The narthex, which originally served as a porch attached to the church, was transformed by Mekhitar into the current closed atrium/entrance connected to the cloister by a corridor. Along the right wall, it houses a priceless artistic and historical reminder of the original church of San Lazzaro, the Gothic sarcophagus (second half 14th century) of the Venetian nobleman Costantino Zuccoli, curator of the church in the late thirteen hundreds[6].
On the left side, there is the tomb of the benefactor Bedros Hairabed Gred (†1940)
On either side of the door, there are two inscriptions in Armenian and Latin commemorating the visit of the newly elected Pope Pius VII to San Lazzaro on 9th May 1800. Three frescoes by the Italian painter Noè Bordignon (†1920), painted in 1901, decorate the ceiling: in the centre, the Virgin Mary with arms outstretched in a protective gesture, on either side, Mekhitar opening a path through the snow-covered mountains, the vision of the virgins Manassē and Mariàm, when he was still a boy (on the right), and the vision of Mekhitar in Sevan, where he is shown kneeling before the Virgin Mary with Manassē and Mariàm on either side (on the left)[7]. On either side of the entrance doors to the church there are four red marble columns, which were once elements of the main altar. Apedestal bears the bust of Pope Clement XIII, a marvellous work by André-Jean Lebrun (1768) donated to the Congregation by the Pope himself.
The sacristy is situated against the south side of the church and it is here that the hangings are kept: they are still used for liturgical celebrations in the Congregation. There are altars on opposite sides, the north and south. The north altar is decorated with a modern altarpiece depicting St. Joseph; it is used for celebrating the Eucharist on ordinary days. Since 2000, the second altar has contained the remains of some of the victims of the genocide which were brought here in 1965 from the desert of Deir-es-Zor in Syria (the final gathering point for the extermination of the caravans of Armenian deportees), by the then director of the Moorat-Raphaël School, Fr. Serop Akelian. Several paintings hang on the walls including a Madonna with Child by Jacopo Negretti known as Palma the Elder (1480-1528), three paintings from the Bassano School (Adoration of the Magi, The Good Samaritan, the Flagellation of Jesus), the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine, which can be attributed to Innocenzo da Imola (1490- 1550) or Luca Longhi (1507- 1580), a Dominican Saint (from his features, we can hypothesize depicting Saint Albert the Great, who was particularly dear to Mekhitar) by Guido Reni (1575-1642), a Madonna with Child and Angel attributed to Simon Vouet (1590-1649) and a Magdalene attributed to Giambattista Pittoni (1687-1767). It was from here that the fire spread in 1975, destroying many ancient hangings, causing serious damage to the library above and its ancient printed books from Armenia and ruined the south side of the church.
The east wing of the cloister, beyond the entrance to the corridor leading into the church, leads to a vestibule, decorated with a beautiful basin in red marble on the wall, and from there leads into the spacious refectory. The architrave above the door bears the inscription in Armenian and Latin which commemorates the building of the monastery by Mekhitar which was finished in this area between 1739 and 1740: FUIT HOC MONASTERIUM TOTUM TEMPORE MECHITAR PETRI EX SEBASTE .I. ABBATIS EXTRUCTUM, AN. 1740 – All of this Monastery was built in the time of Mekhitar di Pietro da Sebaste, first Abbot. On the inside of the architrave, an inscription in classical Armenian recalls that even the refectory is a place for reflecting and listening: “Here silence must be observed and all must listen to the Word of God”. In fact, on the north side of the great hall, a small pulpit juts out. Here, in the past, a seminarian would read some pages from the Scriptures or the Church Fathers while the Fathers ate their meals. Walnut tables, benches and dossals dating back to the time of Mekhitar take up three sides of the spacious hall. The end wall of the refectory features the Last Supper, a large oil painting on canvas by Pietro Antonio Novelli, dated 1780. It replaced a painting on the same theme by Francesco Zugno brought to the island on 15th May 1740 after being exhibited in Piazza San Marco to the admiration of all and sundry. The painting was later moved to the church, and then disappeared after 1840. The refectory is yet another place in San Lazzaro full of major paintings including an Apparition of Jesus to the Holy Women after the Resurrection attributed to Martin De Vos (1532-1603), oil on a panel recently restored, a Baptism of Christ in the manner of Bernardo Strozzi (1581-1644), a Resurrection of Lazarus attributed to Gregorio Lazzarini (1655-1730) and an atmospheric View of San Lazzaro from the Lido, by Reinhart. Of particular interest are the models of the two large paintings destined for the church San Moisè in Venice: the Elevation of the Cross by Girolamo Brusaferro (1677-1745) and the Martyrdom of St. Stephen, by Santo Piatti (1679-1749). An especially important painting is the Rest During the Flight into Egypt by Sebastiano Ricci, which dates back to sometime around the turn of the eighteenth century[10]. On the opposite side of the refectory, the vestibule gives access to the kitchen, where there is a large eighteenth century table in red marble from Verona, transported here from the villa of Fiesso d’Artico, once the summer residence of the Fathers. Near the entrance to the vestibule of the refectory, at