Page "San Lazzaro degli Armeni" Paragraph 2

Its founder's temperament and natural gifts for scholarly pursuits immediately set the Mekhitarist Order in the forefront of Oriental studies: the monastery published Armenian historical, philological and literary works and related material, renowned for their scholarship and accuracy as well as for the beauty of the editions, on its own multilingual presses, which shut down in 1991, although an eighteenth-century printing press may still be seen.

S. Lazzaro houses a 150, 000-volume library, as well as a museum with over 4, 000 Armenian manuscripts and many Arab, Indian and Egyptian artifacts collected by the monks or received as gifts.