The imposing Putna Monastery is situated about 30 km northwest from the town of Rădăuţi, near the Putna River. High, forested hills and wild landscape surround the monastery and the village with the same name. Stephen the Great built the monastery as his burial place between 1466 and 1469, and the Church of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin was consecrated one year later. The first superior was Archimandrite Ioasaf from Neamţ Monastery, the first important monastic centre in Moldavia. The superior was accompanied by calligraphers, who were the first teachers of the new monastery school that followed the example of the school of Neamţ. It started as a school of rhetoric, logic and grammar for future chroniclers and clerical staff, but soon Putna became one of the most significant cultural centres in the country. The last remaining traces of exterior paintings were executed during the time of Petru Rareş, 1535-1538. Besides the above subjects, the school also taught music, astronomy and theology.

There were workshops of manuscript illuminators, embroiderers, gold and silversmiths, as well as a library, a scriptorium and a hospital. Putna was an exceptional centre of learning at a time when, in this part of Europe, there were universities only in Prague, Vienna and Krakow, and a school of the Patriarch in Constantinople. Only three years after the monastery was completed, a fire destroyed it, but it was immediately rebuilt. It was destroyed again in 1653 by the Cossack army of Timuş Hmelniţchi, the son-in-law of Prince Vasile Lupu. The present church was practically rebuilt between 1653 and 1662 by Vasile Lupu and his successors. The ground plan follows the plan of the original edifice, as could be ascertained when the foundations of the first church were excavated from 1968 to 1970.