A Tale of Two Cities (and Three Men): Armenians in Rome and Ancona, 1560s‑1580s
Résumés
L’article examine les raisons de l’arrivée des Arméniens à Ancône et à Rome à la fin du xvie siècle. L’attrait commercial d’Ancône est illustré par la présence du marchand arménien Giorgio Moratto (Morato), tandis que la centralité diplomatique et culturelle de Rome est mise en évidence par l’activité de Marco Antonio Abagaro. Ces deux formes de mobilité se rejoignent grâce à un troisième vecteur de circulation, principalement religieux. Giulio Antonio Santori, cardinal de Santa Severina, a utilisé les fonds de Moratto et le travail d’Abagaro pour ériger une église et un hospice pour les pèlerins arméniens à Ancône, sur le modèle de ceux établis précédemment à Rome. En comparant le développement des hospices arméniens dans les deux villes, cet article encourage à réfléchir sur la mobilité confessionnelle catholique au début de l’époque moderne et sur ses relations avec d’autres réseaux de mobilité en Méditerranée.
Entrées d’index
Mots-clés :
Santa Maria Egiziaca, Église arménienne, hospitalité, pèlerinage, contrôle confessionnel, mobilité religieuseKeywords:
Santa Maria Egiziaca, Sant’Anastasia, hospitality, pilgrimage, confessional control, religious mobilityPlan
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Acknowledgments are due to Luca Andreoni, Sam Kennerley, Vincenzo Lavenia, Paolo Lucca, Carlo Pelloso, Matteo Salvadore, Marco Tittarelli, Mgr Boghos Levon Zekiyan and, especially, Niccolò Fattori for their advice at various stages of writing this article. Special thanks also to Mons. Nareg Naamoyan, former rector of the Pontifical Armenian College in Rome, don Emiliano Poloni, parish priest of Calcinate, and to the personnel of the State and Diocesan Archives of Ancona.
- 1 An excellent and up‑to‑date review of studies on (Middle) Eastern Christians is provided by Bernard (...)
- 2 For an excellent historiographical synthesis on mobility in the early modern Mediterranean, see the (...)
1After years of neglect, the history of Eastern Christians in the early modern period has garnered renewed interest in recent decades. Their ambiguous position and mobility between different worlds and cultures has made Eastern Christians an excellent subject for researchers interested in intercultural contact and exchange. Until recently, the study of their presence in Western Europe has primarily followed two different approaches: one privileges the community dimension and concentrates on the settlement of merchants and sailors of a given nation in a given city, whereas the other focuses on the lives of individuals best known for their ecclesiastical or cultural careers, such as scholars in the service of Roman congregations or Italian princely courts. In both cases, the focus is on mobility driven either by economic or diplomatic reasons, and the actors are either merchants engaged in the so‑called “cross‑cultural trade” or high‑ranking individuals and men of culture who dealt directly with popes and rulers.1 The following article will combine the two approaches by exploring the settlement patterns of a “classic” Eastern Christian diaspora, the Armenians, in two cities that exemplify these distinct types of mobility: Ancona and Rome. At the same time, however, it will also show how economic and cultural‑diplomatic mobility can be interconnected and better understood by considering another dimension of mobility, namely one that specifically involves religious or even “confessional” factors.2
Ancona, or the Armenian merchant
- 3 Jean Delumeau, “Un ponte fra occidente e oriente: Ancona nel Cinquecento”, Quaderni Storici, vol. 5 (...)
- 4 Shlomo Simonsohn, “Marranos in Ancona under Papal Protection”, Michael: On the History of the Jews (...)
2Facing the Balkan coastline, Ancona had always maintained close ties with the Byzantine world, but only emerged on the international scene in the early 16th century, thanks to the weakening of the Venetian maritime hegemony and the establishment of a commercial circuit of fabrics and leathers spanning the Ottoman Empire and Florence, across the central Adriatic. For some time, Ancona gravitated in the orbit of the Papal States until, in 1532, Clement VII definitively took possession of the city. Subsequently, the popes issued privileges and exemptions to attract to the city the Levantine merchants (Jews, Muslims and Eastern Christians) who controlled trade with the Orient.3 The presence of Jews, later confined in a ghetto, and of Greeks, who were allowed to establish a confraternity and celebrate their rites in the church of Sant’Anna, has received considerable attention from scholars. This attention primarily stems from the contradiction that soon became manifest between the commercial ambitions of the papacy and its confessional concerns. Several studies have, for example, highlighted the efforts of the Inquisition to oversee interactions between Catholic citizens and Jewish residents, as well as to ensure that the Greeks of Sant’Anna at least maintained an outward appearance of catholicity. Additionally, scholars have explored the internal community dynamics that developed within these two groups, as they navigated between local affiliations and ties with the international diaspora.4
- 5 Francesco Ferretti, Diporti notturni, [Ancona], [ap. Francesco Salvioni], 1579, p. 141, <https://ww (...)
- 6 The most comprehensive review of Armenian settlements in Italy in the medieval and early modern age (...)
3By contrast, literature on the Armenian presence in Ancona is scarce. Most historians have limited themselves to citing some testimonies of local chroniclers regarding the arrival of Armenian merchants and the granting of a hospice to them (at an unspecified moment) near the church of Sant’Anastasia, located close to the docks of the port and at a short distance from the “Palazzo della farina”, the fondaco that housed Muslim visitors (Fig. 1).5 Some specialists have also evoked the city’s medieval links with the Armenian world (the presence of Armenian monks in a “church of the Holy Spirit” is mentioned in the mid‑13th century) and have quoted passages related to Ancona in some early modern Armenian travelogues, but without delving into the problem of the origins, development and decline of the city’s Armenian community and its church.6
Figure 1: Ancona in the 16th century: location of the Church of Sant’Anastasia
Adapted by Matilde Grimaldi from a map originally published in Niccolò Fattori, Migration and Community in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The Greeks of Ancona, 1510‑1595, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, “Palgrave studies in migration history”, 2019, p. 68, fig. 4.1.
- 7 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori: nelle redazioni del 15 (...)
4Indeed, the only aspect of this story that seems to have caught the attention of scholars is its artistic dimension, particularly as concerns the legacy of a single eminent individual. In his Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori, Vasari remarked that Pellegrino Tibaldi had been brought to Ancona by “Giorgio Morato”, an Armenian merchant who commissioned him to create an altarpiece depicting the Baptism of Christ, which was installed in the Church of Sant’Agostino in 1556. Giorgio Moratto (as he was more often called in contemporary sources) was by then a prominent figure who had lived in Ancona since 1539, when he settled there with his goods and servants, thanks to special privileges granted by Governor Antonio Bernerio. Moratto’s primary trade was buying and selling fabrics between Italy and the Dalmatian coast. However, the money earned from these ventures was often invested in purchasing properties in the city, which he then rented out.7
- 8 Archivio di Stato di Ancona (ASAn), Archivio Notarile (AN), 836, fols. 280v‑281v. The notarial deed (...)
- 9 See John Hunter, Girolamo Siciolante pittore da Sermoneta (1521‑1575), Rome, “L’Erma” di Bretschnei (...)
- 10 Indeed, a “Georgii Jacobi alias Moratti harmeni de Persia” appears to have made his will on 10 Apri (...)
5The painting commissioned by Moratto in Sant’Agostino was not the only or foremost expression of his artistic patronage. In July 1559, he signed a contract with the bishop of Ancona, Vincenzo de Lucchis, pledging to pay for the decoration of the high altar in the cathedral. The altarpiece was to be decorated with a stucco statue of the risen Christ and dedicated to the memory of Saint Liberius, an allegedly Armenian prince who had died in Ancona as a pilgrim around AD 500. In return, an annual mass was to be celebrated in Moratto’s name, a plaque placed on the choir wall to commemorate his patronage, his coat of arms painted on the altar, a place granted in the cathedral for the free burial of the Armenians of Ancona.8 Moratto retired from business in the 1560s and eventually commissioned a third altarpiece from Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta. This altarpiece was a sacra conversazione that included a portrait of Moratto in the lower‑left corner. It was installed in 1570 in the church of San Bartolomeo but removed in 1811 during the French occupation and transported to Milan, where it became the property of the Pinacoteca di Brera. Later, it was deposited in the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Calcinate (Bergamo), where it can be found today (Fig. 2a, 2b).9 The State Archives of Ancona contain many other notarial documents relating to “Giorgio Moratto”. However, they cannot always be attributed to him, and some may refer to a relative with the same name. As a result, the exact date of his death remains unclear.10
Figure 2a: Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta, Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints
Oil on canvas.
