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The basilica located atop Mangup plateau in the south-western highland is one of the Christian monuments of the Crimea which research provided abundant archaeological materials. Especially interesting to historians are the data related to the investigations at the Christian cemetery which developed in different chronological periods within the basilica and around it. Supplementary excavations of the basilica (1967–2005) uncovered a series of carved tombstones, which featured the architectural properties different from early slab covering of the graves. The tombstones in question testify to the flourishing of the art of stone carving in Taurica in the fourteenth and fifteenth century. From their description and analysis, it is possible to draw the conclusions concerning the stone-carving art forms development in the mediaeval Crimea. It has been remarked that the Mangup stone-carvers considered the religion of the persons who lived there and paid especial attention to the decorative design of the monuments. In the making of the tombstones for the Christian cemetery at the basilica, the local stone-carvers applied artistic techniques taken from various styles (Byzantine, Seljuk, North Caucasus), which resulted in the appearance of specific “Mangup” style of architectural ornamentation. The local craftsmen re-worked decorative and carving techniques borrowed from foreign stone-carvers. The local products featured brevity and restrained manner.

ES: El título introduce la pregunta de la que partimos: los libros del mercader Michele Da Colle pueden ser considerados el más antiguo ejemplo de la aplicación del método digráfico en Portugal? Michele fue un comerciante toscano, agente de la compañía Saviati-Da Colle de Pisa, que se estableció en Lisboa en la segunda mitad del siglo XV. El registro de los datos contables de los dos primeros años de su actividad en Portugal se conservan en dos libros, hoy custodiados en el Archivo Salviati, en la Scuola Normale Superiore de Pisa. Para responder al enunciado, procederemos a realizar un análisis detallado de las características de estas fuentes documentales, de manera que podamos percibir hasta qué punto cumplen los principios generales del método digráfico defendido por diferentes autores. Con este estudio de caso pretendemos contribuir al debate sobre la posible influencia italiana en la introducción del método de la partida doble en Portugal. Analizadas las características de los libros, puede concluirse que estamos ante un ejemplo de partida doble que, aunque no sea perfecto, se encuadra en el contexto de producción contable toscana de la época, que consiste en una fase de evolución y perfeccionamiento del método digráfico. Ante la falta de otros ejemplos, los libros de Michele pueden ser considerados los más antiguos registros de partidas dobles hechos en Portugal. Algunos indicios documentales que recogemos sugieren también la posibilidad de que los mercaderes italianos hubieran ejercido alguna influencia sobre los comerciantes portugueses en la adopción de este método. Sin embargo, aunque esa influencia se hubiera producido, no fructificó, ya que los diversos tratados portugueses de aritmética del siglo XVI no hacen mención al método de la partida doble, que solo comenzaría a ser empleado en Portugal de forma sistemática a mitad del siglo XVIII. title of this article puts forward the research question: can the books of the merchant Michele Da Colle be considered as the oldest example of the use of the double entry method in Portugal? Michele was a Tuscan merchant and agent to the Pisan Salviati-Da Colle firm, established in Lisbon as of the second half of the fifteenth century. The first years of his business activity in Portugal are recorded in two account books that are kept today at the Salviati Archive, in the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa. To answer the research question, this article thoroughly examines the characteristics of these documents. The aim is to determine if these records follow the general principles of double entry bookkeeping proposed by different scholars. This investigation thus seeks to contribute to the debate on the introduction of double entry in Portugal via Italian influence. The preliminary analysis of these books shows that we are, indeed, in the presence of double entry records. The example does contain formal imperfections, but it has strong similarities with the context of Tuscan accounting of the time, which can arguably mean that it represents a stage of evolution and development of the double entry method. Since we do not have any other examples, Michele Da Colle's account books can be considered the earliest records in double entry in Portugal. Evidence also suggests that Italian merchants exerted influence on Portuguese merchants for the adoption of this method, although it didn't last in the centuries to come. This explains why several Portuguese works on arithmetic from the sixteenth century fail to mention the double entry system, which was only regularly applied in Portugal as of the mid-eighteenth century.

The article aims to explore the connections between the fifteenth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Bellum civile sung by Eumolpus in Petronius’ Satyricon. Not only structural and thematic analogies, but also the recurrence of key-figures such as Hercules and Caesar support the thesis of a very close link between the two texts. Eventually, it will be shown that Ovid’s Metamorphoses represent for Petronius both an important model and «anti-model» in the construction of an epic poem which only apparently takes side against Lucan’s Pharsalia.

Over the centuries, the typographic medium and book printing responded to the political, economic, cultural, and social conditions very sensitively. The author deals with social influences on the development of book printing in Bratislava from the fifteenth century when the first printer is documented in the town. She ponders the reasons for the long absence of typographic activities in Bratislava from the late fifteenth century to the early seventeenth century. Paradoxically, the Reformation gave an impetus to the further development of book printing in Bratislava, as a Catholic printing house was established there in direct response to Reformation printing in Hungary. Therefore, the author also examines the conditions of Reformation printing to which the beginnings of publishing activities are tied in the territory of Slovakia. In the second part of the study, she focuses on Catholic Revival literature published in Bratislava in the seventeenth century, which played an important role in implementing Catholic reforms in Hungary.

