About the Cover Illustration

The figure on the cover of Restlet in Action is captioned “An Arbanas man, from Zadar, Dalmatia, 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.

Arbanas is an old Croatian family name associated with the town of Zadar, a seaport on the Adriatic coast in central Dalmatia, an area rich in Roman and Venetian history. The first settlement in this location dates to the Stone Age and the town became an important stop on maritime trading routes for Romans and Venetians, subsequently becoming part of the Austrian Empire, Italy, and Yugoslavia, before Dalmatia became part of an independent Croatian state. Today the ancient walled city is a popular tourist destination with its many churches, cultural attractions, and seaside location.