Irena Benyovsky Latin was born in 1970 in Zagreb (Croatia). She graduated History and Cultural Antropology at University of Zagreb, and defended MA thesis at Medieval Studies, CEU (Budapest, Hungary). As a Fulbright visiting fellow, she spent 1999 at Stanford University (California, US). In 2002, she defended her PhD dissertation at University of Zagreb on “Social Determination of the Urban Development: Trogir, 1250-1450”. She participated in workshops of the Venetian International University in 2001/2002 (Medieval Urbanism Workshop) and 2013 (Digital Visualization Workshop).
Since 1997, she has been working at the Croatian Institute of History, from 2019 as scholarly advisor. She has served as the Institute’s deputy director (2007-10). She was co-president of the Croatian National Committee for Historical Disciplines (1999–2004). Since 2009 she has been editor-in-chief of the Institute’s journal Povijesni prilozi [Historical Contribution]. Since 2014 she has been a head of the Institute’s research programme Urban History of Croatia.
From 1999 to 2001 together with Tatjana Buklijaš she was PI of international scientific project ‘Medieval Hospitals and Medical Knowledge in South-eastern Europe’. From 2007 to 2013 she was PI of the research project ‘The Croatian Medieval Town: Social Structures, Topography and Urban Life’, supported by Croatian Ministry of Sciences and Arts. From 2015 to 2019 she was PL of the Croatian Sciece Foundation research project Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages : Urban Elites and Urban Space (URBES). From 2020 she has been PL of the Croatian Science Foundation research project Topographies of Power: eastern Adriatic cities in medieval spheres of power (TOPOS).
She teaches courses in medieval and urban history at Universities of Zagreb and Dubrovnik (since 2018 as Full Professor). She supervised 5 completed doctoral dissertations on urban history.
Together with Neven Budak she co-organised the International conference ‘Town and Communications’ in Croatian Institute of History (2006). She is the initiator and the organizer of international Trienniale on Towns and Cities in Medieval Croatia (2010, 2013, 2016, 2019). She was the co-organizer of the conference Segregation and Integration in the History of the Hospital (together with Jane Stevens Crawshaw), IUC Dubrovnik, April 2015. She is the author of Medieval Trogir: Space and the society (2009) and co-author (with D. Zelić) of Book of Communal Properties and Leases in Dubrovnik (2007). She was a co-editor of Towns and Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: Authority and Property (2014) and Towns and Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: Image of the Town in Narrative Sources: Reality and/ir Fiction? (2017), with Zrinka Pešorda Vardić.
Her research focuses on the medieval urban history of the Eastern Adriatic coast (especially Trogir and Dubrovnik), urban social topography and the development of institutions.
Recently Published Titles
2021
Topography of Power: Venice and the Eastern Adriatic Cities in the Century Following the Fourth Crusade, The City and the History, 10 (2021), 6-47.
Kretanje mletačkih kneževa u istočnojadranskim gradovima 13. stoljeća (izabrani primjeri) / Movements of Venetian Counts between Cities of the Eastern Adriatic in the 13th Century (Select Cases), Acta Histriae, 29/3 (2021),pp. 561-591.
Mobilnost i umreženost mletačkih kneževa u istočnojadranskim gradovima od kraja 13. stoljeća do Zadarskoga mira (1358) / Mobility and Networking of Venetian Counts in Eastern Adriatic Cities from the Late 13th Century to the Peace of Zadar (1358), Povijesni prilozi 61 (2021), pp. 193-263.
2020
Tracing Hospital Boundaries. Integration and Segregation in Southeastern Europe and Beyond, 1050-1970, eds. J. Stevens Crawshaw – I. Benyovsky Latin – K. Vongsathorn. Brill, 2020.
Towns and Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: The City and the Newcomers, eds. Irena Benyovsky Latin and Zrinka Pešorda Vardić. Zagreb, Croatian Institute of History, 2020.
Female Piety and Gendered Spaces: Women’s Hospitals in Renaissance Dubrovnik, pp. 213-245, in: Tracing Hospital Boundaries. Integration and Segregation in Southeastern Europe and Beyond, 1050-1970, eds. J. L. Stevens Crawshaw – I. Benyovsky Latin – K. Vongsathorn, Brill , 2020.
An Introductory Study: Towns and Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: The Newcomers and the City, pp. 11-35, in: Towns and Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: The Newcomers and the City, ed. by Irena Benyovsky Latin and Zrinka Pešorda Vardić, Zagreb: Croatian Institute of History, 2020
Socijalna topografija srednjovjekovnog Dubrovnika: primjer posjeda obitelji Mençe u burgusu na prijelazu 13. u 14. stoljeće / Social Topography of Medieval Dubrovnik: The Estates of the Mençe family in Dubrovnik during the 13th and Early 14th Centuries (together with Ivana Haničar Buljan), Povijesni prilozi 59 (2020), pp. 263-318.
2019.
Urban Elite and the Dubrovnik Area from the Late 13th Century to the Black Death: Mençe and Ljutica Family Estates in the Burgus of Dubrovnik – Three Generations of Neighbours from Two Social Strata, Povijesni prilozi, 56 (2019), 15-73. Together with Zrinka Pešorda Vardić, Gordan Ravančić and Ivana Haničar Buljan.