The main task of this work is to study a history of the craft, to identify the craft professions, the types of professional associations of craftsmen and handicraft production, the continuity and discontinuity of Byzantine and Western European forms of craft organization in Cyprus in the XIII–XV centuries. The author comes to the conclusion that an eclectic craft system has been formed under the Lusignan in Cyprus, combining Western European and Byzantine traditions. The kings did not interfere with the Greek handicraft structures that had been established before the crusaders, and allowed the Greek Cypriots to retain the corporate forms of craft organization inherited from Byzantium. The Kings of Cyprus adopted the Byzantine corporate system of handicrafts and artisans in the most profitable areas of economy: sugar, salt and camelot production. In other fields dominated the “free craft”. Cypriot handicraft as a whole is characterized by weak competition, weak ties between artisans, free access to the market of Western European craftsmen who were not subjects of the king, and by difficult access to the international market of local producers.

The article was submitted on 20.07.2020. This article offers contextual analysis of unpublished editorials from one of the issues of Voprosy Istorii academic journal, published in 1955. The issue focuses on the problems of studying the history of Ukraine and was written by N. L. Rubinstein, an outstanding Soviet historian and historiographer. The historian discusses the problems related to the history of Ukraine between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as the formulation of the academic heritage of pre-revolutionary historians and the “school” of M. S. Grushevsky. The need to overcome a dependence on the conceptual heritage of “Ukrainian bourgeois-nationalist historiography”, which, according to the historian, practically leveled the achievements of Ukrainian scholars, is a red thread through the article. A kind of “familiar track effect” caused significant gaps in the study of Ukrainian 17th- and 18th-century history, as well as the dominance of negative assessments in understanding the process of integration of Ukraine into the Russian state. For the first time in Soviet historical science, the unpublished editorial voiced the need to overcome the monopoly on the study of Ukrainian history held exclusively by institutions of the Ukrainian SSR. In this regard, Rubinstein paid special attention to the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which, in his view, had to be transformed into a key organisational centre for future research. All this suggests a potential divide in the academic study of Ukrainian history in the USSR and its conceptual rethinking, since Rubinstein was highlighting existing research issues. Via the case study of the unpublished Rubinstein editorial, the author demonstrates how the production of academic texts and regulation of research in the USSR were closely intertwined with administrative academic positions and personal connections of Moscow academics and Ukrainian historians (sometimes informally). Under these conditions, the directives of the party leadership at the centre and in the provinces fell into a certain dependence on the internal organsation of the academic community. Existing personal connections opened the way for a kind of academic lobbyism. This kind of lobbying paved the way for the entry of controversial ideas, interpretations, and conceptions that did not fit into the existing ideological framework in the difficult political conditions of the day. Представлен анализ концептуального, но неизданного проекта редакционной статьи журнала «Вопросы истории» (1955). Она была посвящена проблемам изучения истории Украины и написана выдающимся советским историком Н. Л. Рубинштейном. Основное внимание ученый сосредоточил на проблемах истории Украины XV–XIX вв., а также на рецепции научного наследия дореволюционных историков и школы М. С. Грушевского. Утверждалась необходимость пересмотра идей «украинской буржуазно-националистической историографии», которые практически нивелировали достижения украинских историков. Своеобразный «эффект колеи» обусловил существенные лакуны в изучении украинской истории XVII–XVIII вв., а также доминирование негативных оценок в понимании процесса интеграции Украины в состав Российского государства. Впервые в советской исторической науке озвучивалась мысль о необходимости преодоления монополии на изучение украинской истории институциями УССР. Особое внимание Рубинштейн уделял работе Института истории АН СССР, который следовало трансформировать в ключевой организационный центр научно-исследовательской деятельности. Все это создавало потенциальную развилку в научном изучении украинской истории в СССР и ее концептуальном переосмыслении. На примере сюжета с отказом в издании работы Н. Л. Рубинштейна в статье показывается, как производство научных текстов и регулирование научного процесса в СССР были тесно переплетены с научно-административными позициями и личными связями московских академических и украинских историков (подчас неформального характера), что открывало дорогу для своего рода «научного лоббизма». Это позволяло в непростых политических условиях обговаривать идеи, трактовки и конепции, не вписывавшиеся в существовавшие идеологические установки. This work is financially supported by a grant of the president of the Russian Federation meant to support young Russian scholars; the topic of the research is The ‘Cossack State’ in Moscow; Mechanisms of Preservation and Reproduction of the Ukrainian National Narrative in Soviet Academic Works (1934–1956) (MK-73.2019.6). Agreement 075–15–2019–1134 as of 13.06.2019.

During the period of Ottoman penetration and stabilization in the Balkans, one community within what was then Serbian society gained importance. They were pastoralists who were referred to in documents of the time as Vlachs. Vlach communities that specialized in extensive pastoralism are recorded in the oldest documents related to medieval Serbia from the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries. Over time, these groups took on a Serbian ethnicity. The collapse of classical feudalism and the specific Ottoman system, especially in the hinterlands and sparsely populated areas, gave the Vlach communities opportunities for meaningful social progress. The paper analyzes the rise of the Vlach Bakić family, who rose to power during the second half of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth centuries, first within the Ottoman Empire and then later within Habsburg Hungary.

