The exhibition is a journey into the culture, arts and the spirituality of Serbia, where Byzantine art developed and flourished in the period from the sixth to the 15th century. The Santa Croce cloister is the perfect museum and an ideal place of reflection of and comparison between the Byzantine and Italian worlds. It also offers an occasion to exchange opinions and ideas about the artistic and cultural heritage, although the history of arts in Serbia is considerably different from the medieval history and Renaissance in Italy. The period in which the ancient medieval Serbian painting began to flourish is, in some way, bound to the moment during which the great masters were paintings the walls of Santa Croce, making the fresco’s not only a simply decorative art, but also a caption able to communicate Christian and evangelic values with their universal and easily interpretable messages. While most sacred structures of medieval Serbia were built on the foundation of older churches, the rise of Serbian culture in the 12th century contributed to the creation of completely new monasteries and this is why Serbia saw the creation of oen of the densest networks of monasteries in the world. The exhibitions shows frescoes from the Studenica, Mileseva, Sopocani and Decani monasteries, the Pec Patriarchate, Bogorodica Ljeviska and Gracanica church.
