The end of World War I in 1918 meant a radical transformation of Central Europe: the multicultural space of former empires became divided into individual nation-states. This altered all spheres of life, deeply impacting the discipline of art history as well. The cosmopolitan vision of art history developed by figures from the Vienna School such as Franz Wickhoff and Alois Riegl was gradually replaced by new self-referential narratives. This nationalist tendency was reinforced by the division of Europe after World War II. In the wake of Jiří Kroupa’s pioneering studies, this volume takes a truly transcultural approach to art produced in the Central European region from the 12th to the 20th century. Freed from national prejudices, a region shaped by the constant movement of people, ideas, and objects emerges.

This volume builds upon the new worldwide interest in the global Middle Ages. It investigates the prismatic heritage and eclectic artistic production of Eastern Europe between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, while challenging the temporal and geographical parameters of the study of medieval, Byzantine, post-Byzantine, and early-modern art. Contact and interchange between primarily the Latin, Greek, and Slavic cultural spheres resulted in local assimilations of select elements that reshaped the artistic landscapes of regions of the Balkan Peninsula, the Carpathian Mountains, and further north. The specificities of each region, and, in modern times, politics and nationalistic approaches, have reinforced the tendency to treat them separately, preventing scholars from questioning whether the visual output could be considered as an expression of a shared history. The comparative and interdisciplinary framework of this volume provides a holistic view of the visual culture of these regions by addressing issues of transmission and appropriation, as well as notions of cross-cultural contact, while putting on the global map of art history the eclectic artistic production of Eastern Europe.

Opening a dialogue between the literary and filmic works produced in Central Europe and in the Anglophone world, this volume explores the role of affects and emotions such as shame, fascination and withdrawal in contemporary literature and culture.

This book contains proceedings of the international conference Santini and Italy, held in Rome in June 2023. In his contribution, Augusto Roca de Amicis describes the nature of the structural relations of Santini's work to Italian architecture. Pavel Kalina discusses the development of Santini scholarship in the art historical literature of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Richard Biegel shows in his contribution that the sources of Santini's work can be found not only in Italian but also in French architecture. Michael Young's text points to the connection between Santini's architecture and contemporary literary theory and practice, which blended different languages and styles. In his article, Ulrich Fürst stresses the importance of a sense of originality for the design of the Benedictine monastery church at Rajhrad, whose construction demonstrated its independence from the monastery of Břevnov, for which the Dientzenhofers worked. Johana Bronková explores the relationship between Santini's architecture and the work of the great Italian architect Francesco Borromini. Marisa Tabarrini presents a completely new discovery - the unknown plans of Santini's church of St. Peter and Paul in Prague's Zderaz. Important for understanding the functioning of Baroque buildings is the article by Jakub Řehak, who analyses the water and ventilation system of the monastery in Plasy. On the other hand, Madleine Riedenklau's text is devoted to the literature on the monastery and church in Sedlec. Irena Bukačová introduces the reader to the past and present of the pilgrimage site in Mariánská Týnice.

This volume aims to broaden and nuance knowledge about the history, art, culture, and heritage of Eastern Europe relative to Byzantium. From the thirteenth century to the decades after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the regions of the Danube River stood at the intersection of different traditions, and the river itself has served as a marker of connection and division, as well as a site of cultural contact and negotiation. The Routledge Handbook of Byzantine Visual Culture in the Danube Regions, 1300–1600 brings to light the interconnectedness of this broad geographical area too often either studied in parts or neglected altogether, emphasizing its shared history and heritage of the regions of modern Greece, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Czechia. The aim is to challenge established perceptions of what constitutes ideological and historical facets of the past, as well as Byzantine and post-Byzantine cultural and artistic production in a region of the world that has yet to establish a firm footing on the map of art history. The 24 chapters offer a fresh and original approach to the history, literature, and art history of the Danube regions, thus being accessible to students thematically, chronologically, or by case study; each part can be read independently or explored as part of a whole.

In Visual Cultures of Death in Central Europe, Aleksandra Koutny-Jones examines the remarkable cultural preoccupation with death in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1795), through a range of Baroque artworks such as coffin portraits, funerary decorations, tomb chapels and religious landscapes.