San Lazzaro degli Armeni

Mekhitarist Monastery of Venice
Mekhitarist Monastery of Venice
	View of San Lazzaro degli Armeni
	Shown within Italy
Basic information
Location	San Lazzaro Island, Venice, Italy
Geographic coordinates	45°24′43″N 12°21′41″E / 45.411979°N 12.361422°ECoordinates: 45°24′43″N 12°21′41″E / 45.411979°N 12.361422°E
Affiliation	Mekhitarist Order
Region	Veneto
Province	Venice
Architectural description
Completed	18th century

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San Lazzaro degli Armeni (Armenian: Սուրբ Ղազարոս Կղզի, English: Saint Lazarus Island) is a small island in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy, lying immediately west of the Lido; completely occupied by a monastery that is the mother-house of the Mekhitarist Order, the island is one of the world's foremost centers of Armenian culture.

[edit] Background

The islet's isolation, at some distance from the principal islands forming the actual city of Venice, made it an ideal location for the quarantine station and leper colony founded there in the twelfth century, receiving its name from St. Lazarus, patron saint of lepers. Abandoned in the sixteenth century, in 1717 it was given by the ruling council of Venice to a group of Armenian monks. Mekhitar and his seventeen monks built a monastery, restored the old church, and enlarged the island to its present 30,000 square metres, about four times its original area.

Its founder's temperament and natural gifts for scholarly pursuits immediately set the Mekhitarist Order in the forefront of Oriental studies: the monastery published Armenian historical, philological and literary works and related material, renowned for their scholarship and accuracy as well as for the beauty of the editions, on its own multilingual presses, which shut down in 1991, although an eighteenth-century printing press may still be seen. S. Lazzaro houses a 150,000-volume library, as well as a museum with over 4,000 Armenian manuscripts and many Arab, Indian and Egyptian artifacts collected by the monks or received as gifts.

The monastery and its gardens, noted for its peacocks, may be reached by vaporetto (#20 from S. Zaccaria, near Piazza San Marco). In the Summer of 2008 there is one guided tour a day, starting at 15.00, on arrival of the vaporetto that leaves S. Zaccaria at 14.45. Groups of visitors may ask a private tour with different schedule. Father Vrtanes and other fathers guide the tours in several different languages. It also has a long tradition of hospitality to scholars and students, among whom Lord Byron, who studied Armenian there during much of the year 1816, is remembered by a permanent exhibition.

[edit] In culture

Armenian poet Hovhannes Shiraz has a poem about the island:

Armenian^[1]

English translation

“

Օտար ջրերում հայացեալ Կղզի

Հայոց հին լույսն է քեզնով նորանում...
Գիտեմ տքնում ես, այս է դարեց-դար,
Հայրենիքից դուրս՝ հայրենեաց համար:

”

An Armenian Island in a foreign water,
Old Armenian light is renewing with you...
I know you are tired, it's been many centuries,
For the motherland, outside of it.

[edit] Gallery

The cloister of the monastery on the island of San Lazzaro (Saint Lazarus) near Venice, Italy, headquarters of the Mechitarists.
The Isle of San Lazzaro
The Original Isle of San Lazzaro, Venice, 1813.
The expanded Isle of San Lazzaro, Venice, 1945.
North-west-view from San Lazzaro degli Armeni