The restoration of the 15th century frescoes in the studiolo of archbishop Johannes Vitéz inthe Esztergom Castle has revealed a sumptuous ensemble of extraordinary coherence that is unique within the genre. Over the course of the restoration process, a multidisciplinary research project on the studiolo was launched with the goal of presenting the results to an international group of specialists. The project examines the development of such spaces in princely and aristocratic dwellings with a focus on function, migration, and assimilation of certain models in various European countries.
The first results had been presented at a scientific conference held in Esztergom in 2017. It involved a study of the history of studioli in France, England, and Spain, and addressed the theoretical issues raised by the existing treatises on the subject. Therefore, the texts in this volume promote a panEuropean vision and invite us to discover the complexity of the studiolo. On the one hand, this research illuminates the traditions and lifestyles in courts of early modern Europe, while on the other it attests to aesthetic and practical changes that occurred over time, initially due to the infl uence of Italian models, and subsequently interactions with multiple references.