Curious ARMENIAN devotional book illustrated with six macabre full page engravings in the style of Jesuit Priest Alexandre Perier's 1724 Disillusion of Sinners (Desengano dos Peccadores) originally printed in Rome in 1724. The six plates show grotesque imagery of sinners suffering eternal punishment in Hell, terrifying engravings of damnation and torment the religious powers used to intimidate their flock, horrifying demons and serpents brutally torturing the souls of sinners burning in the fires of Hell. Interestingly, Perier's book was banned by the Church in 1771 because wealthy slave owners were not happy they were condemned to Hell too .

Blind tooled leather over wood boards, leather spine perished exposing burlap spine covering, sewn endbands, 3 raised spine bands, 5.25 x 3.35", [iv] 260 pages [iv], Armenian text, printed on laid paper, illustrated with 6 unsigned engravings - 7 are called for, plates present are 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, (plate 3 partial), decorated throughout with a variety of ornaments including cherubs and birds, zoomorphic initials, and various head and tail pieces, nd, np, circa early 19th century. Imperfect: lacking title page, and 3 leaves containing pages 23/24, 75/76, 217/218; plate 3 on leaf 73/74 is mostly torn away; leather lightly rubbed, rear bottom corner-tip chipped, internally inked notations in Armenian on endpapers, some ink stains/staining here and there including on the plates, gutter cracked but stitches holding well, edgewear/edge tears, finger soiling, some old repairs, generally clean and bright. Housed in a later slipcase.