Dragana Van de moortel - Ilić
Research Topic
Cosmological Elements in the Narthex of the Lesnovo Monastery:
Rulership, Iconography, Power
My research examines the relationship between art, political culture, and cosmological thought in the late medieval Balkans and the Byzantine world. I am particularly interested in how visual and material culture can illuminate networks of cultural exchange, intellectual transmission, and political interaction across Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly between Serbian and Byzantine Empires.
My current project focuses on the fourteenth-century Lesnovo Monastery and its ktetor, Jovan Oliver, one of the most influential noblemen of the Serbian Kingdom. Drawing on the monastery's rich visual programme, I investigate how celestial imagery - including zodiac signs, planetary personifications, and representations of the Sun and Moon - was employed to communicate ideas about authority, identity, and the ordering of the cosmos. By situating these images within the broader political and cultural landscape of the period, I explore how the monastery reflects the diverse connections that linked Serbian, Bulgarian, Byzantine, Mongol, and early Ottoman spheres.
This research adopts an interdisciplinary approach that combines art history, intellectual history, and archaeoastronomy. Through the study of monumental painting, historical sources, and medieval cosmological concepts, I seek to understand how visual culture functioned as a medium through which political ambitions, cultural affiliations, and knowledge of the cosmos were expressed and negotiated. More broadly, my work investigates the ways in which artistic production can reveal the movement of ideas across cultural and imperial boundaries in the medieval world.
Publications:
Dragana Van de moortel-Ilić, ‘An Examination of the Images of the Sun and the Moon in the Visoki Dečani Monastery in Kosovo’, Culture and Cosmos, Volume 21, no 1 and 2, (Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter 2017), (http://www.cultureandcosmos.org/issues/vol21.php).
Dragana Van de moortel, ‘Celestial Imagery – Personification of the Sun, the Moon and the planets in fourteenth century Serbian iconography’, Concept of Indian Heritage, Volume-II, Indian Institute of Oriental Heritage, Kolkata, (2019), pp.372-381.
Dragana Van de moortel-Ilić, ‘Kosmologija u srpskim srednjovekovnim freskama: Lesnovo’, Galaksija, No 3, (2019), Beograd, pp.107-119.
Conferences
Sophia Centre Conference, ‘Worship of the Stars: Celestial Themes in Observance and Practice of the Sacred’, Bath, 2016, Images of the Sun, the Moon and planets in Serbian medieval churches
23rd Congress of Byzantine Studies in Belgrade, August 2016, The cosmology of Aristotle and Plato in Serbian medieval churches: the frescoes in the Bogorodica Ljeviška church, Lesnovo and Visoki Dečani monasteries as case studies
24th SEAC conference (SEAC = European Society for Astronomy in Culture), ‘The Marriage of Astronomy and Culture: Theory and Method in the Study of Cultural Astronomy’, Bath, September 2016, Theory and method in the study of the images of the Sun and the Moon in the Visoki Dečani monastery, (http://sophia-project.net/sp_sponsored/seac2016/_images/SEAC_2016_Abstracts_Book.pdf)
Third Sophia Graduate Conference in London, November 2017, An examination of the images of the Sun and the Moon in the Visoki Dečani monastery in Kosovo, (http://sophiaproject.net/GraduateConferences/conf2017/speakers.php#draganamoortel)
42nd Annual International Conference on Oriental Heritage, New Delhi, India, March 2019, Celestial Imagery – Personification of the Sun, the Moon and the planets in fourteenth century Serbian iconography.
28th International OUBS Graduate Conference, Oxford, 28th February – 1st March 2026, Cosmological Elements in the Lesnovo Narthex: Rulership, Death, and the Cycles of Decline and Renewal, (https://oxfordbyzantinesociety.wordpress.com/28th-oubs-intl-graduate-conference-2026/)
Sophia Centre Conference, Celestial Crossroads: Encounters, Intersections and Influences, Istanbul, Turkey 27-29 April 2026, The Narthex of the Lesnovo Monastery: Rulership, Dress, and Celestial Imagery, (https://sophia-project.net/sp_sponsored/2026-istanbul/index.php)
