The Magi in the Menologium: A Seventeenth-Century Armenian Manuscript in Context.

This article focuses on the identification, provenance, and iconographic analysis of a seventeenth-century Armenian menologium (a liturgical calendar manuscript) illumination depicting the Adoration of the Magi, held in the Library of Congress. Through the discovery of a related leaf in the Chester Beatty Library, the manuscript was attributed to the scribe Mkrtum from New Julfa (near Isfahan, Iran) and produced in Tokat (modern Turkey) in 1683, commissioned by three brothers named Hovhannes, Balt'asar, and Minas Mahtesis. The illumination uniquely portrays the Magi as distinct figures with varied headgear—including a crowned turban associated with Ottoman sultans—reflecting a synthesis of Armenian tradition, local Safavid and Ottoman influences, and Western European print models circulating in the Armenian diaspora. This visual hybridity illustrates the complex cultural and political contexts of Armenian communities under Ottoman and Safavid rule, as well as the impact of diasporic trade and artistic exchange in the seventeenth century.