MOORAT-RAPHAEL, ARMENIAN COLLEGE. - It is the merger of two colleges founded at different times: the M. College was founded in Padua on 4 Sept. 1834 with bequests from the Armenian Samuel Moorat, and in 1846 it was transferred to Paris, where it remained until the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
In Venice, the R. College was founded with the generous contribution of the Armenian Edoardo Raphael on 11 Sept.
1836. In 1870 the two Colleges were united into a single institution under the name of the M
R. Armenian College, headquartered in Venice at Palazzo Zenobio.The purpose of the College is to provide Armenian youth with an education in Armenian letters and the sciences. During its century-long history, the M.-R. College has been a centre of national and moral revival, and thousands of its pupils held honorary offices in the Ottoman, Iranian, Egyptian governments, etc. In 1897 it received official recognition from the State.