Gelati was founded in the early twelfth century by David IV, the king remembered as the Builder, on a wooded slope above Kutaisi. It was intended from the outset as more than a monastery: alongside the churches stood an academy, and the community that gathered here was expected to teach philosophy, theology and the sciences as well as to pray. The main church preserves a monumental mosaic of the Virgin in its apse, an exceptional survival executed with a refinement that speaks of contact with the Byzantine world, and its walls carry successive layers of painting including royal portraits. The monastery became the burial place of Georgian kings, and its role in the political life of the medieval kingdom was inseparable from its intellectual one. Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, Gelati is filmed here in 4K with particular attention to the mosaic and frescoes, and to the way the complex sits within its landscape of forest and river valley.
