Biography
Petar Strunje (b. 1992, Split) is an art historian specializing in the architectural and cultural history of the Eastern Adriatic. He completed his undergraduate studies in Turkish Studies and Art History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, where he obtained his MA in Art History in 2018.
In the same year he enrolled in the PhD programme in Architecture and Urbanism at the IUAV University of Venice as a scholar of the Italian Ministry of Education. He simultaneously pursued doctoral research within the PhD programme in Croatian Culture at the University of Zagreb through a double degree (cotutelle) agreement. His doctoral dissertation, Defining Spaces of Exchange: Venice and the Eastern Adriatic, supervised by Fulvio Lenzo and Jasenka Gudelj, was defended at IUAV in 2022 with the highest distinction (dignità di stampa) and awarded the additional title Doctor Europaeus.
In 2023 he joined Ca’ Foscari University of Venice as a postdoctoral researcher within the ERC project Architectural Culture of the Early Modern Eastern Adriatic. Since 2026 he has been working as Senior Assistant at the Institute of Art History – Cvito Fisković Centre in Split, within the Croatian Science Foundation project Where East Meets West: Travel Narratives and the Fashioning of a Dalmatian Artistic Heritage in Modern Europe (c. 1675–c. 1941). He has also been a member of the COST Action Islamic Legacy: Narratives East, West, South, North of the Mediterranean (1350–1750).
Strunje is the recipient of the Rector’s Award of the University of Zagreb (2014) and has pursued further academic training at the Universities of Padua and Ghent. He also teaches as an external lecturer in the Art History programme at the University of Zadar.
His research interests are public architecture and infrastructure, minority and intercultural spaces, artistic exchange across cultural boundaries, and early modern travel writing in the Eastern Adriatic (15th–18th centuries). He has published more than ten scholarly papers and presented his research at more than twenty international conferences. He also translates from Italian and Latin.
Bibliography (selection)
Books
Splitski lazaret i trgovačka skala [The Venetian lazaretto and free port of Split], Zagreb: FF Press, 2022.
Research articles
Sjedišta mletačke vlasti u Sv. Lovreču Pazenatičkom [Seats of Venetian government in Sveti Lovreč Pazenatički], Vjesnik istarskog arhiva 32 (2025).
Gradnja sklopa gradske vijećnice u Korčuli i dalmatinski klasicizmi 16. stoljeća [Construction of the Town Hall Complex in Korčula and Dalmatian Classicisms of the 16th Century], Ars Adriatica 14 (2024).
Christianisation of Mosques in Dalmatia. Recontextualisation of Sacral Architecture, Turcica 54 (2023).
Between Plague and Trade. Topography and Typology of the Maritime Lazarettos in Dubrovnik (coauthored with Ana Marinković), Convivium 10 (2023).
Crkve svetoga Đurđa i Gospe od Milosrđa: Asimilacija klasičnoga jezika u Dubrovniku [St. George and Our Lady of Mercy: Assimilation of the Classical Language in Dubrovnik], Peristil 66 (2023).
Blagajnički spisi mletačke Općine Split kao izvor za građevinsku povijest [Treasury Records of the Venetian Municipality of Split as a Source for Architectural History], Vjesnik dalmatinskih arhiva 2 (2021).
Book chapters
Commercio e ospitalità: il palazzo del Fontego dei Turchi 1621–1797 (cauthored with Vera Costantini), in: 1923–2023, Cent’anni di Natura e Storia al Museo, Nicola Novarini (ed.), Venice: Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, 2025.
The Fondaco dei Turchi in Venice: Voyage of People and Concepts, in: Voyage: lieu de rencontre, d’échange et d’imagination, Rachel Lauthelier-Mourier, Alessia Bauer (eds.), Paris: Hermann; Rome: Campisano, 2024.
Andrea Palladio e i disegni del Palazzo di Diocleziano a Spalato (coauthored with Jasenka Gudelj), in: Norme e modelli: Il rinascimento e l'Adriatico orientale, Jasenka Gudelj (ed.), Rome: Aracne, 2023.
Conference talks (selection)
Ottoman Trade and Adriatic Port Systems at the Turn of the 17th Century, 4th International Congress of Ottoman Studies, 17.–19. 10. 2025., Venice.
Protoindustrijski pejzaž mlinica na Pantanu [Protoindustrial Landspace of the Pantana Watermills near Trogir], XIX Dani Cvita Fiskovića: Umjetnost i transformacija prirode, 5.–8. 10. 2025., Orebić.
Hic adest Marcus: Constructing Political Space in 15th Century Dalmatia, XII Congresso AISU: La città crocevia, 10.–13. 9. 2025., Palermo.
Charting Dalmatia: Giuseppe Juster’s Itinerant Atlas of the Eastern Adriatic, Society of Renaissance Studies 11th Biennial Conference: Inteconnections, 2.–5. 7. 2025., Bristol.
Save to Serve: Naval Hospitals of the Venetian Stato da Mar, Society of Architectural Historians 78th Annual International Conference, 30. 4.–4. 5. 2025., Atlanta.
Bridging the Gap: Venetian and Ottoman Infrastructural Investments into the Scala di Spalato, 25th Symposium of the Comité International des Études Pré-Ottomanes et Ottomanes (CIEPO 25), 21.–25. 6. 2024, Tirana.
Inheriting the Emperor’s Palace: Urban (Dis)continuities of the City of Split, Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, 21.–23. 3. 2024., Chicago.
Housing the Turk in the Serenissima: Translating and Negotiating Muslim Spaces in the Adriatic, The Adriatic as a Place of (Ex)change, 8.–10. 11. 2023., Zagreb.
Building all’antica in Venetian Istria: Patron-Builder Networks in and around Savičenta, International Medieval Congress, 3.–6. 7. 2023., Leeds.
I documenti di demolizione come fonti per la ricostruzione del palazzo comunale di Spalato, Edifici amministrativi comunali nel Medioevo –aspetto, significato, scopo, 13.–14. 4. 2023., Koper.
Constructing a Fondaco per i Turchi: Discussions, Mediators, Commissions, Conoscere, interpretare, diffondere: La circolazione nella cultura architettonica mediterranea tra XVII e XVIII secolo, 15.–16. 9. 2022., Rome.
Interpreting Mosque to Church Conversion in Dalmatia, Art History and Discourse on the Centre and Periphery ‒ An Homage to Ljubo Karaman (1886‒1971), 19.–21. 5. 2022., Zagreb.