KAREL ŠKRÉTA 1610—1674 STUDIES AND DOCUMENTS LENKA STOLÁROVÁ — VÍT VLNAS (edd.)
© NATIONAL GALLERY IN PRAGUE, 2011 ISBN 978-80-7035-470-4
CONTENTS The Second Apelles on the Emperor’s Parnassus of Muses Karel Škréta’s Place in 17th-Century Central European Painting— 17 Andrzej Kozieł Baroque in Bohemia versus Bohemian Baroque, or Karel Škréta and Early Baroque Painting in the View of Art History—33 Štěpán Vácha – Vít Vlnas Karel Škréta in Prague or the Story of Two Beginnings—53 Lenka Stolárová – Radka Tibitanzlová – Vít Vlnas “To the continually increasing fame of our industrious artist”. Karel Škréta between Switzerland, the Empire, and Italy, in the Light of Newly Discovered Sources—73 Petr Přibyl – Lenka Stolárová Škréta and Rome—81 Johana Bronková Facing the Public: Škréta’s historiae sacrae from the Perspective of the Art Theory and Painting Practice of His Time—101 Štěpán Vácha Karel Škréta – pictor doctus—129 Sylva Dobalová – Lubomír Konečný The Role and Perception of Drawing in the Era of Karel Škréta and His Contemporaries—151 Alena Volrábová The X-Ray Investigation of the Paintings of Karel Škréta. The Painter’s Handwriting in the Light of the Invisible Rays—157 Tomáš Berger Karel Škréta the Younger – a Case of Two Paintings—197 Andrea Rousová Sculpture at the Time of Karel Škréta—207 Tomáš Hladík Stylistic Profile of Prague Early Baroque Architecture—223 Mojmír Horyna
Archival Documents on the Life and Ouevre of Karel Škréta—265 Tomáš Sekyrka – Radka Tibitanzlová et al. Reports on Karel Škréta in European Literature of 17th and 18th Centuries—375 Johana Bronková The Historical Writings of Vilém Slavata of Chlum and Košumberk A Little Employed Source on Bohemian History of the First Half of the 17th Century—385 Alena Richterová
Selected Bibliography—399
IN MEMORIAM MOJMÍR HORYNA (1945—2011)
The book Karel Škréta (1610–1674): Studies and Documents features not only essays dedicated to the artist’s work, but also historical sources documenting his personality, work and times. Designed and conceived as a set of texts expanding on and complementing the contents of the research catalogue for the exhibition Karel Škréta (1610–1674): His Work and His Era published by the National Gallery in Prague in 2010, the individual essays elaborate new findings made in the course of the vast interdisciplinary project Karel Škréta (1610–1674): His Work and His Era and the preparation of the eponymous exhibition. The authors of individual essays concentrated on themes that were so broad they could only be outlined in the catalogue or were not included at all. We must also note that from the start, the story of the Škréta research was also the story of how to grapple with the work of art historian Jaromír Neumann. Dedicated to Škréta and serving as the primary catalogue for the 1974 monographic exhibition in Prague, this work dominated for several decades, significantly influencing other authors. Recent research clearly shows that the topic of Karel Škréta can no longer rest upon the shoulders of a single author. A team of experts focusing on art historical, archival and general historical research has created a new body of work that includes the technical and technological research and restoration of dozens of works by Škréta and his contemporaries. It has yielded some major and often surprising information on the unparalleled character of 17th-century paintings and the personalities of those who commissioned them. Just as Škréta research is no longer the work of a single author, so too is it no longer about a single artist. Despite the importance of the artist and his unique artistic approach, we can no longer assess and interpret Škréta as a lone genius who arrived in a desert, gradually filling a cultural vacuum of alleged historical timelessness with his work. The recent research has shown it impossible to answer many questions about this „Bohemian Apelles“ without also examining the many names that filled Škréta’s horizon – not only his artistic contemporaries, but also his family, patrons, those who commissioned and collected his art and the colourful social spectrum which the painter navigated with admirable determination and, perhaps, a well-formulated career strategy. Not coincidentally, editions of archival sources form a major part of this book. To date, archival sources have represented the principal desideratum of Škréta research – all 20th-century art history work was based on 19th-century research. The current research most helpfully explored Škréta’s family background and personal connections. Of key importance in this respect is the testimony provided by newly found fragments of Škréta family correspondence in foreign archives, which, among other things, enabled a reconstruction of the itinerary of Škréta’s travels in Italy, apprentice years and wayfaring journeying abroad, all the more important as Škréta’s pre–1638 biography included many lacunae that called for hypothesis. The testimony of newly consulted sources of local provenance, such as meeting agendas of the Painters’ Brotherhood or (more importantly) official records referring to Škréta’s property disputes, financial transactions and commissions was also key. It is the editor’s sad duty on behalf of the team of authors to dedicate this book to the memory of pre-eminent art historian, colleague and unforgettable friend Prof. PhDr. Mojmír Horyna. He was one of the most active members of the Škréta research team; his knowledge and experience proved invaluable. He duly submitted his study on the architecture of Škréta’s time on deadline and approached its first proofreading with the same responsibility. None of us would have guessed he would not live to see his text published. His death in late January 2011, which aggrieved all of us so deeply, cut short a scientific career that had not yet reached its zenith. We present this work as a tribute to him. Lenka Stolárová — Vít Vlnas
Studies
The Second Apelles on the Emperor’s Parnassus of Muses Karel Škréta’s Place in 17th-Century Central European Painting ANDRZEJ KOZIEŁ
1 Jaromír Neumann, Škrétové. Karel Škréta a jeho syn, Praha 2000, p. 6. Both this and a later work by the same author (idem, Karel Škréta 1610–1674, Praha 1974, pp. 7–13) offer an overview of more recent opinions on Škréta’s role in the history of both Baroque painting and 19th-century painting in Bohemia. 2 See for example: Willy Drost, Barockmalerei in den germanischen Ländern, Wildpark – Potsdam 1926 (Handbuch der Kunstwissenschaft), p. 280; Bruno Bushart, Deutsche Malerei des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Königstein im Taunus 1967, pp. 16–17; Wolfgang J. Müller, Deutsche Malerei, in: Erich Hubala (ed.), Die Kunst des 17. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 1970 (Propyläen Kunstgeschichte, vol. 9), pp. 197, 201–202. 3 See for example: Eberhard Hempel, Baroque art and Architecture in Central Europe. Germany/Austria/Switzerland/Hungary/Czechoslovakia/ Poland, London 1965, pp. 85–86; Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Court, Cloister & City. The Art and Culture of Central Europe 1450–1800, London 1995, pp. 245, 276–278. 4 Wolfgang Prohaska, Gemälde, in: Hellmut Lorenz (ed.), Geschichte der bildenden Künste in Österreich, vol. 4, Barock, München – London – New York 1999, pp. 383, 399.
