La preghiera Hawatov Xostovanim di Nersēs Šnorhali a Roma nel Duecento (ms. M142, anno 1269)

The manuscript M142 is a miscellany copied at Rome in the year 1269 by the scribe Margarē, who had been commissioned to do so by the priest (k‘ahanay) Karapet. It contains excerpts from the Old and the New Testament, portions of the Missal, portions of the Narek, and other writings. Together with a group of other manuscripts that date to between 1221 and 1310, it comes from the Armenian hospice that had been created near the basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican in order to host pilgrims arriving ad limina Petri. Its long colophon is distinctive for the wealth of its information and the originality of its contents. In the first part (ff. 325r-326r) Margarē transmits precious information regarding the Armenian community in Rome of which he was a member, whereas in the second part (ff. 326r-327v) he provides an unusually detailed confession of his sins that ends with the prayer Hawatov Xostovanim of Nersēs Šnorhali (ff. 327v-328v). The presence of this prayer in the “Armeno-Roman” manuscript is of particular interest from the philological point of view, due to the antiquity of this witness and the variants that it attests, some of which are not to be found in the manuscript tradition known thus far for this text. Furthermore, the prayer’s location at the end of the codex, after the colophon with which it is closely connected, shows that it was not part of the works that were copied out, but is instead an act of devotion (most likely written from memory) with which the scribe seals the confession of his sins.