Armenia’s history is a turbulent one, a long list of invasions, counter-invasions, punctuated by short periods of independence robbed by the next empire in line. As each empire asserted its authority on this strategic country, influences were absorbed and transformed into something uniquely its own. That perhaps is the miracle of Armenia: while the greatest empires of the ancient world eventually succumbed to decay, destruction and virtual oblivion, the Armenians thrived, so that barely three million souls in the Republic today are protectors of a cultural line that can be stretched to the dawn of civilization.

They thrived through their discovery of the cosmos, in their unique perspective on the world, and most vividly through their art. And the Armenian Script is an artistic achievement. Based upon thousands of years of representing the world through pictures and symbols, the current script can be seen as a work of art in itself. The achievement is most apparent in its earliest form, on parchment.

While magnificent palaces and castles, impregnable fortresses, churches and monasteries--entire cities like Artashat, ‘the Cartage of the East’—succumbed to invasions and earthquakes, one of the greatest miracles of preservation thrives on parchment and paper. Throughout medieval and modern history, Armenia rises like a Phoenix with a quill pen (dipped in liquid gold, Vorotan Red and Cilician Blue), preserving her culture with words and pictures.

Like the Khachkar, which shows distinctive features and designs depending on where and when the stone was carved, manuscripts that shared a fairly unified form in the 5^th-9^th centuries, diverged in their design as the country was divided and developed accordingly.

    Early manuscripts focussed on translating Greek, Roman and Asia Minor books, with a growing number of Armenian contributions. Between the 5^th and 10^th centuries, manuscripts were more concerned with the information they contained, and less with the overall design. In the 9^th-10^th centuries, with the ascendancy of the Bagratid Dynasty, a sort of renaissance occurred throughout Armenia. Having survived protracted conflict with the Sassanids and Arabs, Armenians burst with new energy. Cities, churches, monasteries and universities were constructed throughout the country, and manuscripts began to assume a decorative form of art that emulated the florid details on architectural monuments.

But the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries marked the heyday of Armenian manuscript illumination, which by that time was already represented by a number of different trends and schools. Miniatures from the Northeast of Armenia were characterised by a monumental quality in the treatment of their subjects and by richness of colour. Simplicity and stylisation distinguished those from Vaspurikan. Those produced in Bardsr Haik (High Armenia) combined the stateliness of figures with versatility of ornamentation. And the miniatures of Cilicia were remarkable for their elegance and refinement. The greatest difference is observed between the manuscripts of Armenia proper and Cilician Armenia.

Coming into close contact with other cultures, Armenians reinterpreted what they saw according to their own perspective, with their own artistic ideal and taste. Sometimes their traditions prevailed over foreign influence while in other times foreign influence became an integral part of the interpretation. But at all times the Armenian manuscript reflected a distinctly Armenian view of the world, and is one if its most enduring cultural forms.