National Museum of Montenegro in Cetinje is a complex institution consisting of four museums: Museum of History, the Art Museum with the Modern art gallery Dado Duric, the Ethnographic Museum and the newly founded Archaeological Museum with Lapidarium.
Collection of museum exhibits on the territory of present-day Montenegro can be traced back to the ancient past. In a modern sense, however, it is possible to record the traces as of late 15th century, the time when Cetinje was established as a political and spiritual centre of Montenegro. The residences of Ivan Crnojevic and the Vranjine Metropolitan, built at the time, contained rich stores of cultural-historical treasure as well as archive and book collections. During the sixteenth and seventeenth century, collecting is to be associated chiefly with the Montenegrin Metropolitans, while the nature of the collected items relates primarily to church history.
The museum possesses the Oktoih Prvoglasnik, a significant printed work from the late 15th century. It also host the original icon of Our Lady of Philermos, which had been in the possession of the Order of St. John since the Crusades. The icon was removed from the St. John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta by Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim when the Order was expelled from Malta by the French in 1798.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.