The ancient Italian city state of Venice sent its first consul to the Cilician Kingdom of Armenia in 1196, planting the seeds of an 800-year-old relationship between the two nations.
The move was in response to Armenian King Leo II’s liberal policies and granting of special trade privileges, including tax exemptions and special import permits, to Italian merchants of the era.
Marco Polo, the famous Venetian explorer, started his long journey to Asia in 1271 from the ancient Armenian port of Ayas. Later in his writing, Marco Polo reminded fellow Venetians that "all the spicery, and the clothes of silk and gold, and other valuable wares that come from the interior are brought to that city.
"And the merchants of Venice and Genoa, and other countries, come thither to sell their goods, and to buy what they lack."
Early historical records are full of details of the strong and flourishing trade ties between Armenia and the city states which in 1861 changed and grouped into modern-day Italy.
One such record mentions large shipments of cotton, carpets, medicinal roots, furs, hides, horses, mules, cattle, wheat, raisin, vegetable dyes, raw silk and other commodities from the port of Ayas to Europe through Venice and Genoa.
Material unearthed by Armenian historian Ghevont Alishan in the 1880's lists a long chain of Armenian merchants doing business with the Italian city states. They included the Armenian Royal agent Mansour of Ayas, Vasak, and Barsam whose cargo was seized by the Genoese Admiral Grimaldi in 1268.
According to Alishan's findings, the Armenian government persevered and compelled the Genoese to compensate their losses. The records show that payment was made in Ayas in October, 1271.
Over the centuries, relations between Armenia and the city states prospered despite the fall of the Kingdom of Cilicia in 1375. Venice historians of the era speak of Armenians as "that people from far away" who had not only firmly settled there, but were also active enough to repair, at their own expense, the local Armenian Church.
By the 16th century the Armenians were a well-organized community in Venice.
One prominent member of that community was Anton the Armenian, a carpenter, ship builder, naval officer and engineer. Venetian archives credit Anton the Armenian with the invention and construction of a special ship-mounted dredging machine designed to salvage sunken vessels and their cargoes from the waters controlled by Venice.
The same Anton the Armenian and his son Joseph served the city state, or Republic, of Venice for many years. They fought alongside fellow citizens of Venice in numerous naval battles against the marauding Turkish fleet, including the famous naval battle of Lepanto in 1571.
But there was more to the expanding relations than trade. Another, and maybe more important by product, was the development of Armenian printing.
The first Armenian book was printed in Venice in 1514, thanks to efforts by a certain "Sinful Hagop" who developed the Armenian letter type, and the financial support of Armenian philanthropists like Stepan Shahvolli and Garabet of Bitlis who encouraged the printing of Armenian works.
Over the years the Armenians of Venice organized themselves into a full-fledged community, adopting a constitution, which in its Italian version reads as follows:
"We hereby declare this constitution for the Armenian people, in the year of our Lord 1579, in the city of Venice. May God illuminate, in the Glory of His Kingdom, the soul of the most illustrious and most noble Marcus Ziani, who, in the year of our Savior 1253, generously donated one of his houses, located in the ward of St. Julian, to us Armenian merchants, so that it may belong to the Armenian nation forever, as the conditions for the same are drawn up in his will."
Prior to the bequest, it had previously been used as a hospice for Armenian merchants of Venice, and later converted to a chapel with a resident priest from the Holy See of Etchmiadzin in Armenia, and even a housing complex for poor Armenians supported by their more fortunate and wealthy compatriots — a concept not lost with the authors of the constitution which said: This principle has been kept up to this day so that one of the merchants is appointed as custodian, whose duty is to collect voluntary contributions from the merchants for the proper support of both the altar and the poor.
"May God Almighty bless the one who keeps and preserves this constitution and willingly and always carries out these reforms. May all the Saints bless him, and may he be worthy of the blessed Kingdom and the Eternal Glory of God. Amen."
Thus the foundations of future Armenian generations was cast in a set of principles which, despite the passage of time, still prevails in its essence today.
The Armenian communities of the city states began dwindling toward the end of the 17th century, especially after the end of the Venetian Republic. Some intermarried, assimilated and lost their Armenian character. Others left Venice. By the middle of the 19th century, only a few Armenian families remained, and fewer still recalled their Armenian roots and heritage.
But there soon was to be a turning point, a re-birth.
While in 1890, not more than a dozen Armenian families lived in Italy, the community began to grow with the advent of the First World War. A few hundred at a time, Armenian survivors of the Genocide trickled in, gradually building what today is a community of 2,000, living mainly in Milan, which has the largest concentration, Venice, Padova, Rome, Florence, Torino and a number of other cities.
Like the early Armenians, the community is well structured. "We have our churches, school, community house, and similar institutions like the AGBU, which was organized in 1912 — the first such AGBU chapter to be opened in Europe," said activist Dr. Dicran Alexanian who settled in Italy in 1937.
Over the years, and despite its small size, the Armenian community of Italy has remained true to the principles set by the early settlers. They have not allowed politics to interfere with the well-being and smooth functioning of community life.
After the AGBU, other structures followed to consolidate the cultural, religious and social foundations of the community. The last to open was the Armenian Church of Milan in 1958.
Today, the Armenians of Milan remain the driving force of the Armenian community in Italy. There is no conflict or friction.
Armenians, though numbering not more than 2,000 in a nation of 56,000,000 are involved in every facet of Italian life — except local politics.
It was this involvement and exposure that has kept Italian official and popular interest high in Armenian affairs. After the 1988 killer earthquake, Italy was one of the first European nations to reach out and help the Armenian victims.
Millions of dollars were raised in Italian schools, churches, clubs and other community centers in the weeks that followed the earthquake and rushed to Armenia. Italian troops constructed the first "village" to help the surviving residents of Spitak. An Italian school, dental clinic and medical center have since followed.
At home in Milan, an Armenian Khatchkar (Stone Cross), has been placed just outside the Basilica of Saint Ambrogio, the Patron Saint of Milan, to commemorate the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
Every Armenian in Milan, like others elsewhere in Italy, has played an essential role in maintaining community harmony despite their diverse backgrounds.
Despite its size, the community has not suffered a shortage of intellectuals. Poets like Glauco Viazzi, or Yussik Ashrafian, writers like Aramais Serabian, scientists, doctors, engineers, master jewelers and even a champion w eightlifter have enriched the community.
Like the early Armenians, they have shared the financial burdens of safeguarding their national heritage, by sustaining their local church, small Armenian-language programs, the publication of outstanding Italian-language books, magazines and pamphlets on Armenian issues from architecture to literature and everything in between — and more recently meeting the financial obligations of the Armenian diplomatic mission in Italy.
It has been 800 hundred years since the first "Italian" consulate was opened in the ancient Cilician Kingdom of Armenia. Those relations are as strong as ever.