© Ministero della Cultura, Pinacoteca di Brera, on deposit in the sacristy of Santa Maria Assunta, Calcinate (Bergamo). The painting was originally located in the church of San Bartolomeo in Ancona.
Figure 2b: Detail of the lower left corner with the portrait of the patron, “Georgius Moratus armenus”
- 11 “The fact that Morato’s repeated dedications to St. Cyriacus took place in Western churches, and no (...)
- 12 According to Claudia Bonardi, Moratto’s case is relevant “perché documenta il distacco di un ricco (...)
6Based on notarial documentation and the iconographic characteristics of the sponsored works of art (which depicted Armenian and Western saints together), Hansen has argued that Moratto’s artistic patronage was a celebration of the Catholic faith of the Armenians of Ancona – a public message that should have reassured Pope Paul IV, whose sharp‑eyed confessional control over religious minorities led him to put a squeeze on Jewish and Marrano merchants at this same time. While this is true and should be understood more generally within the unionist policies then being promoted by the post‑Tridentine Church, what is more debatable is the argument that Moratto’s desire for integration into the Catholic world led him to choose only the Latin churches of the city for his patronage, thereby ignoring the Armenian church of Sant’Anastasia and indeed distancing himself from it.11 Such an interpretation of Moratto’s behaviour, emphasised also by other scholars,12 flounders on a point of fact. Moratto considered only the Latin churches of Ancona not because he wanted to distance himself from his own community of origin, but simply because, during those years, the church of Sant’Anastasia had not yet been entrusted to the Armenians. Moreover, it was precisely thanks to him that the Armenians were finally able to establish a church, hospice and national brotherhood. As we shall see, the money from his inheritance was later used to found a hospice for Armenian pilgrims in Ancona, following the model of the one existing in Rome. Therefore, to better understand the Anconite context, we need to step back and look at the Eternal City, of which recent studies have presented an ever‑richer picture.
Rome, or the son of the ambassador
- 13 See Francesco Ehrle, “Ricerche su alcune antiche chiese del borgo di S. Pietro”, Dissertazioni dell (...)
- 14 See the brief dated 1 September 1563 for the erection of a “Congregazione de Cristiani dell’istessa (...)
- 15 See the motuproprio of Pius V as quoted in a later document by Gregory xiii, held in the same archi (...)
- 16 John Krajcar (ed.), Cardinal Giulio Antonio Santoro and the Christian East: Santoro’s Audiences and (...)
7A stable Armenian presence in Rome dates back to the 13th century, largely as a result of the close relationship between the Holy See and the Armenian Church at the time of the Crusades. From around 1230, Armenian pilgrims took advantage of a hospice located in what was then known as the “district of the Armenians”, located next to the ancient Basilica of St Peter. This hospice disappeared in the 16th century during the enlargement works of the square.13 In 1563, in response to the requests of Armenian visitors to Rome for a “church or common house in which they could stay and where they could celebrate according to their rites, customs and language”, Pope Pius IV granted the church of San Lorenzo dei Cavallucci to the Armenians “who are in the communion of the Holy Roman Church”.14 However, San Lorenzo was located near Tiber Island, in the same area that the next pope, Pius V, intended for the enlargement of the Jewish ghetto. The Armenians were as such forced to relocate a little further to a small church built in the 9th century on the remains of the Roman temple of Portunus. This church, known at the time as Santa Maria Egiziaca, no longer exists, as the site was restored to its original state during archaeological work in the 1920s (Fig. 3).15 In 1566, the Armenians took possession of Santa Maria Egiziaca and the adjoining building, which was used as a hospice and placed under the supervision of a cardinal. Between 1577 and 1602, this task fell to one of the most powerful men in the Roman curia, Giulio Antonio Santori (or Santoro), cardinal of Santa Severina, who devoted time and money to the restoration and expansion of this complex.16
Figure 3: Alò Giovannoli, copperplate engraving of the Church of Santa Maria Egiziaca in Rome
Published in Vedute degli antichi vestigj di Roma […] parte seconda, Rome, 1616, fol. 66.
Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, public domain.
- 17 Gabriella Uluhogian, “Il Salterio di Abgar T‘oxat‘ec‘i (a.1565) e l’avvio degli studi armenistici p (...)
- 18 Cesare Santus, “Wandering Lives: Eastern Christian Pilgrims, Alms‑Collectors, and ‘Refugees’ in Ear (...)
8One of the factors that prompted the popes to be generous with the Armenians was the need to host the periodic visits to Rome of the superiors of the Catholic community of Naxiǰewan, which had existed since the 14th century. Another was the embassy sent in 1562 by the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Catholicos of Ēǰmiacin Mik‘ayēl Sebastac‘i. This embassy was led by the cleric Abgar of Tokat and his adolescent son Sult‘anšah. Abgar’s mission was to re‑establish contact between the ecclesiastical leaderships of the two churches and prompt the European crowns to come to the aid of the Armenians, oppressed by Islamic rule. However, during his travel to Italy, Abgar also seized the opportunity to create some of the first Armenian typefaces, which he used to print a psalter in Venice that included a portrait of himself and his son in front of the pope (Fig. 4). Upon his return home, Abgar left his son Sult‘anšah in Rome, where the boy was educated at the expense of the Vatican curia and adopted the Italian name Marco Antonio Abagaro.17 Armenian by birth but Roman by education, Marco Antonio was as such an obvious choice for the task of supervising Armenian affairs in Rome. Once grown up, he acted as official interpreter and translator for the papacy, serving also as the director of the hospice of Santa Maria Egiziaca. Under his guidance, this hospice began to acquire the characteristics that would make it one of the most important places of reception for Eastern Christian pilgrims in the Eternal City. Every year it welcomed tens, and later hundreds, of visitors, while ensuring that they professed the Catholic faith.18
Figure 4: Portraits of Abgar of Tokat and his son “Marco Antonio” (Sult‘anšah) in front of Pope Pius IV
Engraving included in the Book of Psalms printed in Venice in 1565‑1566. Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, S.P. XII. 77, fol. 1v.
© Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana.
- 19 On Santori, see Saverio Ricci, Il sommo inquisitore: Giulio Antonio Santori tra autobiografia e sto (...)
- 20 Although the Congregation for the Reform of the Greeks living in Italy, established in 1573 under t (...)
- 21 Archivio Diocesano di Ancona (ADAn), Protocolli dei notai episcopali, vol. 2 (1578‑1586), fols. 83r (...)
9In carrying out his duties, Marco Antonio received the patronage of Cardinal Santori, who held a prominent position within the Inquisition and was responsible for confessional control over Eastern Christians.19 During these years, Santori indeed had to address the challenges posed by the Greek presence in southern Italy and in commercial ports like Ancona.20 It was probably in this way that he became aware of the Armenian merchant community in Ancona, and began to conceive a plan to establish an Armenian church and hospice in the city with the money bequeathed by Moratto (we do not know if this was the explicit will of the testator, as it seems likely). Santori’s choice fell on the ancient church of Sant’Anastasia, then held by a canon named Ciriaco Ortoni, who wanted to get rid of it because of its ruinous state and tenuous income. On 26 April 1580, Santori appointed Abagaro as his general procurator and representative, sending him to Ancona with the task of reaching an agreement with the bishop of the city so that the church of Sant’Anastasia and a house and goods from Moratto’s estate could be legally united with the Church of Santa Maria Egiziaca in Rome, “for the purpose of establishing in the said house a hospice for poor pilgrims of the said Armenian nation, modelled on the one that the same nation possesses in Rome”.21
- 22 Archivio del Pontificio Collegio Armeno (APCA), Santa Maria Egiziaca (SME), S. Anastasia Ospizio Ar (...)
- 23 APCA, SME, Catasto 1673, fol. 86r; Łewond Ališan, Sisakan, op. cit., p. 453.
- 24 ADAn, Protocolli dei notai episcopali, vol. 2 (1578‑1586), fols. 88r‑89v (21 October 1582). The inv (...)
- 25 Ibid., fols. 85v‑86v (27 June 1582); ASAn, AN, vol. 597, fols. 281v‑282r (Francesco Brancaleoni, 15 (...)
