Page:Nicolae Iorga - My American lectures.djvu/142

 tliat of the Greek churches in the western provinces or on the holy mount of Athos. The technical composition of the walls corresponds to the ancient methods employed in the Balkan Peninsula. The inscriptions under the numerous paintings is partly in Greek and partly Slavonic.

Pater churches, as Vodița, Tismana, Cozia, Cotmeana, demonstrate the character of the Serbian art of the regions of the Danube. The general form is preserve and the ornaments encircling the windows present, notwithstanding the restorations of the 17th century, the eagles of the Nemanides. Radu cel Mare (the Great) erected upon the Dealu-hill, which dominates the ancient capital of Targoviștte, a stronger building, the Veneto-Dalmatian style of which is be traced in the dedicatory inscriptions.

When later, about 1500, Neagoe Basarab caused to be built an imposing episcopal church at Argeș, the same type of architecture was adopted, the chief characteristics being the excellence of the sculpture with which it was profusely decorated, and of the materials used. With the twelve columns of the pronaos and the oblique windows of the two main towers it is a somewhat larger example of the Serbian church at Krusevac. The now demolished metropolitan church of Târgoviște, with its numerous towers, was similar in appearance and was a repetition on a yet larger scale of the Argeș church.

This development, however, could not continue. After the definite fall of the Serbian states it was difficult to find artists of this race. It was long since the last of the Greek masters who might have helped the Roumanian princes in their desire to erect stone churches had disappeared and it was not until about the 15th century that the Saxon craftsmen of Transylvania, already renowned for their skill as metal-workers, were entrusted with the making of