Wrocław in a network. Remarks on artistic relations of the city since the beginning of the Luxembourgs’ rule till the end of the Jagiellonian era.

Wrocław was always situated on the meeting point of great areas of the East and the West, and became a meeting point of political and economical interests. This fact as well as the consequent changes of the Silesian rulers in the Middle Ages, together with the city’s gradual independence, makes this city an interesting object of observations which focus on the local artistic phenomena of various origins. The period of two centuries allows us to follow these phenomena in an extended time perspective that in turn makes observation of dynamics of changes possible. Bohemia with Prague, the area of Germany with Nuremberg, Little Poland with Cracow are known but not the only places of origin of artists and artistic phenomena which came into being in Wrocław in the period between the second quarter of 14th and the first third of 16th century. The comparison between numerous indeed and distant trade and economical contacts of the city in this period and the directions of artistic relations defined by art history research indicates that both the areas do not necessarily match with each other. Also the fact that Wrocław remained in the structure of the Bohemian Kingdom not in each historical period has the reflection adequate to the rank of this political relationship. The directions of artists and artisans’ moves and the transfers of stylistic forms were influenced by yet other factors which we are not always capable of comprehending. We should also remember about the significant share of craftsmen’s products (ceramics, glass, textiles and others) in general artistic exchange of goods. The vast European area, from which the artists and artistic influences came to Wrocław, exceeds significantly the size of territories where it is possible to find the traces of export of the local artistic production. Wrocław, as the most important centre of the region, received different impulses, which later on were transformed in the local workshops, used in their production, which spread mainly into outlying districts, neighbours of Silesia