the eastern corner of the cloister, a door leads to what is known as Mekhitar’s Staircase, on a square ground plan with four flights of steps and an elegant artistic balustrade of wrought iron which leads to the first floor of the monastery. The walls along the stairway are hung with some large paintings on religious themes: the Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria and a Deposition of Jesus from the Cross by Jacopo Palma the Younger (1544-1628), Invention of the Holy Cross by Antonio Vassilacchi known as the Aliense (1556-1629) and Achilles Hands Over the Body of Hector to Priam, by Giambattista Langetti (1625-1676). On the ceiling there is a fresco by Francesco Zugno of The Prophet Abacuc Transported by the Angel to Provide Food for the Prophet Daniel in the Lions’ Den, commissioned by Mekhitar in perpetual memory of the aid from God which accompanied him always even in the most dire situations. The absolute and serene trust of the founder in this divine intervention was one of the most remarkable aspects of his spirituality. The staircase (1st landing) leads to a room normally excluded from the guided visits in which Mekhitar created the Chapel of St. Benedict, aligned and communicating with the pulpit in the refectory, with a niche altar with columns and a triangular pediment surmounted by angels, furnished with an altar-piece depicting the saint himself, painted in 1742 by Hovhannes Emin. On the first floor, the stairway opens onto the corridors of the monastery. Along these, at regular intervals, are the cells of the monks and the walls are covered with part of the art collection of the Congregation. A small room opens off this corridor which houses some mementos of Abbot Mekhitar: his clothing, cap, Abbot’s ring with seal, pen and inkwell, a couple of letters in his handwriting, a Eucharistic chalice and other objects. A display case contains the publications of the founder, from the Imitation of Christ to the great Dictionary published posthumously, the main element being the great Bible decorated with engravings. In the adjacent southwest corridor, three portions of tapestry with mythological subjects are on display, rare and exquisite examples of 16th century Flemish art. There are also some portraits, among them that of Artin Tcherakian, also known as Artin Pascià, Minister of Education in Egypt at the end of the 19th century who donated a generous collection of books on archaeology and oriental studies, today a treasured part of the Library of the Congregation. Another noteworthy painting on display in this corridor is a large oval painting of the Holy Family, attributed to Carlo Cignani (1628-1719).
- the library vestibule, where there is a collection of art objects of various kinds and provenance donated by Armenian benefactors. On the ceiling above is the allegorical painting Peace and Justice by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), oval oil on canvas dated to 1731, transferred here from Ca’ Zenobio. On the walls, there is a Portrait of the Doge Alvise Mocenigo, who granted the Island of San Lazzaro to the Fathers, by Alessandro Longhi (1733-1813) and a Portrait of Napoleon III by the painter Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-1873), donated to the Congregation by the Emperor himself in 1862. There are also two still lifes of flowers attributed to the Roman painter Mario Nuzzi (1603-1673), the portraits of Samuel Moorat and Edouard Raphaël Gharamian by Gaetano Astolfoni (circa 1820) and another two portraits of two Armenian merchants in Amsterdam by J. Schultz (1769). An interesting oblong painting of Diogenes is attributed to Sebastiano Ricci or his school. One of the major pieces in the collection of antiques on display here is the Ball of Canton, an ivory sphere worked around the mid-18th century by a Buddhist monk in Canton. From a single block, he made 15 concentric independently mobile fretwork spheres illustrating the most important events in the life of the Buddha. There are fine examples of ancient ceramics, two marble Phoenician heads, clay artefacts including some paleo-Christian oil lamps, a series of Ushapti, ancient apotropaic Egyptian statuettes, and other finds.
The west corner leads off into a long wing added to the original monastery between 1823 and 1825 to provide more spacious quarters on the ground floor for the printing house. On the upper floor, the long corridor is home to many paintings, including a Mater Dolorosa by Andrea Solario (1473-1520), a Landscape by the Flemish artist Paul Brill (1554- 1626), The Prophet Elijah attributed to Sebastiano Ricci, several works by Domenico Maggiotto (Denial of St. Peter, Woman with handkerchief and container, Woman with basket, Three women at table, …), two paintings attributed to Pietro Della Vecchia (1603- 1678) (St. Anthony of Padua, Astronomy lessons / Archimedes), a Landscape with figures by Giuseppe Zais (1709- 1784) and a View of Piazza San Marco in the manner of Canaletto. The first room, which opens off the corridor, is the Djemaran Room, a room where the Fathers can sit, read and meet, and where new acquisitions of the library and the most recent issues of current periodicals are available. There are also some other paintings, including two works by Francesco Maggiotto (St. Sahak, and St. Mesrop Mashtots). The next door leads to The Room of Father Alishan (1820-1901), where the furniture and some personal mementos have been left untouched and convey the atmosphere of noble and essential sobriety of the place where so many works of poetry and erudition were produced by the man who was perhaps the most renowned member of the Congregation.
