Introducing the newsletter

Abstract

The Baroque Routes perhaps represent the most eminently European cultural movement of early modern history. By acknowledging and attempting to revive this movement through research and other activities, the Council of Europe has literally resurrected the spirit of Baroque Europe - a spirit which contributed in no small way to an elegant form of living in urban and rural environments which are still there to be admired and lived in today. Understandably, a number of countries have since 1996 responded generously to the Baroque Routes initiative of the Council of Europe by organizing exhibitions, conferences, concerts of baroque music and even by producing high quality publications on specialist subjects or general themes, such as guidebooks to important baroque monuments in cities as far apart as Valletta and Vilnius. These Council of Europe events have shown the wonderful interaction, indeed interweaving, of several different European expressions during that period of time between the last third of the sixteenth century and the second third of the eighteenth century.