The bestowal of a red hat can turn even the most humbly born cleric into an ecclesiastical prince, but whereas few cardinals of the modern era have been born princely, most of those created in the Renaissance period could claim to be of noble lineage and a few, from the second half of the fifteenth century onwards, were the sons of ruling princes. Those who were born to fight were obliged to become those who prayed, but where did their allegiances lie when the states of Italy were at war with a belligerent pope such as Sixtus IV? The War of Ferrara (1482–4) presents an opportunity to survey the responses of cardinals from the ruling dynasties of Mantua, Milan, Montferrat, and Naples, together with their counterparts from the republics of Genoa, Siena, and Venice.

The renovation of Adriatic towns under Venetian rule included all major urban settlements on the islands in the Quarnero Gulf. The size of Osor, the Roman centre of the Cres-Losinj group of islands, radically decreased during this period. The scholarship holds that the town of Cres started to grow in the second half of the fifteenth century while Osor fell into disrepair. Apart from the new Renaissance Cathedral, other late Gothic and Renaissance buildings in Osor have never been thoroughly studied, partly because their state of preservation is modest and party because of the deep-seated opinion that the fifteenth century was only an epilogue to Osor’s great past. As a consequence, no basic analysis of local architecture has ever been done and the urban layout of historic Osor is not very well known. The causes of Osor’s demise, on the other hand, are well known. The population was decimated by illness and the town itself was destroyed by wars in the fourteenth century. Furthermore, maritime navigation changed from coastal to that accustomed to the open sea and Osor lost the strategic importance it held when it came to sailing along the Adriatic. The relocation of the local Count to Cres, frequently underlined as one of the key moments in the history of Osor’s decline and dated to 1450, does not seem to be as fateful as the reduced number of its inhabitants and the loss of naval and trading significance. The relocation created a dual government of sorts and a bimunicipal county was established. The historical importance of Osor as a traditional seat of power was paramount to Venice and the town maintained the prestige it had acquired during the Roman period as a town which controlled a large territory. In the mid-fifteenth century Osor was a building site: architectural structures were maintained, repaired and built anew. In the fourteenth century, a Gothic church of St Gaudentius was constructed on the main street and in the first half of the fifteenth century the Town Hall was built on the site of the ancient Roman curia. Until now, it was held that the reason for the construction of the new cathedral was the bisection of Osor which occurred in the mid-fifteenth century when the new fortification walls – with a reduced catchment area –were erected and so excluded the old cathedral from the perimeter. However, the decision to reduce the circumference of the new walls was made only in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, that is, after the foundations for the new cathedral had been laid. This means that the plans drawn up in the second half of the fifteenth century covered a larger area than previouslt thought and that they were done during the pontificate of Bishop Antun Palcic who was originally from Pag and who witnessed first-hand the building of the new town of Pag. A decree of 1581 records the construction of the town walls at Cres and Osor. The new fortification walls of Cres were being built throughout the sixteenth century and so it is likely that the transversal wall at Osor was constructed at the same time as the new walls at Cres, during the sixteenth century. The building of the new wall was not an ambitious feat of fortification construction but a simple encircling of the remodelled town centre. The new wall was just a consequence of urban reorganization and its direction was determined by the pre-existing defence buildings which were utilised and incorporated in the new addition. In the late fifteenth century, the main town square was fully developed and surrounded by the most important public and religious buildings. The Town Hall stood on the south-east corner and the new cathedral was built on the square’s south side. The Episcopal Palace extended along the entire west flank of the square. The Palace’s long and narrow east wing, facing the square, connected the two main wings of the complex. Despite its modest role as nothing more than a link, the east front was the widest part of the Palace and closed the square’s west side, respecting the new, small-scale urban layout of Osor. The north-east corner of the complex is decorated with an engaged colonette topped by a leaf capital. Its counterpart can be found on a building at the opposite side of the square, which was subsequently heavily rebuilt. These corresponding engaged colonettes indicate that the architects wanted to create a meaningful urban space. The north side of the square no longer exists in its original shape. In the mid-fifteenth century, this area was occupied by religious buildings traces of which can be seen in the present-day modest houses. These traces are mostly elements of Gothic decoration and so it can be concluded that this side of the square featured Gothic structures. The analysis of the architecture on the main square demonstrates that it there were consecutive building phases and that the Cathedral was the last building to be built. There was no unifying stylistic concept; the buildings on the square were either Gothic or Renaissance. This does not reduce the importance of this feat of public building because the Episcopal Palace and Osor Cathedral were built at the same time, by the same master builders, for the same patron, the difference being that the former in the Gothic and the latter in the Renaissance style. This, in my opinion, means that the value of the main square at Osor should not be assessed through stylistic unity but by considering the harmonious spatial relationships between its structures, the attention given to their design, their role as public buildings and the balance achieved by adapting the newly built structures to the pre-existing ones. It is well known that the late fifteenth century was the time when traditional Gothic decoration was used alongside new Renaissance forms and so the stylistic inconsistency apparent in Osor’s main square was done in the spirit of time. The remodelling of the town centre lasted for the whole century and the town was also well maintained in the period that followed. Archival records tell us that a grain store was built in the late fifteenth century but nothing is known about its location or appearance. Despite the efforts and large-scale building campaigns of public and religious architecture, the migration of able-bodied people looking for work continued and Osor was gradually transformed into an occasional dwelling place of the nobility and the clergy – a town of the Church and aristocracy. Today, Osor is a town with low-density architecture. The legacy of medieval town building can be seen only in the row of houses that face the main street. They are huddled together and arranged around communal courtyards, which is a characteristic of local medieval town planning on the island of Cres. The most prominent residential building is the palazzetto of the Draža family, an old noble family of Osor. The location of the Draža house and its spatial relationship with the surrounding, more modest houses, implies that it embodied the medieval concept of densely built town blocks dominated by a single aristocratic building. Other aristocratic houses at Osor are more isolated and surrounded by green spaces. These large green areas were once occupied by Roman and medieval houses and insulae. Following the late middle ages, the decaying architectural structures were not repaired but used to create gardens: their perimeter walls were neatly re-arranged and became the dividing walls between different gardens while the spaces they contained were filled with a layer of soil, as archaeological test pits have shown. Apart from large gardens and courtyards, the residential character of Osor as an aristocratic resort is attested by the Latin inscriptions on the building facades but also by the written records about noble families which possessed estates in both Cres and Osor during the period that followed the formation of the bimunicipal county in the fifteenth century. All these events created a set of specific characteristics in Osor during the late fifteenth and the sixteenth century. Its importance as the seat of a commune and a bishop was reflected in the main town square which was planned in the spirit of the Renaissance and according to the redesign of towns under the Venetian rule. The medieval legacy is still evident in the buildings on the main street which are densely huddled around communal courtyards and which centre around dominant aristocratic houses. In contract to them, large gardens and the aforementioned historic circumstances indicate that Osor was a residential resort of the local nobility. From the fifteenth century onward, the most frequently recorded features of Osor were its decay and mala aria (bad air). Nevertheless, as late as 1771, Alberto Fortis described it as the only town on the island of Cres to have kept the legacy of its noble past. In addition to the aforementioned Gothic and Renaissance elements of architectural decoration, many more were rebuilt into later houses. They are as frequent as the Roman and early medieval spolia and were reused in the same manner. Their existence witnesses that Osor had had another important historic phase in its long life.

