Gelati Monastery

A short way outside the city, among green hills, a walled monastery holds some of the finest medieval art in the country: golden mosaics, painted kings, and the tomb of the great king who built it. This is Gelati, one of the most important monasteries in Georgia and, for centuries, a renowned centre of learning.

It was founded in the early twelfth century, in 1106, by King David the Fourth, known as the Builder, the ruler who drove out invaders and led the country into its golden age. Gelati was his great project, both a royal monastery and an academy of learning.

The academy made Gelati famous. Scholars here studied philosophy, science, and theology, translating and teaching at a level that earned the monastery a reputation as a new Athens, a centre of thought as much as of faith. That intellectual ambition still clings to the place.

The main church, dedicated to the Virgin, holds the monastery's treasure: a great mosaic of the Virgin and child high in the apse, glittering with gold, one of the finest medieval mosaics in the region, and rare in a country where painting was more usual.

Around it spread centuries of wall paintings, including portraits of the kings and nobles who endowed the monastery, so the walls are a gallery of medieval Georgian history as well as of faith. Each layer of paint marks a chapter of the country's past.

The complex holds more than one church, along with an academy building and a bell tower, set within walls among the hills, so a visit is a wander among several medieval structures rather than a single building.

At the southern gate lies the tomb of the founder, King David the Builder. By tradition he asked to be buried at the gate, so that everyone entering the monastery would step over his grave, a king's last act of humility, and the worn stone is still there.

The setting, green and quiet in the hills above the Rioni valley, is part of the monastery's power, a place removed from the city and built for contemplation and study, with long views over the surrounding country.

Gelati is recognised as a World Heritage Site, valued for its art and its place in the country's history, and it remains a working monastery, so monks and worshippers share it with visitors.

It sits close to Kutaisi and to the hilltop Bagrati Cathedral, with which it was long linked, and near the small clifftop monastery of Motsameta, so the three are naturally combined into one trip into the hills.

A few practical notes. Entry is free; dress modestly, with shoulders and knees covered, and women may need a head covering. Photography of the mosaics may be limited, so look as much as you shoot, and come with time to take in the art.

Stand beneath the golden mosaic of the Virgin, among the painted kings, then step out to the founder's grave at the gate, and the meeting of art, faith, and royal ambition that made Gelati comes together. When you leave through the gate, you step, as the king wished, across the threshold of his great monastery.