ART TREASURES OF CROATIA

The development of the visual arts and the most valuable monuments on the territory of the Republic of Croatia, from prehistorie times to the beginning of the 20th century, are vividly presented in this book through an authoritative text and 200 colour illustrations of outstanding quality. Its aim is to acquaint the reader with this rich artistic heritage and to place it in the context of European art as a whole. From time immemorial the territory of present-day Croatia was crossed by countless migrations of peoples and armies of conquest from all sides. Geograpfhical and historical circumstances made it a demarcation zone of civilisations and cultures, and also their point of contact. The region of Croatia lay on a fateful dividing line. From the time of the settlement of the Croats, together with other South Slavs, in the early middle ages, Croatia's eastern border roughly coincided with the frontier of the former Western and Eastern Roman Empires, and subsequent divisions of power: the border between the Franks and Byzantines in the 9th century, and between Christendom and Islam from the 15th to 19th centuries. The author discusses the extent to which cultural monuments and works of art in Croatia are the result of the spread and adoption of art forms created and developed in other cultural centres, and points to the original contribution some of these have made to European art. Many valuable works of art in Croatia are still unknown abroad since they are not included in major surveys of art published to date, some, indeed, having only recently been thoroughly studied and interpreted by scholars. This book gives the reader an opportunity of getting to know a less familiar but nonetheless faseinating part of the European cultural heritage.