A painting of the Virgin and Child, signed as “OPVUS P. PETRI”, from the former Fareham Collection (today at the Courtauld Institute of Art), has been known in the scholarly literature for a long time but has only been subject to tangential analyses. These studies attempted to attribute it to painters meeting relatively dubious criteria: that their name was Peter (Petar) and that they could be linked to the painting circle of Squarcione or, more specifically, to that of Carlo Crivelli with whose early works, especially the Virgin and Child (the Huldschinsky Madonna) at the Fine Arts Gallery in San Diego, the Courtauld painting shares obvious connections. Roberto Longhi ascribed it to the Paduan painter Pietro Calzetta in 1926, while Franz Drey, in 1929, considered it to be the work of Pietro Alemanno, Crivelli’s disciple, who worked in the Marche region during the last quarter of the fifteenth century. After the Second World War, the Courtauld painting was almost completely ignored by the experts. The only serious judgement was that expressed by Pietro Zampetti, who established that it was an almost exact copy of Crivelli’s Huldschinsky Madonna, meaning that if Calzetti had painted it, he would have done it while Carlo was still in the Veneto, before he went to Zadar. The search for information which can shed more light on the attribution of the Virgin and Child from the Courtauld is aided by the valuable records in the Fondazione Federico Zeri at the Universita di Bologna. The holdings of the Fototeca Zeri include three different photographs of the Courtauld painting with brief but useful accompanying notes. Of particular importance is the intriguing inscription on the back of one of the photographs, which points to the painting’s Dalmatian origin. In a certain way, this opens the possibility that it might be linked to another painter who was close to the Crivelli brothers: the Zadar priest and painter Petar Jordanic. That he may have been the one who painted it is indicated by the signature itself, which could be read as “OPVUS P(RESBITERI) PETRI”. Archival records about Petar Jordanic provide almost no information about his work as a painter. Apart from his signature of 1493 on a no-longer extant polyptich from the Church of St Mary at Zadar, the only record of his artistic activities is one piece of information: that in 1500 he took part in a delegation which was sent from Zadar to its hinterland charged with the task of making drawings of the terrain which could be used to help defend the town against the Ottoman Turks. However, more than thirty documents which mention him do paint a picture of his life’s journey and his connection with Zadar. The most important basis for any consideration of a possible connection between Petar Jordanic and Carlo Crivelli can be found in the will of his father Marko Jordanov Nozdronja (in late 1468) where Petar was named as the executor, meaning that at this point he was of age. Therefore, it can be concluded that he was born between 1446 and 1448. This makes him old enough to have been taught by Carlo during his stay in Zadar from c. 1460 to 1466. Although relatively modest, the oeuvre of Petar Jordanic demonstrates striking connections with the paintings of Carlo and Vittore Crivelli, and Ivo Petricioli has already put forward a hypothesis that he may have been taught by one of the brothers. The comparison between the painting from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and the known works of Petar Jordanic (the Virgin and Child from a private collection in Vienna; the Virgin and Child from the Parish Church at Tkon; fragments of a painted ceiling from Zadar Cathedral; the lost polyptich from the Church of St Mary at Zadar) reveals a multitude of similar features. Apart from the general resemblance in the physiognomies of the Virgin and Christ Child which represent the most conspicuous analogies, a number of very specific “Morellian” elements can also be noted in the manner in which the faces were painted. These similarities are particularly apparent when one compares the head of the Christ Child on the painting from London and his head on the one from Tkon, which are almost identically depicted. Further similarities between the London painting and the one at Vienna can be seen in the way in which landscapes were painted and in the similar decorations of the gold fabrics in the backgrounds with their undulating scrolls and sharp almond-shaped leaves. However, with regard to visual characteristics, it is apparent at first sight that the quality of the London painting is markedly higher and that it is stylistically more advanced than those works which are attributed with certainty to Jordanic. These differences can be explained by the possibility that this was a more or less direct copy of one of Carlo Crivelli’s painting, probably not the Huldschinsky Madonna but one that was very similar to it and subsequently lost. Naturally, if the London painting is attributed to Petar Jordanic, meaning that it was produced in Zadar, then the argument on the basis of which the Huldschinsky Madonna has been dated to the time before Crivelli’s arrival in Zadar becomes a counter-argument, and, in that way, corroborates the possibility that the Huldschinsky Madonna, which shares a large number of similar elements with the painting from the Courtauld Institute of Art, was created while Carlo was in Zadar.