10On 11 May 1580, Marco Antonio and Canon Ortoni appeared before a notary, Antonio Damiano. In the presence of Bishop Vincenzo de Lucchis, they confirmed the grant of the Church of Sant’Anastasia and its properties “to the Armenian nation, congregation and college” of Rome.22 Just two days before this agreement, Abagaro had managed to obtain another nearby building, originally owned by an Armenian merchant named Simone Sinani, who had died in a shipwreck.23 The restoration of the church and the preparation of the hospice were financed through Moratto’s bequest. In both cases, a clause provided that part of the inheritance would be returned to the legitimate heirs of the deceased, should they come to claim it. In particular, on 5 June 1580 it was established that 150 scudi belonged to Caterina, daughter of Giacomo Armeno, a nephew of Moratto, but that they would be invested in a secure asset (a vineyard). In the event that Caterina had no heirs, and no relatives were found, the money would eventually be allocated to the hospice of Sant’Anastasia.24 Other efforts were also made to reward Moratto’s extended family. When Abagaro returned to his duties in Rome, he passed his mandate as the cardinal’s representative and head of the Armenian hospice in Ancona to the notary Damiano, even if on a temporary basis. Later, in 1582, this role was transferred to Caterina’s husband, “Domenico Converso” from “Satalia di Caramania” (now Antalya), likely a converted Turk (or Jew) who had worked as a baker, and who later became an important broker in Ancona.25
Merchants and pilgrims
- 26 For Rome, see Archivio di Propaganda Fide (APF), SC Ospizi, vol. 1 (Ospizio degli Armeni), fols. 5r (...)
11Examining the similarities and differences of the Armenian national churches‑cum‑hospices in Rome and Ancona allows us to reflect on the peculiar features of these two urban settlements. Firstly, the similarities can be explained by the fact that, in both cases, old churches had been repurposed, thereby allowing Armenian visitors and residents of the cities to celebrate Mass there according to their own rite and language. Additionally, both locations possessed adjacent buildings with beds to accommodate visitors for a few weeks, provided they could demonstrate their Catholic faith. The confessional control on display here is a notable peculiarity of the Papal States, differing from practices of settlement and hospitality found in other places like Venice. Such control indeed grew stricter over time, until it reached the point where Armenian visitors in Rome had to make a formal profession of faith before the Holy Office to obtain hospitality, while in Ancona certificates of catholicity issued by authoritative persons appear to have been sufficient. Finally, in both Rome and Ancona, the sick were treated on the spot for as long as possible and, in the event of death, were buried in or nearby the church, while their goods were appropriated by the hospice, unless the legitimate heirs could claim them.26
- 27 APCA, SME, Catasto 1673, fol. 86v; Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale III, b. 1882, doc. 28. See a (...)
- 28 See the “Stato della Chiesa, et Ospitio di S. Anastasia degl’Armeni nella Città di Ancona dependent (...)
- 29 Copy of a plea to Rome, undated (but between 1700 and 1727), in APCA, SME, Libro Mastro 1670‑1719, (...)
12However, the differences between the two institutions were more significant than the similarities. First of all, the Armenian church‑cum‑hospice of Ancona seems to have always been in a worse economic condition than its Roman counterpart. In 1657, Sant’Anastasia’s annual income was only about ten scudi, and its expenses were always higher. By comparison, the income of Santa Maria Egiziaca in 1661 amounted to a maximum of 338 scudi per year, derived from a variety of revenues: rental income from certain houses owned by the church, interest accrued on specific “luoghi di monte” (public bonds issued by the Papal States), generous donations and bequests of prelates in the curia and Catholic Armenians.27 Moreover, while the Roman hospice was periodically expanded to accommodate dozens of people, including a special section for ecclesiastics and women, the hospice of Sant’Anastasia experienced progressive deterioration. By the 1650s, it only consisted of two rooms – one serving as a kitchen and refectory, and the other as a dormitory, furnished only with “a few wooden benches without mattresses, sheets or blankets, so that poor Armenian foreigners cannot sleep there”. The income of the church was so small that there was not even enough money to pay caretakers to look after it, with volunteers entrusted with this task instead. Additionally, the building was in a state of disrepair, with the roof needing urgent attention and the outer walls being mouldy and covered with debris.28 In the early 18th century, only the walls of the hospice remained standing. The representative of the “Armenian nation of Ancona” wrote several times to Rome in order to obtain the necessary funds to restore the building, but it seems that it was ultimately sold in 1739.29
- 30 See the anonymous memorial quoted by Luca Andreoni, Una nazione in commercio…, op. cit., p. 67‑68: (...)
13This situation was not only the result of poor economic management; more significantly, it was due to the crisis faced by the Armenian merchant community of Ancona. Towards the end of the 16th century, Ancona encountered stiff competition from the Dalmatian city of Split, which was controlled by the Republic of Venice. Furthermore, Ancona’s harbour was plagued by recurring structural issues, necessitating constant dredging efforts. In the 17th century, another competitor emerged in the form of Livorno, which proved more successful than Ancona in attracting Jewish and Levantine merchants. As a consequence, Ancona found itself disconnected from international trade at a time when its foreign communities had not yet attained demographic self‑sufficiency, relying instead on the continuous influx of newcomers from the East. This dynamic, which Fattori has thoroughly analysed to explain the decline of the local Greek community, also explains that of Armenians as well. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the loss of commercial centrality and a noticeable reduction in Eastern merchants had become a common lament in Ancona, leading to the Armenian community there being discussed in the past tense.30
- 31 ADAn, Visite pastorali, vol. 5, 23 May 1736 (Bishop Massei), p. 131: “ecclesiam Sanctae Anastasiae (...)
- 32 These estimates complement the preliminary data described in Cesare Santus, “Wandering Lives…”, art (...)
14In the case of both the Greeks and the Armenians of Ancona, the gradual decrease in the number and social status of immigrants did not immediately lead to a crisis of their institutions (church and confraternity). They in fact survived for an extended period, albeit increasingly losing their original “national” character. During the 17th century, the confraternity of Sant’Anna dei Greci also began to welcome Latins, who eventually comprised the overwhelming majority of its members. On the other hand, in the 18th century, the church of Sant’Anastasia, lacking a consistent congregation, became the seat of local Anconitan brotherhoods, which often came into conflict with the Armenian chaplains.31 Here, a comparison with the situation in Rome is again striking. From its foundation to 1659, the hospice of Santa Maria Egiziaca received 1,866 visitors, including 29 bishops and archbishops. During the jubilee of 1650 alone, it accommodated as many as 103 Armenian pilgrims. If we consider the professions of Catholic faith made by Eastern Christian visitors before the Inquisition, in the 70 years between 1655 and 1724, Armenians constituted the largest group (1,028 out of 1,389, that is, 74 percent). This was precisely because of the intense activity of the hospice, from where they were sent to the Holy Office.32
- 33 Ibid., p. 267‑269; Cesare Santus, “Tra la chiesa di Sant’Atanasio e il Sant’Uffizio: Note sulla pre (...)
- 34 See, among others, Simon Ditchfield, “Romanus and catholicus: Counter‑Reformation Rome as caput mun (...)
15Why did these two foundations have such contrasting histories? In theory, Ancona had even more opportunities than Rome to host a successful foreign community. Even though the city of the popes was undoubtedly an international capital, Eastern Christians never really succeeded in establishing real “communities” there, if by this term we mean a group of people residing in a more or less stable way, who choose to gather around common institutions promoted and managed by them. As I have argued elsewhere, the Greek and Armenian inhabitants of Rome were largely clergymen, pilgrims or visitors seeking education or financial aid, who could not settle permanently or start a family there. Furthermore, in contrast with other cities like Venice or Livorno, their places of worship and gathering in Rome were not collective foundations, established “from below”, but rather almost always planned or granted “from above” (that is, by the papacy) and reserved for the clergy or subjected to various forms of confessional control.33 Yet the city of Rome possessed a unique character that compensated for these limitations. Thanks to the centrality guaranteed by the city’s basilicas, shrines and saintly relics, as well as by the administrative bodies of the Vatican curia, Rome became one of the main hubs of religious mobility in the Mediterranean.34
- 35 Given the proximity of Ancona to the Marian shrine of Loreto, I also tried to follow the trail of p (...)
- 36 In the balance sheet of Sant’Anastasia for the year 1657, it was significantly noted that “entrate (...)
