Professor Šime Demo of the Department of Croatian Latinity participated in the XXXV Annual Euroclassica Conference, held from 19 to 22 August 2026 at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (ივანე ჯავახიშვილის სახელობის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტი) in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.

His invited lecture, entitled “Cultural Layers in Early Modern Latin Inscriptions: A Case Study of Istria,” examined the direct and indirect presence of elements of classical, medieval, and modern culture in Istrian inscriptions. The lecture analysed these elements at the levels of letter forms, orthography, morphology, syntax, vocabulary, and style, demonstrating how cultural layers separated by thousands of years can intertwine and complement one another in complex artefacts such as inscriptions.

The paper was prepared within the framework of the projects Early Modern Latin Stone Inscriptions in the Churches of Southern Istria: Documentation, Analysis, Contextualisation (Croatian Science Foundation, IP-2022-10-5068) and The Spiritual Heritage of Europe in the Croatian Latinist Tradition: Knowledge in the Digital Age (institutional project of the Faculty of Croatian Studies).

Euroclassica is the umbrella European association of national organisations of classical philologists, founded in 1991. Its General Assembly was also held in Tbilisi, with Professor Demo participating in his capacities as Vice-President of Euroclassica, member of its Executive Committee, and delegate of the Croatian Society of Classical Philologists.