Swiss artists in Alpine passes… How artists travelled from the Lombard-Ticino lakes to Central Europe
Swiss artists in Alpine passes… How artists travelled from the Lombard-Ticino lakes to Central Europe

Summary/Abstract: Traveling played an important role in the lives of master artists and craftsmen from the region of the Lombard-Ticino lakes. These masters have been extremely mobile since the Middle Ages and, thanks to their flexibility and mobility, have been able to obtain commissions in many places in Europe and Russia. Travel influenced not only their lives, but also the building and artistic activities and the organization of the work of these masters. The text based on the study of archival documents deals with a wide range of topics related to the migration of these artists and artisans to Central Europe, especially to Bohemia and Moravia from the 16th to the early 18th centuries. It represents the main routes the masters have taken. The author focuses on the ways of transportation, the duration of trips and the working season. She wonders how often these artists returned home to Lake Lugano, how many of them usually traveled in the group, and how they organized work at multiple locations simultaneously. All this is demonstrated on a number of concrete examples from correspondence and other archival documents from archives in the Czech Republic and the Swiss Confederation.

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