At its northern end, the corridor leads into a protruding main building, originally intended to house the sala dell’Accademia and instead, in 1869-1875 laid out as a Science Museum in the spirit of the European Wunderkammern. It houses mineralogical and paleontological finds (two display cabinets were donated by the King of Spain, Don Carlos), as well as botanical and zoological displays, anatomical tissue and scientific instruments for the study of optics, chemical analysis and experiments and teaching physics. The ceiling which is somewhat vaulted, is decorated with plasterwork and frescoes carried out in the years when the museum was being converted by Ermolao Paoletti: in the centre, there is an Allegory of the Sciences and Arts, at the sides Mekhitar beside Mother Armenia being welcomed by Venice. Above the doors and windows, a frieze of thirty portraits of major figures in Armenian and Western culture.
At the south corner, a door opens onto what is known as the Room of the Abbots, which was the residence of the successors of Mekhitar until the turn of the twentieth century and where Mekhitar himself spent his later years. Today, it is a reception room with an adjacent bedroom for accommodating prelates and patriarchs. This bright spacious room houses the major painting Portrait of Mekhitar with the drawing of the ground plan of the monastery, an oil painting on canvas painted around 1744, once attributed to Pietro Longhi and, more recently, to Fortunato Pasquetti, as well as the portraits of his first four successors at the head of the Congregation.
On the south-western wing there is the adjoining novitiate building which was conceived for the candidates to the religious ministry for their spiritual and cultural training. The building - erected between 1726-1728 and raised by one floor after the 1883 fire damaged the coverings – on the first floor includes the historical lecture hall where Mekhitar himself used to give lessons to the novices: the benches and the original desk are still in place[18]. On the southern corner of the ground floor there is the chapel with some paintings including a small altarpiece, illustrating the Founder praying the Virgin together with his novices, and a large canvas showing the Magdalene at the banquet of Simon the Pharisee, attributed to Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734).
The concentration of art and history in San Lazzaro Island is not and does not pretend to be a museum collection. What is offered and suggested is instead a synthesis of live culture, without any preclusion of gender and discipline, perfectly in line with the concept desired by its founder Mekhitar. A synthesis that can express the fascination, the thoughts and aspirations of a people whose identity has been shaped over the centuries and is nourished by its intrinsic openness to the rainbow of planet’s cultures, an identity which matured in the awareness of how rich and positive human plurality is.
Between 1869 and 1875, the sala dell’Accademia at the end of the north wing was turned into a natural history museum. At the same time, the adjacent astronomical observatory was built.[1]
In the library A great 19th century telescope made in Paris bears witness to the high quality of the research also carried out by the Fathers in the natural sciences.[1]
The congregation fell on hard times in the 1980’s, when an investment scandal plunged the order into financial crisis. Even more troubling were the consequences: The monks were forced to close many schools as well as their printing press[2]
Abbots edit
The Mekhitarists abbots (աբբահայր) of the monastery of San Lazzaro:
- Mkhitar Sebastatsi (Մխիթար Սեբաստացի): 1701–1749
- Stepanos Melkonian (Ստեփանոս Մելքոնեան): 1750–1799
- Stepanos Akonz Köver (Ստեփանոս Ակոնց Գյուվեր): 1800–1824[4]
- Sukias Somalian (Սուքիաս Սոմալեան): 1824–1846
- Kevork Hurmizian (Գեւորգ Հիւրմիւզեան): 1856–1876
- Իգնատիոս Կիւրեղեան 1876–1921
- acting Հովհաննես Թորոսեան 1921–1929
- Հովհան Աւգէրեան 1929–1935
- Serapion Oulouhodjian (Սերապիոն Ուլուհոջեան): 1935–1964
- Հմայակ Կետիկեան 1964–1970
- Պողոս Անանեան 1970–1982
- Պողոս Անանեան 1982–1984
- Հովհաննես Դերձակեան 1982–1984
- Հովհաննես Դերձակեան 1982–1984
- acting Հովհաննես Դերձակեան 1984–1991
- Kevork Balian (Գեւորգ Պալեան): 1991–1996
- Sahak Djemdjemian (Սահակ Ճեմճեմեան): 1996–1996
- Vartan Keshishian (Վարդան Քեշիշեան): 1996–1999
- Yeghia Kilaghbian (Եղիայ Քիլաղբեան): 2000–
- ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference
mechitar.comwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Saryan 2011, p. 3.
- ^ a b c Mackay 1876.
- ^ W., T. (1842). "Aconz Köver, Stephen". Biographical Dictionary. London: Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. pp. 250-251.