwestern sides of the island. Furthermore, a wall was built around the shore. A fire broke out in 1975, which partially destroyed the library and damaged the church, and destroyed two Gaspare Diziani paintings. Between 2002 and 2004, an extensive restoration of the monastery's structures was carried out by the funding of the Italian government.
The island may be reached by a vaporetto from the San Zaccaria station. There are tours in several different languages. According to a 2007 article some 40,000 people visit the island annually, mostly non-Armenians with Italians making up the majority of visitors.
The island currently contains a church with a neo-Gothic interior, a tall onion-shaped campanile (bell tower),[d] residential quarters, library, museum, picture gallery, manuscript repository, printing plant, sundry teaching and research facilities, gardens, a bronze statue of Mkhitar sculpted by Antonio Baggio in 1962, an Armenian Genocide memorial erected in the 1960s, a 14th century khachkar donated by the Armenian government in 1987. The gardens of the monastery have been admired by many visitors. One author wrote in 1905: "The island [...] with its flower and fruit gardens, is so well kept that an excursion to San Lazzaro is a favourite one with all visitors to Venice."
In the mid-19th century an English publication wrote that "the convent may be regarded as a species of metropolis of Armenian literature."[e] The library contains 150,000 to 200,000 printed books and periodicals.
The rotunda-shaped manuscript repository (manuscript library), built in 1970, contains some 3,000 to 4,000 medieval Armenian manuscripts, making it the third largest collection of Armenian manuscripts in the world after Matenadaran in Yerevan, Armenia (11,000 in the strict sense to 17,000 in total) and the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem (3,890). The earliest manuscripts preserved at the repository date to the eighth century. It holds one of the ten extant copies of Urbatagirk, the first-ever Armenian book printed by Hakob Meghapart in Venice in 1512. Furthermore, 44 Armenian prayer scrolls (hmayil) are preserved at the repository. The ceiling of the manuscript repository was painted by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
Besides books and manuscripts, there are various oriental artifacts at the museum, which include an Egyptian mummy, Etruscan vases, Chinese antiques, an Indian throne and other items. The mummy is attributed to Namenkhet Amun, a priest at the Amon Temple in Karnak. It was sent to San Lazzaro in 1825 by Boghos Bey Yusufian, an Egyptian minister of Armenian origin. Radiocarbon dating revealed that it dates to 450-430 BC (Late Period of ancient Egypt). The museum also preserves the sword of Leo V, the last Armenian King of Cilicia, forged in 1366 and stamps issued by the 1918-20 First Republic of Armenia.
Armen Kalfayan wrote in 1935 that the island "has long been a veritable beehive of Armenian literary activity." A publishing house was established at the monastery in 1789. In the early 19th century, a number of important publications were made on the island, including a seminal two-volume dictionary of Classical Armenian (Նոր Բառգիրք Հայկազեան Լեզուի, 1836-7), which remains "unsurpassed". Beginning in 1800 a periodical journal has been published at the island. Bazmavep, a literary, historical and scientific journal, was established in 1843 and continues to be published to this day. The printing press at San Lazzaro is the oldest continuously operating Armenian publishing house in the world. Nathaniel Colgan wrote in 1878 that the printing-office is the "great boast of the monastery."
Sometimes called a "little Armenia",[f] the island is one of the Armenian diaspora's "richest enclaves of culture". The New York Times wrote in 1919: "For more than two centuries this island has been an Armenian oasis transplanted to the Venetian lagoon." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church calls the convent of San Lazzaro and the order of the Mechitarists "especially remarkable" of the religious orders based in Venice. It has been described as the "the headquarters of the Armenians scattered over Europe, and especially of those in Italy."
Mary M. Tarzian suggests that Armenian nationalism among Armenians in the Ottoman Empire emerged from the educational vision of the Mechitarists in San Lazzaro. Charles Yriarte wrote in 1877 that the Armenians "look with justice upon the island of San Lazzaro as the torch which shall one day illuminate Armenia, when the hour comes for her to live again in history and to take her place once more among free nations." Italian scholar Matteo Miele compared the work of the Mekhitarists carried out in the island to the work of the humanists, painters and sculptors of the Italian Renaissance. Nathaniel Colgan wrote in 1878 that monastery is "inhabited by an order of monks whose labours are devoted to the spread of European culture among the Armenian Christians."