- 37 In the late 18th century, the Greek presence in Ancona became consistent again, thanks also to the (...)
- 38 ADAn, Regestrum Bullarum aliorumque etc. Curiae Episcopalis Anconae ab anno 1767 usque ad annum 178 (...)
- 39 See Mesrop Owl’owrlean [Ułurlean], Storia della colonia armena di Livorno e della costruzione della (...)
16Although the Armenian church‑cum‑hospice of Ancona shared with that of Rome a direct dependence on the Catholic hierarchy and a common goal of sheltering pilgrims, the origins of the Armenian presence in the Adriatic city were different, linked more to economic and commercial mobility than religious movement.35 Once the merchants had stopped arriving, and the pilgrims began to take other roads to reach the Eternal City, the community fell into crisis and its institutions essentially became an empty shell.36 Only the establishment of a free port in Ancona (1732) succeeded to some extent in reversing the trend, with some Levantine merchants returning to the city in the 1760s, while the city also regained its position as a transit point for Eastern Catholic clergy on their way to Rome.37 The church of Sant’Anastasia was finally renovated and reopened for worship “in a more appropriate form” on 24 December 1771, while a few years later Bishop Bufalini issued a series of regulations for the confessional control of the Greeks and Armenians living in or visiting Ancona. The Armenians remained in Sant’Anastasia until 1793, when the church was sold to the Brotherhood of S. Maria Stella Maris, retaining this name until its destruction during the war in 1943.38 By the end of the 19th century, however, the Armenians of Ancona had eventually been assimilated into the local population.39
Conclusion: A Mediterranean confessional mobility
17At the beginning of this story, we evoked the names of two men who, in one way or another, were instrumental in shaping the early modern Armenian presence in Rome and Ancona. They also represent two of the main vectors of Mediterranean mobility: Giorgio Moratto, the merchant, and Sult‘anšah/Marco Antonio Abagaro, the son of the ambassador, who was active besides as promoter of the Armenian press in Rome. These two poles were connected through another fundamental aspect of early modern circulation: the religious and even “confessional” one, embodied in this case by Santori, the cardinal of Santa Severina [Fig. 5].
Figure 5: Giuliano Finelli, bust of Cardinal Giulio Antonio Santori, marble, before 1634. Basilica of St. John Lateran, Rome
Public domain.
- 40 See the bull of erection of 13 October 1584, in which Gregory XIII appointed cardinals Santori and (...)
- 41 The term “confessional mobility” was introduced by Liesbeth Corens, Confessional Mobility and Engli (...)
18Giulio Antonio Santori was the real deus ex machina behind the establishment of Sant’Anastasia and the development of Santa Maria Egiziaca. In both cases, his motivation was not to enrich the cities of the Papal States with foreign capital, but rather to extend the sphere of influence of the Roman Church, as he also tried to do in 1584 supporting the project of an ecclesiastical college for young Armenian students, based on the model of the already existing Greek and Maronite ones.40 From this point of view, Santori was probably not so much interested in the permanent presence of a few rich merchants, nor worried about their decline – on the contrary, a structured presence of Armenians in Italy would have ended up posing the same problems that the cardinal encountered with the Greeks. In Santori’s vision, the primary purpose of the two hospices, and all pontifical institutions targeting Eastern Christians, was to attract a significant number of pilgrims and Eastern ecclesiastics, facilitate their interaction with the hierarchies of the Roman Church, encourage them to profess the Catholic faith, and subsequently send them back to the East as ambassadors of their new or reaffirmed faith. In this plan, therefore, Ancona was only a minor node in a route that led to Rome, within the larger framework of a newly encouraged “confessional mobility” that followed rules and purposes other than mercantile ones.41 However, the crisis following the material impoverishment of Sant’Anastasia suggests that the different channels of mobility in the Mediterranean eventually intertwined and influenced each other.
Notes
1 An excellent and up‑to‑date review of studies on (Middle) Eastern Christians is provided by Bernard Heyberger, “Le christianisme oriental à l’époque ottoman : du postcolonial au global (1960‑2020)”, Annales. Histoire, sciences sociales, vol. 76, no. 2, 2021, p. 301‑337, <https://doi:10.1017/ahss.2021.120>. For a discussion on the community dimension, see Mathieu Grenet, La fabrique communautaire. Les Grecs à Venise, Livourne et Marseille 1770‑1840, Rome, École française de Rome/École française d’Athènes, « Coll. de l’École française de Rome, 521; Mondes Méditerranéens et Balkaniques, 9 », 2016 (with an excellent bibliography on the subject); for the biographical approach, see, for example, John‑Paul A. Ghobrial, “The Life and Hard Times of Solomon Negri: An Arabic Teacher in Early Modern Europe”, in Jan Loop, Alastair Hamilton and Charles Burnett (eds), The Teaching and Learning of Arabic in Early Modern Europe, Leiden, Brill, 2017, p. 310‑331, <https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004338623_015>, or Bernard Heyberger (ed.), Orientalisme, science et controverse: Abraham Ecchellensis (1605‑1664), Turnhout, Brepols, 2010. We can also add the study of the attempts to colonise the interior or depopulated areas of Europe thanks to the call of Greek exiles: Giampaolo Salice (ed.), La terra ai forestieri, Ospedaletto (Pisa), Pacini, “Percorsi, 16”, 2019.
2 For an excellent historiographical synthesis on mobility in the early modern Mediterranean, see the very recent volume by Guillaume Calafat and Mathieu Grenet, Méditerranées : une histoire des mobilités humaines (1492‑1750), [Paris], Éd. Points, « Histoire, 610 », 2023; more generally, see also the introduction to Paul Nelles and Rosa Salzberg (eds), Connected Mobilities in the Early Modern World: The Practice and Experience of Movement, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, “Connected Histories in the Early Modern World, 7”, 2022. A fundamental study on Armenian mobility is that of Sebouh D. Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa, Berkeley, University of California Press, “The California World History Library, 17”, 2011, whose latest research also highlights the confessional dimension (see below, n. 41). The role of religion in early modern diasporas has been recently stressed by Mathilde Monge and Natalia Muchnik, Early Modern Diasporas: A European History, Abingdon, Routledge, “Routledge Studies in Early Modern Religious Dissents and Radicalism”, 2022.
3 Jean Delumeau, “Un ponte fra occidente e oriente: Ancona nel Cinquecento”, Quaderni Storici, vol. 5, no. 13, 1970, p. 26‑47, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/43900347>; Sergio Anselmi, “Venezia, Ragusa, Ancona tra Cinque e Seicento: un momento della storia mercantile del Medio Adriatico”, Atti e Memorie: Ancona, Deputazione di storia patria per le Marche, vol. 6, 1972, p. 41‑87; Benjamin Ravid, “A Tale of Three Cities and their Raison d’État: Ancona, Venice, Livorno, and the Competition for Jewish Merchants in the Sixteenth Century”, Mediterranean Historical Review, vol. 6, no. 2, 1991, p. 138‑162, <https://doi.org/10.1080/09518969108569619>; Frank Lacopo, “The Curious Case of Ancona: ‘Levantines,’ Accommodation, and the Exigencies of Papal Power in Adriatic Italy, 1532‑1555’, The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 55, no. 1‑2, 2024, p. 93‑111, <https://doi.org/10.1086/731069> appeared when this article was already in proof.
4 Shlomo Simonsohn, “Marranos in Ancona under Papal Protection”, Michael: On the History of the Jews in the Diaspora, vol. 9, 1985, p. 234‑267, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/23495329>; Molly Greene, Catholic Pirates and Greek Merchants: A Maritime History of the Mediterranean, Princeton, Princeton University Press, “Princeton Modern Greek Studies”, 2010, p. 27‑29 and passim; Luca Andreoni, “Una nazione in commercio”. Ebrei di Ancona, traffici adriatici e pratiche mercantili in età moderna, Milan, Franco Angeli, “Storia‑Studi e ricerche, 462”, 2019; Vincenzo Lavenia, “Un porto nello Stato pontificio: Ancona e il Sant’Uffizio tra il Cinquecento e la Rivoluzione”, in Andrea Cicerchia, Guido Dall’Olio and Matteo Duni (eds), Prescritto e proscritto: Religione e società nell’Italia moderna (secc. xvi‑xix), Rome, Carocci, “Studi storici Carocci, 239”, 2015, p. 85‑126; Serena Di Nepi, “Jews in the Papal States between Western Sephardic Diasporas and Ghettoization: A Trial in Ancona as a Case Study (1555‑1563)”, in Yosef Kaplan (ed.), Religious Changes and Cultural Transformations in the Early Modern Western Sephardic Communities, Leiden, Brill, “Studies in Jewish History and Culture, 54”, 2019, p. 291‑322; Niccolò Fattori, Migration and Community in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The Greeks of Ancona, 1510‑1595, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, “Palgrave Studies in Migration History”, 2019.
