Solitude in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Foundations, shifts, and transformations -- Petrarch's constructions of the sacred solitary place in De Vita Solitaria and other writings / Karl A.E. Enenkel -- Monastic solitude as spiritual remedy and firewall against reformation: Cornelius Musius's reappraisal of the Vita Solitaria (1566) / Karl A.E. Enenkel -- Concepts of solitude in Jacobus de Voragine's legenda aurea / Dominic E. Delarue -- 'Sacred woods': Performing solitude at the Court of Duke Wilhelm V of Bavaria / Christine Gottler -- Solitude in the pictorial and emblematic imagination -- Anachoretic ideals in urban settings: Meditational practices and mural painting in Trecento Italy / Raphaele Preisinger -- Constructing the imaginary desert of the soul in emblematic literature / Agnes Guiderdoni -- Emblemata solitariae passionis: Jan David, S.J., on the solitary passion of Christ / Walter S. Melion -- Landscapes of solitude -- Giovanni Bellini's San Francesco nel deserto / Oskar Batschmann -- Landscapes and visual exegesis: Solitude in the Chapel of Fra Mariano Fetti in San Silvestro al Quirinale / Steffen Zierholz -- Alone at the summit: Solitude and the ascetic imagination at the Sacro Monte of Varallo / Carla Benzan -- Dead men talking: The studiolo of Urbino. A Duke in mourning and the petrarchan tradition / Christiane J. Hessler -- Sociable solitude: The early modern hermitage as proto-museum / Arnold A. Witte -- A solitude of permeable boundaries: The Abbey of la Trappe between isolation and engagement / Mette Birkedal Bruun -- Mirrors and memories: The chinese mirror cabinet at the hermitage near Bayreuth / Marie Theres Stauffer -- Solitude in antiquarian and natural history -- The prophetess in the woods: The early modern debate about Veleda, Aurinia, and Vola / Bernd Roling -- Passer solitarius: Tribulations of a lonely bird in poetry and natural history, from petrarch to buffon / Paul J. Smith.