Obrtnici i općinsko pregrađe Dubrovnika krajem 13. stoljeća (Artisans and communal suburbia of Dubrovnik at the end of the 13th c); Artisani et mercatores…; Conference Proceedings, Poreč, Muzej grada Poreča, 2019, 52-80
Governmental Palaces in Eastern Adriatic Cities (13th-15th Centuries) Political Functions of Urban Spaces and Town Typpes through the Ages, eds. Roman Czaja, Zdzisław Noga, Ferdinand Opll, Martin Scheutz, TNT, Bohlau Verlag, 2019;
2018
Antunini na Placi: prostorni razmještaj članova Bratovštine sv. Antuna duž dubrovačke Place u 15. stoljeću (Antunini in the Placa: The Spatial Arrangement of Members of the Confraternity of St Anthony along Dubrovnik’s Placa (15th Century), Povijesni prilozi 55 (2018), 57-135. Together with Zrinka Pešorda Vardić – Ivana Haničar Buljan,
Medieval Square in Trogir: Space and Society, Review of Croatian History (2018), 9-62.
Immovable Property in Legal Actions as Documented in the Notarial Records: The Case of 13th-Century Dalmatian Cities, Mesto a Dejiny, vol. 7, 2018, 2, 6-54. Together with Sandra Begonja and Zrinka Nikolić Jakus,
2017
Grad i zaleđe u narativnim vrelima: konstruiranje tradicije o ranosrednjovjekovnim doseljenjima u Dubrovnik iz slavenskog zaleđa (The City and its hinterland in the Narrative Sources: Construction of the Tradition of Early Medieval Settling in Dubrovnik from Slavic Hinterland), in: Acta Histriae 25/3, pp. 473-511.
Digital Mapping of Noble Estates in 13th‐Century Dubrovnik’s Burgus, in: Mapping urban changes, ed. Ana Plosnić Škarić, pp. 154-183 (together with Ivana Haničar Buljan)
Notes on Urban Elite, Churches and Ecclesiastical Immovables in Early Medieval Dubrovnik, in: Religiongeschichtliche Studien zum östlichen Europa. Festschrift für Ludwig Steindorff zum 65 Geburstag, Quellen und Studien tur Geschichte des Östlichen Europa (2017). ed. Martina Thomsen
Introductory lecture: Towns and Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: Image of the Town in Narrative Sources: Reality and/or Fiction? in: Towns and Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: Image of the Town in Narrative Sources: Reality and/or Fiction? eds: Irena Benyovsky Latin and Zrinka Pešorda Vardić, Zagreb: Croatian Institute of History, pp. 13-61.
Towns and Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: Image of the Town in Narrative Sources: Reality and/or Fiction? (ed. together with Zrinka Pešorda Vardić), Zagreb: Croatian Institute of History, 2017
2016
Nekretnine u notarskim dokumentima 13. stoljeća: Primjeri dalmatinskih gradova (Zadra, Šibenika, Trogira, Splita i Dubrovnika) / Real Estate in 13th – Century Notarial Documents: Case Studies of Dalmatian Cities (Zadar, Šibenik, Trogir, Split, and Dubrovnik), in: Povijesni prilozi 51, pp. 7-41 (together with Sandra Begonja)
2014
Interdisciplinarnost u urbanoj povijesti: povijest i perspektive (Interdisciplinarity in urban history: history and peerpectives), in: Historiografija – povijest u suvremenom društvu, eds. Gordan Ravančić et al. Zagreb, Croatian Institute of History, pp. 23-34.
Introduction: Towns and cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: Authority and Property, in: Towns and Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: Authority and Property, eds. Irena Benyovsky Latin and Zrinka Pešorda Vardić, Zagreb: Croatian Institute of History, pp. 13-35.
Towns and Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: Authority and Property, Zagreb, Croatian Institute of History, 2014 (ed. together Zrinka Pešorda Vardić)
Dubrovnik’s Burgus of St Blasius in the 13th Century, in: Towns and Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: Authority and Property, eds. Irena Benyovsky Latin and Zrinka Pešorda Vardić, Zagreb: Croatian Institute of History, pp. 295-327.
The Venetian impact on urban change in Dalmatian towns in the first half of the fifteenth century, in: Acta Histriae 22 (2014/3), pp. 2-44
The estate of the Volcassio family in medieval Dubrovnik, in: Dubrovnik Annals 18, pp. 7-45 (together with Stipe Ledić)
2013
Posjed obitelji Volcassio u srednjovjekovnom Dubrovniku (The estate of the Volcassio family in medieval Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik Annals), in: Anali Zavoda za povijesne znanosti Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti u Dubrovniku 51 (2013), pp. 17-60 (together with Stipe Ledić)
Kuće obitelji Lučić u srednjovjekovnom Trogiru (Houses of the Lucio Family in Medieval Trogir), in: Domus, casa, habitatio…:Kultura stanovanja na jadranskom prsotoru, eds. Marija Mogorović Crljenko and Elena Uljančić Vekić, Poreč: Zavičajni muzej Poreštine – Museo del territorio parentino / Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli, Odjel za humanističke znanosti / Državni arhiv u Pazinu, pp. 73-92.
2012
Obrana dubrovačkog predgrađa sredinom 13. stoljeća. Prilog istraživanju privatnih kula (Defence od Dubrovnik suburbs in the middle of the 13th century. Contribution to research of the private towers), in: Historijski zbornik 64, pp. 17-39
Murus versus montem: Construction of the Dubrovnik fortifications around the suburbs up to the end of the thirteenth century, in: Review of Croatian history 8, pp. 7-36