About the Cover Illustration

On the cover of Objective-C Fundamentals is “A man from Tinjan, Istria,” a village in the interior of the peninsula of Istria in the Adriatic Sea, off Croatia. The illustration is taken from a reproduction of an album of Croatian traditional costumes from the mid-nineteenth century by Nikola Arsenovic, published by the Ethnographic Museum in Split, Croatia, in 2003. The illustrations were obtained from a helpful librarian at the Ethnographic Museum in Split, 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.

In this region of Croatia, the traditional costume for men consists of black woolen trousers, jacket, and vest decorated with colorful embroidered trim. The figure on the cover is wearing a lighter version of the costume, designed for hot Croatian summers, consisting of black linen trousers and a short, black linen jacket worn over a white linen shirt. A gray belt and black wide-brimmed hat complete the outfit.