About the Cover Illustration

On the cover of Event Processing in Action is “A habitant of Risi,” a hamlet in the interior of the peninsula of Istria in the Adriatic Sea, off Croatia (see map). The illustration is from a recent reproduction of a book of Croatian dress customs, Characterization and Description of Southwestern Wende, Illyrians and Slavs, by Balthasar Hacquet, originally published around 1800. The illustrations were obtained from a helpful librarian at the Ethnographic Museum in Split, Croatia, itself situated in the Roman core of the medieval center of the town: the ruins of Emperor Diocletian’s retirement palace from around AD 304. The book includes finely colored illustrations of figures from different regions of Croatia, accompanied by descriptions of the costumes and of everyday life. About Risi we learn that

In this part of Istria, men wear black felt hats, jackets made of brown meslanka,^[1] trousers with garters below the knee, as well as white socks and shoes with clasps. Short vests with small buttons are worn over dark red shirts. The men carry a bag with small personal items and weapons such as an axe, rifle, or sword. An Istrian is generally of medium height with black hair. His ancestry is a mix of Italian and Slav, and he is considered both impulsive and bold.

¹ This Croatian word comes from the Italian “mezzo lana,” which means a mixture of wool.