Description

Trieste: Ի Տպարանի Հարց Մխիթարեանց [Mekhitarist Press] [1797].

In 1773, a group of monks at San Lazzaro had a falling out with the head of the order, Abbot Melkhonian. They left Venice, forming their own independent ‘Mekhitarist’ order in Trieste, then a part of Austria. Empress Maria Theresa was only too happy to welcome a group of Catholics whose mission was to educate people and promote industriousness. In 1775, they set up their own press in Trieste, where they issued Armenian books of the high standard as was done in Venice.

In the late 1780s a successful businessman and entrepreneur Edward Raphael from Madras donated a large sum of money to the Trieste Mekhitarists, which was invested in a school and press through the monks who “had arrived fresh in India from Istanbul with the express interest of raising funds for their newly established order and its printing press, which had been established in 1775”. (Aslanian, Sebouh David. Early Modernity and Mobility: Port Cities and Printers across the Armenian Diaspora, 1512-1800 (English Edition) (S.395). Yale University Press. Kindle-Version).

In 1810, the Trieste Mekhitarists moved their headquarters to Vienna, the imperial Austrian capital.
We could trace a single example of the book, held by the National Library of Armenia (scan: Նախապատրաստութիւն սրբոյ պատարագի (sci.am)).