‘Shining a spotlight on Armenians: exchanges on the Silk Road’. Review of: Christiane Esche-Ramshorn, East-West Artistic Transfer through Rome, Armenia and the Silk Road: Sharing St. Peter’s, London and New York: Routledge, 2022, 224 pp., 38 b/w figs, 20 col. figs, £120, ISBN 9781409403067.

Abstract

This beautifully and effectively illustrated book explains the various contacts, and their contexts, between Armenians and persons from western Europe, especially Italy, in the period of the Crusades and Renaissance, in Italy and Armenia, and especially in Armenian Cilicia. These included an Armenian compound at St. Peter’s, Rome, Roman Catholic missionary establishments in Armenian lands, and trade. Armenian involvement in the production of, and international trade in, luxury fabrics is emphasised. The author shows that western scholars of art history and of artistic transfer have largely neglected the role of Armenians in this, as also in the history of luxury textiles. She offers a discussion of ‘mutual cultural knowledge’ considering Italian influences on Armenians, and a series of case studies dated between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, mostly paintings, in which international artistic transfer is demonstrable. Attention is drawn to the use of foreign alphabets and inscriptions/pseudo-inscriptions in artworks.