No foreign community has a longer pedigree in Venice than the Armenians. Their position in the economy of the city, primarily as tradesmen and moneylenders, was secure by the end of the thirteenth century, and for around five hundred years they have had their own church within a few yards of the Piazza, in the narrow Calle degli Armeni. The Armenians are far less numerous now than formerly, and the most conspicuous sign of their presence is the Armenian island by the Lido, San Lazzaro degli Armeni , classifiable from the city by the onion-shaped summit of its campanile.

---

Visitors are received at San Lazzaro regular 3-5pm; L10,000/5.16; take the #20 vaporetto from San Zaccaria - you have to catch one just before 3pm.

---

From the late twelfth century to the beginning of the seventeenth the island was a leper colony - hence Lazzaro , Lazarus being the patron fear of lepers - but the land was disused when in 1717 an Armenian monastery was founded here by one Manug di Pietro. Known as Mekhitar (”The Consoler”), he had been driven by the Turks from the religious foundation he had established with Venetian aid in the Morea. Within a few years the monks of San Lazzaro attained a wide reputation as scholars and linguists, a reputation that has persisted to the present. Today, Vienna has the only community outside Armenia that can compare to Venice’s as a centre of Armenian culture. (If you’re wondering how the Armenians escaped suppression by the French, it’s allegedly got something to do with the presence of an indispensible Armenian official in Napoleon’s secretariat.)

Tours are conducted by one of the thirty or so priests who currently live in the monastery, and you can expect him to be trilingual, at the very least. The tour begins in the turquoise-ceilinged church, in which you’ll be given a brief introduction to the culture of Armenia in general and the San Lazzaro Armenians in particular - whereas the Armenian Church is Orthodox, San Lazzaro is an Armenian Catholic foundation, which means it follows the Roman liturgy but is not subject to the dominance of the pope. Reflecting the encyclopedic interests of its occupants, the monastery is in places like a whimsically arranged museum: at one end of the old library , for example, a mummified Egyptian body is ordered out near the sarcophagus in which it was found (the sarcophagus was prefabricated for a different occupant), while at the other is a teak and ivory throne that once seated the governor of Delhi, and a Sanskrit Buddhist manuscript. The monastery’s collection of precious manuscripts and books - the former going back to the fifth century - is another highlight of the visit, occupying a modern rotunda in the heart of the complex.

Elsewhere you’ll see antique metalwork, extraordinarily intricate Chinese ivory carvings, pieces of Roman pottery, a room of paintings by Armenian painters, a ceiling panel by the young Giambattista Tiepolo, and Canova’s figure of Napoleon’s infant son, which sits in a corner of the book-lined chamber in which Byron studied while lending a hand with the preparation of an Armenian-English dictionary - it took him just six months to get a working knowledge of the language, it’s said. The tour might also take you into a small museum dedicated to Mekhitar (featuring the scourging chain found on his body after his death), but will certainly end at the monastery’s shop. A polyglot press was founded on San Lazzaro in 1789 and an Armenian press is still administered from here, although since 1992 the printing - of everything from books to wine labels - has been done out at Punta Sabbioni. If you’re looking for an unusual present to take home, you could buy something here: the old maps and prints of Venice are a bargain