Surroundings :: The Viforâta Monastery

The Viforâta Monastery it's another old monastery situated in the vicinity of the city of Târgovişte. Rebuild several times during the centuries, the monastery doesn't have the old inscriptiones. It is known that it was build by Vlad vodă The Sunken, at 1530, according to some authores like contentment for the victory at Viişoara that year. This Vlad vodă was the son of Radu the Great, being in his father building of Dealu, located in the vicinity of Viforâta. Being located outside the city of Târgovişte, the Viforâta monastery didn't attracted to often the attention of the visitores of the old capital of The Romanian Country ; because of that we don't have to many descriptiones of it. One of this visitores, the catholic missionary P. Baksic, saw at 1640, "out ou city , in a valley close to the vineyards", a convent, were was a "beautiful" church.

A very important moment in the history of this local it's the regency of Constantin Brîncoveanu, in which it will the second building phase. The historian Radu Greceanu tell us that Maria, the regnant's wife, trought her journeys in the Târgovişte region, saw at 1713 "the monastery" in a bad shape, "where the holy church was very bad, dark, unpainted, without a bell tower and without yard, with 2 - 3 sanctum only... and nothing other, a very old church, that wasn't been fixed up from the time of Radu vodă"(Mihnea). This is the first detailed description of the monastery. Sawing this, the lady "began first with the holy church by enlarging its windowes, painted it beautifully, paved it with flagstones and took care of it like it should..., adorned it outside too with nice stone sanctum and build-up a surrounding wall, building a bell tower, a very nice and delicate thing". From this era are dates then the sanctum, the bell tower and the surrounding wall, and also the curch's painting and otheres transformationes of it. In the monastery sanctum functined in the XVIII century a school, where learned the sones of those citizenes that wanted training. We learn this from a note in 1756, in which a certain Toma logofăt(title), son of Vasile the barber, declared that he learned "only in the church of the holy monastery Viforîta". In the same period, the church was affected by an earthquake.

The earthquake from 1802 caused great damage, demolishing the church. How it shown in two documentes from the year 1813 and 1815, these damage was repaired by the prioress Iustina and the mitroply Nicolae logofătul - the monastery reeve. At the end of may and the beginning of june 1821, when the turks attacked Târgovişte, many citizenes, "scared by the turks coming", ran in the Viforâta monastery ; hearing that are many money there, the turks "broken into" the monastery, where they "looterd all of what they found". Part of the old books, thrown into the yard, were recovered after the turks departure. The rebuilding of the church and sanctumes "agin, in the surrounding", finished in 1837, being necessary "sensitive outgoing" from the monastery side. Already finished these works, the earthquake from 11 january 1838 demolished a big part of the buildings, how it's revealed in a document from 28 june 1838, trought which was requested the help of the citizens for the monastery rebuild. The church and the sanctumes were partially rebuild in 1838, when the steeples were rebuild from wood. Transformed so many times (the last time after the earthquake in 1940,when the buildings where again rebuild), the monastery lost much of its artistical value as a monument. Among the precious objects of the monastery, we mention two icons representing saint Gheorghe killing the dragon, one from 1631, the other one from 1698 : the first donated to the monastery by Leon vodă and hid wife, Victoria, was made by the grek painter Mavros, being silver shold. In one of the halls from the entrance was installed an old books and jeweles exhibition. The iconostasis and the furniture of the church were made in 1869 by the renowned sculptor Carol Storck. Among those that visited this monastery we can mention Anton Pann, who wanted to be buried here, and Vasile Cîrlova. In the cemetery of the monastery it's situated the tomb of the general Matei Vlădescu, hero of the independence war, made by Carol Storck, as well as that of the proffesor Vasile Vizante, the defender of the revolted from Giurgiu in 1873.