Search

The Strasbourg City Archives (Les Archives de la Ville et de l’Eurométropole de Strasbourg) house the archive of the chapter of St Thomas, which among other materials includes letters related to the Bohemian lands that have remained for the most part unknown, and thus unpublished. These letters are an important source of information on the intellectual interactions of the Strasbourg and Bohemian Humanist scholars in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when numerous Bohemian nobles and intellectuals came to study at the Strasbourg gymnasium and used the Strasbourg printing houses to publish their works. The first group of letters presented in this paper concerns the Strasbourg canon Konrad Hubert (1507–1577), who maintained epistolary contact with eminent Bohemian Humanist scholars such as Matthaeus Collinus, Jan Banno, and Thomas Mitis, whose poems he either helped publish in Strasbourg or was planning to include in the anthology of religious poetry he was preparing. The second part of this paper only includes one letter which, however, is no less remarkable than the rest of the letters edited herein. Written by Strasbourg Professor of Theology Jean Marbach (1521–1581) and addressed to the distinguished Bohemian physician and astronomer Tadeáš Hájek of Hájek (ca. 1525–1600), the letter provides, among other things, information that the prominent Bohemian Humanist scholar Jan Kocín of Kocinét served as tutor to one of Hájek’s sons during his Strasbourg studies in 1571. The third and final part of this paper presents two letters by Jan Škréta Šotnovský of Závořice (1598–1650), who, having left the Bohemian lands after the Battle of White Mountain, studied at Basel University and worked as a physician in Basel and Schaffhausen. The letters are addressed to the Strasbourg poet Samuel Gloner and give intriguing information about the sender’s younger brother Karel Škréta, who was 18 years old by then and still studying the art of painting. The second letter to Gloner discusses the earliest known engraving of young Karel Škréta’s painting. All letters included in this paper have been provided with a critical, annotated edition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of an examination of the rich Bohemical (i.e., Bohemiarelated) material, the study discusses the Neo-Latin didactic and descriptive poetry, which was widely cultivated in the Early Modern Czech lands until the Battle of White Mountain (1620). After it, there was an exodus of non-Catholic writers and a decline in most poetic genres. In the case of descriptive poetry, the study relies on domestic genre studies for topographies and celebrations of inventions, but other genres are treated comprehensively for the first time. Didactic epic was mainly cultivated in the Czech Lands by physicians, its most important representative being Vavřinec Špán. Teachers and clergymen also wrote minor didactic compositions. A frequent theme was the plague, which could be conceived from a medical or theological-moralistic point of view. Versified reflections on general questions of education, art and human life were usually treated as New Year’s wishes (strenae). A special kind of didactic texts were university theses and professors’ speeches in verse. Descriptive poetry, which mixed descriptive and celebratory elements in varying proportions, had as its theme depictions of cities, buildings, roads, festivals, etc. The addressees of descriptive compositions were often rulers and the nobility, but mostly town councils. The presented outline of the types of poems based on the Bohemical material is not intended as a codification, but rather as an invitation to discuss the forms of Neo-Latin poetry in the Czech Lands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study provides an overview of the themes and forms of epic poetry in the Czech Lands in the period before the Battle of White Mountain (1620) on the basis of a large amount of extant material. In the introduction, it outlines the problems of understanding epic poetry in antiquity and the Early Modern period, combining insights from modern neo-Latinist handbooks and experience with a corpus of Bohemical (i.e., Bohemiarelated) material to create a basic division of epic poetry applicable to poems from the Czech Lands. It divides epic poetry into secular, religious and animal poetry, with religious epic outnumbering secular poetry. Both of these include many types of poetic compositions, not all of which are typical examples of epic poetry, often straddling several genres. Classical heroic epics, as we know them from antiquity, occur little in the Bohemical material; when they do, they deal with battles with the Turks, or are genealogical epics or have biblical themes. This is related to the state of patronage and the social status of poets, which in Bohemia rarely allowed them to devote enough time to demanding epic work. Shorter epic compositions, for which the term epyllion is now also used, were more popular and more widely published, responding to a current event. The practical solution was a cycle of shorter poems, most often in chronological order – this was usually how the popular series of rulers were composed, the type of composition for which poets received the laurel wreath of poeta laureatus from the emperor. The theme of the Neo-Latin epyllia used to be descriptions of historical events, battles or natural disasters, often depicted in so-called recapitulatory strenae. Religious epic concentrates on the depiction of Christ’s life and its most important phases (birth, passion and ascension), associated at the same time with important Christian feasts. Old Testament themes, often parallel to New Testament themes or to current events, or the lives of saints, conceived differently by Catholic and non-Catholic authors, or poems about angels and their duties, are also treated. A special kind is the animal epic, represented by Jan Dubravius’s Theriobulia, a work variously interpreted as an animal epic, allegory, or mirror for princes. The presented outline of the types of epic based on the Bohemical material is not intended as a codification, but rather as a call for a discussion on the categorization of the Neo-Latin epic in the Czech