And now to pass from fiction to fact.  According to the inscription upon a tablet outside of the church, it was founded by Neagu Bassarab, a prince of Wallachia, to whom we shall refer hereafter in our historical sketch.  He is reported to have been very pious and patriotic, to have founded many monasteries and restored the cathedral of Tirgovistea.  He died about A.D. 1520, and was buried in the church at Ardges.[44] He did not, however, live to complete the cathedral, for another tablet within the church says that John Radul, or Radul d’Affumaz, to whom reference will also be made in our historical summary, caused the paintings to be executed in 1526.[45]

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the church was desecrated and plundered by ruthless invaders, Christians (Hungarians) as well as Mohammedans, who carried off its treasures, which are said to have been of great value.  In 1681, however, Prince Serban Cantacuzene, of whose good deeds we shall speak hereafter, completely restored the cathedral, as appears from the Roumanian inscription on a tablet outside near the portal.  This inscription is quaint and interesting, and deserves a place in any work professing to deal with the history of the country.  After a number of deeply pious and moral reflections it goes on to say:—­

’Therefore Nyagoe Voivode Beserab, of happy memory, the great grandfather of my wife on the mother’s side, who was a pious and God-fearing man, when he was invested with the government of Wallachia, did, amongst many other good deeds, cause to be erected a large and splendid monastery in this town of Argesia, along with the other cloister buildings in the vicinity, for the worship of God and in honour of his sainted mother; which monastery, as it may readily lie imagined from the high wages paid to the workmen engaged in its erection, must have been a very costly undertaking.  After a considerable period the foundation and steps began to give way, either through some error of the builders or owing to the damp caused by long-continued rains which loosened the stones.  About that time I, Johann Scherban Kantakosino Beserab Voivode, in the name of God, was entrusted with the government of my ancestors.  As soon as I became acquainted with the dilapidation of the monastery, I at once resolved to restore the building of my ancestors in order that the memory of that famous prince (Nyagoe) might not be forgotten, and I sent our boyard Dona Pepano as superintendent with numerous workmen, and thereupon restored the whole building where it had suffered damage, and bolted with iron the stones which had loosened, that they might thus continue to hold together, and then I further determined to endow the sacred monastery with the income from the hill[46] of Menesti, near Ardges, to hold and enjoy its entire revenues.  These shall be in support of the holy monastery and in eternal remembrance of us and our ancestors.

     ’In the year 7190, the 26th August.