There is no doubt as to the special place Karel Škréta the Elder has in the history of Baroque painting in Bohemia. The author of numerous religious and mythological paintings as well as remarkable portraits, celebrated in Joachim von Sandrart’s Teutsche Academie with a biography and a graphic portrait [fig. 1], Škréta is recognised as the first purely Baroque Bohemian painter and the most important personality on the early Baroque art scene in Bohemia generally. In the words of the artist’s most recent monographer, Jaromír Neumann: “Škréta is the most significant artistic personality to emerge in 17th-century Bohemia. […] He is the founder of the Bohemian Baroque and the early modern painting tradition, incorporating the best that the 17th century produced.”¹ However, Škréta’s unique place in the history of Baroque painting in Bohemia becomes somewhat less remarkable when we examine the work of the Prague master in the context of 17th-century Central European painting. Thus far, this issue has unfortunately received only occasional and superficial treatment. Although Škréta’s work is generally mentioned in works analysing the history of painting in German-speaking countries,² and less commonly also in overviews of early modern art in Central Europe³ or in treatises on Baroque art in Austria,⁴ these treatments have been limited to a condensed
1. Philipp Kilian after Joachim von Sandrart’s drawing Portrait of Karel Škréta, in: Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Bau–, Bild und Mahlerey-Künste, Bd. 1, Nürnberg 1675 (reproduced after: Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Bau–, Bild und Mahlerey-Künste. Nürnberg 1675–1680. In ursprünglicher Form neu gedruckt mit einer Einleitung von Christian Klemm, Nördlingen 1994, Bd. 1, fig. on pp. 356/357)
STUDIES 17
presentation of the most important facts about the artist’s life and the most important features of his work. A more thorough comparison of Škréta’s work with that of his contemporaries clearly demonstrates that the character of his painting as well as his fortunes in life show common features with the lives and works of a number of other painters active during the 17th century in the individual Central European countries. Škréta was actually one of many artists born in the years 1600–1630 who spent the worst years of the Thirty Years’ War studying abroad and who began their professional careers only after military hostilities in Central Europe had subsided – and often in a completely new political, religious or cultural environment. I These artists gained their first experience with the craft of painting in the traditional Central European artistic centres, often in the workshops of local masters. We know almost nothing about some of them – as in the case of the teachers of Tobias Pock (1609–1683) from Konstanz [fig. 2] or even those of Škréta himself.⁵ Michael Willmann (1630–1706) from Königsberg and Johann Christoph Storer (1620–1671) from Konstanz learned the basics of painting in the guild workshops of their fathers,⁶ and Johann Heinrich Schönfeld (1609–1682/1683), born in Biberach, found his way to the workshop of Johann Sichelbein in the provincial town of Memmingen.⁷ Only a handful of young painters were more fortunate: for example, Johann von Spillenberger (1628–1679) went from his native Košice to the reputable workshop of Johann Ulrich Loth in Munich,⁸ and Joachim von Sandrart (1606–1688), a native of Frankfurt am Main who – attracted by the established reputation of the artistic centre associated with Rudolf II’s Imperial Court – set out to gain his first artistic experience in the renowned workshop of Aegidius Sadeler in Prague.⁹ 18 THE SECOND APELLES ON THE EMPEROR’S PARNASSUS OF MUSES
5 It can only be assumed that Škréta’s first teacher of painting was Johann Georg Hering, active in Prague from 1615. It seems that the work of this artist resonates in some of Škréta’s late works, as Neumann suggests. See J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 1), p. 14. 6 Hubertus Lossow, Michael Willmann (1630–1706 – Meister der Barockmalerei, Würzburg 1994, p. 13; Sibylle Appuhn-Radtke, Visuelle Medien im Dienst der Gesellschaft Jesu. Johann Christoph Storer (1620–1671) als Maler der Katholischen Reform, Regensburg 2000, pp. 39–41. 7 Annamária Gosztola, Schönfelds erste Jahre in Deutschland, in: Ursula Zeller – Maren Waike – Hans-Martin Kaulbach (edd.), Johann Heinrich Schönfeld: Welt der Götter, Heiligen und Heldenmythen, Köln 2009, pp. 24–29. 8 Ruth Baljöhr, Johann von Spillenberger, 1628–1677: ein Maler des Barock, Weißenhorn 2003. 9 Christian Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart: Kunstwerke und Lebenslauf, Berlin 1986.
2. Tobias Pock, Self-P ortrait with Family, 1669–1670, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
10 Carel van Mander, Den grondt der edel vry schilderkonst, Uitgegeven en van vertaling en commentaar voorzien door Hessel Miedema, Utrecht 1973, 1., p. 75. 11 Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Bau–, Bild und Mahlerey-Künste. Nürnberg 1675–1680. In ursprünglicher Form neu gedruckt mit einer Einleitung von Christian Klemm, Nördlingen 1994, vol. 1, p. 327. The full original text of Karel Škréta’s biography as published by Sandrart is on p. 11. 12 Lebenslauf und Kunst-Wercke Des WolEdlen und Gestrengen Herrn Joachim von Sandrart auf Sockau Hochfürstl. Pfalz-Neuburgischen Rahts: zu schuldigster Beehrung und Dankbarkeit beschreiben und (bergeben von Desselben Dienst-ergebenen Vettern und Discipeln, p. 8, in: J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie (see note 11). 13 J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie (see note 11), p. 327. On the questions related to Schönfeld’s Italian education see: Brigitte Daprà, “Von dannen reiste er nach Italien…” (Sandrart): Johann Heinrich Schönfelds italienische Jahre, in: V. Zeller – M. Waike – H. Kaulbach (edd.), Johann Heinrich Schönfeld (see note 7), pp. 30–43. 14 W. Prohaska, Gemälde (see note 4), pp. 402–403; Silvia Carola Dobler, Die Freskierung der Chorkapellen im Zisterzienserstift Stams durch Egid Schor als Ausdruck künstlerischer Vielseitigkeit, in: Christina Strunck (ed.), Johann Paul Schor und die internationale Sprache des Barock: un regista del gran teatro del barocco, München 2008, pp. 155–170. 15 J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie (see note 11), p. 329. 16 Ibid., p. 338. 17 S. Appuhn-Radtke, Visuelle Medien (see note 6), pp. 50–82. 18 Lichtenstein visited Rubens’s workshop in 1636 and mentioned it proudly in his itinerary. See Romuald Kaczmarek, Śląski malarz odwiedza Rubensa. Itinerarium Johanna Lichtensteina, malarza z Kątów, in: Andrzej Kozieł – Beata Lejman (edd.), Willmann i inni. Malarstwo, rysunek i grafiki na Śląsku i w krajach ościennych w XVII i XVIII wieku, Wrocław 2002, pp. 136–139. 19 Bożena Steinborn, Malarz Daniel Schultz. Gdańszczanin w służbie królów polskich, Warszawa 2004, pp. 10–11.