5 Francesco Ferretti, Diporti notturni, [Ancona], [ap. Francesco Salvioni], 1579, p. 141, <https://www.europeana.eu/fr/item/92004/object_BNCF__MAGL_4_4_69_3SC18K6>; Giuliano Saracini, Notitie historiche della città d’Ancona, Rome, Niccolò Angelo Tinassi, 1675, p. 361, 402, <https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10941196?page=5>; Vincenzo Pirani, Le chiese di Ancona, Ancona, Arcidiocesi Ancona Osimo, 1998, p. 12‑13.
6 The most comprehensive review of Armenian settlements in Italy in the medieval and early modern age is that of Boghos Levon Zekiyan, “Le colonie armene del Medio Evo in Italia e le relazioni culturali italo‑armene”, in Giulio Ieni and Boghos Levon Zekiyan (eds), Atti del Primo Simposio Internazionale di Arte Armena (Bergamo, 28‑30 giugno 1975), Venice, Accademia Armena di San Lazzaro, 1978, p. 803‑946, where p. 862‑864 are dedicated to Ancona. See also Claudia Bonardi, “Le colonie armene in Italia”, in Claude Mutafian (ed.), Roma - Armenia, Rome, De Luca, 1999, p. 222‑227. Ancona is evoked in the early 17th‑century travelogue of Simēon Lehac‘i, Ułegrut‘iwn, Nersēs Akinean (ed.), Vienna, Mekhitarist Press, 1936, p. 92‑93 (Eng. trans. George A. Bournoutian, The Travel Accounts of Simēon of Poland, Costa Mesa, Mazda Publishers, “Armenian Studies Series, 10”, 2007, p. 93‑95). The only scholar to have directly seen original documents that illuminated the life of the Armenians of Ancona in the 16th century was the Mekhitarist father Łewond Ališan (1820‑1901). Unfortunately, he limited himself to briefly evoking their content, without providing archival references. Nevertheless, many of the hints left by him in his work have been confirmed by the sources I found in Roman and Anconitan archives (see below).
7 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori: nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi (eds), Florence, Sansoni, 11 vols, 1966‑1997, vol. 6, p. 149; Łewond Ališan, Sisakan. Tełagrut‘iwn Siwneac‘ ašxarhi, Venice, Mkhitarist Monastery of San Lazzaro, 1893, p. 453. For important information about Moratto, based on archival documents, see Irene Sacco, Mastro Pellegrino pittore in Ancona, MA diss., University of Urbino, 1999‑2000, especially p. 17‑19. See also Patrick Krebs von Rüeggisberg, Ancona und Livorno: Das Modell der florierenden Hafenstadt (16. Bis 19. Jahrhundert), PhD diss., University of Bern, 2010, p. 129‑131, 183‑186.
8 Archivio di Stato di Ancona (ASAn), Archivio Notarile (AN), 836, fols. 280v‑281v. The notarial deeds have been discovered and published by Morten Steen Hansen, “Celebrating the Armenian Faith: Giorgio Morato and Pellegrino Tibaldi in the Cathedral of Ancona”, Analecta Romana Instituti Danici, vol. 24, 1997, p. 83‑91; see also Irene Sacco, Mastro Pellegrino..., op. cit., p. 39‑41. The altar, initially commissioned to Prospero Fontana (or Daniele da Volterra) but executed by Pellegrino Tibaldi, was removed in 1728, due to the decay of the stuccoes. On the cult of St Liberius in Ancona, see Claude Mutafian (ed.), Roma - Armenia, op. cit., p. 244.
9 See John Hunter, Girolamo Siciolante pittore da Sermoneta (1521‑1575), Rome, “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 1996, p. 78, 101‑105, and especially Morten Steen Hansen, “Immigrants and Church Patronage in Sixteenth‑Century Ancona”, in Stephen J. Cambell and Stephen J. Milner (eds), Artistic Exchange and Cultural Translation in the Italian Renaissance City, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 327‑354: p. 335‑339. In 2018 it was decided that the painting should be returned to Ancona to be installed again in San Bartolomeo, which in the 19th century had been entrusted to some Armenian nuns and dedicated to St Gregory the Illuminator (patron of the Armenian nation). To date, however, the altarpiece does not appear to have come back to Ancona.
10 Indeed, a “Georgii Jacobi alias Moratti harmeni de Persia” appears to have made his will on 10 April 1556 and the death of a “Moratto sensale” is recorded two days later (ASAn, AN, Marino Benincasa, 540, fol. 172r, 1560; ACAN, Catalogo dei morti, 6027, fol. 168r). It should therefore be a different figure from the “Georgius Morattus senior” who is mentioned in later notarial deeds (see for example ASAn, AN, Girolamo Giustiniani, 366 [ex 670], fol. 293rv [1564]; Irene Sacco, Mastro Pellegrino..., op. cit., p. 17‑18). As for the art patronage, while the altar of the cathedral and the altarpiece by Siciolante are certainly attributable to the latter for chronological reasons, it cannot be ruled out that the altarpiece of Sant’Agostino, dating back to 1556, was sponsored by the Moratto who died in the same year (especially since a burial place was provided for the patron in that case too, which would have made another tomb in the cathedral superfluous). However, Vasari’s testimony attributes the various commissions to the same person and a contract published by Hansen mentions “Georgii alias Moratti senioris” as the patron of the St. Augustine altarpiece (Morten Steen Hansen, “Immigrants and Church Patronage…”, art. cit., p. 346). Another Armenian, “Moratto di Vasilio”, died on 8 November 1576, leaving a wife and heirs who would face a long legal dispute over the inheritance (ASAn, Comunale, Catalogo dei morti, 6027, fol. 173v; Biblioteca Comunale di Jesi, Archivio Rocchi Camerata, b. 4/47).
11 “The fact that Morato’s repeated dedications to St. Cyriacus took place in Western churches, and not in the Armenian church of San Anastasia with its ‘unintelligible’ mass and ‘dubious’ theology, bore witness to Morato’s patronage as symbolic acts of conversion.” Morten Steen Hansen, “Immigrants and Church Patronage…”, art. cit., p. 344‑345.
12 According to Claudia Bonardi, Moratto’s case is relevant “perché documenta il distacco di un ricco armeno dal suo gruppo etnico: non sufficiente da cancellare l’orgoglio di appartenenza, ma tale già da fargli consegnare la propria memoria alle chiese socialmente più rilevanti dalla società anconetana” (Claudia Bonardi, “Le colonie armene in Italia”, art. cit., p. 224). Bonardi claims that the Armenians of Ancona would have held the church of Sant’Anastasia as early as 1461, when they left that of S. Spirito, but she does not cite any source. In the light of the evidence we have collected, this claim turns out to be incorrect.
13 See Francesco Ehrle, “Ricerche su alcune antiche chiese del borgo di S. Pietro”, Dissertazioni della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, ser. ii, vol. 10, no. 1, 1910, p. 3‑43 (p. 31‑36); Alberto Zucchi, OP, “Roma Domenicana: Chiese degli Armeni in Roma”, Memorie domenicane, vol. 55, no. 6, 1938, p. 335‑343; Boghos Levon Zekiyan, “Le colonie armene…”, art. cit., p. 851‑859; Anna Sirinian, “La presenza degli Armeni nella Roma medievale: prime testimonianze manoscritte ed epigrafiche (con un’iscrizione inedita del xvi secolo)”, Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, ser. iii: Rendiconti, vol. 86, 2013‑2014, p. 3‑42; Christiane Esche‑Ramshorn, East‑West Artistic Transfer through Rome, Armenia and the Silk Road: Sharing St. Peter’s, Abingdon, Routledge, 2022, p. 20‑25, 35‑37. It should also be mentioned that in 1549‑1550, the Armenian Catholicos Step‘anos Salmastec‘i visited Rome and engaged in diplomatic and ecclesiastical negotiations with the Papal curia. During those years, it appears that the Armenians were accommodated in the hospice of another Eastern Christian religious community, the Ethiopian monks of Santo Stefano dei Mori, located behind the Vatican Basilica. See Samantha Kelly, Translating Faith: Ethiopian Pilgrims in Renaissance Rome, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, “I Tatti Studies in Italian Renaissance History”, 2024, p. 262.
