The revival of Georgian culture that started with the unification of the country in 980s continued in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, resulting in great works of art, architecture, and literature. In 1089, David IV, later named “the Builder”, was crowned the king of Georgia. His reign is the beginning of the “Golden Age” of the Medieval Georgia that lasted until the reign of Queen Tamar (1184-1213). The nearly 120 years between the reigns of these two rulers was a period of a complete stabilization, political strength and economic growth. Georgian culture flourished unhindered and bore fruits of abiding value.

The Gelati Monastery and Academy, both established in 1106, were the favourite creations of King David and the most vivid reflections of cultural and intellectual development in the Golden Age of Georgia. The Monastery was not intended to be a merely religious foundation. King David wanted to create a centre of knowledge and education of the highest international standard of his times. He established an academy in the Monastery and made every effort to gather there the most eminent Georgian theologists and philosophers, both living in and outside his kingdom. Contemporaries were enraptured with the newly established Monastery and Academy. Georgian chroniclers described the history of their 15 foundation as an exceptional event in the life of the nation. “This is now a foreshadowing of the second Jerusalem in the whole East, a school of all virtue, an academy of instruction, another Athens but much superior to it in divine doctrines,” wrote the royal chronicler of King David. The allusion to Athens and Jerusalem must have stressed the importance of the Gelati Monastery as the centre of both secular and ecclesiastical knowledge, philosophy and theology.

The construction of the Gelati Monastery took place in the 12th and 13th centuries. The main church dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin was built between 1106 and 1130. The Academy and the southern gate date from the same period, as well as the earliest building layer of the recently unearthed passage to the north of the Academy. In the 13th century, the churches of St George and of St Nicholas and a bell tower were built and in the early 14th century the eastern porch was added to the Academy.

From its foundation, Gelati was a royal monastery. It possessed vast lands and rich treasure that contained a number of marvellous icons and other objects, including the well-known Icon of the Virgin of Khakhuli (now kept in the Georgian National Museum). The icon itself was created in the 10th century, but David the Builder decided to set it in a large and exceptionally rich tripartite frame adorned with cloisonné enamels and chased decoration. This work was executed in the reign of David’s son King Demetre I (1125-1156) by three skilled masters in the goldsmiths’ workshop of the Monastery. Gelati also had a scriptoriumwhere monastic scribes copied manuscripts. Among several books created there the best known is an amply illuminated 12th century gospel, which is kept in the National Centre of Manuscripts (No Q-908).

In his will, David the Builder expressed his desire to be buried in Gelati and made it a burial of the Bagration royal family. Since then, the Gelati Monastery was a burial place first of Georgian and then of Imeretian (West Georgian) kings and queens.