The second largest town of Greece is probably the place to see the most Byzantine artifacts in the world, whether it’s museum objects or standing buildings. But the thousand years long heritage of the Greco-Roman Christian empire is not only a museum exhibit, but a living tradition, preserved in daily religious life. The great Orthodox […]

You would not be able to tell it has a Gothic structure on the inside, from the unsuspecting, modest Baroque facade. That is a later addition and its flat low height wall only makes the church blend in with the rest of the buildings on the street. On the inside, the height of the church […]

From the treasury held by the Vatican Museum, some 460 notable paintings, grouped in 18 chambers, were selected to form Vatican’s art gallery open to the public. Among them, the works of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Giotto, Veronese, Caravaggio and many others. The canvas paintings add to Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel and […]

The birth of Serbia is tied to a royal family with religious inclinations, therefore some monasteries in the country are crucial not only from spiritual, but also from historic standpoint. The founder of Serbian dynasty was Stefan Nemanja, a warrior and ruler who abdicated to become a monk together with his wife (in different convents). […]

For Renaissance, classic Greek antiquity was the ultimate model. Or, to use a Platonic concept, it was rather an anamnesis, a process of remembering the finest art produced, the fertile debates of an open and curious society. Thus, when Pope asked the 27 years old Raphael to decorate his apartments in the Vatican, the young […]

Like all the nations of the Balkans, Bulgaria has its historic memories from the glory days. For Bulgaria, that period of might was the time of 13-14th century, when their empire stretched over the Danube in today Romania and conquered large parts of Greece, till the outskirts of Constantinople. Such an impressive empire had to […]