A significant contribution to the oeuvre of Niccolo di Giovanni Fiorentino who, according to the sources, was active between 1464 and 1505, is the tombstone of Canon Matej Sturarius in the Church of Our Lady of Olives at Zadar, which Ivo Petricioli attributed to this sculptor. The inscription on the tombstone informs us that the canon, who was a close collaborator of Archbishop Maffeo Vallaresse, commissioned the monument while still alive but unfortunately, given that the year of his death remains unknown, this piece of information does not provide a basis for the dating of the tombstone. Nonetheless, a more detailed analysis of it yields new arguments which support a hypothesis that Niccolo di Giovanni Fiorentino developed his artistic profile in the workshop of mature Donatello. One arrives at this conclusion first and foremost by comparing the Zadar tombstone with those which were made by Donatello, for example the tombstone of Giovanni Crivelli (Rome, S. Maria in Aracoeli) and the tombstone of Pope Martin V (Rome, S. Giovanni in Laterano), while the closest parallel can be found in the tombstone of Bishop Giovanni Pecci (Siena Cathedral) which has been dated in the recent literature to the late 1540s. The tombstone of Bishop Pecci is characterized by a range of visual innovations through which the figure of the deceased and the architectural frame were designed to be seen from below and because of this, it was an important source of inspiration for many Sienese sculptors (such as Urbano da Cortona and Giovanni di Stefano) who borrowed Donatello’s composition or some of its parts for the tombstones they produced during the second half of the fifteenth century. Niccolo’s tombstone at Zadar also displays a reliance on Donatello but not as a direct copy of the constituent parts of the tombstone he made for Bishop Pecci but through the application of similar compositional principles. This is strongly implied by the motif of two crests which can be seen in the upper part of the tombstone. They were depicted in perspective in the manner of Donatello but their decorative role on the tombstone differs from those in the works of Donatello and his followers. The reliance of the Zadar tombstone on that of Bishop Pecci from Siena also opens up a possibility that Niccolo may have spent some time in Siena while Donatello was there (1457–1461) and, judging from the known chronology of his artistic activity, such a connection cannot be excluded. Because the surface of the Zadar tombstone is in a relatively poor state of preservation, the issue of whether it was made by Niccolo himself or with the help of his bottega remains open but, given that the composition is undoubtedly his, this issue remains of secondary importance.

The article presents substantial and hitherto mostly unpublished archival material concerning two master goldsmiths who were active in Zadar during the late fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth century. Originally from Kotor, these goldsmiths acquired considerable reputation as well as possessions through the versatility of their work over the course of several decades. The fact that both came from Kotor and shared the same patronymic taken together with the information obtained from archival records, especially those which confirm their contacts point to the possibility that they may have been brothers. This would strengthen the existing hypothesis that goldsmith Pavao Petrov made the processional cross from Božava, dated to the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, as well as the possibility that Stjepan Petrov was responsible for a similar cross now from Nin. Professor Ivo Petricioli linked cautiously the cross from Nin, signed by a master goldsmith called Stjepan, with Stjepan Crnjina, also known as Francoj, who collaborated with goldsmith Francesco da Milano, and saw it as part of a group of crosses displaying similar iconographic and stylistic features, all of which come from the island parishes across the Zadar archipelago, including the aforementioned cross from Božava. For this reason, it seems opportune to dedicate this article to the memory of professor Petricioli and mark the anniversary of his death by examining the attribution of Gothic processional crosses from the Zadar region as a theme which benefitted enormously from his scholarly contributions.

