Stefan Nemanja founded the monastery shortly after his abdication. The infobox gives completion as 1190, while the text says the first stage was finished by spring 1196, when he took monastic vows there. No architect is named, and masons probably came from the Adriatic region, possibly Kotor.
The style is the Raska school, blending Romanesque and Byzantine elements. The Virgin's Church is a domed single-nave basilica with white marble facades, four portals and an interior revetted with tuff blocks. Its frescoes date to 1208 and 1209.
King Milutin's church, built in 1314, has a compressed cross plan with an octagonal dome. Radoslav added a narthex in 1235. Ottoman forces often attacked the monastery after 1459, and an early 17th-century earthquake and fire destroyed documents and artistic heritage. UNESCO listed it in 1986.
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