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This study is concerned first with the production of the Goldsmith’s School of Sofia (15th-18th century), and second with the “Bulgarian style” characteristic of the early 20th century. Both are more or less connected with the Ottoman period and are inspired by classical models of the Byzantine culture. Visual signs confer a sacral connotation to the “heroic” or “mythological” mode of identification. The difference lies in the social context in which they have been created, as well as in the motifs on which their identification function is based.