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Armenian Art in Iran

Seminar at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

Winter Report 2024-25

Salmast Heritage Association is proud to inform you that its third international event was held in November 2024, in Italy, in collaboration with Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. On 11/14, the day began with Prof. Stefano Riccioni’s opening remarks, followed by Laura Atoian’s brief history of SHA, its mission, projects, and publications. The two-day event included nine academic presentations in three parts:

Part I: Armenian Heritage in Iran. Chair: Stefano Riccioni.

SHA Head of Research, Dr. Marco Brambilla, spoke about typologies of churches in Iran in general and Salmast specifically; Prof. Maurizio Boriani of The Politecnico di Milano, who conducted three SHA-sponsored field expeditions to Salmast in 2017 and 2018, presented feasible steps for the preservation of Armenian Art and Architecture with strong emphasis on Salmast; Prof. Sussan Babaie of The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, spoke about structural similarities as well as connected histories between Armenian houses in Isfahan and homes in Aleppo; Prof. Levon Chookaszian of Yerevan State University, delivered a Zoom presentation on Haftvan’s murals of Surb Gevork church and Armenian monumental painting.

Part II: Narratives From the 20th Century. Chair: Gaine Casnati

Dr. Eleanor Sims discussed three Safavid oil paintings signed by the famous Armenian painter

Markos and the influence of Armenians on the changing Iranian artistic expression of the period. Prof. Talinn Grigor, UC Davis, California, spoke about the leading role of Armenian architects in 20th-century Iran’s modernity movement, and the groundbreaking work of Armenian women architects in the traditionally male-dominated profession.

Part III: Persian Armenian Exchanges. Chair: Aldo Ferrari

On November 15, the seminar was held at the Venice Headquarters of the Center for Studies and Documentation of Armenian Culture, on the historic grounds of the Murad Raphael Armenian College. Director Minas Lourian gave an update on the old institution and invited the participants to visit the library, the only operating part of the college. He was followed by Marco Brambilla who presented Armenian Tombs of Iran on behalf of Dr. Andreh Marooti, and Prof. Patrick Donabedian of Aix-Marseille University, France, who discussed similarities/recurrences of Persian models in Armenian art and architecture from the Sassanid to the Safavid periods.

The closing presentation was conducted by Prof. Stefano Riccioni, and Drs. Francesca Penoni and Beatrice Spampinato. They shared information about the Open Source Community of Practice ”OSCOP” at the Center, the status of the digitization of Alpago Novello’s Archive, and its access to researchers everywhere. Interestingly, SHA had begun working on it years before: In the late 1970s, Alpago Novello and Marco Brambilla were conducting field expeditions in Salmast when their work was interrupted by the Islamic revolution of 1979, prompting the research team to swiftly transport all documents and photos to Venice. In 2016, SHA brought them out of storage and had them digitized. We were informed that our work has been integrated into the ongoing larger OSCOP project. We owe a debt of gratitude to Marco Brambilla for his contributions to the study of Salmast and for his involvement in all aspects of the seminar.

Submitted by,

Laura Atoian, Co-Chair