14 See the brief dated 1 September 1563 for the erection of a “Congregazione de Cristiani dell’istessa Nazione Armena nella sudetta Chiesa di S. Lorenzo”, with the specification that they should remain “nella Communione della S. Romana Chiesa”: Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale III, b. 1882: Romana Manutentionis - Summarium, no. 1 (the request for the Church of San Lorenzo had been made by “Alessandro Astuazadori Sacerdote dell’Armenia Minore”).
15 See the motuproprio of Pius V as quoted in a later document by Gregory xiii, held in the same archival folder quoted above: “Ecclesiam Sanctae Mariae Aegiptiacae […] pro se loco dictae Ecclesiae Sancti Laurentii suppressae et pro eorum perpetuo hospitio habendam regendam et gubernandam ac iuxta ritus et mores suos, etiamsi a Latinis differentes non tamen a Romana Ecclesia reprobatos” (11 June 1566). The history of the Armenian presence in the church of Santa Maria Egiziaca has been studied by Leonardo Paterna Baldizzi, La chiesa di S.ta Maria Egiziaca in Roma, Naples, Reale Tipografia Pansini, 1933; Meružan Karapetyan, “Hṙomi hay gałt‛ōǰaxi patmut‛yunic‛”, Patma‑banasirakan Handes, vols 147‑148, no. 1‑2, 1998, p. 165‑178; Christiane Esche‑Ramshorn, “Reordering the Catholic Armenian Churches of Rome and Nakhichevan”, in ead. (ed.), Reflections on Armenia and the Christian Orient: Studies in Honour of Vrej Nersessian, Yerevan, Ankyunacar Publishing, 2017, p. 131‑148; Cesare Santus, “L’accoglienza e il controllo dei pellegrini orientali a Roma: l’ospizio armeno di Santa Maria Egiziaca (xvi‑xviii sec.)”, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome - Moyen Âge, vol. 131, no. 2, 2019, p. 447‑459, <https://doi.org/10.4000/mefrm.6134> ; Anatole Upart, “Santa Maria Egiziaca: The Armenian National Church in Early Modern Rome”, Series Byzantina, vol. 21, 2023, p. 67-74.
16 John Krajcar (ed.), Cardinal Giulio Antonio Santoro and the Christian East: Santoro’s Audiences and Consistoriales Acts, Rome, Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, “Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 177”, 1966, p. 31, 37. Camilla Fiore and Susanne Kubersky‑Piredda, “Gregorio XIII e l’Oriente. Arte e identità nei Collegi greco, maronita e armeno”, in Valentina Balzarotti and Bianca Hermanin (eds), Gregorio XIII Boncompagni. Arte dei moderni ed immagini venerabili nei cantieri della nuova Ecclesia, Rome, Efesto, 2021, “Arte in questione, 3”, p. 137‑157: p. 155.
17 Gabriella Uluhogian, “Il Salterio di Abgar T‘oxat‘ec‘i (a.1565) e l’avvio degli studi armenistici presso la Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano,” in ead., Collectanea Armeniaca, Rosa Bianca Finazzi and Anna Sirinian (eds), Rome, Bulzoni, “Fonti e studi, 27”, 2016, p. 313‑337; Raymond H. Kévorkian, Catalogue des “incunables” arméniens (1511/1695) ou Chronique de l’imprimerie arménienne, Geneva, P. Cramer, « Cahiers d’orientalisme, 9 », 1986, p. 153‑154. These publications must now be supplemented with new biographical data provided by Cesare Santus, “New Documents on the Armenian Presence and Printing Activity in Early Modern Rome: Marco Antonio Abagaro (Sult‘anšah), Bartolomeo Abagaro and the Typographia Gabiana”, Revue des études Arméniennes, vol. 41, 2022, p. 193‑221, <https://doi.org/10.2143/REA.41.0.3291884>.
18 Cesare Santus, “Wandering Lives: Eastern Christian Pilgrims, Alms‑Collectors, and ‘Refugees’ in Early Modern Rome”, in Matthew Coneys Wainwright and Emily Michelson (eds), A Companion to Religious Minorities in Early Modern Rome, Leiden, Brill, “Brill Companions to the Christian Tradition, 95”, 2021, p. 237‑271; id., “L’accoglienza e il controllo…”, art. cit.
19 On Santori, see Saverio Ricci, Il sommo inquisitore: Giulio Antonio Santori tra autobiografia e storia (1532‑1602), Rome, Salerno, “Piccoli saggi, 15”, 2002; John Krajcar (ed.), Cardinal Giulio Antonio Santoro…, op. cit.; Cesare Santus, “The Roman Curia and the Eastern Churches, 1500‑1800: Diplomacy, Cultural Policy, Mission, and Confessional Control”, in Donald S. Prudlo (ed.), A Companion to the History of the Roman Curia, Leiden, Brill, 2025, p. 284-301, <https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004723665_018>. Although Santori was later granted the title “Protector nationum orientalium”, it should not be forgotten that other cardinals also played an important role in the patronage of Eastern Christians, such as Guglielmo Sirleto and Antonio Carafa (protector of the Maronites).
20 Although the Congregation for the Reform of the Greeks living in Italy, established in 1573 under the presidency of Santori, was suspended during the pontificate of Sixtus V and only reinstated in 1593, some letters from the bishop of Ancona to the cardinal reported problems in the local Greek community as early as the autumn of 1579. See Vittorio Peri, Chiesa romana e “rito” greco: G. A. Santoro e la Congregazione dei Greci (1566‑1596), Brescia, Paideia, “Testi e richerche di scienze religiose, 9”, 1975, p. 220-222; Vincenzo Lavenia, “Quasi haereticus. Lo scisma nella riflessione degli inquisitori dell’età moderna”, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome - Italie et Méditerranée modernes et contemporaines, vol. 126, no. 2, 2014, p. 307‑324, <https://doi.org/10.4000/mefrim.1838>; Niccolò Fattori, “‘Strong‑Headed Barbarians’: The Greeks of Ancona and the Papal Policies in the Sixteenth Century”, Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, vol. 72, no. 1, 2018, p. 117‑140, <https://doi.org/10.26350/001783_000040>.
21 Archivio Diocesano di Ancona (ADAn), Protocolli dei notai episcopali, vol. 2 (1578‑1586), fols. 83r‑85v (“causa erigendi in d[ic]ta domo Hospitale pauperum peregrinorum dictae Nationis Armenicae, ad instar alterius, quod Natio ipsa habet in Urbe”). Marco Antonio’s mission to Ancona is recorded in the register of Cardinal Santori’s audiences with Pope Gregory XIII, where, on 9 June 1580, there is also mention of “l’impedimento hora dato dalla fabbrica di S. Pietro sopra questo [Moratto’s?] testamento”: unfortunately, the text has gaps and does not allow a better understanding of this point (John Krajcar, Cardinal Giulio Antonio Santoro…, op. cit., p. 35).
22 Archivio del Pontificio Collegio Armeno (APCA), Santa Maria Egiziaca (SME), S. Anastasia Ospizio Armeno Ancona, unfoliated. The volume is currently covered by a tissue paper wrapper with the following inscription: “ARCH. II, 2. sciolto. S. Anastasia di Ancona”.
23 APCA, SME, Catasto 1673, fol. 86r; Łewond Ališan, Sisakan, op. cit., p. 453.
24 ADAn, Protocolli dei notai episcopali, vol. 2 (1578‑1586), fols. 88r‑89v (21 October 1582). The investment was made through the Florentine merchant Girolamo (or Geronimo) Biliotto. It should be noted that the latter appears as early as 1560 as curator of the will of the children and heirs of “Georgii Jacobi alias Moratti harmeni de Persia” (see above, n. 10).
25 Ibid., fols. 85v‑86v (27 June 1582); ASAn, AN, vol. 597, fols. 281v‑282r (Francesco Brancaleoni, 1572); APCA, SME, Catasto 1673, fol. 73r (21 October 1581). I thank Niccolò Fattori for pointing out to me the documents on the dowry of Caterina, paid by the confraternity of S. Anna: see Migration and Community, op. cit., p. 113. Domenico Converso is recorded as having visited the Roman Hospice on 23 June 1587: APCA, SME, “Giornale dell’entrate et uscite della Chiesa et hospedale de Santa M.a Egittiaca della Nat.ne Armena intitolato F - 1586”, fol. 43v.
