05 — Gelati
David IV’s greatest and most enduring foundation: the Monastery of Gelati, begun in 1106 near Kutaisi, with its great church of the Theotokos; and the Gelati Academy, the school of philosophy, theology, and the sciences that contemporaries called “a new Hellas” and “a second Athos,” gathering scholars such as Ioane Petritsi and Arsen Ikaltoeli and making Gelati the intellectual heart of the Georgian Golden Age.
Tradition: Georgian Orthodox
Gelati is where the name “Builder” is most literally earned. The first file treats the monastery itself — its foundation in 1106, its architecture and mosaics, its role as royal necropolis and spiritual center, and its later status as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The second treats the academy David attached to it: the transplanting of the Hellenic and patristic learning of the Georgian monastic schools abroad (Mangana in Constantinople, the Black Mountain, Petritsoni) into a royal foundation at home, and the Neoplatonic and theological culture — Proclus and the Fathers, Ioane Petritsi and Arsen Ikaltoeli — that flourished there.
Where the sources or the modern attributions are uncertain (the exact dates of the academy’s great figures, whether Petritsi taught at Gelati or at Ikalto), the files say so.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| the-monastery-of-gelati.md | The foundation of Gelati in 1106; the great church of the Theotokos (completed under Demetre I, 1130) and its famous apse mosaic of the Virgin; Gelati as royal monastery, necropolis, and spiritual center; David’s tomb at the gate; and the UNESCO World Heritage inscription (1994). |
| the-gelati-academy.md | The Gelati Academy — the “new Hellas” and “second Athos”; the school of Neoplatonic and patristic philosophy and the sciences; Ioane Petritsi (translator and commentator of Proclus) and Arsen Ikaltoeli (the Dogmatikon); and the disputed questions of dating and of the relation of Gelati to the school of Ikalto. |
See Also
- King and Catholicos — the reformed Church whose crown Gelati was
- The Dawn of the Georgian Golden Age — the cultural flowering Gelati anchored
- His Repose and Canonization — David’s burial at Gelati
References
- Antony Eastmond, Royal Imagery in Medieval Georgia (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1998).
- Georgian Christian Thought and Its Cultural Context, ed. Tamar Nutsubidze, Cornelia B. Horn, and Basil Lourié (Leiden: Brill, 2014).
- Donald Rayfield, Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia (London: Reaktion Books, 2012).
- “Gelati Monastery.” Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelati_Monastery.