Historic centre of Piatra Neamț

Piatra Neamț lies on both banks of the Bistrița, where the river leaves the mountains and meets the Cuejdiu stream. The town centre is at about 310 m and is surrounded by the Cozla, Pietricica, Cernegura, Cârloman and Bâtca Doamnei hills. The settlement is first recorded in a Russian chronicle of the late fourteenth century under the name Kamena, and in documents from King Sigismund of Luxembourg's expedition into Moldavia in 1395 under the name Karácsonkő (Crăciun's Stone). Its status as a princely market town is attested from 1453. The Curtea Domnească (princely court), probably built by Stephen the Great between 1468 and 1475, stood on a plateau sloping down from Cozla hill and is documented from 1491. It belonged to the network of Moldavian princely courts, along with those at Bacău, Iași, Hârlău, Vaslui and Cotnari, and kept its functions until the seventeenth century. What survives is part of the cellars of the prince's house, where the Curtea Domnească Museum, with Dacian and medieval finds from the town, was set up in 1955-1956, and sections of the enclosure wall, displayed in 1975-1980 in Parcul Tineretului and behind the City Hall on Strada Dimitrie Ernici. The Curtea Domnească complex is a class A historic monument (LMI code NT-II-a-A-10567). The Church of the Nativity of St John the Baptist was built in 1497-1498, originally as the court chapel. It has a rectangular plan with side apses masked by projecting wall sections, façades with their original polychrome ceramic decoration and Gothic-influenced door and window frames. Next to the church stands the bell tower completed in 1499, known as Stephen the Great's Tower, which has become the symbol of the town. On Piața Libertății stand the Art Museum and the Ethnography Museum, both in buildings from 1931 restored in 2012 with European funding, and on Strada Ștefan cel Mare the Cucuteni Eneolithic Art Museum. Nearby are the wooden synagogue of 1766 on Strada Dimitrie Ernici and the Calistrat Hogaș Memorial House, from the nineteenth century, both listed historic monuments.