Three Armenian manuscripts from Florence dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries are now on display at the Matenadaran Museum in Yerevan thanks to the efforts of the Italian Embassy and the Italian Research Council (Cnr), the Italian foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday.
The manuscripts include a 1213 illuminated ordination ritual from Cilicia, a 1353 Roman missal copied in Pisa and a manuscript containing a Dominican breviary and the Psalter book of psalms, copied in Buda in 1369, said the statement.
"The exhibition is a perfect mix of science, art, history and technology and, thanks to spearheading techniques developed by the Cnr based in Pisa, it is possible to appreciate the incisiveness and wealth of the message contained in the Armenian codes," said the statement.
These manuscripts were kept in Italy for centuries and more recently in Florence, and are now on show at the Matenadaran Museum, a focal point for Armenian history culture, the statement said.
Anna Rita Fantoni, the director of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana – the magnificent Michelangelesque place where these manuscripts are conserved – and former deputy director of the San Marco Library where two of these manuscripts are kept, tells visitors to the exhibition the story of the ocuments through the centuries and the cultural background to the treasures.
"The images and texts are accompanied by interactive multimedia to show how science is a formidable instrument through which to disseminate their knowledge to younger generations," the statement concluded.