The Etymologiae by Isidore of Sevilla are one of the most intensively used encyclopaedias in European history; they were consulted, copied and finally printed between the seventh and fifteenth century. So far, their reception has been studied mainly with regard to the circulation in Europe, but also their use as a source has often been commented on. Only in a few cases, however, have excerpts and fragments been examined, although they can provide important insights into the reception of the work. Because of the almost unfathomable number of such textual witnesses, the study must be focussed on a clearly defined group of users. This article discusses the reception of Isidore in the Benedictine convent of Saint Emmeram in Regensburg, whose library is today a fonds on the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at Munich. Three particular manuscripts are presented (Clm 14515, Clm 14584 and Clm 14477) which show how useful information were extracted from the work and made readily available for the classroom.

The fort of St Michael is situated on the prominent hill of the island of Ugljan off the coast of Zadar. This position is strategically important because it enables control of navigation in the entire Zadar archipelago, and this was the fort’s main role throughout history, especially during the period of conflict between Zadar and Venice. The fort owes its name to the Benedictine monastery which stood within the fort until the fifteenth century. The exact time of the founding of the monastery, or the construction of the fort, are not known. The fort is first mentioned in the Venetian chronicles of 1345 and 1346, when it was conquered during the siege of Zadar. After partial destruction, the fort underwent an intense renovation campaign in the second half of the fourteenth century. Late fourteenthcentury documents provide evidence about the building works on the main tower and houses for the crew which were carried out by the local builders: the Bilšić brothers and Nikola Arbusjanić. Fortification walls with five regularly-spaced towers form an irregular polygonal ground plan which was adapted to the terrain of the hill. The fort walls have been preserved to the height of the walkway with partially preserved castellations. The best-preserved parts are two south-western square towers with Gothic vaults composed of pointed arches, and the south-eastern portion of the walls with a walled-up entrance, defended by a massive main tower. The church of St Michael which stood at the centre of the fort was completely destroyed in bombing raids during the Second World War. Its modest remains, together with extant drawings and descriptions, show a small single-cell structure with a semicircular apse and indications of Gothic style evident in the pointed arches of the portal and windows. Its construction has been dated to the mid-fourteenth century. The fort has been well-preserved to date and represents the largest medieval fort on the Zadar islands.

The church of Hagios Nikolaos at Sofronis gorge, Laconia At the southwest slopes of mount Parnon, on the lower part of the Tzitzina gorge, lays the church of Hagios Nikolaos, the catholicon of an old monastery, today in ruins. Close to the church there is a spring of clear water, known to the locals as the Sofronis spring; the gorge itself, from that level until the point that it reaches the Kelefina river, some kilometers lower, is known by the name “Sofronis gorge”. The catholicon is a cross-in-square church of the variant with shorter west arm, with a narthex and an exonarthex at the west part of the nave. The west arm of the cross and the lateral corner bays are much shorter than the corresponding east parts, which makes the west corner bays look like blind arches. Above the central square bay of the nave lays a peculiar dome, whose drum is cylindrical inside, while outside it has a rectangular shape ending in triangular gables at its east and west side. The esonathex was initially cross-vaulted, completely unified with the main church. Its central bay was covered by a longitudinal barrel vault at the same level as the arch of the west cross arm of the nave. The west sides of its corner bays are articulated by two blind arches, of which the north one might have been used as a burial arcosolium. A small niche is formed at the east wall of its south corner bay, either for liturgical function or to be used for the service of the holy water. The exonarthex has a complicated structural history. Initially was timber-roofed, while in a later phase it was covered by a transverse barrel vault, for whose support blind arches were constructed at its west side, now in ruins. The external surfaces of the church are plain, without any kind of articulation, as was the rule in monuments of southern Greece. The walls were constructed by roughly hewn stones with plenty of brick fragments in the joints. At least one level of wooden ties strengthens the walls in the springing line of the vaults. The cross arms of the nave were covered by saddle tile roofs, as was the rule in cross-in-square churches of the byzantine periphery. The east corner bays where roofed at a lower level with lean-to roofs with north and south direction respectively. The west corner bays on the other hand, were so much thinner that it was rather impossible to have independent roofing. In that case, the roofs of the lateral compartments of the esonarthex gave externally the impression of west corner bays. This peculiar arrangement, emphasizing the unification between the nave and the esonathex, is very rarely attested among the known examples of cross-in-square churches with shorter west arm, relating the church at the Sofronis Gorge with a small group of relevant monuments (Fraggavilla, Klesa-Porti). The form of the dome of the church in question must not be confused with the similarly shaped raised central bays in transverse barrel vaults. Thought there are a few similarities with a small number of byzantine and post byzantine domes, it seems that the dome of Hagios Nikolaos at Sofronis Gorge is unique in the ecclesiastical architecture of Byzantium, most likely the result of an improvisation of a local group of masons. Hagios Nikolaos was initially decorated with frescoes, fragmentarily preserved. Three different phases can be distinguished due to stylistic and iconographic criteria. The first one is very difficult to be studied because of its poor condition of presentation. The second one can be dated to the late thirteenth century, while the last one might be placed in the fifteenth century. It is difficult to conclude to an exact dating for the church of Hagios Nikolaos, because of the lack of documentary and epigraphic evidence. Based on its morphological and typological features a rather broad dating between the eleventh and twelfth centuries seems possible for the monument in examined. Hagios Nikolaos at the Sofronis Gorge, though not an impressive building, provides valuable input to the study of the ecclesiastical architecture in Laconia during the Middle Byzantine Era, a period whose surviving monuments in this part of the Peloponnese are very scarce. Hagios Nikolaos is valuable for another reason as well: it seems to be the oldest monument at the Sofronis Gorge and its adjacent area, where a great number of monastic foundations are gathered, still inadequately studied.

