Milutin

The Tower of Milutin stands as a dependency of the great Chilandarion Monastery on Mount Athos, a 45-metre example of Late-Byzantine military architecture. Its most distinctive feature is the series of external buttresses that brace each side, a hallmark of the period. The structure was raised around the middle of the 13th century, though its name honours a later figure. Stephen Uroš II Milutin, King of Serbia from 1281 to 1321, was a formidable Balkan ruler and a zealous patron of Orthodox Christianity, founding monasteries such as Gračanica and Our Lady of Ljeviš. He did not, however, build this tower. The name is something of a tribute, for it was Milutin who, in 1302, commissioned the upper floor and the roof. The Byzantine grant of these lands to the Serbs dates to 1198, and the tower remains in good condition today, a sturdy relic of monastic and royal ambition combined.