New Evidence in Armenian Codicology: the Reconstruction of an Unknown Sewing Structure

This essay focuses on the analysis of an Armenian illuminated manuscript, discovered in 2014 in the Museo Cappuccini in Reggio Emilia and now property of the Library of the same Order in Bologna. The results of the codicological and scientific analysis of MS FMBCap Ms. Arm. 2 confirm the provenance from the fourteenth century Cilicia: the manuscript has a typical Armenian leather binding, blind-tooled with residues of the fore-edge flap and of the fastening (of the leather strips and wooden pegs type). A particular Armenian sewing structure is illustrated here for the first time: a herringbone stitch with supported kettle stitches.