THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX
MONASTERY OF BOĐANI

It is 15 km to the south of Bač, towards the Danube. The complex consists of a church, residential quarters built in the 'U' shape and the accompanying farm houses. It was demolished and restored several times. The first monastery was built in 1478 by a Serbian merchant Bogdan of Dalmatia, as a token of gratitude to the Virgin for healing his eyes. The present monastery church, the fourth one to be built, is devoted to the Presentation of the Virgin and was built in 1722 by Mihail Tamisvarlija. It is of a cruciform ground plan, with dome, 5.5 m in diameter, rising above the main nave and transept cross. The present quarters were built after a fire, between 1786 and 1810. The sections at the north and south ends have a storey, while the one at the west end is a ground floor structure.

Fresco paintings: The interior walls are covered with frescoes (app. 600m2), painted by by Hristifor Zefarovic, a printer and a painter, who translated the Da Vinci's Treatise on Painting into Greek. The Bodani paint ings, displaying both Byzantine and baroque artistic tendencies, represent a crucial point in Serbian art and some of the most valuable frescoes in the first half of the 18th century in south-east Europe. The iconostasis screen is also an outstanding object of art, the work of Kyiv painters with Jov Vasilijević and Vasili Romanović. There is also a miracle-working icon of the Virgin of Bodani. 

BOĐANI MONASTERY

Serbian Orthodox monastery Bođani is located 15 km west of Bač, towards the Danube. It is comprised of the church surrounded by konaks from three sides and ancillary objects from the north. It is a cross-in-square church. Its cross-section of the main nave and transept are topped with a dome 5,5 m long in diameter. It belongs to Raška architectural school, so it relates with the architecture of monasteries of Fruška gora: Vrdnik, Kuveždin, and Jazak. The building of the monastery first started in 1478 and is linked to Bogdan, a Serbian merchant from Dalmatia, who gave a vow to the Virgin Mary that he will build a holy temple as a token of his gratitude after his eyesight returned with the help of spring water. The existing church was dedicated to the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and was built in 1722, as the fourth one in the same place through the efforts of Mihailo Temišvarlija from Segedin. The monastery's konaks were built at the end of the 18th century. Initially, they were ground-level objects, surrounding the temple from all four sides, which was depicted on the engraving of Zaharije Orfelin in 1758. The church as it looks today was shaped after the fire, in the period from 1786 to 1810. Konaks in north and south are two stories high, while the west one is on the ground level. North of the main entrance in the west konak, there is the winter chapel.

The interior of the church is completely covered with fresco wall paintings (about 600 m2), which were made in 1737. by the painter Hristofor (Dž) Žefarović. As a unique work of art of its time, those frescoes combine the strict canons of late Byzantine art with the Baroque, as a modern European style of that time - thus representing a turning point in Serbian art, and one of the most valuable complexes of wall painting of the first half of the 18th century in Southeast Europe. Ljiljana Stošić, the art historian, states: "Far ahead of his time, Hristofor Žefarović decisively outlined the future guidelines of not only Serbian artistic but also cultural paths on the walls of Bođani. Almost three centuries ago, bold movements of his painting brush inextricably connected those paths with Europe. It was not said in vain that in Bođani, although everything was in its place - nothing was as it had been. As if everything was somehow recognizable on those compositions which had been unknown to the Orthodox Christian art before.

The iconostasis is also an extraordinary work of art, and it was not created at once, but over time, during the 18th and the early 19th century. Among others, most prominent are the works of Kyiv painters Jov Vasilijevič and Vasilije Romanovič, as well as Serbian masters Vasilije Ostojić and monk Simeon Baltić. The divine iconostasis represents one of the first examples of Baroque painting in the region that by the end of the 17th century belonged to the Ottoman Empire. In this instance, the Baroque influences were brought by the Ukrainian artists, who had adopted the Western European style and adapted it to the Orthodox painting heritage.

In the northern part of the nave, there is the Blessed Virgin's throne with the miracle-working icon of the Virgin of Bođani from the end of the 17th century. This icon is considered the protector of the monastery and the Eparchy of Bačka. The library and the archives of the monastery hold great significance even today, because of their unique materials, as well as the records from different periods.

To enhance the conservation of Bođani Monastery, it was necessary to gather more knowledge about extremely valuable fresco paintings of the church monastery, techniques and paint palette of Hristofor (DŽ)Žefarović, as well as understanding the complex phenomena of its degradation.
Experts and scientists from Serbia and from abroad gathered on this task. Aside from the project "The Centuries of Bač", they also worked on two Italian-Serbian projects.

Thanks to comprehensive research, recommendations for interventions were made, proving the importance of expert engagement, networking, teamwork, and international cooperation.
Multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, as one of the basic starting points of modern conservation, have been reaffirmed in action in Bođani.

Through that cooperation, the methodology of work, preparation, and processing of documentation was improved, and that is the starting point for future conservators and researchers.
The process of building the professional qualification for teamwork also took place. It would later gain its organized form through the establishment and work of the Laboratory for Materials in Cultural Heritage at the Faculty of Technology in Novi Sad. 

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TOURISM ORGANISATION

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