The path to further artistic education outside Central Europe, ravaged by the Thirty Years’ War, was of key significance for the later professional careers of this generation of painters. For young painters, the recommended or even essential destination for advanced studies was naturally Italy. Karel van Mander formulated a general approach to obtaining a comprehensive education as a painter by drawing on the artistic achievements of the best Italian schools of painting. His advice was as follows: “From Rome bring some skill in drawing […], and the ability to paint from Venice.”¹⁰ Unfortunately, only a handful of central European painters managed to put this “golden rule” into practice. Škréta was among the chosen few as well, however. It is a well-known fact that he spent six years in Italy (1630–1635) – first several years in Venice and later in Bologna and Florence where “he significantly elevated his art in the local schools”, and finally from 1634 in Rome where he, “thanks to his diligence and industriousness, perfected his art to such a degree that he finally deemed his knowledge and abilities sufficient to return to his native Prague.”¹¹ Sandrart’s Italian tour of study had a similar itinerary. By studying the works of the local Venetian masters, he acquired a “laudable practice, especially in his inventiveness and use of colours”, but he relocated from Venice to Rome “to make further progress in the art of drawing.”¹² Schönfeld embarked on a journey to Italy at the age of 24 and spent 18 years there (1633–1651). He stayed in Rome and Naples where, by producing drawings after “ancient Roman as well as modern statues and paintings”, he perfected his abilities to such a degree that “these copies seem as though they had sprung from his own invention.”¹³ Egidius Schor (1627–1701) spent ten years in Rome (1656–1666) and even collaborated with the workshops of Gianlorenzo Bernini and Pietro da Cortona, participating in the artistic projects of these workshops.¹⁴ In this respect, he followed in the footsteps of his elder brother Johann Paul (1615–1674) who had established himself in Rome. Johann Ulrich Mayr (1630–1704) from Augsburg undertook an even longer journey in Italy following his previous education in the workshop of Rembrandt van Rijn in Amsterdam and a stay in England. As Sandrart noted, he expected to “achieve definitive perfection in his profession” during his stay. While in Italy, the painter from Augsburg “imbibed the strength of the beautiful blossoms growing in the local gardens of art, which, in the house of his reason and with the help of his unsurpassed diligence, he converted into the sweetest honey that could strengthen all the lovers of art in Germany.”¹⁵ A number of contemporary artists from Central Europe only reached the northern parts of Italy on their study trips. Venice naturally enjoyed the greatest popularity and transalpine artists settled there for longer periods of time. Among these were Johann Liss (1597–1630) and Johann Carl Loth (1632–1698), whose workshop later became a stopover for other German-speaking artists of the younger generation including Hans Adam Weissenkircher (1646–1695), Daniel Seiter (1647–1705) and Johann Michael Rottmayr (1656–1730). Spillenberger stayed in Venice for a relatively short period of time (c. 1660–1661), but – as Sandrart writes – he nonetheless managed to acquaint himself with a “good, fast painting technique” of which he later made use after returning to his home country in numerous works.¹⁶ The artists also visited other northern towns, undoubtedly of lesser artistic quality, such as Milan, where Storer appeared around year’s end 1639/1640. Not only did he complete his artistic education in Milan, he also opened his own painting workshop there, which operated until 1655 when Storer returned to his native Konstanz.¹⁷ The overwhelming majority of Central European painters, however, could only dream of the “blossoms” of the Italian “gardens of art”. This concerned in particular artists from the traditional guild centres as well as those from centres on the Baltic Sea; for them, an obligatory destination on their study trips was the Low Countries. As the itinerary of Silesian painter Johann Lichtenstein (1610 – after 1672) shows, for many Central European painters merely visiting the workshop of one of the great Netherlandish masters was in itself a considerable success.¹⁸ Nonetheless, many of them also set out for these artistic centres to study. The court painter of the Polish kings, Daniel Schultz (1615–1683), born in Danzig, is even mentioned among the students of Leyden University in 1643.¹⁹ Willmann also set out for Holland, arriving in Amsterdam around 1650, where he continued his education as an autodidact in the circle of the workshops of Rembrandt and Jacob Backer. For this painter from Königsberg, it was above all Italian art that embodied his artistic ideal. Information obtained by Sandrart that in Amsterdam the young painter “was forced to make STUDIES 19
his living and for this reason could not travel to Italy” attests to the artist’s resignation. Willmann was conscious of his insufficient artistic education for the rest of his life, and perhaps the best testimony of this fact is his letter of 22 May 1702 to Heinrich Snopek, abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec. In it, Willmann recommends his stepson Johann Christoph Liška (c. 1650–1712) to the abbot and praises the skills he acquired thanks to six years spent studying in Italy (c. 1671–1677) where – as the teacher admits with regret – his student “saw and learned” more than he himself had learned in Holland during his time there.²⁰ II In general, these artists’ return to Central Europe and the beginnings of their own professional careers were closely linked to the end of the Thirty Years’ War, or rather to the temporary cessation of military hostilities. The first artists made their way back to Central Europe already after the Peace of Prague (1635), as was the case for Škréta in Prague (1638) and Pock in Vienna (1640). The others came only after the Peace of Westphalia (1648) or even later when the political and economic situation in the region was stabilising. Although in the Teutsche Academie Sandrart created a myth of an overall decline in the art of painting in the Germanic countries engulfed in the Thirty Years’ War,²¹ and portrayed Škréta alone as an exemplary “restorer” who managed to “elevate” the local art of painting from this decline and “wipe away the filth of its past” after his return to Prague thanks to his excellent works of art, returning Bohemian painting “to its former place and made it flourish”,²² in reality none of the painters whose professional careers were developing at the time in Central Europe had to start from scratch.²³ Until the 1650s Škréta remained in the shadow of another Prague painter, Antonín Stevens of Steinfels (c. 1610 – c. 1675), who had created a number of altar paintings for churches in Prague already in the early 1640s, and it was most likely Stevens who was considered first among Prague painters at the time.²⁴ Even in a region as devastated by the war as Silesia, there existed a centre of guild artists in Wrocław which was extremely expansive and watched its monopoly so closely²⁵ that, for example, Ezechiel Paritius (Sýkora) (1622–1671), a portrait artist from Litomyšl educated in Italy, had to try his luck elsewhere, finally succeeding in Brzeg as a court painter of the princes of Legnica-Brzeg (1654).²⁶ Willmann was later forced to establish himself at the Cistercian monastery in the provincial town of Lubiąż (1660).²⁷ There is no doubt that young painters educated in Italy or the Low Countries proliferated a style of painting in new, early Baroque forms in Central Europe. Whether these forms were inspired by a Dutch, Flemish or Italian source depended not only on where individual artists had been educated, but also on the preferences of their patrons. In Central Europe, however, the artistic level of the Dutch and Italian masters was achieved in an eclectic manner, whereby the heritage of these masters was treated as a store of readily applicable solutions. This was the result of a general awareness at the time of the high achievements of the new early modern art as well as of its pluralistic character with respect to the norms applied. Most artists resorted to models of Dutch origin which were most commonly spread through graphic printing. The best example of this approach is Franciszek Lekszycki (c. 1600–1668), a Franciscan monk and painter active in Cracow whose religious works are more or less truly rendered copper engravings, most commonly executed after the paintings of Peter Paul Rubens and his students.²⁸ Willmann may also be named in this context, as his early works reference predominantly Flemish graphic prints from the circle of Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and the Rembrandt-like “rough” painting manner.²⁹ On the other hand, Škréta – along with artists such as Schönfeld [fig. 3], Pock, Schor and Spillenberger – belonged to a decidedly less numerous group of Central European artists who based their art primarily on Italian composition models and on a much more refined “smooth” style of painting. Already Sandrart wrote with exaltation about the “natural feelings, well-composed ideas, correct painting technique, skilfully applied pigment-pastes and beautiful colouring” that “adorned” the Venetian paintings of the Bohemian master, also mentioning the immense acclaim with which the artist’s work was received by local art enthusiasts.³⁰ It is enough to mention that Škréta’s paintings from his Venetian period before 1656 were acquired for the collections of local painting 20 THE SECOND APELLES ON THE EMPEROR’S PARNASSUS OF MUSES
20 For more on this issue see Andrzej Kozieł, Michael Willmann’s Way to “the Heights of Art” and His Early Drawings, Bulletin of The National Gallery in Prague 7–8, 1997–1998, pp. 54–66. 21 Andreas Tacke, “Der Kunst-Feind Mars”: die Auswirkungen des Krieges auf Kunst und Künstler nach Sandrarts “Teutscher Academie”, in: Klaus Bußmann – Heinz Schilling (edd.), 1648. Krieg und Frieden in Europa (exh. cat.), vol. 2: Kunst und Kultur, München 1998, pp. 245–252. Willmann’s letter to Sandrart of 12 December 1682 shows how deeply rooted this idea was. Here he expressed a thousand thanks for the fact that the “noble art of painting, almost ridiculed in many places in Germany or almost completely extinguished and fallen into darkness, could flare up again thanks to this new light […]” – Andrzej Kozieł, Rysunki Michaela Willmanna (1630–1706), Wrocław 2000 (Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis, vol. 2212, Historia Sztuki, vol. 14), p. 167. 22 J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie (see note 11), p. 327. 23 See Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Krieg und Frieden, Kunst und Zerstörung, Mythos und Wirklichkeit: Überlegungen zur Lage der Kunst Mitteleuropas im Dreißigjährigen Krieg, in: K. Bußmann – H. Schilling (edd.), 1648. Krieg und Frieden (see note 21), pp. 163–172. 24 Štěpán Vácha, K rané tvorbě pražského malíře Antonína Stevense ze Steinfelsu, in: Jiří Kroupa – Michaela Šeferisová Loudová – Lubomír Konečný (edd.), Orbis Artium. K jubileu Lubomíra Slavíčka, Brno 2009, p. 172. See also the exhibition catalogue Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Doba a dílo, Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Praha 2010, ch. XI, Karel Škréta a Antonín Stevens, p. 453. Only Škréta’s painting The Assumption of the Virgin Mary for the main altar of the Church of Our Lady before Týn in Prague (1649) brought about a change in this situation: this painting was successful and marked the beginning of the great career of this painter educated in Italy. 25 Piotr Oszczanowski, Między Waltherem a Willmannem. Malarstwo Wrocławia 1 połowy XVII wieku, in: A. Kozieł – B. Lejman (edd.), Willmann i inni (see note 18), pp. 123–135. 26 Adam Więcek, Ezechiel Paritius z Litomyśla i jego działalność na Śląsku i w Polsce / Ezechiel Paritius z Litomyšle a jeho činnost ve Slezsku a v Polsku, Časopis Slezského zemského muzea B 13, 1964, pp. 17–22. 27 Bożena Steinborn, O życiu i twórczości Michaela Willmanna, in: Marek Adamski – Piotr Łukaszewicz – Franz Wagner (edd.), Michael Willmann (1630–1706) (exh. cat.), Salzburg 1994 (Schriften des Salzburger Barockmuseums, vol. 19), p. 14. 28 Janina Dzik, Franciszek Lekszycki, malarz religijny baroku, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska 1998, pp. 153–161. 29 Andrzej Kozieł, Barok i rokoko, in: Mateusz Kapustka – Andrzej Kozieł – Piotr Oszczanowski, Op Nederlandse Manier. Inspiracje niderlandzkie w sztuce śląskiej XV–XVIII w. (exh. cat.) Legnica 2001, pp. 93–94. 30 J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie (see note 11), p. 327.
3. Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, Joseph Entertains His Brothers in Egypt, 1665–1670, Chateau Častolovice, Sternberg Collection (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
31 Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674, Praha 1974, p. 8; J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 1), pp. 22, 25; Lubomír Slavíček, “Sobě, umění, přátelům”. Kapitoly z dějin sběratelství v Čechách a na Moravě 1650–1939, Brno 2007, p. 46. 32 J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 31), passim.; also J. Neumann Škrétové (see note 1), passim. 33 For this painting Škréta undoubtedly used the composition model of the Renaissance woodcut by Hans Baldung Grien which depicts the same motif. See Ivana Kyzourová, Pozdní gotika, nebo rané baroko? Albrecht Dürer a jeho současníci jako vzory v 17. století, in: Olga Fejtová – Václav Ledvinka – Jiří Pešek – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Barokní Praha – barokní Čechie 1620–1740. Sborník příspěvků z vědecké konference o fenoménu baroka v Čechách, Praha, Anežský klášer a Clam-Gallasův palác, 24.–27. září 2001, Praha 2004, p. 729, fig. 10, 11. 34 This cycle of Karel Škréta’s paintings was strongly influenced by Albrecht Dürer’s woodcuts from the Small Passions series as well as by the popular Passion copper engravings of the Wierix brothers. See Fejtová – V. Ledvinka – J. Pešek – V. Vlnas (edd.), Barokní Praha (see note 33), pp. 727–728. See also Sylva Dobalová, Pašijový cyklus Karla Škréty. Mezi výtvarnou tradicí a jezuitskou spiritualitou, Praha 2004, pp. 16–44. 35 Daniele Benati, Guido Cagnacci, in: Daniele Benati – Antonio Paolucci (edd.), Guido Cagnacci: protagonista del Seicento tra Caravaggio e Reni (exh. cat.), Milano 2008, pp. 27–53; Ugo Ruggeri, Pietro e Marco Liberi: pittori nella Venezia del Seicento, Rimini 1996.
collector Michele Spietra and also caught the attention of noted collector and Italian art enthusiast Humprecht Johann Tschernin of Chudenitz during his stay in Venice (1660– 1663). Consequently, at least ten paintings of the “Bohemian Apelles” were acquired for the count’s collection in Prague.³¹ According to the findings of Jaromír Neumann, Škréta referred to the Italian art of the late Renaissance (the Carracci brothers, Tiziano, Veronese, Tintoretto, and Bassano, among others) and early Baroque (Guercino, Guido Reni, Tiberio, Tinelli, Bernardo Strozzi, Domenico Fetti, Giulio Carpioni, Simone Cantarini, and Orazio Borgiani, among others) continually throughout the later period of his artistic work.³² It is significant, however, that this formal Italian allure in the Bohemian master’s painting dominated even when the author sporadically resorted to composition models of clearly transalpine origin, as in the case of the painting St Martin³³ and in the cycle of eleven Passion paintings in the St Nicholas Church in Prague’s Lesser Town.³⁴ From this perspective, the Italian style of the local artists is a distinctive feature of works created in the Habsburg Monarchy, as in the third quarter of the 17th century such a style of painting was only produced by several court painters of predominantly Italian origin such as Guido Cagnacci (1601–1663) and Pietro Liberi (1605–1687), who worked for the imperial court in Vienna,³⁵ and Filippo Abiatti (1640–1715) from Milan who was associated with the court of the Prince-Bishop of Olomouc
STUDIES 21
Karl II of Lichtenstein-Kastelkorn.³⁶ Nevertheless, these Italians were only active in the Habsburg Monarchy for a limited period and their works had predominantly a cabinet character. The more italico painting style began to enjoy wider popularity only at the end of the 1670s.³⁷ Only when a number of significant patrons with clearly Italian taste such as Prince Johann Adam of Liechtenstein, Prince Eugene of Savoy and Lothar Franz Schönborn in Vienna,³⁸ Archbishop of Prague Johann Friedrich of Waldstein, Bishop of Wrocław Cardinal Friedrich of Hessen-Darmstadt active in Wrocław and Nysa,³⁹ and priest and chancellor Sebastian Piskorski in Cracow⁴⁰ entered the scene was there increased demand for art that embraced the accomplished Roman Baroque and the painting of Pietro da Cortona and Carlo Maratta. In reaction to this, many journeying Italian painters came to Central Europe – the virtuosi who had mastered not only oil painting, but also the buon fresco technique (painting on wet plaster), and were often able to supply architectural designs as well. Alongside the Jesuit Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709), a whole group of painters from Bologna were active in Vienna;⁴¹ the fresco painter Carpoforo Tencalla from Bissone (1623–1685)⁴² was active in Austria, Upper Hungary, Bohemia and Moravia; Giacomo Scianzi (?– after 1702) was in the service of the Bishops of Wrocław in Wrocław and Nysa;⁴³ Paolo Pagani from Ticino (1655–1716) settled in Olomouc;⁴⁴ Innocenzo Monti (1653–1710) worked – like the workshop of Baldassare Fontana – in Moravia as well as in Cracow;⁴⁵ Michaelangelo Palloni (1637–1712) also worked on the territory of what are today Poland and Lithuania, as did Francesco Antonio Giorgioli (1655–1725), also from Ticino, who was active in Switzerland, Southern Germany and Saxony as well.⁴⁶ 22 THE SECOND APELLES ON THE EMPEROR’S PARNASSUS OF MUSES
36 Milan Togner, Barokní malířství v Olomouci, Olomouc 2008, p. 39. 37 Hellmut Lorentz, Italien und die Anfänge des Hochbarock in Mitteleuropa, in: Max Seidel (ed.), Europa und die Kunst Italiens. Internationaler Kongress zum hundertsjärigen Jubiläum des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz. Florenz, 22.–27. September 1997, Venezia 2000, pp. 419–434. 38 Ibid., pp. 423–426. 39 Arkadiusz Wojtyła, “Cardinale langravio” i “Conte savio” – dygnitarze Rzeszy w barokowym Rzymie, Quart 2 (4), 2007, pp. 27–39. 40 Michał Kurzej, Budowa i dekoracja krakowskiego kościoła pw. Św. Anny w świetle źródeł archiwalnych, in: Andrzej Betlej – Józef Skrabski (edd.), Fides ars scientia. Studia dedykowane pamięci Księdza Kanonika Augustyna Mednisa, Tarnów 2008, pp. 271–301. 41 Ulrike Knall-Brskovsky, Italienische Quadraturisten in Österreich, Wien – Köln 1984. 42 Giorgio Mollisi, L’opera a fresco di Carpoforo Tencalla, in: Carpoforo Tencalla da Bissone. Pitura del Seicento fra Milano e l’Europa centrale (exh. cat.), Milano 2005, pp. 59–65; Martin Mádl, Distinguishing – similarities – style: Carpoforo and Giacomo Tencalla in Czech lands, Ars 40, 2007, pp. 225–236. 43 Günther Grundmann, Barockfresken in Breslau, Frankfurt am Main 1967 (Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler des deutschen Ostens, Reihe C, Schlesien, vol. 3), pp. 23–29; Ryszard Hołownia, Pod egidą kardynała Fryderyka Heskiego. Barokizacja kościoła św. Jakuba w Nysie w 4 ćw. XVII wieku, in: Ryszard Hołownia – Mateusz Kapustka (edd.), Nysa. Sztuka w dawnej stolicy księstwa biskupiego, Wrocław 2008, pp. 145–163. 44 M. Togner, Barokní malířství v Olomouci (see note 36), pp. 45–49. Pagani also worked for a short time in Cracow. See Mariusz Karpowicz, Paolo Pagani w Krakowie, Biuletyn Historii Sztuki 54, 1992, pp. 67–80.
