The research will concentrate on the artistic heritage of particular Schiavoni/Illyrian communities in different Italian artistic centres: confraternities in Rome, Venice, Ancona, Recanati, Loreto, Macerata, Camerano, Pesaro, Fano, Genoa, Udine, and colleges in Bologna, Loreto and Fermo.

In addition to in-depth art-historical analysis of the surviving and/or documented art and architecture of the said national institutions in Italy, special attention will be placed on the dynamics of artistic commissions, along with the issue of confraternity members or college alumni as possible mediators in Croatian patrons’ commissions from Italian artists. This research will provide a new insight on the circulation of taste and knowledge as well as on the impact of different Italian art markets on the art in the South-East Europe, particularly in the present-day Croatia, enriching the understanding of the role of artistic heritage in the construction of proto-national identity in the European context.