Along with Basarab’s writings, the construction of the church placed him in the lineage of great Byzantine emperors as much as in that of contemporary Renaissance rulers with scholarly preoccupations.Īmong the other fragments rescued in the late 19th century, martyrs and military saints take pride of place, enforcing a message in which piety and active militancy blended, mirroring the people’s concerns at a time when splits in Christian belief were deepening and the threat of the Ottoman Empire had become overwhelming.
The church was designed to be a family funerary chapel and also a statement of his dynastic and personal ambitions. These feature votive paintings, several historical figures, a number of saints (primarily military), and a large Deesis scene, forming a substantial body of work that bears witness to the quality of murals in Wallachia in the 16th century and the complex political and cultural message articulated by its rulers.Īccording to historical documents, Voivode Neagoe Basarab (reign: 1512-1521) started working on the Arges monastery soon after he was crowned. Some 31 of them were restored between 19 and are now on show together for the first time. The original mural had to make room for an entirely new one, and only 35 fragments were considered worth preserving.
The Arges Monastery, a flagship example of Romanian culture, was restored between 18 under the supervision of architect André Lecomte du Noüy, a practitioner of French conservationist principles.
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