4. ↖↖ Michael Leopold Willmann, Adoration of the Shepherds, 1680–1681, Muzeum Narodowe we Wrocławiu (photo: Muzeum Narodowe we Wrocławiu) 5 ↖ Joachim von Sandrart, Ottavio Piccolomini with his Adjutant, Hans Christoph Ranfft, 1649–1650, Náchod (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 6. ↑ Johann Spillenberger, Diana and Callisto, 1676, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague) 7. → Michael Leopold Willmann, Landscape with St John the Baptist, 1656, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie (photo: Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie)
STUDIES 23
These artists were seconded by a new generation of local painters, most of whom received their education in Italy and were clearly focused on the Italian style. Among these artists were the following: Rottmayr, active in Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia;⁴⁷ Liška, working in Bohemia and Silesia;⁴⁸ Jerzy Eleuter Siemiginowski (c. 1660–1707/1711) in Poland;⁴⁹ and a supposed student of Škréta, the Augustinian monk Anton Martin Lublinsky (1636–1690) in Moravia.⁵⁰ The older generation of local artists, however, were forced to change their aesthetics. An example of this might be Willmann. who created several of his most Italian-like paintings after graphic print models from the circle of Cortona, Maratta and Pietro Testa around the end of the 1670s and the beginning of the 1680s, the style of which followed the Roman masters of the Italian Baroque [fig. 4]. What is more, in response to the needs of local patrons, Willmann learned the demanding technique of painting on wet plaster, also unknown in the Low Countries.⁵¹ At that time, artists were primarily sought after who were acquainted with the Roman style of fresco, painting. From a letter to Lublinsky dated 29 March 1685 from the abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Lubiąż, Johannes Reich, we know that the abbot sought help finding a talented and resourceful painter, full of ideas, versed in oil painting as well as in fresco, and acquainted with the “Roman style”.⁵² On the other hand, in the case of oil painting – as the Prince of Liechtenstein wrote in a letter to Marcantonio Franceschini of Bologna⁵³ – works were requested in “buon gusto italiano con una morbidezza”, well-modelled female nudes full of grace and “vaghezza” – perfectly finished paintings with soft and smooth brushwork.
24 THE SECOND APELLES ON THE EMPEROR’S PARNASSUS OF MUSES
45 Jana Zapletalová, Mezi Boloňou a Krakovem: život a dílo italského malíře Innocenza Montiho (1653–1710), Umění LIII, 2005, pp. 335–346. 46 Mariusz Karpowicz, Działalność artystyczna Michaelangela Palloniego w Polsce, Warszawa 1967; Idem, Francesco Antonio Giorgioli a Varsovia, Bolletino della Svizzera Italiana 90, 1978, pp. 1–6. 47 Erich Hubala, Johann Michael Rottmayr, Wien 1981. 48 Jaromír Neumann, Jan Kryštof Liška, Umění XV, 1967, pp. 135–176, 260–311. 49 Mariusz Karpowicz, Jerzy Eleuter Siemiginowski, malarz polskiego baroku, Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk 1974. 50 The view commonly accepted in the literature that Lublinsky was educated exclusively in Škréta’s workshop as a “free” apprentice was recently challenged by Milan Togner, who traces the genesis of the art of this Moravian painter also in the works of Austrian and Southern German painters like Martin Theofil Pollak (1570–1639) from Innsbruck, Matthias Kager (1575–1634) from Augsburg and Georg Bachmann (1613–1652). Togner even considers it possible that Lublinsky studied in Vienna and Augsburg before 1663. See Milan Togner, Antonín Martin Lublinský 1636–1690, Olomouc 2004, pp. 27–28. 51 Andrzej Kozieł, “Włoski przełom” w malarstwie barokowym na Śląsku, czyli rzecz o kłopotach Michaela Willmanna, in: Ladislav Daniel – Jiří Pelán – Piotr Salwa – Olga Špilarová (edd.), Italská renesance a baroko ve střední Evropě. Příspěvky z mezinárodní konference, Olomouc 17.–18. října 2003 / Renesans i barok włoski w Europie Środkowej. Materiały międzynarodowej konferencji, Ołomuniec 17.–18. października 2003, Olomouc 2005, pp. 197–210. 52 The letter is missing, but was published in full in M. Togner, Antonín Martin Lublinský (see note 50), p. 275. 53 W. Prohaska, Gemälde (see note 4), p. 385.
8. ↖↖ Johann Christoph Storer, St Charles Borromeo as the Patron of Catholic Switzerland, 1655–1657, Jesuit Church, sacristy, Lucerne (reproduced after: Sibylle Appuhn-Radtke, Visuelle Medien im Dienst der Gesellschaft Jesu. Johann Christoph Storer (1620–1671) als Maler der Katholischen Reform, Regensburg 2000, fig. on p. 171). 9. ↖ Joachim von Sandrart, Pilgrimage of the Holy Family from Egypt, 1665, Chrudim, Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 10. → Lubiąż, Cistercian Church, view of the interior before 1943 (photo: Warszawa, Instytut Sztuki PAN)
54 Ch. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart (see note 9), passim. 55 The numerous mythological paintings for the bishop of Olomouc, Karl II of Liechtenstein-Kastelkorn, commissioned from Schönfeld for his private collection may serve as an example. See Milan Togner, in: Milan Togner (ed.), Kroměříž Picture Gallery. Catalogue of the painting collection in the archbishop’s palace in Kroměříž, Kroměříž 1999, pp. 301–307, cat. no. 301–305. 56 Barbara Eschenburg, Landschaft in der deutschen Malerei: vom späten Mittelalter bis heute, München 1987, p. 67. 57 Based on an entry in the so-called Willmann family chronicle on 22 May 1663, the painter participated in the Catholic Holy Mass for the first time (Strahov Library, Prague, the inner side of the cover at the end of the third part of this work: G. H. Rivius, Der furnembsten notwendigsten der gantzen Architektur angehärigen mathematischen und mechanischen Künst eygentlicher Bericht und verstendliche Unterrichtung, Nürnberg 1547, Inv. No. AY XII 15). 58 Although the question of Škréta’s motivation for converting to Catholicism in Italy has been the subject of scholarly discussion, (see J. Neumann, Škrétové, see note 1, p. 41), it is nonetheless beyond any doubt that under the Renewed Constitution of 1627 the painter could return from emigration only as a Catholic. He could also request the return of his family property only as such. See Lenka Stolárová – Radka Tibitanzlová – Vít Vlnas, Karel Škréta in Prague or The Story of Two Beginnings, pp. 53–71 in this book. 59 See ibid. 60 S. Appuhn-Radtke, Visuelle Medien (see note 6), pp. 112–152.