26 For Rome, see Archivio di Propaganda Fide (APF), SC Ospizi, vol. 1 (Ospizio degli Armeni), fols. 5r‑23v (regulations of 1659), and Cesare Santus, “L’accoglienza e il controllo…”, art. cit.; for Ancona, APCA, SME, Catasto 1673, fol. 87rv (1657).
27 APCA, SME, Catasto 1673, fol. 86v; Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale III, b. 1882, doc. 28. See also the “Summario dell’entrata della Chiesa et Ospitio di Sant’Anastasia della natione Armena nella città di Ancona di mano di me Giulio Canonico Bonarelli come a miei libri distintamente apparisce notato”, in APCA, SME, S. Anastasia Ospizio Armeno Ancona, unfoliated.
28 See the “Stato della Chiesa, et Ospitio di S. Anastasia degl’Armeni nella Città di Ancona dependente dalla Chiesa di S. Maria Egitiaca di Roma all’Eminentissimo e Reverendissimo Signor Cardinal Cibo Protettore (1657)”, in APCA, SME, Catasto, 1673, unfoliated, as well as the accounting records of 1627‑1657 (APCA, SME, S. Anastasia Ospizio Armeno Ancona, unfoliated) and the letter of Adamo Iacomo Gruttieri from Ancona (ibid., unfoliated, 20 August 1651).
29 Copy of a plea to Rome, undated (but between 1700 and 1727), in APCA, SME, Libro Mastro 1670‑1719, fol. 1r. The sale of the “Ospizio vecchio” is recorded in APCA, SME, S. Anastasia Ospizio Armeno Ancona, unfoliated; a few years later, however, the Armenian rector of Sant’Anastasia was able to purchase another house in the harbour district.
30 See the anonymous memorial quoted by Luca Andreoni, Una nazione in commercio…, op. cit., p. 67‑68: “moltissimi Mercanti Orientali erano stabbiliti in detta Città, in cui è stato sempre permesso vivere con ogni quiete nel loro rito come gli Armeni, che vi avevano la loro Chiesa, li Greci, che tuttavia la conservano…” (emphasis added). Andreoni also mentions a grievance addressed to the Roman Curia in the late 17th century, where city representatives denounced unfair competition from Venice. In 1683, two Armenian merchants settled in Ancona and had woollen cloth shipped from London to be resold in Constantinople. The Serenissima ordered its galleys to intercept the merchants’ ship and destroy the cargo, forcing the Armenians to leave the Adriatic port “con pregiuditio notabilissimo delle dogane e della città medesima d’Ancona” (Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, Segreteria di Stato, Legazione di Urbino, 160, fasc. 32).
31 ADAn, Visite pastorali, vol. 5, 23 May 1736 (Bishop Massei), p. 131: “ecclesiam Sanctae Anastasiae olim edificatam pro Armenis qui Civitatem Anconae inhabitabant … in ea, ut decentius ob deficentiam Armenorum cultus divinus conserveretur et in dies magis augeretur, anno 1734 erecta fuit auctoritate ordinaria societas Sanctorum Andreae, et Nicolai Episcopi Barensis…”; vol. 8, 9 May 1753 (Bishop Mancinforte), p. 275: the Confraternity of Santa Maria del Popolo has been transferred to Sant’Anastasia in 1752; vol. 9, 3 September 1758 (Mancinforte), p. 121‑123: agreements between the Armenian chaplain and the brotherhood. For the confraternity of Sant’Anna, see Niccolò Fattori, Migration and Community…, op. cit., p. 32.
32 These estimates complement the preliminary data described in Cesare Santus, “Wandering Lives…”, art. cit., p. 245. The number of Armenians appearing before the Holy Office each year continued to increase throughout the 18th century.
33 Ibid., p. 267‑269; Cesare Santus, “Tra la chiesa di Sant’Atanasio e il Sant’Uffizio: Note sulla presenza greca a Roma in età moderna,” in Antal Molnár, Giovanni Pizzorusso and Matteo Sanfilippo (eds), Chiese e nationes a Roma: Dalla Scandinavia ai Balcani. Secoli xv‑xviii, Rome, Viella, “Bibliotheca Academiae Hungariae - Roma, Studia, 6”, 2017, p. 193‑223. In the second half of the 17th century, the administrative and economic management of the Roman hospice was firmly in the hands of the curial elite, with almost no representation for the Armenians. Only in 1697 did they succeed in having their representative admitted to the congregation that administered the church and the hospice (APCA, SME, Liber decretorum [Ecclesiae et Hos]pitii S. Mariae Aegiptiacae Nationis Armenorum Urbis, vol. viii, 1678‑1697, 26 February 1697, §2). However, as late as 1824, the Rector, Gregorio Baghinanti, complained that the ignorance of the Italian and Latin languages had led to the custom that the “national” (Armenian) superiors had the “internal” government of the hospice and of the church, without being able to interfere in the “external” affairs of the hospice, which were handled by the “Romans” (APCA, SME, Miscellaneous folder, p. 8).
34 See, among others, Simon Ditchfield, “Romanus and catholicus: Counter‑Reformation Rome as caput mundi”, in Pamela M. Jones, Barbara Wisch and Simon Ditchfield (eds), A Companion to Early Modern Rome, 1492‑1692, Leiden, Brill, “Brill Companions to European History, 17”, 2019, p. 131‑147; Irene Fosi, “The Plural City: Urban Spaces and Foreign Communities,” ibid., p. 169‑183.
35 Given the proximity of Ancona to the Marian shrine of Loreto, I also tried to follow the trail of possible pilgrimage networks that attracted Catholic Armenians there. However, despite some testimonies in this sense (see Floriano Grimaldi, Pellegrini e pellegrinaggi a Loreto nei secoli xiv‑xviii, [Foligno], [Academia fulginia], 2001, “Bollettino storico della città di Foligno, Suppl. 2”, p. 270, and the already mentioned travelogue of Simeon of Poland), in the archives of the Holy House of Loreto I have found practically nothing that confirms an attendance of the sanctuary by Armenian visitors, unlike other Easterners such as the numerous “Illyrians”. For a rare example, see Archivio della Santa Casa di Loreto, Registro degli ingressi, 1604‑1609, 1609‑1618, where the entry of two poor Armenians is recorded, on 17 March 1611 and 15 September 1617.
36 In the balance sheet of Sant’Anastasia for the year 1657, it was significantly noted that “entrate incerte di elemosine, o altro di presente non vi sono, poiché per le guerre del Turco et per altri accidenti non capitano Armeni facoltosi, aggiuntovi il contagio che dificulta il viaggiare a tutti, principalmente a poveri che solo vanno hora capitando” (APCA, SME, Catasto 1673, S. Anastasia, fol. 87r). A certain decrease in the flow of visitors is confirmed by a statistical sample from the register of arrivals and departures of the Armenian hospice in Rome: out of the hundred Armenians who stayed at Santa Maria Egiziaca between May 1617 and August 1618, only six left for Ancona, while the majority of those returning to the east preferred to go to Venice. See APCA, SME, vol. xii (“In questo libro scrivono li Armeni che vengono giornal[men]te in Roma, et si partono […]”), fols. 32r‑38r.
37 In the late 18th century, the Greek presence in Ancona became consistent again, thanks also to the fair of Senigallia, and it seems that even the Armenian merchants, who had been seen only sporadically in the 17th century, resumed frequenting the Adriatic port. Cf. Angela Falcetta, Ortodossi nel Mediterraneo cattolico. Frontiere, reti, comunità nel Regno di Napoli (1700‑1821), Rome, Viella, “Libri di Viella, 226”, 2016, p. 90; Marco Cassani, “Mercanti e botteghe comunali alla fiera di Senigallia, 1757‑1794”, Proposte e ricerche, vol. 59, no. 2, 2007, p. 67‑82 (p. 75, three Armenian merchants “residing in Ancona” are mentioned among the tenants of the municipal warehouses in Senigallia). On the transit of Armenian Catholic clergymen through Ancona in the second half of the 18th century, see Oliver Panichi, “I Benincasa di Ancona e Propaganda Fide (xviii‑xix centuries): meccanismi del mondo missionario in un crocevia verso Levante”, in Matteo Sanfilippo and Péter Tusor (eds), Gli agenti presso la Santa Sede delle comunità e degli stati stranieri. ii. Secoli xviii‑xx, Viterbo, Sette Città, “Studi di Storia delle istituzioni ecclesiastiche, 8”, 2021, p. 103‑122. As mentioned before (n. 9), at alternating times between 1766 and 1859 Ancona was also the seat of an Armenian female monastic congregation (Ripsimian nuns): Boghos Levon Zekiyan, “Le colonie armene…”, art. cit., p. 864.
