£200
12mo, pp. [iv], 434 + frontispiece and engraved title-page. Contemporary half green straight-grained roan, textured green cloth boards, flat spine blocked and lettered in gilt, edges gilt. Frontispiece slightly spotted. Boards patchily faded to bright yellow with some red staining as well, extremities just a touch rubbed. Modern booklabel to front pastedown, purchase inscription to flyleaf dated 1857 at the Armenian Convent.
A tour-de-force production of the Mekhitharist congregation of Benedectine monks of the Armenian Catholic Church on San Lazzaro, Venice. The monastery, which moved there during the Seventh Ottoman-Venetian War (1714-18), established a printing press, mainly for the production of classical Armenian texts for export to Constantinople. However, the press retained a stock of various typefaces and expertise in numerous languages, and produced several of these compilations of the daily prayers of St Nerses IV the Gracious translated into 24 (or more) languages. The languages and scripts here include Armenian, English, German, Russian, Chinese, Syriac, Polish, and Georgian, among others.