III The works of most Central European painters who started their professional careers after the end of the Thirty Years’ War show great versatility and encompass almost all genres of painting. Both Škréta and Sandrart distinguished themselves as excellent portraitists [fig. 5].⁵⁴ Schönfeld and Spillenberger focused on mythological paintings which were commissioned enthusiastically for private art collections [fig. 6].⁵⁵ Willmann’s works, on the other hand, entered him into the history of 17th-century German landscape painting for all time [fig. 7].⁵⁶ The major source of income for these artists, however, was the production of religious paintings, above all altar paintings commissioned practically en masse by various patrons from the Catholic Church. For certain artists, the opportunity to benefit from these commissions entailed the necessity to accommodate their customers’ expectations, in some cases even by converting to Catholicism. While Sandrart as an artist of the Calvinist confession established in liberal Franconia could work for Catholic customers, for artists active in the Habsburg Monarchy this was unacceptable. Both Willmann and Škréta submitted to this: the former had to convert from Calvinism to Catholicism after three years in Lubiąż (1663),⁵⁷ while the latter had to accept the Catholic faith in order to be able to return to his native Prague.⁵⁸ Almost all of the more significant painters were tied through various contacts to their Catholic patrons, who became the major supporters and promoters of their work. It is a well-known fact that the cooperation with the Augustinian monastery at Zderaz in Prague played a significant role at the beginning of Karel Škréta’s artistic career after his return to Bohemia.⁵⁹ Storer, after returning to Konstanz in 1655, became the main painter of the Upper German province of the Jesuit Order and devoted almost all of his artistic production to commissions from the Jesuits [fig. 8].⁶⁰ Willmann’s case was not any different; STUDIES 25
11. ↑ Karel Škréta, The Descent of the Holy Ghost, 1668–1669, Salzburg Cathedral (photo: Grzegorz Zajączkowski) 12. ↗ Karel Škréta, Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary, St John the Evangelist and St Mary Magdalene, 1668–1669, Salzburg Cathedral (photo: Grzegorz Zajączkowski)
26 THE SECOND APELLES ON THE EMPEROR’S PARNASSUS OF MUSES
61 Rüdiger Grimkowski, Willmann i cystersi, in: M. Adamski – P. Łukaszewicz – F. Wagner (edd.), Michael Willmann (1630–1706) (see note 27), pp. 31–42. 62 Astrid Scherp, Bemerkungen zu drei Altarblattentwurfen von Tobias Pock, Barockberichte 20/21, 1998, pp. 260–265. 63 Andreas Tacke, Das tote Jahrhundert. Anmerkungen zur Forschung über die deutsche Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 51, 1997, p. 56. 64 Ch. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart (see note 9), pp. 27–28. 65 S. Appuhn-Radtke, Visuelle Medien (see note 6), p. 87, fig. 30. 66 M. Togner, Barokní malířství v Olomouci (see note 36), pp. 56, 60–61. 67 Georg Paula, Schönfelds kirchliche Werke in situ, in: U. Zeller – M. Waike – H. Kaulbach (edd.), Johann Heinrich Schönfeld (see note 7), pp. 62–73. 68 Andrzej Kozieł, Michael Willmanns (1630–1706) Kunst im Dienst der Gegenreformation in Schlesien. Forschungsstand und Fragestellung, in: Joachim Köhler – Rainer Bendel (edd.), Geschichte des christlichen Lebens im schlesischen Raum, part 1, Münster 2002 (Religions- und Kulturgeschichte in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa, vol. 1), pp. 549–556. 69 Franz Dambeck – Josef Krottenthaler, Pfarr- und Wallfahrtskirche Neukirchen zum Hl. Blut, München – Zürich 1964 (Kleine Kunstführer, vol. 728), p. 12. 70 Ivo Krsek, Barokní malířství 17. století na Moravě, in: Jiří Dvorský (ed.), Dějiny českého výtvarného umění II/1, Od počátků renesance do závěru baroka, Praha 1989, p. 357. This painting is known from a graphic reproduction by Gerhard de Gross (Strahov Library, Prague). 71 LebensLauf, pp. 20–22, in: J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie (see note 11). See also Ch. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart (see note 9), pp. 232–251, cat. nos. 117–123; Michèle-Caroline Heck, D’une école de peinture à une “académie de papier”. Les retables de l’église de Lambach, in: Sybile Ebert-Schifferer – Cecilia Mazzetti di Pietralata (edd.), Joachim von Sandrart. Ein europäischer Künstler und Theoretiker zwischen Italien und Deutschland. Akten des Internationalen Studientages der Bibliotheca Hertziana Rom, 3.–4. April 2006, München 2009 (Römische Studien der Bibliotheca Hertziana, vol. 25), pp. 85–95. 72 Unfortunately, this unique set of Willmann’s works was scattered and partially destroyed after 1943. It has remained in this state to the present day. See Andrzej Kozieł, “Doskonała szkoła malarstwa”, czyli słów kilka o zespole obrazów Michaela Willmanna z dawnego kościoła klasztornego Cystersów w Lubiążu, in: Andrzej Kozieł (ed.), Opactwo Cystersów w Lubiążu i artyści, Wrocław 2008 (Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis, vol. 3012, Historia Sztuki, vol. 26), pp. 243–260. 73 The last conservation of the paintings of Škréta’s workshop at the cathedral in Litoměřice may change this view. See Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Doba a dílo (see note 24), ch. V, Oltářní obrazy Karla Škréty, pp. 207, 262–269. 74 J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie (see note 11), p. 327. 75 Franz Wagner – Barbara von der Heiden, Wenig beachtete Meisterwercke der Barockmalerei in Salzburg, Barockberichte 8/9, 1994, pp. 306–311; Konstanze Laufer, Anmerkungen zu den Salzburger Altargemälden Johann Heinrich Schönfelds, Barockberichte 16/17, 1998, pp. 23–29; W. Prohaska, Gemälde (see note 4), pp. 383–384, 398–400; J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 1), pp. 89–90. The fact that Škréta was selected for this prestigious commission may have been influenced by Archbishop Guidobald Thun’s descent from the Bohemian branch of the family, and so he was most probably aware of this Bohemian painter’s standing on the art scene in Prague.
