[MISSAL]

£15,000 · Offered by Sokol Books

Scarce first edition, only the second work to be printed in Armenian by the press of the Catholic Church s Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fidei, with Armenian and Latin texts in parallel, translated by the Ottoman Armenian interpreter Giovanni Molino (c.1592-1643). The Roman Church saw the Eastern Christians as a fruitful field for proselytism. In the C17th the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, established by the Roman Catholic Church in 1622 as part of the Counter-Reformation, undertook a printing programme in Armenian and other languages designed to provide missionaries and new converts alike with texts to support evangelisation and Catholic devotion (Nersessian, The Parikian Collection of Early Armenian Printing at Eton College Library (Eton: 2016), p. 7). Molino, born in Ankara, was from the Armenian community of the Ottoman Empire. Sent to Rome as a child, as was common for talented Armenian and other non-Muslim boys, he was educated at the College of Neophytes, a school for Jewish and Muslim converts. He evidently returned to his native Ankara, since he arrived in Venice from there in 1626, where he began work as an interpreter. Molino was heavily involved in the project to print an Armenian Bible in Rome on behalf of the Sacra Congregatio; and travelled to Rome in order to study printing and advance this ultimately fruitless work: I put myself to learn the art of printing I went with hope and desire to the city of Rome, where for four years, with hard work, pain a

• Binding: Hardcover

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