According to Robert H. Hewsen the monastery of San Lazzaro "for a full century was the only center of intensive Armenian cultural activity that the Armenians possessed" and until the establishment of the Lazarev Institute in Moscow in 1815 "the heritage of the Armenian people lay almost entirely in the hands of the Mekhitarists" in San Lazzaro.
- In literature
The prominent Armenian poet Hovhannes Shiraz wrote a poem about the island: "An Armenian island in the foreign waters, / You rekindle the old light of Armenia... / Outside the homeland, for the sake of the homeland."
- Artistic depictions
Numerous artists have painted the island, including Gevorg Bashinjaghian (Island of Surb Ghazar at night, 1892), Ivan Aivazovsky (Byron's visit to the Mekhitarists in Surb Ghazar Island, 1899), Joseph Pennell (The Armenian convent, 1905)  and Hovhannes Zardaryan (Sb. Ghazar island, Venice, 1958)
The Mechitarist monks at San Lazzaro are known for making jam from rose petal around May, when the roses are in full bloom. Besides rose petal, it contains white caster sugar, water and lemon juice. It is called Vartanush (Western Armenian pronunciation of վարդանուշ, vardanush literally translating to "sweet rose"; also a female given name). Around five thousand jars of jam are made and sold in the gift shop in the island. Monks also eat it for breakfast.
Notable visitors and residents
Mkhitar Sebastatsi (Mekhitar or Mechitar), the founder of the Mechitarist Order, lived in the island from 1717 until his death in 1749. Mikayel Chamchian (1738–1823), who wrote a comprehensive and influential history of Armenia which was used as a reference work by scholars for over a century, lived in the island since 1757. Ghevont Alishan, a prominent historian, was a member of the Mechitarist Order since 1838. In 1849-51 he edited the journal Bazmavep and taught at the monastic seminary in 1866-72. He lived in the island permanently from 1872 until his death in 1901. Gabriel Aivazovsky (1812-1880), a philologist, historian and publisher, studied at the island school from 1826 to 1830 and was later the secretary of the Mekhitarian congregation. He founded and edited the San Lazzaro-based journal Bazmavep from 1843 to 1848.
A wide range of notable individuals have visited the island through centuries. Pope Pius VII visited the island on May 9, 1800 and elevated Stepanos Akonz Köver, who was elected abbot, to the the rank of bishop.
English Romantic poet Lord Byron lived in the island from late 1816 to early 1817. He signed his name in a book first time on November 27, 1816. By early 1817 Byron had acquired enough Armenian to translate passages from Classical Armenian into English. He co-authored English Grammar and Armenian in 1817, and Armenian Grammar and English in 1819, where he included quotations from classical and modern Armenian. Byron is considered the most prominent of all visitors of the island. The room where Byron studied now bears his name and is cherished by the monks. There is also a plaque commemorating Byron's stay. Nathaniel Colgan wrote in 1878: "Byron spent three months in San Lazzaro, where he came to study Armenian in 1816; and the monks seem to cherish his memory with peculiar fondness. The room he occupied is shown with pride, his manuscripts, his ink-stand, his Armenian exercise-book are all carefully preserved, and a few stumpy quills he made use of are still "hung up as monuments."
In the 19th century a number of renowned composers such as Gioachino Rossini (1800s) and Richard Wagner (1859) and also writers, novelists and poets (Lady Morgan, 1820; Alfred de Musset, 1834; George Sand, July 1834; Catharine Sedgwick, 1839; William Cullen Bryant, 1853; William Dean Howells, 1861; Helen Hunt Jackson, 1869; Marcel Proust, 1900; Edgar Fawcett, 1900) visited the island. European scholars such as German orientalists Julius Heinrich Petermann and Friedrich Windischmann visited in 1833. Other notable visitors include British art critic John Ruskin (early 1850s), French historian Victor Langlois (1850s), French philosopher and historian Ernest Renan (1850), American abolitionist, social activist, poet Julia Ward Howe (1850), and Benedictine monk and historian Cuthbert Butler (1898).
