Leggere l’armeno fra Seicento e Settecento: i cataloghi di Propaganda Fide = Reading Armenian in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: the Catalogues of Propaganda Fide

The catalogues printed by Propaganda Fide from 1639, just over fifteen years after Gregory XV founded the congregation, contain the books that were produced to help in the instruction and future work of missionaries assigned to the Armenian communities. Following the first two 17th-century Elenchi librorum, seven further Catalogi appeared regularly throughout the century, from the early years of the century until 1793, each with a section listing works written in Armenian (entitled “Armeni”). Book catalogues thus became a powerful ally in the “cultural transfer” that Roman Catholicism intended to carry out in the Armenian East by means of Latin. In addition, they played a leading role in reviving Oriental studies in Europe during the century of the Enlightenment. The Propaganda Fide catalogues, which have never before been the subject of comparative study, contain a number of language tools (dictionaries and grammars), liturgical and informative books, as well as religious longsellers written using St Mesrop’s alphabet.