since establishing himself at the monastery in Lubiąż (1660), he connected all of his subsequent work with the Cistercians not only in Silesia, but also in Bohemia and Moravia.⁶¹ For Pock, a native of Konstanz, cooperation with Viennese Archbishop Philipp Friedrich of Breuner played a key role at the beginning of his career.⁶² Even Sandrart, an artist of different merit, created a significant portion of his works for customers from the Catholic Church and in the years 1655/56–1661 worked almost exclusively for the Benedictine abbey in Lambach.⁶³ Paradoxically, it was the Calvinist, Sandrart, established in Stockau by Nuremberg, who became the largest supplier of altar paintings for Catholic customers in almost all of Central Europe: from Würzburg, Eichstatt, Regensburg, Landshut, Freising and Munich, to Lambach, Salzburg, Linz, Garsten and Waldhausen, to Chrudim [fig. 9], Brno and Vienna.⁶⁴ Other Central European artists followed his example: Storer supplied his altar paintings to commissioners from Jesuit circles in an area from Switzerland and Schwarzwald to Franconia, Bavaria and Upper Austria;⁶⁵ Pock worked not only for customers from across Austria, but also from Moravia;⁶⁶ Schönfeld did not restrict himself to Swabia, but sent his works to Bavaria and Austria as well;⁶⁷ and Willmann’s altar paintings spread fast on the art market in Silesia as well as in Bohemia, Moravia, and even Austria (Sankt Florian).⁶⁸ In this context, Škréta appears to be an artist who managed to gain control only of the local market: aside from two paintings for the side chapels of the cathedral in Salzburg which will be addressed in greater detail below, an altar painting for the holy shrine in Neukirchen am Hl. Blut⁶⁹ in the Bavarian borderlands, and a missing painting for the main altar of the Jesuit church in Telč, Moravia,⁷⁰ all of Škréta’s paintings for church commissioners were destined exclusively for locations in Bohemia. This decided predominance of altar paintings in period artistic production caused some of the churches to be conceived as picture galleries of a kind, amassing the works of the best contemporary Central European artists. The church of the Benedictine monastery in Lambach became a sort of exposition of the “splendid work” of Sandrart, who executed seven paintings ordered by the abbot Placidus Hieber: the monumental Assumption of the Virgin Mary for the main altar and six other canvases depicting individual saints for the side altars. Displaying these works in the church caused “[…] the paths not only of art-loving youth, but also of Emperors, Cardinals, Archdukes and other persons of high and low station to lead to see these works of art […]”⁷¹ in a previously little-known place. Another example is the Cistercian monastery church in Lubiąż [fig. 10], for the interior of which Willmann and his workshop created at least 60 canvases of various types. Until 1943 this set was undoubtedly the largest Central European collection of Baroque paintings created for one church and by one artist with the help of his workshop assistants.⁷² Although Škréta could not boast a similar temple decorated exclusively with his works,⁷³ his greatest achievements – also described as such in his biography published in the Teutsche Academie – are the paintings he created for a number of Bohemian churches. These churches are: the St Nicholas, St Thomas and St Wenceslas Cathedrals in Prague’s Lesser Town; the St Stephen and St Martin “in the wall” Churches in Prague’s New Town; the Jesuit monastery in Prague; the Cistercian monasteries in Zbraslav and Plasy; the Episcopal church in Litoměřice and the Church of St Wenceslas in Mělník.⁷⁴ On the other hand, the two paintings Škréta produced for the cathedral in Salzburg and which are not mentioned in the Teutsche Academie attest to the fact that the Prague master was often invited to participate in prestigious projects significant for the entire Central European region. Škréta’s two large-format paintings with the motifs of The Descent of the Holy Ghost [fig. 11] and Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary, St John the Evangelist and St Mary Magdalene [fig. 12] were created in the years 1668–1669 as part of the multi-year project to create painted decorations for the interior of the cathedral in Salzburg. As this work progressed, the paintings’ donors – local Archbishops Guidobald Thun and Max Gandolph Kuenburg – selected the individual artists approached for this project, probably based on the artists’ standing on the Central European art scene.⁷⁵ Alongside Škréta, whose canvases were intended for the altars of two side chapels on the eastern side of the cathedral, the most renowned period painters from all of Central Europe worked for the cathedral in Salzburg. Schönfeld created the altar canvas St Sebastian and St Roch in approximately 1654–1655, and several years later (1669) he created another altar painting with the figures of selected saints, namely St Gregory, St Jerome, St Nicholas and St Martin [fig. 13] as well as a missing canvas featuring the motif of STUDIES 27
St Vincent with St Florian, St Oswald, St Erasmus and St Cecilia (c. 1669). In 1656 Sandrart supplied the missing painting The Baptism of Christ and also a painting for the altar of St Anne, while Frans de Neve (1606–1681), originally from Antwerp but educated in Rome, created the altar painting St Virgil’s Ordination as Bishop (currently housed at the Cathedral Museum in Salzburg) in 1672 and painted the canvas The Baptism of Christ, which replaced Sandrart’s painting with the same theme two years later. IV Prestigious commissions of this type no doubt attested to the individual painters’ standing on the Central European art scene. “What could be better than the life of a famous painter?” asked Samuel van Hoogstraten – who had spent five years of his life in Vienna (1651–1655).⁷⁶ Becoming famous along with wealth and satisfaction with one’s own abilities was considered by all contemporary European art theoreticians to be the basic objective of a painter’s artistic activity. In this respect, Sandrart was an unrivalled model for all Central European artists, as this “prince of German painters” who, through the practice of the beaux arts, not only became a rich man and the proprietor of an estate in Stockau where he entertained the powerful men of the contemporary world, but was ultimately ennobled by the Emperor in 1653. Even then it was universally acknowledged that not wealth and noble titles, but the printed word was the guarantee of an artist’s “immortal” celebrity. For this reason, all of Sandrart’s most significant artistic achievements were eternalised in his voluminous biography,⁷⁷ which was undoubtedly composed by his friend, Nuremberg poet Sigmund of Birken, and which was incorporated into the first tome of the Teutsche Academie. Even today it is hard to overestimate the significance of this work: it is the first German-language publication with a richly illustrated and comprehensive interpretation of the contemporary theory of painting, graphic art, carving and architecture, based on the unifying idea of the arte del disegno. Sandrart’s work – published in a lavish format and excellent edition design, and with numerous copper engravings representing the most significant works of classic art created by the best contemporary graphic artists – clearly surpassed the usual level of this kind of publication at the time. When additionally accompanied by a translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Cartari’s treatise Imagines Deorum, the work was priceless as a source of indispensable knowledge for the artistic practice of a painter. Most importantly, the Teutsche Academie contained extensive paragraphs on the history of art in general as well as on individual important masters, and presented not only information on the painters of antiquity and old Italian and Dutch masters compiled from the works of Giorgio Vasari, Carlo Ridolfi and Karel van Mander, but also included biographical sketches of Sandrart’s contemporaries together with significant authors who had been active on German territory in the past, which the author compiled himself. Van Hoogstraten wrote: “It is true that an artist must seek good fortune first through his own merits, which is to say, through the merit and appeal of his own work […] for without the help of generous supporters and heralds loudly singing his praises, it will be difficult for him to become well known.”⁷⁸ There is no doubt that for many a Central European artist the Teutsche Academie became the most important of these “heralds loudly singing his praises”. It gave these often little-known artists working far from the artistic centres an opportunity to have their biographies and portraits published alongside the biographies and portraits of “all famous artists” of ancient as well as contemporary times, which was equivalent to achieving the highest recognition, celebrity and also a certain artistic ennoblement. It should not surprise us, therefore, that certain German artists earnestly solicited their inclusion in this prestigious enterprise. An example of this is Willmann, who had been neglected in the first edition of the Teutsche Academie and who in 1682, having learned that work on its translation into Latin had commenced, congratulated Sandrart in a letter written in an uncommonly flattering and humble tone, and included a skilfully executed drawing depicting the scene of Joachim von Sandrart’s Apotheosis [fig. 14]. The following year a biography of the Silesian painter and his graphic likeness appeared in the work Academia nobilissimae Artis Pictoriae (1683).⁷⁹ Škréta’s biography and his graphic portrait were included already in the first German edition of the Teutsche Academie, immediately following the biography of the famous Rembrandt and right next to his portrait.⁸⁰ While Sandrart devoted only brief notes to other 28 THE SECOND APELLES ON THE EMPEROR’S PARNASSUS OF MUSES
76 Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkunst, Rotterdam 1678, p. 345. Cited from Celeste Brusati, Artifice and Illusion. The Art and Writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten, Chicago – London 1995, p. 253. 77 See most recently: Esther Meier, Joachim von Sandrarts “LebensLauf ”: Dichtung oder Wahrheit?, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 31, 2004, pp. 205–239. 78 S. van Hoogstraten, Inleyding (see note 76), p. 310, cited from: C. Brusati, Artifice and Illusion (see note 76), p. 253. 79 On the issue of this self-presentation act by Willmann see: A. Kozieł, Rysunki Michaela Willmanna (see note 21), pp. 164–176; Rüdiger Klessmann, Michael Willmann und Joachim von Sandrart. Bemerkungen zu einem Dialog, in: A. Kozieł – B. Lejman (edd.), Willmann i inni (see note 18), pp. 16–20. 80 It should be noted, however, that this was due the alphabetical proximity of the two artists’ names.
