In this article, published at the sixtieth anniversary of Ferdo Gestrin's birth, the work of this Professor of History of the Middle Ages at the Faculty of Arts, University of the Ljubljana, is fully described. A number of scientific discoveries is connected with this name. Gestrin primarily showed a completely new contents of the Slovene medieval economic history, especially to the history of commerce and traffic, as well as the investigation of the position of Slovenia in the Mediterranean and its links with the Italian Adriatic coast, south of Venice. The bibliography of Gestrin's works, compiled by Olga Janša-Zorn, is attached to the article (pp. 263—268).