British monarchs letters about Georgia in Tbilisi Art Palace

Sixteen unique Georgia-related royal correspondence letters between two famous monarchs that ruled over the British Isles in the 16th Century are now showcased at the Arts Palace of Georgia in capital Tbilisi.

Today, the National Library of Ireland presented the Art Palace with 16 unique historical documents that had been preserved in their library.

The documents consist of royal correspondence letters about Georgia that were written by British monarchs Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547) and Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603).

Both of these royal figures shared a keen interest in Georgian affairs and so commanded their ambassadors in Constantinople to send them extraordinary correspondence meticulously detailing the matters-at-hand in Georgia’s Kartl-Kakheti and Samegrelo provinces,” said Art Palace director Giorgi Kalandia.

Each of the documents are handwritten and all were unknown to Georgian society until now. Some of the letters are written in Latin, and the remainder in English.

A project aiming to transfer the copies of the unknown English and Irish documents dedicated to Georgia to the Arts Palace has been carried out through the support of Ambassador of Georgia in the Republic of Ireland, Giorgi Zurabishvili, and embassy representative Natia Kalandia.

Additionally, this year the Cartu Charity Foundation - a charity fund established and financed by Georgian tycoon and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, funded a project that seeked to translate and research such historic documents.

Within the project hundreds of European documents about Georgia, dated from the 16th to 18th Centuries will become accessible for Georgian researchers and scholars alike.