Foreword

This book explores the transformation of Zadar’s architectural and visual culture at the dawn of the early modern era. Once a powerful medieval commune, Zadar was absorbed into the Venetian Republic just as Ottoman forces pressed through the Dalmatian hinterland. Caught between two worlds and facing economic decline, the city nonetheless remained a vibrant cultural hub. Through the networks of builders, sculptors, and painters active across Dalmatia, Venice, Lombardy, and the Marche, Zadar’s elites embraced humanist ideals and reshaped their artistic practices. The result was a distinctive and sometimes unconventional reinterpretation of classical forms, visible above all in sculpture and architectural decoration—the ‘Renaissance stones’ of Zadar. The study connects these fragmentary remains into a coherent whole, situating them within the broader Venetian sphere while reading them in their immediate social and cultural contexts. It offers a new understanding of how Renaissance art developed on the Adriatic frontier.