Bulgaria

Bulgaria 20 Leva 1991 UNC
Front: Desislava Sevastokratoritsa
Back: The Boyana Church

A fresco depicting Desislava, a church patron

Desislava of Bulgaria (Bulgarian: Десислава) was the daughter of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife, a converted Jewess, Theodora. Desislava was a sister of tsar Ivan Shishman, tsar Ivan Sratsimir. Her sister Keratsa-Petritsa was wife of the byzantine emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos. Desislava' halfsister Kera Tamara was married otoman sultan Murad I.
Desislava married a wallachian prince Constantine.

Boyana Church

The Boyana Church is a medieval Bulgarian Orthodox church situated on the outskirts of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, in the Boyana quarter. The east wing of the two-storey church was originally constructed in the late 10th or early 11th century, then the central wing was added in the 13th century under the Second Bulgarian Empire, the whole building being finished with a further expansion to the west in the middle of the 19th century. The church owes its world fame mainly to its frescoes from 1259. They form a second layer over the paintings from earlier centuries and represent one of the most complete and well-preserved monuments of Eastern European mediaeval art. A total of 89 scenes with 240 human images are depicted on the walls of the church. The name of the painter is recently discovered during restoration. The inscription reads: "zograph Vassilii from the village Subonosha, Sersko and his apprentice Dimitar".

Information and Image Obtained From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia