A portion of the collection at Our Lady of Bzummār Convent, manuscripts once belonging to the Armenian Antonines (HMML project code BzAn), is now fully cataloged and available in Reading Room. This collection was not always at Bzummār. The transmission of this sizable collection traces the history of the Armenian Antonines (Antonean Miabanut‘iwn), Armenian Catholics who began in Aleppo, and in 1752 upon their adoption of the Rule of St. Anthony moved to Rome and later to Ortaköy region near Istanbul, Turkey. As the order came to an end at the turn of the 20th century, the Antonean Library was transferred to the care of the monastery in Bzummār, Lebanon, where HMML digitized the Armenian Antonine collection.

The collection consists of 257 manuscripts in Classical Armenian, ranging in date from the 14th century to the 20th century. Among these manuscripts are beautifully illuminated Gospels, illuminated liturgical books, Synaxaria/Menologia, one illuminated prayer scroll, homilies and commentaries by Armenian vardapets, illuminated hymnals (Sharagnots‘), illuminated Psalters, philosophical works by Aristotle commentated by Grigor Tat‘ewats‘i and Yovhannēs Orotnets‘i in the 14th and 15th centuries, works by Dominican missionaries in Armenia, and interesting collections of astrological writings, liturgical calendars, and parzatōmars (see Dr. Ani Shahinian's story on the Armenian liturgical calendar).

A highlight of the collection is a manuscript dated to 1711 containing the works of Dionysius, the Areopagite (BzAn 00438; see also a story on translation and illumination in this manuscript). Another fascinating manuscript is the illuminated depiction of Apostle Paul and a collection of commentaries on the Epistles of Paul (BzAn 00455). View now