We are excited to announce that we are preparing a BLAGO Fund-sponsored session for the next International Medieval Congress in Leeds, 1-4 July 2024. Crisis, Accessibility, and Preservation:Digitizing Medieval Heritage in a Changing World ___ BLAGO Fund Sponsored Session The current global crises, such as climate change, political instabilit...
Besides Kosovo and Metohija, this year's field trip included central Serbia, more precisely, the area surrounding the city of Kruševac. With the blessing of His Grace Bishop David, our small team made complete collections of the Monasteries Ljubostinja, Rudenica, Naupare, and Drenča. Ljubostinja Monastery is an Orthodox monastery near the town of T...
On Friday, May 26, 2023, our BLAGO Fund team set out on a journey from Belgrade to Gračanica to photograph the Serbian medieval cultural heritage of Gračanica and Budisavci monasteries, as well as the churches in Lipljan and Crkolez. Three-member team left Belgrade in a rented van and arrived in Jagodina, where other team members joined them. ...
The collection of Monastery Pavlica is available on the BLAGO website. The monastery is located in the gorge of the river Ibar and close to the 11th-century church of Stara (Old) Pavlica and the medieval fortification of Brvenik. It is an endowment of the Musić family related to Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović. The BLAGO team visited the monastery ...
On the evening of 23 May, in the crypt of the Church of Saint Sava in Belgrade, the book launch of our publication "Full of Grace: Representations of the Mother of God in Serbian Medieval Wall Painting" took place. Their Graces Bishops Maksim and Grigorije talked about the Mother of God and her relevance in the history of salvation and our dai...
We have recently uploaded a fresh assortment of images from the Gradac Monastery on our website. Our team had the pleasure of revisiting this exceptional example of medieval Serbian art, and we have captured stunning new photographs at a higher resolution, along with drone footage showcasing a panoramic view of the monastery grounds. Moreover, we h...
From 21 December 2022 until 23 February 2023, the exhibition "Gračanica: The Brilliance of Art in the Age of King Milutin," authored by Aleksandra Davidov Temerinski, was on view at the Gallery of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade. Over 22 000 people visited the exhibition, realized in cooperation between the SASA and the R...
2022 was a very productive year for the BLAGO fund. The following accomplishments only partially represent our continued work collecting and publishing Serbian heritage. We have published seven new collections, including Monastery Kalenić, Monastery Jošanica, the church in Crkolez, the churches of Sredačka and Sirinićka župa, and the church in Rama...
The first printed edition of BLAGO Fund, "Full of Grace: Representations of the Mother of God in Serbian Medieval Wall Painting," published by Laguna Press, is now available in select bookstores. The book features texts in English and Serbian by His Grace Bishop Dr. Maxim (Vasiljević), art historian Dr. Ivana Lemcool, a foreword by His Gr...
A new collection is available on our website. The Church of Saint John the Forerunner in the village of Crkolez in Metohija is first mentioned in a charter issued in 1400 by Princess Milica with her sons. Since the charter confirms the boundaries and privileges established at the time of Emperor Dušan, the church must have been built before hi...
We have made our collection with photographs, videos, and VR tours of the churches of Sredačka župa available on our website. The region of Sredačka župa, east of Prizren, consists of several mountain villages in the valley of the river of Prizren Bistrica. In addition to Sredska with its hamlets of Bogoševci, Krajći, Milačići, Račojći, Paličo...
We have made our collection with photographs, videos, and VR tours of the churches of Sirinićka župa available on our website. Sirinićka župa is a historic region on the north slopes of the Šar Mountains in the province of Kosovo and Metohija. It preserves a great number of churches from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that were built and a...
On the fourth day of our Kosovo trip, Nenad Vukićević and Zoran Jovanović headed south to the old royal city of Prizren. The road is well-known, as we spent some considerable time there in June of 2019 while recording for churches of Prizren, including the famous Virgin Ljeviška. Our destination is a cluster of small churches in Sirinićka and Sreda...
Despite several setbacks, rescheduling, and plan changes, the members of the BLAGO Fund team managed to visit the monasteries of Gradac and Nova Pavlica this last June. Some 15 km apart, situated on the slopes of the beautiful mountain Golija, these monasteries are located in southwestern Serbia, Raška district, close to the old town Brvenik. ...
The collection of the Kalenić monastery is available to a worldwide audience. It contains photographs of the entire wall painting of the monastery church, its architecture, sculptural decoration, and the surrounding courtyard. You can also take a virtual tour of the church's interior and enjoy the selection of the most representative photograp...
Monday, May 9, 2022, BLAGO Fund sponsored session took place at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, the largest gathering of scholars specializing in medieval studies hosted by the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University. Every year, the congress brings together thousands of medievalists from around the world to Kalamazoo, MI,...
A new collection of the monastery of Jošanica is now available on our website. The monastery is located in the vicinity of the town of Jagodina in central Serbia, at the foothills of Crni Vrh mountain. The exact time of construction and painting of the church is not known; the most recent analyses date it to the 1430s. The original dedication ...
This month, the BLAGO Fund and Wikimedia Serbia representatives have signed an agreement allowing for a significant number of photographs created by the BLAGO team to become available on the Wikimedia Commons. Photographs of some of the most famous Serbian monasteries and churches from our collections will be used as illustrative material for Wikip...
It is with great excitement that we can announce that the BLAGO Fund sponsored session, "Digital Methods in Preservation of Medieval Cultural Heritage: New Approaches and Technologies", at the 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo will take place Monday, May 9, 3:00 p.m. EDT (9:00 p.m. CET). Each year, the Congress...
A new collection of the church of St Nicholas, Ramaća, is now available on our website. At the foothills of Rudnik mountain, 25 km from Kragujevac, is the picturesque village of Ramaća with its old church, known by its folk name Kumanica, currently dedicated to Saints Constantine and Helen. The church was initially dedicated to Saint...