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Large Detail of Constantinople Beseiged
an exterior wall painting on the monastery at Moldovita, Bucovina, Romania.
Photo Source: GeorgeTurism
The predominantly gold and deep blue paintings on the exterior walls were completed in 1537. The large and vivid Siege of Constantinople highlights the murals.
The Siege of Constantinople murals were inspired by a poem dedicated to the Virgin Mary in thanksgiving for her intervention in saving the city of Constantinople from an Avar & Persian attack in A.D. 626, the poem is also painted on a mural. In a wonderful political spin, considering the Ottoman threat to Moldavia in the 1500s, the Siege on the walls of Moldovita Church depicts the enemy as turbaned Turks rather than Avars or Persians.
A Byzantine standard in Armies of the Middle Ages, Volume 2 by Ian Heath, based on the icon in this Moldavian mural.
"It is probably the famous 'Lady of Blachernae', described in 1204 as 'all of gold and charged with precious stones'. In the fresco it is gold with Mary in red and Christ in orange, both with natural faces and silver halos, within a narrow inline box in red."