In the summer/autumn of 1175, Manuel Komnenos (1143-1180) undertook the rebuilding of Dorylaion, one of the major aplekta in Asia Minor. For this occasion a poem was written. The strong acquaintance of the poet with the conventions of court literature, the occasional content of the poem and its panegyric character, suggest that the text was written for a small ceremony which took place at Dorylaion. The author is probably an anonymous professional court poet who accompanied Manuel in his expedition. The authorship is further discussed since the manuscript tradition might suggest that John Tzetzes was the author. After a close look at the language, style and metre of the poem, this identification is excluded. In 1908, Spyridon Lambros published the poem on the basis of manuscript Barocci 194 (fifteenth century) of the Bodleian Library. This study re-edits the poem on the basis of two more manuscripts: manuscript Parisinus Graecus 2644 (late thirteenth century) of the Bibliothèque Nationale and Auctarium T.1.10 of the Bodleian Library (sixteenth century). The history of each manuscript is analysed and the relation between them examined. It is established that the Auctarium is a direct copy from the Parisian manuscript. The metrical analysis of the poem follows and special textual problems are discussed. Finally, the translation of the original text is provided.

The paper presents a comparative study of “demonological” root cert - and hiisi - in the currently used Russian toponymy of the Russian North (Arkhangelsk, Vologda regions, the surrounding areas of Yaroslavl, Kostroma regions), and the Republic of Karelia. In the toponymy of Russian origin, the most frequent names are toponyms with the root cert - (80 % of “demonological” names), which continue Proto-Slavic * cьrt -. The places named using cert- have a number of common features: often these are places with a negative relief, usually filled with water (names of water objects dominate in this type); the economic exploitation of cert- places is either impossible or extremely difficult. The popularity of the root cert- in toponymy is also supported by the use of * cьrtež ‘cleared arable land’, and may be associated with the archaic tradition of the perception of a place in relation to the “spirit of the place”. There are certain factors which caused an increase of cert- toponyms: “landscape” (their number increases in the areas rich with swamps, rapid rivers, dense forests etc.); agricultural activity; a significant number of churches and monasteries. Factors mitigating the productivity of cert- toponyms are: hunting activity; the onomastic tradition of contact languages (e.g., low productivity of the corresponding word in Komi); linguistic taboos. In Finnic toponymy the corresponding root is hiisi -/ hiite -, which can be traced back to * hiite . The popularity of the root in toponymy is connected with the semantics that originally included a “local” component. Hiisi was originally used for a pagan cemetery located on a hill, with a large conspicuous stone in the centre. Gradually the word came to mean a grove which developed on the site of the cemetery. With the spread of Christianity in the eastern dialects, the word acquired the meaning ‘devil’. The most likely source of the model in the substrate toponymy of the Russian North is the Karelian tradition. In the toponymy of Karelian Priladozhye, this root is used to denote primarily the highest mountains located near a settlement. About a quarter of the names with the root hiisi - in the substrate toponymy also denote mountains, most of them located in the west of the area, that is on the White Sea and in Obonezhye. This toponymic root referred to prominent heights in the territory where villages often stood, as well as Orthodox chapels and churches. On the other hand, they are known as places connected with impure force. This toponymic root is evident in the Russian North with different phonology: Hiž - in the north-west, on the Onega-White Sea watershed; forms with the loss of the initial consonant ( Iž -, Id - et al.) in Eastern Obonezhye; Hid - mainly in the central area, especially on Onega; Hit - in the south. The coexistence of different variants in the same area ( Hid and Hižestrov ) reflected the fact that hiisi took the form hiide - (

From the second millennium BC, East Africa has been connected with oceanic exchange networks and has been included within an Afro-Eurasian world-system, where it formed a periphery from the beginning of the first millennium of the Christian Era, then a semi-periphery from the 10th century onward. As the various articles of this issue of the Journal Afriques show, although the East African coast has been oddly neglected by authors such as K. Chaudhuri (1975) and J. Abu-Lughod (1989), it did play an active role in the world-system, even after the arrival of the Portuguese during the 16th century. L’Afrique de l’Est a été connectée à des réseaux d’échange océaniques depuis le IIe millénaire av. J.-C. et incluse dans un système-monde afro-eurasien où elle forma une périphérie depuis le début du premier millénaire de l’ère chrétienne, puis une semi-périphérie à partir du xe siècle. Comme le montrent les divers articles de ce numéro de la revue Afriques, la côte est-africaine – curieusement négligée par des ouvrages comme celui de K. Chaudhuri (1975) ou J. Abu-Lughod (1989) – a joué un rôle actif dans ce système, y compris après l’arrivée des Portugais au xvie siècle.

