Nice view titled Le monastère des demoiselles, a Moscou, from wood engraving with  fine detail and clear impression, nice hand coloring, page size is approx. 29  x 20.5 cm, image size is approx. 23.5 x 16 cm. From Le Tour du Monde, French 19th century illustrated exploration and travel magazine, which started publishing in 1860.

Novodevichy Convent

Novodevichy Convent, also known as Bogoroditse-Smolensky  Monastery (Russian: Новоде́вичий монасты́рь, Богоро́дице-Смоле́нский  монасты́рь), is probably the best-known cloister of Moscow. Its name, sometimes  translated as the New Maidens' Monastery, was devised to differ from the Old  Maidens' Monastery within the Moscow Kremlin. Unlike other Moscow cloisters, it  has remained virtually intact since the 17th century. In 2004, it was proclaimed  a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Novodevichy Convent was founded in 1524 by Grand Prince Vasili III in commemoration of the conquest of Smolensk in 1514. It was built as a fortress at a curve of the Moskva River and became an important part of the southern defensive belt of the capital, which had already included a number of other monasteries. Upon its founding, the Novodevichy Convent was granted 3,000 rubles and the villages of Akhabinevo and Troparevo. Ivan the Terrible would later grant a number of other villages to the convent.

The Novodevichy Convent was known to have sheltered many ladies from the Russian royal families and boyar clans, who had been forced to take the veil, such as Feodor I's wife Irina Godunova (she was there with her brother Boris Godunov until he became a ruler himself), Sophia Alekseyevna (Peter the Great's sister), Eudoxia Lopukhina (Peter the Great's first wife), and others. In 1610–1611, the Novodevichy Convent was captured by a Polish unit under the command of Aleksander Gosiewski. Once the cloister was liberated, the tsar supplied it with permanent guards (100 Streltsy in 1616, 350 soldiers in 1618). By the end of the 17th century, the Novodevichy Convent had already possessed 36 villages (164,215 desyatinas of land) in 27 uyezds of Russia. In 1744, it owned 14,489 peasants.

Monuments

The oldest structure in the convent is the six-pillared five-domed cathedral (picture), dedicated to the icon Our Lady of Smolensk. Extant documents date its construction to 1524–1525; yet its lofty ground floor, magisterial proportions, and projecting central gable are typical of monastery cathedrals built at the behest of Ivan the Terrible. Most scholars agree that the cathedral was rebuilt in the 1550s or 1560s; it was formerly ringed by four smaller chapels, in an arrangement reminiscent of the Annunciation Cathedral in the Kremlin. Its frescos are among the finest in Moscow.

The cathedral may be a focal point of the monastery, but there are many other churches. Most of them date from the 1680s, when the convent was thoroughly renovated at the behest of the regent Sophia Alexeyevna (who, ironically, would be incarcerated there later). The blood-red walls and crown-towers, two lofty over-the-gates churches, a refectory, and residential quarters were all designed in the Muscovite Baroque style, supposedly by a certain Peter Potapov. In the old cathedral, a new bowl for holy water and gilded carved iconostasis were installed in 1685. Its four tiers contain 16th-century icons endowed by Boris Godunov; the fifth tier displays icons by leading 17th-century painters, Simeon Ushakov and Fyodor Zubov.

An arresting slender belltower, also commissioned by Sophia, was built in six tiers to a height of 72 metres, making it the highest structure in 18th-century Moscow (after Ivan the Great Bell Tower). This light octagonal column seems to unite all major elements of the ensemble into one harmonious whole.