Journal ArticlePaywalled
Sargsyan, Anush, 2025
Revue des Études Arméniennes, Vol. 43 (2025), pp. 183–214 (Peeters); DOI 10.2143/REA.43.0.3295023
In the Armenian tradition the zodiac signs are tied to parts of the body and to geographical regions, a doctrine descending from Paul of Alexandria and from a work attributed to Anania Shirakatsi. Between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries these texts were absorbed into Armenian calendrical and astronomical compendia and their commentaries. Western Zodiac Man iconography was then taken into the Armenian tradition, where tomar manuscripts often present it as double-page compositions showing both the astrological and geographical dimensions. Sargsyan shows the zodiac signs in these diagrams generally follow Islamic iconographic models, since Armenian prognostic literature was heavily influenced by Islamic tradition, with independent European examples adopted later.
Journal ArticlePaywalled
Cowe, S. Peter, 2004
Le Muséon, Vol. 117, No. 1-2, pp. 107–129 (Peeters); DOI 10.2143/MUS.117.1.504579
Describes a significant seventeenth-century Armenian manuscript held by the Der-Boghosian family of Los Angeles, covering binding, scribal colophons, illuminations and preservation. Cowe reviews its contents: chiefly the corpus of David the Invincible, pupil of Olympiodoros at the School of Alexandria, plus subsidiary units of which the most important is the Dialectica of Bartolomeo da Poggio, first Dominican bishop of Maragha in the 1320s and a major conduit of Latin theology to the Armenians. Comparison with similar codices clarifies the manuscript's typology as combining the Armenian inheritance from Late Antique Neoplatonism with medieval Thomist thought, and he reconstructs the manuscript's history from internal and external evidence.
Journal ArticlePaywalled
Cowe, S. Peter, 2004
Revue des Études Arméniennes, Vol. 29 (2003-2004), pp. 49–88 (Peeters); DOI 10.2143/REA.29.0.2002619
Argues that, now that most public Armenian manuscript collections are covered by detailed catalogues, scholarship should turn to documenting the many codices still in private libraries and bringing their contents into the public domain. Though such manuscripts tend to be comparatively late, they often preserve material of real importance. Cowe uses the case to reinforce the text-critical principle that a manuscript's own date matters far less than the date of its exemplar in assessing its value as a witness, and to criticise the arbitrariness of imposing upper chronological limits when selecting manuscripts for a critical edition.
BookPaywalled
Cowe, S. Peter, 1994
Peeters, Leuven; Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 546 / Subsidia 86; XIV+232 pp.; ISBN 9789068316445
Catalogues 25 full Armenian manuscripts, one in Armeno-Turkish and two vellum fragments. Though the collection originates in the eighteenth century, it is mainly constituted by small bequests and purchases from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The volume's detailed description of each codex greatly expands on Ellis's 1926 handlist. The holdings are representative of Armenian book arts, comprising ecclesiastical genres for scriptural, liturgical and didactic use, ranging from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries: about half dating to the seventeenth century as commissions displaying merchant munificence. Roughly four-fifths show some illumination.
Journal ArticlePaywalled
Cowe, S. Peter, 1990
Le Muséon, Vol. 103, No. 3-4, pp. 237–248 (Peeters); DOI 10.2143/MUS.103.3.2006092
A codicological study describing two further Armenian manuscripts held in the National and University Library in Jerusalem, extending the published record of Armenian holdings in that collection.
