[3] Besides the general population, there are monastic communities on the island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni (Venice) as well as Armenian clergy at the Holy See (Vatican).

[4] Justinian's Armenian general Narses successfully attacked resistance to Roman rule wherever it was located and remained a celebrated governor of Venice.

As to Armenian communities, they were formed in Italy in the 12th-13th centuries, when active trade was going on between Cilician Armenia and Italian big city-republics as Genoa, Venice and Pisa.

In the 13th century the number of Armenians in Italy increased because of the new wave of emigrants after the invasion of Tatars and Mongols.

[6] Michel Surian was instrumental in assisting Pope Pius V with creating the Holy League, which gathered its fleets to defeat the Turkish armada in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.

[10] Beginning with the 15th-16th centuries the process of catholicizing Armenians was strengthened in Italy which greatly contributed to their assimilation with Italian people.

[12] In the early 20th century, there was a "small Italian Armenian community" organised by Mihran Damadian primarily made up of "merchants and traders in Milan"—industrialist Garbis Dilsizia was appointed honorary vice-consul of Armenia.

In June 1976 the Centre for the Study and Conservation of Armenian Culture (CSDCA) was established by Prof. Adriano Alpago Novello in Milan.

“His Argentine and Armenian descent and the fact that he created the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation (…) is a very important symbol for us,” the Mayor said.

[18][19] The Monastic headquarters of the Mekhitarist Order is on the island of St. Lazarus in Venice (San Lazzaro Monastero Armeno in Italian).

It is located on San Lazzaro degli Armeni, (Armenian: "Սուրբ Ղազարոս Կղզի", English: Saint Lazarus Island), a small island in the Venetian Lagoon, lying immediately west of the Lido; completely occupied by an Armenian Catholic monastery that is the mother-house of the Mekhitarist Order.

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.

The island also 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.

Gregory XIII in 1584 had decreed the erection of a college for the Armenians (Bull "Romana Ecclesia"), but the plan fell through.

Finally, in 1885, thanks to the generosity of some wealthy Armenians and of Leo XIII, the Collegio Armeno (The Pontifical Armenian College) was granted the Church of S. Nicola da Tolentino in the street of that name and the original wishes and decree of Gregory XIII realized after so many years.

Cardinal Agagianian was born in Akhaltsikhe (in modern Georgia), he studied at the seminary in Tbilisi and the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome.

During the 1958 papal conclave, following the death of Pius XII, Agagianian received a large number of votes, eventually approaching the majority needed for election.

[23] In spite of their small numbers, the Armenians in Italy have achieved notable successes in the country's cultural life.

For example, the book and film critic Glauco Viazzi [it] (Jusik Achrafian, 1921–1981), the art critic Eduardo Arslan (Yetwart, 1899–1968), the poet and writer Gostan Zarian, the musician Angelo Ephrikian (1913–1982), the Arslan family of ear, nose, and throat specialists in Padua and Genoa, and Alessandro Megighian (1928–1981), former president of the European Academy of Gnathology are often mentioned.

The whole family of Zarian was connected to Italy, including Kostan's wife pianist Taguhi, their daughter sculptor Nvard (both lived and died in Rome), their son Armen, who constructed several buildings in Rome, and Armen's son Ara, an architect who resides in Italy.

Among the well known Italians with Armenian ancestry are the showman Paolo Kessisoglu (1969), whose grandfather, born Keshishian, moved from Anatolia to Genoa at the beginning of 20th century fearing aggressions in Turkey (though having already changed his surname to a more Turkish version); Gevorg Petrosyan, a kickboxer and Muay Thai fighter living in Italy and fighting out of the Satori Gladiatorium in Gorizia; Writer Arthur Alexanian was awarded by the XI European authors competition's first prize for his Il bambino e i venti d'Armenia book.