The main goal of the project is to use a multidisciplinary approach to research selected works of art from Zadar and its surroundings in the period from the early Middle Ages to the Baroque, and to view them in the context of the transfer of ideas and influences from the wider Adriatic, Mediterranean and Central European environment. The focus will be on the fact that this is an environment that was constantly in the border area during the defined period and that, when realizing numerous sculptural, painting and goldsmithing works, it received, but also transmitted, various multilateral incentives. Archival and comparative research will attempt to clarify the socio-historical background of the creation of local works of art, which will be achieved, in addition to studying related artistic works and archival materials in the country and abroad, by detailed analysis and revaluation of preserved transcripts of the famous historical source called Historia Salonitana Maior. From a sociological perspective, the contemporary role of cultural and historical heritage in shaping the identity of an individual and a local community, and its valorization in a wider regional, national and European context, will be explored.

An important aspect of the project will also be dedicated to the conceptual understanding of borderlineity, marginal identities, and the processes of intermediality and intertextuality, observed through the interrelationship of contemporary art, art theory, and visual semiotics, with a focus on representational painting and transformations of realism, thereby exploring this branch of fine art as a specific epistemology in a contemporary social context.

The analyzed artworks, as well as archival documents that relate to them in an indirect or direct manner, will be digit(al)ized in order to be gathered into a single database, which will enable their easier art-historical evaluation and dissemination of research results.