Our Notes & References

A lovely Armenian alphabet published by the Propaganda Fide in Rome in a bid to spread the Catholic faith to the Caucasus.

The book contains three fonts of the Armenian alphabet: rotundo (erkatagir), cursivo (bolorgir) and figurato (trchnagir, or bird letters — here in the beautiful shape of fantastic birds, fishes, and lions, in a variety of dynamic and amusing poses). The trchnagir, which originate in the Armenian illuminated manuscript tradition, are particularly well executed here in wood engraving, and were not present in the first edition, over a century and a half prior in 1623. A short section on Armenian grammar follows, as well as a number of Catholic prayers translated into Armenian, including the Lord’s Prayer and Ave Maria.

The philologist Giovanni Cristofano Amaduzzi (also Amaduzio, 1740-92) wrote the Latin introduction on pp. 3-12, giving a brief history of the Armenian language and script, as well as a short bibliography of the Fide’s other Armenian books. This material wasn’t included either in the 1623 edition. Amaduzzi was superintendent of the Propaganda Fide press in Rome and professor of Greek at the University of Rome (‘La Sapienza’). He published many works for the Propaganda Fide, including Theophrastus’ “Characters” and similar alphabets including the ‘veterum Etruscorum’ [Etruscan], ‘tangutanum, sive tibetanum’ [Tibetan], a ‘brammhanicum sev indostanum’ [Hindi/Urdu] and ‘grandonico-malabaricum’ [Malayam].