Studenica Monastery

Studenica Monastery lies in the wooded hills of central Serbia, the mother church of Serbian temples. Stefan Nemanja, founder of the medieval Serb state, began it in the late twelfth century and took monastic vows there on abdicating in 1196 before retiring to Hilandar, where he died in 1199. His son Rastko, later Saint Sava, brought Nemanja's relics back, and Studenica became the political and spiritual centre of the Nemanjić realm.

Its white-marble Church of the Virgin, frescoed in 1208–1209, blends Romanesque and Byzantine forms in the Raška School style; King Milutin built the smaller King's Church in 1314.

After the Ottoman conquest of Serbia in 1459 the house suffered repeated assaults. A restoration in 1569 renewed its frescoes, but an earthquake and fire in the early seventeenth century destroyed much of its archive.