engleski

The patron function in eighteenth century book dedications: the case of Croatian religious writing

This paper analyses book dedications in a specific genre, religious writing, in a linguistically small and peripheral region of the Habsburg empire, endeavouring thereby to open up new comparative perspectives in the understanding of the system of patronage. After a review of the most frequent problems encompassed by recent research, the specific features of the concrete original research corpus are elaborated, with an emphasis on problems hitherto less investigated: the correlation of the dedication and other paratextual parts of the book ; the practice of dedicating works to saints of the Catholic Church, which relativises the understanding of the dedication as a form of the exchange of authorial work for material benefits ; and the functionalisation of the name of the patron, which enables the creation of the concept of the patron function. The analysis supports the understanding of patronage as a dynamic system that rested upon the human interactions possible in the given and specific spatial and temporal contexts.

book dedications; patronage; Croatia; religious writing

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