During the 19th century numerous monarchs visited San Lazzaro, including Prince Napoléon Bonaparte, Ludwig I of Bavaria (1841), Margherita of Savoy, Maximilian I of Mexico, Carlota of Mexico, Edward VII, Prince of Wales and future King of the United Kingdom (1861), Napoleon III (1862), Pedro II of Brazil (1871), Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll (1881), also U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant (1878) and British Prime Minister William Gladstone (1879).
The Russian-Armenian marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky visited San Lazzaro in 1840. He met his older brother, Gabriel, who was working at the monastery at that time. At the monastery library and the art gallery, Aivazovsky familiarized himself with Armenian manuscripts and Armenian art in general. Another Armenian painter, Vardges Sureniants, visited San Lazzaro in 1881 and researched Armenian miniatures.
The future Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, a revolutionary at the time, found a lodging at the monastery and worked there as a bell-ringer during his 1907 trip through Italy to Switzerland to visit Vladimir Lenin, possibly in preparation to 1907 Tiflis bank robbery.
In recent years, presidents of Armenia Robert Kocharyan (2005) and Serzh Sargsyan (2011), and Catholicos Karekin II, supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church (2008) have visited the island.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to San Lazzaro degli Armeni (Venice).|
- "Today, just 12 vardapets (learned monks) and five novices remain..."
- Also romanized Surb Łazar. Usually referred to as Վենետիկի Սուրբ Ղազար կղզի, Eastern Armenian: Venetiki Surb Ghazar k(ə)ghzi, Western Armenian: Venedigi Surp Ghazar g(ə)ghzi which literally translates to "Saint Lazarus island of Venice".
- Armenian: Մխիթարեան Մայրավանք Սուրբ Ղազար, Mkhitarian Mayravank' Surb Ghazar; Italian: Monastero Mechitarista di San Lazzaro degli Armeni
- A 19th century Italian dictionary described the campanile as Oriental.
- According to a 1836 source the library had 10,000 books and 400 (mostly Armenian) manuscripts.
-  Catholicos Karekin II, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, said during his 2008 to the island that San Lazzaro is "a little Armenia thousands of kilometers away from Armenia."
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...had transformed San Lazzaro into a world-renowned center of Armenian culture and learning.
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...the island of San Lazzaro on which he established a monastery that became a center for Armenian studies and led to a revival of Armenian consciousness.
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Կղզի ամեն տարի այցելում է մոտ 40.000 զբոսաշրջիկ:
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Pur trattandosi di una comunità religiosa, questa non venne soppressa da Napoleone che la considerò un’accademia letteraria probabilmente in rapporto all’importante attività editoriale svolta dai monaci.
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...на данный момент кельи занимают 24 армянских монаха, приехавших на Сан-Ладзаро из разных уголков мира, где есть армянская община.
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Its residents include 10 monks, 10 seminarians, and 15 Armenian students...
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Stabilitovisi il Mechitar, rifece costui chiesa e convento e inalzò il campanile, la cui cima rivela il gusto orientale.
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San Lazaro is about the middle size, and adorned with a pretty garden...
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The island of San Lazzaro, inhabited by the Armenian monks, and which is at the same time a monastery, a college, a library, and a printing establishment, deserves especial notice. The library contains 10,000 volumes, and 400 MSS. chiefly Armenian.
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What the monastery is most known for is the library of glass-fronted cases holding some of the monks’ 150,000 volumes...
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San Lazzaro degli Armeni. La bibliothèque du monastère, où vivent une poignée de moines arméniens, ne compte pas moins de 200 000 livres précieux...
