Our Notes & References

The first complete Armenian edition of Bellarmino’s important Dottrina Christiana, and one of the firsts Armenian books printed by the Propaganda Fide.

A choice copy with the arms of Cardinal Borghese, most likely Cardinal Scipione Caffarelli-Borghese (1577-1633), the celebrated collector and patron of the arts who wielded enormous power as the Cardinal Nephew (an official position until 1692) of Pope Paul V and was effectively the head of the Vatican government. The cardinal amassed an enormous fortune which he employed as the patron of Caravaggio and Bernini, and later to establish the Villa Borghese, one of the largest collections of art in Europe.

This is the second Armenian publication of the Propaganda Fide, after an abbreviated version of the same text in 1623. The celebrated organisation was established in Rome just six years prior in 1622, at the height of the Counter-Reformation. It had a very specific aim: “to regain the faithful in all those parts of the world where Protestantism had been established, and to bring the light of the true faith to heathen lands” (Guilday, 480). It also re-organised the entire missionary activity of the Church along modern lines of efficiency, trained foreigners as Catholic missionaries, and printed in a wide variety of languages including Armenian, Georgian and Arabic.

The Armenians, though natively Eastern Christians, recognised the importance of links with Western Europe. Many agreed to accept Catholicism in exchange for a monopoly in the silk trade and promises of business from the West (cf. Heydarli 190). The Armenians, as Eastern Christians, faced religious discrimination in the Muslim territories they had found themselves under by the 17th century, including higher tariffs and “systematic economic oppression” (Margaryan 201) — converting to Catholicism at least gave them a degree of safety and protection of property. Although this missionary activity caused a great deal of internal conflict and in-fighting among the Eastern Christians, it also unintentionally triggered something of an Armenian renaissance and “roused the Gregorian ecclesiastics from their complacency” (Sarkiss 441), forcing them to arm themselves with the most modern thinking and stimulating new translations of the Greek and Roman texts.

The text itself was written by Robert Bellarmino (1542-1621), an Italian Jesuit and cardinal, and used as a catechism for centuries. In the form of a dialogue between teacher and student, it aims to instil the habits of Christian faith and Catholic morality, and was a particular favourite of the Fide: we have also handled a later Georgian edition of the same text. Bellarmino was canonised and made a Doctor of the Church in 1930 — he is sometimes called the patron saint of catechists.

This 1630 edition is the first translation into Armenian of Bellarmino’s Dottrina christiana più copiosa (1598) rather than the breve (Compendio della dottrina christiana, 1597), which was first translated in 1623 and printed then by the Fide. We couldn’t find much information on the translator.

A rare edition: we couldn’t trace any copies at auction in recent decades, and only three in American institutions (Harvard, Michigan and Yale, the latter not in WorldCat). The Library of Armenian owns a copy too.

The 1623 shorter edition is as rare, with only two copies traced in Western institutions (BL and Rome; apparently none in the Americas).

Provenance

Cardinal Borghese (most probably Scipione Caffarelli; arms to covers and eagle and dragon tools to covers and spine); Prince Borghese (likely Marcantonio Aldobrandi, 1814-86; engraved armorial bookplate to upper pastedown); Petrus Souilla (a French priest in ‘Sarlaten’, probably Sarlat-la-Canéda in the south of France, possibly a Pierre Souillac; 1932 woodcut bookplate to lower pastedown cut by H. Bou… (?) with motto of the French noble House Talleyrand-Périgord “Re que Diou”).

From the estate of the Samuelian family, Paris. Hrant Samuelian[ (1891-1977) was an Armenian bookseller, activist and active member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), a political party founded in 1890 with the goal of achieving “the political and economic freedom of Turkish Armenia” by means of armed rebellion (cf. Nalbandian). He was a pillar of the Armenian community in Paris and founded his eponymous bookstore in 1930, which itself became a beloved institution until its recent dissolution.

Bibliography

Nersessian Catalogue 11; Guilday, Peter. 1921. ‘The Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide (1622-1922)’. The Catholic Historical Review 6 (4): 478–94; Heydarli, Gunay. 2019. ‘Why did the Catholic missionaries fail to convert the Armenian and Georgian community of the Safavid Empire in the 17th century?’ PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences 5 (3): 177–93; Margaryan, Gor. 2025. ‘The Religious Factor in Commercial Activities of Armenian Merchants (15th-18th Centuries)’. Historia i Świat 14 (July): 193–204; Sarkiss, Harry Jewell. 1937. ‘The Armenian Renaissance, 1500-1863’. The Journal of Modern History 9 (4): 433–48.

Castronovo, Valerio. 1971. ‘Borghese Caffarelli, Scipione’. Dizionario Biografico Degli Italiani 12: 620–24.

Ter Minassian, Anahide, Salon du Livre arménien d’Alfortville: l’hommage à Hrant Samuel, France Arménie, no. 353,‎ January 2010, p. 24-26; Nalbandian, Louise (1975). “Armenian Revolutionary Federation, 1890–1896”. The Armenian Revolutionary Movement. Berkeley, CA / Los Angeles / London: University of California Press. pp. 151–178; Nouvel Hay Magazine. ‘Hrant Samuel: emportons précieusement une petite part de sa librairie’. May 23 2025.