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Monastery of Arbore

Founded in 1503 Lucas Arbore leaves, one of the advisers of the voïvode Etienne the great one. This rather small monastery is not provided with the high vault which
is the feature characteristic of the majority of the churches of the
monasteries. The prevalent nuance is the green. Do not forget to admire the scene of the "Genesis" painted on the wall
located towards the West. It is a scene full with grace and movement. Two small rectangular windows lets filter only one fine part of
daylight. The crossed door, one penetrates in a mysterious world where reign silence and
meditation.

The frescos were carried out forty years after the construction of the
church on the order of the niece of Lucas Arbore. If they escaped from the destruction it were a true miracle, if one thinks that the church remained private of roof during more
than one centuries.

It is interesting to look at the cavalcade... According to experts', only the mural of Moldavia treated the reason for the cavalcade of the Cross. It appears for the first time on the walls of the church of Patrauti
(1487); it acts of an allegory borrowed from a legend whose hero is the Roman
emperor Constantin the Large one (306-337). This legend goes up with two different sources; One evokes the battle of the bridge Milvius (312), in the north of Rome, or clashed the army of Constantin and Maxence, proclaimed only emperor into 306. It was the triumph of Constantin of are living already, the Christian hagiography surrounded its victory of legends.

Thus, it would have, day before of the battle, dreamed that the sky ordered to him to strike the shields of its
soldiers of the sign of the cross (caeleste signum) and it would
be formed there.

According to another legend, an immense cross carrying the words "In hoc signed vinces" would have
appeared with the eyes of the emperor, he promising the victory. It is that one which prevailed and which the Moldavian painter has to
carry out with the top of the door of exit of the church, the battle had, in the spirit of the artist, to maintain in the hearts the governing idea the time: that of a permanent combat against the Othoman occupant and the
faith in the final victory.

The anthem with the virgin, called the Attack of Constantinople, painted on the external walls, whose symbolism takes in Arbore a different significance. In the Byzantine tradition, The anthem with the virgin is a canticle devoted to the glory of the
Virgin Mary. This liturgical song was composed by Romanos for glorifier the
Annunciation.

Painters of frescos, in Bucovina, adapted the subject to a real situation to transform it into a
resolutely national invocation.

 * twon of Arbore, department of Suceava * to 19 km of Radauti *

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