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«Ուրբաթագրքի» առաջին հրատարակութիւնից աշխարհում պահպանուել է 10 օրինակ
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The Monastery of the St. Lazarus Island near Venice (Lord Byron stopped there on his way to Greece and the Fathers taught him some Armenian) has long been a veritable beehive of Armenian literary activity.
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In the 18th and 19th centuries, the monastery in Venice produced hundreds of editions of Armenian texts, a number of important studies, and a dictionary of classical Armenian that is still unsurpassed.
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The city, which covers more than 200 islands, has a little Armenia in it; Armenian cultural and educational center Saint Ghazar
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...the Abbot Peter Mekhitar, who founded "a little Armenia with Venetian overtones...
- "Ն.Ս.Օ.Տ.Տ. Գարեգին Բ Ամենայն Հայոց Կաթողիկոսի խոսքը Մխիթարյան միաբանությանը Սուրբ Ղազար կղզում" (PDF). Etchmiadzin (in Armenian) (Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin) (5): 28. May 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 21, 2015.
Սուրբ Ղազարը Հայաստանից հազարավոր կիլոմետրեր հեռու մի փոքր Հայաստան է
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- Օտար ջրերում հայացեալ Կղզի / Հայոց հին լույսն է քեզնով նորանում... / Հայրենիքից դուրս՝ հայրենեաց համար: "Հայերն Իտալիայում [Armenians in Italy]". italy.mfa.am (in Armenian). Embassy of Armenia to Italy.
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- Davies, Emiko (10 May 2011). "Rose petal Jam from a Venetian monastery". emikodavies.com.
- "Maggio: le rose". la Repubblica (in Italian). 11 May 2012.
Mentre di origine armena è la “vartanush”, la marmellata di rose che in Italia viene prodotta a Venezia, nell’Isola di San Lazzaro degli Armeni dai monaci Mechitaristi.
- "Isola di San Lazzaro degli Armeni" (in Italian). Italian Botanical Heritage.
Una tecnica secolare ne imprigiona i profumi nella Vartanush, la marmellata di petali di rose che, tradizionalmente, vengono colti al sorgere del sole.
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- Mesrobian 1973, p. 31.
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Après le repas, ils montaient en gondole, et s'en allaient voguer autour de l'île des Arméniens...
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Nous arrivâmes à l'île de Saint-Lazare, où nous avions une visite à faire aux moines arméniens.
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- "When Stalin in Venice..." (PDF). Venice Magazine: 7.
Josif Stalin, the Russian dictator, was one of the last bell-ringers of the island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni, located at the heart of the lagoon. He stowed away in the port of Odessa to escape from tsarist police and arrived in Venice in 1907.
- Salinari, Raffaele K. (2010). Stalin in Italia ovvero “Bepi del giasso” (in Italian). Bologna.
Qui forse trovò alloggio nel convento adiacente alla chiesa di San Lazzaro degli Armeni, sita su un’isoletta al largo della città.
- "Իսահակյանի և Չարենցի առաջին հանդիպումը Վենետիկում". magaghat.am (in Armenian).
Մեծատաղանդ բանաստեղծ Եղիշե Չարենցին առաջին անգամ տեսա Վենետիկում, 1924 թվականին: [...] Գնում էինք ծովափ, հետո գնում էինք Մխիթարյանների վանքը` Սուրբ Ղազար:
- "Ֆոտոալբոմ [Photo gallery]". akhic.am (in Armenian). Aram Khachaturian International Competition.
Ա.Խաչատրյանը Մխիթարյան միաբանությունում Սուրբ Ղազար կղզի 1963
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- ՀՀ նախագահ Ռոբերտ Քոչարյանը պաշտոնական այցով կմեկնի Իտալիա (in Armenian). Armenpress. 25 January 2005.
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- Maguolo, Michela; Bandera, Massimiliano (1999). San Lazzaro degli Armeni: l'isola, il monastero, il restauro (in Italian). Venezia: Marsilio. ISBN 9788831774222. OCLC 247889977.
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- Fell, Cicely (31 December 2014). "Out of Armenia, Venice". BBC Radio 4.