38 ADAn, Regestrum Bullarum aliorumque etc. Curiae Episcopalis Anconae ab anno 1767 usque ad annum 1784, fol. 225rv (“rimodernata, e a più elegante forma ridotta”); Vincenzo Pirani, Le chiese di Ancona, op. cit., p. 12‑13; Synodus dioecesana ab eminentissimo […] cardinali Bufalino episcopo Anconitano, et Humanatensi in ecclesia cathedrali celebrata diebus 1, 2, 3 septembris anno Domini MDCCLXXIX, Rome, Lazzarini, 1779, p. 77‑80.
39 See Mesrop Owl’owrlean [Ułurlean], Storia della colonia armena di Livorno e della costruzione della sua chiesa, Alessandro Orengo (ed.), Livorno, Debatte, “Quaderni della labronica, 2”, 1990, p. 179; Łewond Ališan, Sisakan, op. cit., p. 454.
40 See the bull of erection of 13 October 1584, in which Gregory XIII appointed cardinals Santori and Carafa as protectors of the college: Bullarum diplomatum…Taurinensis editio, vol. viii, Naples, Caporaso, 1883, p. 493‑496. By linking the Armenian church and hospice of Ancona with the Armenian institutions of Rome, it is possible that Santori had in mind to implement a dynamic of competition and control similar to that set up in the same years between the Greek church of Ancona and the Greek College of Rome: Niccolò Fattori, “Strong‑headed Barbarians…”, art. cit. Unlike the Greek, however, the Armenian College in Rome was short‑lived due to the lack of funds and the opposition of Pope Sixtus V; Santori then personally took care of the young Armenians who had been left without a place to stay. See APF, SC Ospizi, vol. 1 (Ospizio degli Armeni), fol. 17rv; John Krajcar, Cardinal Giulio Antonio Santoro…, op. cit., p. 78, 85‑86; Cesare Santus, “New Documents on the Armenian Presence…”, art. cit., p. 208‑209. In the 17th century, a large number of Catholic Armenians were educated in the Urban College of Propaganda Fide.
41 The term “confessional mobility” was introduced by Liesbeth Corens, Confessional Mobility and English Catholics in Counter-Reformation Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018, <https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198812432.001.0001>. On the role of confessional dynamics in early modern mobility, with particular regard to the Armenian case, see the excellent work of Sebouh D. Aslanian, Early Modernity and Mobility: Port Cities and Printers across the Armenian Diaspora, 1512‑1800, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2023. The contribution of the circulation of individuals between Europe and the Ottoman Empire to the construction of a Middle Eastern Catholicism is highlighted in many of Bernard Heyberger’s essays, now collected in Aurélien Girard, Cesare Santus, Vassa Kontouma and Karène Sanchez‑Summerer (eds), Middle Eastern and European Christianity, 16th‑20th Century: Connected Histories. Essays by Bernard Heyberger, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, “Edinburgh Studies in Middle Eastern Christianity”, 2023.
Haut de pageTable des illustrations
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| Titre | Figure 1: Ancona in the 16th century: location of the Church of Sant’Anastasia |
| Légende | Adapted by Matilde Grimaldi from a map originally published in Niccolò Fattori, Migration and Community in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The Greeks of Ancona, 1510‑1595, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, “Palgrave studies in migration history”, 2019, p. 68, fig. 4.1. |
| URL | http://journals.openedition.org/diasporas/docannexe/image/17226/img-1.jpg |
| Fichier | image/jpeg, 834k |
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| Titre | Figure 2a: Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta, Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints |
| Légende | Oil on canvas. |
| Crédits | © Ministero della Cultura, Pinacoteca di Brera, on deposit in the sacristy of Santa Maria Assunta, Calcinate (Bergamo). The painting was originally located in the church of San Bartolomeo in Ancona. |
| URL | http://journals.openedition.org/diasporas/docannexe/image/17226/img-2.jpg |
| Fichier | image/jpeg, 3,9M |
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| Titre | Figure 2b: Detail of the lower left corner with the portrait of the patron, “Georgius Moratus armenus” |
| URL | http://journals.openedition.org/diasporas/docannexe/image/17226/img-3.jpg |
| Fichier | image/jpeg, 910k |
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| Titre | Figure 3: Alò Giovannoli, copperplate engraving of the Church of Santa Maria Egiziaca in Rome |
| Légende | Published in Vedute degli antichi vestigj di Roma […] parte seconda, Rome, 1616, fol. 66. |
| Crédits | Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, public domain. |
| URL | http://journals.openedition.org/diasporas/docannexe/image/17226/img-4.jpg |
| Fichier | image/jpeg, 2,5M |
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| Titre | Figure 4: Portraits of Abgar of Tokat and his son “Marco Antonio” (Sult‘anšah) in front of Pope Pius IV |
| Légende | Engraving included in the Book of Psalms printed in Venice in 1565‑1566. Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, S.P. XII. 77, fol. 1v. |
| Crédits | © Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana. |
| URL | http://journals.openedition.org/diasporas/docannexe/image/17226/img-5.jpg |
| Fichier | image/jpeg, 1,3M |
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| Titre | Figure 5: Giuliano Finelli, bust of Cardinal Giulio Antonio Santori, marble, before 1634. Basilica of St. John Lateran, Rome |
| Crédits | Public domain. |
| URL | http://journals.openedition.org/diasporas/docannexe/image/17226/img-6.jpg |
| Fichier | image/jpeg, 200k |
Pour citer cet article
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Cesare Santus, « A Tale of Two Cities (and Three Men): Armenians in Rome and Ancona, 1560s‑1580s », Diasporas, 43 | -0001, 71-94.
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Cesare Santus, « A Tale of Two Cities (and Three Men): Armenians in Rome and Ancona, 1560s‑1580s », Diasporas [En ligne], 43 | 2025, mis en ligne le 11 juin 2025, consulté le 13 octobre 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/diasporas/17226 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/144ea
Haut de pageAuteur
Cesare Santus
IDREF : https://idref.fr/196680948
ORCID : https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2880-8944
VIAF : http://viaf.org/viaf/379148389362810711103
Cesare Santus is Senior Assistant Professor (RTD‑b) at the University of Trieste. His first book (Trasgressioni necessarie: Communicatio in sacris, coesistenza e conflitti tra le comunità cristiane orientali: Levante e Impero ottomano, ‑ secolo, Rome, École française de Rome, 2019) examines the confessional dynamics within the Greek and Armenian communities of the Ottoman Empire and their response to the Catholic apostolate in the 17th and 18th centuries. He is also the author of several publications on the Muslim and Eastern Christian presence in early modern Italy (Il “Turco” a Livorno: Incontri con l’Islam nella Toscana del Seicento, Milan, Officina Libraria, 2019). His current research focuses on the doctrinal and judicial control exercised by the Roman Inquisition over Eastern Christianity, both in the Ottoman Empire and in Catholic Europe.
Cesare Santus est chercheur (RTD b) à l’université de Trieste. Son premier ouvrage (Trasgressioni necessarie: Communicatio in sacris, coesistenza e conflitti tra le comunità cristiane orientali: Levante e Impero ottomano, ‑ secolo, Rome, École française de Rome, 2019) examine les dynamiques confessionnelles au sein des communautés grecques et arméniennes de l’Empire ottoman et leur réponse à l’apostolat catholique aux xviie et xviiie siècles. Il est également l’auteur de plusieurs publications sur la présence musulmane et chrétienne orientale dans l’Italie moderne (Il “Turco” a Livorno: Incontri con l’Islam nella Toscana del Seicento, Milan, Officina Libraria, 2019). Ses recherches actuelles portent sur le contrôle doctrinal et judiciaire exercé par l’Inquisition romaine sur le christianisme oriental, tant dans l’Empire ottoman que dans l’Europe catholique.
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