The article deals with the factors that have influenced the frequent depicting of the ‘Vision of St. Peter of Alexandria’ in the sanctuaries of Byzantine churches from the beginning of the thirteenth century. It also discusses the theological messages of this scene. The preserved examples of the ‘Vision’ from the thirteenth century have been inventoried and described, after which the iconographic characteristics of depictions from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have been given. The examples from the sanctuaries of post-Byzantine churches have also been added to the catalogue of scenes.

The essay examines the relationship between the advent and diffusion of print in England and English legal literature with particular reference to the law reports. Since the last decades of the fifteenth century the Year Books were widely printed while, on the contrary, the Named Reports remained unpublished until the end of the sixteenth century. The article, through an analysis of the mode, time and characters of the diffusion of print in England, tries to understand why. If the late publication of the Named Reports could be partially explained by their extreme technicality and, at the same time, with the common lawyers’ habit of compiling their own collections of cases privately for their own use, the very content of the collections – which generally referred to recent juridical matters, were in continual need of revision and updating, and were normally well known inside the small and exclusive circle of the common lawyers – probably made their printing inappropriate and unnecessary. With the development of the doctrine of stare decisis in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries things would change: English lawyers started looking for authority in uniform and reliable printed texts, which consequently led English printers to publish the Named Reports in considerable numbers.

The composition of the first Christmas lection Jube, domne, benedicere, for three voices written in Hufnagelschrift on the first leaf of a breviary from the parish of Kranj (first half of the fifteenth century, now housed in the archbishop's archives in Ljubljana) is still the only known example of Medieval polyphony in Slovenia. According to its stylistic characteristics, it belongs to the sphere of Central European primitive polyphony which in the form of organum and conductus, survived throughout the 15th and even into the beginning of the 16th century. The closest examples of such a polyphony come from the monasteries of St. Lambrecht and Seckau in Styria and from Zagreb cathedral (second half of the 15th century). The Kranj example reveals the essential features of this primitive type of medieval polyphony; yet it also shows some interesting and particular details. Remarkable is its rational construction which has a basic recitative nucleus in a parallel organum and concluding vocalization in the style of the simple conductus (note against note).

Recently frescoes from the late fifteenth century have been discovered at Mirna in Dolenjska. The ceiling is decorated in the manner of the »Carniolan choir«, that is, around the dominant figure of Christ, with the tetramorph, the church fathers, Mary with child, the saints, are angels painted on the rib vaulting of the three-sectional presbytery. Some of the angels are praying, some singing and some playing musical instruments. Of especial interest are those angels playing musical instruments. The Mirna painter depicted the following instruments: a knight's trumpet and two other trumpets, bagpipes, horn, tromba marina, kettle-drums, rebec, portativ, dulcimer, bells, clavichord, harp, double flute, jingle bells and lute. One particularly interesting angel among those without instruments is holding music and pointing to it with a little stick. The angels symbolize the praise of the heavens, a motif which was known to medieval West-European painting, especially in the 15th century and which is to be found in many examples of medieval painting in Slovenia. The Mirna orchestra of angels is interesting above all from the number of musical instruments depicted and for the clarity and precision with which the as yet anonymous painter depicted them. Apart from this, it is the first time that instruments, tromba marina and double flute, have appeared on frescoes within the Slovene ethnic territory.

The beginnings of the Orthodox Slavonic Musical culture date from the time of the conversion of the Slavonic peoples to Christianity in the ninth century. The Apostles of the Slavs, the brothers SS. Cyril and Methodius from Thessaloniki, and their pupils, especially SS. Clement and Naoum (early tenth century) translated a number of liturgical books from Greek into the Olid Church Slavonic. Some of these, e. g. the Oktoechos, were used for singing, but neither Byzantine nor Slavonic manuscripts with musical notation have been preserved from that time. Therefore, only indirect evidence is available: a number of quotations concerning singing and musical practices found in the old biographies and chronicles serve as important sources for research, although they do not help us to reconstruct the earliest melodies. The Old Slavonic liturgical manuscripts without notation written both in the older Glagolitic and the younger Cyrillic alphabets contain signatures for the Modes. Some of these manuscripts are listed and their relevance for our research is pointed out. Next are mentioned the Slavonic liturgical manuscripts with notation and their relationship to the Byzantine manuscripts. Thanks to the results obtained by Milos Vellimirovic and this author it was possible to conclude that the final phrases of Slavonic Hirmoi and Stichera with notation – found in Russian manuscripts from the twelfth century – are similar if not identical with the Byzantine versions. Concerning the beginnings and the history of the Serbian Chant no manuscript with notation has been found before the middle of the fifteenth century. Three conclusions were arrived at: a) for the beginnings of the Orthodox Slavonic Musical culture the oral tradition was widely spread; b) the Byzantine influence must have been predominant in the first phase of the melodic transmission; c) original hymns in honour of Serbian saints are especially noteworthy because there are no Byzantine models for them.