Humor

The Humor monastery, the first painted of the Moldova's monasteries with exterior frescoes, was built in 1530 by the chancellor Toader Bubuiog and his wife Anastasia. Later in 1641 a watchtower was added and in 1960-1972 it was fully restored. 
Painted on the outside from the eaves to the foundations, Humor monastery looks like a page of a manuscript covered with miniatures. In fact the Humor monastery has a tradition in miniature art. In the 15th century there were miniatures' painters and calligraphers working in the monastery. Their most important creation is a famous miniature image of Stefan the Great painted in a beautiful Gospel. 
The outstanding interior painting surprises through the remarkable execution, determining the foreign specialists to compare it to the painting on the ceiling of the baptistery of Ravenna. 
The well-known historian Paul Henry stated that Italian art has nothing more beautiful and the artist seems to have rediscovered the great Byzantine tradition in the profound sense of the architectural composition that characterises the baptistery at Ravenna. 
The exterior painting divided in big parts and representing beautiful faces, renders, besides biblical scenes, the fall of Constantinople (1453) described by the Moldavian artists in a unique way. The hatred for the enemy was so great that the hope for a miracle made the painters of Humor paint a defeat of the Turks, instead of a certified victory. 
Above that the poem written by the Patriarch Serghie of Constantinople is painted, the poem dedicated to Virgin Mary who saved the city during the attack of the Persians in 626. Another fresco of big proportions represents the life of St. Nicolae, in 15 scenes of a rare clarity, brightly coloured. 
Several paintings represent the families of the founders: Petru Rares and Councillor Toader Bubuiog, 
An extremely valuable collection of icons from the 16th century is exposed in the monastery.