Mănăstirea Voroneț

History

Stephen the Great built Voroneț in just three and a half months in 1488, fulfilling a vow made before a decisive battle. It's best known for its exterior frescoes, painted in the intense ultramarine now called "Voroneț blue" — a pigment whose exact composition still isn't fully understood — and above all for the western wall's sweeping Last Judgment, one of the most complete surviving depictions of the scene in Moldavian church art. The frescoes have survived outdoors for over five centuries, remarkably intact given Moldavia's climate. UNESCO listed it in 1993 as part of the Painted Churches of Moldavia, a group of monasteries recognized as a singular achievement in Byzantine-influenced art.