The book focuses on analyzing the prevailing religious themes and on enquiring into the multilayered interaction between religious trends, culture, everyday life and church art in the urban community of Kotor from the end of the thirteenth until the early decades of the sixteenth century. Kotor, a coastal town at the far end of the Gulf of Kotor (Boka Kotorska/Bocca di Cattaro) in modern Montenegro, is surrounded by water on three sides: a rivulet on the north (Škurda), a submarine spring on the south (Gurdić), and the sea on the west. On the fourth or eastern side Kotor is bounded by a steeply rising hill (locally known as San Giovanni), which is separated from other hinterland massifs by a gorge. Such a distinctive geographical position, combined with a system of fortifications expanded and upgraded over the centuries, made Kotor virtually unassailable. The town’s long municipal tradition set the evolution of its urban life and institutions on a course which it followed in the middle ages. The surviving evidence for the commune’s long and continuous development is plentiful and varied, to begin with archaeological remains, such as

the foundations of large sixth-century basilicas under St Mary’s Collegiate church and St Michael’s, and the vestiges of the martyrium of St Tryphon of an early eleventh-century date. Written sources, such as the Statute of Kotor and judicial/notarial records, provide information about municipal institutions and a well-organized urban life, public as well as private, which would have been impossible without the previous stages of development. In the course of its long history Kotor changed hands more than once. In the late medieval and early modern periods, two suzerain powers, Serbia and Venice, ruled the longest and left the strongest marks on the town and its surroundings. Hencethe periods of their dominance are taken as chronological landmarks marking the end of one and beginning of another stage in Kotor’s history. Serbian rule lasted from 1185 until 1371, and Venetian from 1420 until 1797. Incorporated into the medieval Serbian state under the Nemanjić dynasty, Kotor succeeded in securing a privileged position in political, economic and diplomatic affairs.

What made its unhindered growth possible was the fact that the Serbian sovereign recognized its municipal institutions and business mores. Thus Kotor was not only allowed to keep up its commercial traditions but even entered, in the early thirteenth century, a thriving phase of rapid growth. Its privileged position in the medieval Serbian state meant that, besides Dubrovnik (Ragusa), it was the most important trade intermediary between Italy, the eastern Adriatic coast and the interior of Serbia. The economic surge of Serbia, largely resulting from the opening of rich silver mines, led to a flourishing of Kotor’s urban life. During the politically, militarily and economically difficult period between the extinction in 1371 of the Nemanjić dynasty — and the ensuing disintegration of the Serbian state — and the Venetian takeover in 1420, Kotor was compelled to seek protection from several different powers. The decline of the economic, diplomatic and cultural role it had played under the Nemanjićs struck a serious blow to the commune. Its submission to Venetian suzerainty put an end to its role as trade intermediary on which its prosperity depended, and reduced it to a port serving the economic interests of the Venetian Republic ...