Lands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Universitatis Carolinae Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis is the property of Charles University Prague, Karolinum Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The edition makes available a recently discovered manuscript of an invitation by the Utraquist humanist Matthias Korambus to his lecture on Quintilian at the University of Basel in 1507. This short prosaic text, with an accompanying poem in elegiac couplets, is preserved in a manuscript of the University Library of Basel in the Amerbach estate (shelf mark F VIII 21, fol. 10v). It is the first commendation of the University of Basel written in verse by an author from Bohemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a well-known fact that the second generation of Bohemian Humanist scholars, which was part of the intellectual circle of Jan Hodějovský the Elder of Hodějov, had international contacts with whom they maintained correspondence. Research conducted during several European editorial and database projects, however, has shed new light upon the matter. Thus, the Heidelberg project, Theologenbriefwechsel im Südwesten des Reichs in der Frühen Neuzeit (1550–1620), the Frühneuzeitliche Ärztebriefe des deutschsprachigen Raums project (1500–1700), and the digital edition of the Flemish physicist Carolus Clusius’s correspondence (Clusius Correspondence) have yielded hitherto unknown letters by the Bohemian Humanist scholar Johannes Banno. These letters provide new data on his foreign travels and the international contacts he had during the time he was a tutor to Bohuslaus and Wenceslaus, the eldest sons of Florian Griespek of Griespach, and even after he returned to Bohemia. This edition includes recently discovered letters from Banno to Clusius and to the Strasbourg Canon Konrad Hubert. Several letters from Banno to Joachim Camerarius the Younger and his father have also been added which greatly illuminate Banno’s relationship with the Camerarius family, although they are clearly but a fragment of their epistolary exchange. None of these letters have been published thus far and only some of them have been known to the scholarly audience. The edition concludes with a letter from Georg Fabricius to Johannes Banno in which the author expresses his appreciation of Bohuslaus of Hassenstein, whose work was about to be published through the efforts of the Hodějovský circle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The varied and contradictory perception of the personality and work of Bohuslav of Lobkowicz and Hassenstein in the early modern period was symbolically crowned in the Enlightenment by Ignaz Cornova’s biography, which is still the most comprehensive work dedicated to Hassenstein. After a brief recapitulation of research and the state of knowledge before Cornova, the study examines his approach to the material and the main substantive and formal features of his biography. Older Latin literature dealing with humanism plays an important role, as do contemporary models from the European literatures of the Enlightenment. Cornova’s work partly follows the traditional chronological approach, but several timeless chapters emerge from it, driven both by an interest in Bohuslav as an individual and by a desire to make a purposeful pedagogical impact on the reader. His aim was to present a rounded and engaging picture of Hassenstein’s life and literary output, based on his surviving works, especially his poems and correspondence, tastefully and without distracting remarks and comments. Ludwig Schubart, for example, with his biography of the German humanist Ulrich von Hutten, could have been a model for him in this respect. Brief mention is also made of the critical reviews of Cornova’s work, which he himself deals with in the preface to Hassenstein’s biography. A separate section is devoted to a comparison of the selection of poems translated by Cornova and his contemporaries Thám, Vinařický and Budík. Although the biography was considered Cornova’s most important work in his lifetime, was cited and received positive feedback, it is not very useful for contemporary research, unlike the works of Josef Truhlář, who was a few decades younger. From a scholarly point of view it falls short of contemporary demands and as a literary work is even more outdated, although (or perhaps because) it reflected the literary trends of the time. ▨ Keywords: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Universitatis Carolinae Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis is the property of Charles University Prague, Karolinum Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This joint article by a classical philologist and a musicologist deals with Jiří Cropatius (a figure documented between 1569 and 1580). Until now, he has been known as a composer who achieved what no other Czech had ever done: getting his music printed by Angelo Gardano in Venice. Current research on sources has allowed us to expand greatly our knowledge about Cropatius's life. In light of new discoveries, Cropatius is now seen as not only a musician, but also an expert on Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the languages in which he also wrote poetry. We learn more about his life and, in particular, about his journey to the Holy Land. Cropatius's Masses, issued in print by Gardano in 1578, have not been preserved, but we can get an idea of what kind of composer Cropatius was from two preserved voices from a manuscript of his Mass for five voices now kept at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the manuscript collection of the Széchényi Library in Budapest there is a diary of the Hungarian humanist István Miskolci Csulyak. Hungarian researchers have known this source for a long time, and the Hungarist Richard Pražák introduced it to the Czech area. Miskolci's travelogue contains passages dedicated to his stay in Bohemia and especially in Prague. In the following article, they are presented in the form of a critical annotated edition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Universitatis Carolinae Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis is the property of Charles University Prague, Karolinum Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)