From the emergence in the late 12th–13th centuries to the days of its ourishing in the late 14th – first half of the 15th century, Serbian architecture always combined Byzantine and Western European elements with local ideological concepts, thus shaping an original national architectural tradition. The paper focuses on the Serbian architecture of the late period. While Byzantine traditions predominated both in typology and style of church buildings, Western influences manifested themselves in some particular elements, mainly decorative. At the same time, there are some monuments of particular importance where the Western in uence penetrated much deeper and affected compositional and structural elements. One of the most interesting examples of such synthesis is the Church of Pantocrator at Dečani. The exterior of the church looks typical of the so called Raška School; yet, in the interior, the local traditions are transformed by late gothic forms. In the first quarter of the 15th century, when the ideas of Renaissance reached the Balkan littoral, the craftsmen coming from this region were engaged in the construction of the church at the Resava Monastery. While preserving the typically Byzantine five-domed composition, the craftsmen created new accents in the proportions and decoration of facades. Although in recent research papers late Serbian architecture has been viewed merely as one of the local variations of the Byzantine tradition, the Western influences are too substantial to be discarded.