I first met Slobodan Ćurčić in September 1985 in Belgrade. While I was already familiar with his scholarly work, I had not yet had the opportunity to meet him personally. Then the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences organized an international symposium, “Dečani and Byzantine Art in the Fourteenth Century,” with Slobodan Ćurčić as one of the keynote speakers. On a pleasant September morning, as we participants chatted before boarding the buses in Belgrade’s Republic Square to travel to the monastery of Dečani in Kosovo, one of my colleagues introduced me to Professor Ćurčić. With a friendly smile he mentioned that he had read some of my papers, but had not had an opportunity to meet me earlier. I was glad to be introduced to him, never thinking that this would mark the beginning of a fruitful scholarly collaboration and sincere friendship.