Mesos in Action

About the Cover Illustration

On the cover of Mesos in Action is “Girl from Petrovo Polje, Dalmatia, Croatia.” The term “Polje” derives from the Slavic for “field” and is used to denote a large flat plain. Petrovo Polje is located in Dalmatia, a historical region of Croatia on the Adriatic coast. Dalmatia was once a province of the Roman Empire, and over its history has been fought over and controlled by the Goths, the Byzantines, the Venetians, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 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 ...