13. ↑ Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, St Gregory, St Jerome, St Martin, St Nicholas and Other Saints, 1669, Salzburg Cathedral (photo: Grzegorz Zajączkowski) 14. ↗ Michael Leopold Willmann, Joachim von Sandrart’s Apotheosis, 1682, pen drawing with Indian ink on paper, washed, Wien, Albertina, Graphische Sammlung (photo: Wien, Albertina)
important Central European artists such as Pock, Storer and Spillenberger, the Bohemian painter’s life and artistic achievements received an extensive treatment and an uncommonly flattering appraisal. Sandrart explains that if he wanted to describe all of Škréta’s beautiful works, he would have to significantly extend the scope of his humble work; Sandrart also praises the artist himself as not only “a versatile theoretician”, but also “an experienced practitioner” who is always able to follow nature as much as possible. The author of the Teutsche Academie states that, thanks to these universally admired skills, the Bohemian painter attained great fame and fully deserved the honourable appellation “the second Apelles on the Emperor’s Parnassus of Muses”.⁸¹ This enthusiastic appraisal of Škréta was published barely one year after his death (1674), which Sandrart also mentions in the painter’s biography with deep grief, although he does not quote the artist’s age correctly. Moreover, this first Central European history of art considered Škréta to be Sandrart’s only contemporary from the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, if we discount the merely passing mention of Johann Georg Hering.⁸² Although some researchers are inclined to state that Sandrart’s appraisal of Škréta is too obsequious,⁸³ it does not seem that these doubts are justified. Based on our general knowledge of the Bohemian master’s standing in 17th-century Central European painting, we may conclude that the excited tone of his biography published in the Teutsche Academie largely stems from the fact that Škréta’s work and fortunes were typical of an entire generation of Central European artists. It is true that, compared to other important contemporary Central European artists, his work was of a rather local importance and that, except for the altar paintings for the cathedral in Salzburg, Škréta did not achieve any other greater success on the European stage. As an artist in Prague, he never attained a higher social status than that of the master of the Old Town painters’ guild and his most significant patrons were local representatives of the Catholic Church, such as the abbots of Bohemian monasteries and members of the diocese clergy. In general, Škréta’s pupils known from various sources were second-rate painters of rather minor significance. Nonetheless, Škréta’s overwhelming artistic and intellectual potential⁸⁴ decidedly transcended the borders of the local artistic centre. Sandrart, who had made Škréta’s personal acquaintance in Italy,⁸⁵ was aware of this and thus neither hesitated to include Škréta’s biography in the Teutsche Academie nor to use the ecstatic appellation “the second Apelles”. Although after returning to Prague Škréta worked for the rest of his life only as the master of the Old Town painters’ guild, no other contemporary painter active in the Habsburg Monarchy at the time could boast the excellent education he had received in Italy in his youth. Despite the fact that he was never invited to work for one of the Central European courts and never received the honourable title of court painter as did his Prague competitor, Anton Stevens,⁸⁶ he consistently employed the sophisticated “courtly” painting manner of the Italian style in his painting, which was admired by art enthusiasts in Prague and beyond. Until the mid–17th century the first painter from Prague was the above-mentioned Stevens, and yet it was Škréta with his Italian education whom Sandrart called the “restorer” of painting in the capital of the Bohemian Kingdom devastated by the Thirty Years’ War. In comparison to other progenitors of Baroque painting in Central Europe, he clearly preferred the Prague master. The rhetoric of “restoration” never appeared in the short biography of Pock, nor in the extensive biography of Schönfeld, let alone in the account of Willmann’s life published in the Latin edition of the Teutsche Academie. On Sandrart’s view, the “heroic” biography of Karel Škréta, whose career began in 1638 in a city once known for its splendid painting tradition at Rudolf II’s Imperial Court and which had been brutally disrupted by the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, had grown into a distinctive example of a painter’s attempts to revive art in Germany and renew its prestige in a place where it had only recently celebrated its triumphs. Škréta, then, was a model representative of the “new” painting which recalled the classical-style Italian models and relied on the principles of “true art”, within which painting is considered one of the arti del disegno. ***
30 THE SECOND APELLES ON THE EMPEROR’S PARNASSUS OF MUSES
J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie (see note 11), p. 327. Ibid., p. 317. Most recently Š. Vácha, K rané tvorbě (see note 24), p. 172. On the issue of the intellectual dimension of Škréta’s work see in this volume, pp. 129–148, Sylva Dobalová – Lubomír Konečný, Karel Škréta – pictor doctus. 85 Škréta and Sandrart were on friendly terms during the Bohemian artist’s stay in Italy. On this topic see Jana Zapletalová, Škréta, Sandrart, Oretti: poznámka ke Škrétovu působení v Itálii, Umění LVII, 2009, pp. 398–402. 86 Without doubt, Stevens gained the title of court painter to Emperor Ferdinand III already in 1640, as the inscription on the preserved portrait of the artist attests (Museum of Czech Literature – Karásek’s Gallery, Prague); see Š. Vácha, K rané tvorbě (see note 24), p. 167, fig. 11. 81 82 83 84
87 J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 1), p. 6.
It is not long ago that Neumann, in an attempt to define the significance of the “Bohemian Apelles” against the backdrop of European painting, wrote quite emotionally that “what Caravaggio was for Italy, Poussin for France, Rubens for Belgium and Rembrandt for the Netherlands, Karel Škréta was for the Bohemian lands.”⁸⁷ In view of our findings, it seems more accurate to paraphrase the words of the renowned Czech researcher and state that what Pock was for Austria, Storer for Switzerland, Willmann for Silesia and Sandrart for southern Germany, Karel Škréta was for the Bohemian lands. Translated by Evan W. Mellander
STUDIES 31
Baroque in Bohemia versus Bohemian Baroque, or Karel Škréta and Early Baroque Painting in the View of Art History ŠTĚPÁN VÁCHA – VÍT VLNAS
1 Jiří Kroupa, Dějiny umění a historie, aneb: nemohou být ani spolu, ani bez sebe?, in: Milena Bartlová (ed.), Dějiny umění v české společnosti, otázky, problémy, výzvy. Příspěvky přednesené na prvním sjezdu českých historiků umění, Praha 2004, pp. 139–149. On the issues discussed below, comp. Štěpán Vácha, Der Herrscher auf dem Sakralbild zur Zeit der Gegenreformation und des Barock. Eine ikonologische Untersuchung zur herrscherlichen Repräsentation Kaiser Ferdinands II. in Böhmen, Praha 2009, pp. 107–139. 2 Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, War and Peace, Art and Destruction, Myth and Reality: Considerations on the Thirty Years’ War in Relation to Art in (Central) Europe, in: Klaus Bußmann – Heinz Schilling (edd.), War and Peace in Europe, Vol. II, Art and Culture. Münster 1998, pp. 163–172. 3 “[…] weil nun damals der Blut-begierige Mars aus seinem Vatterland die friedfartige Musen und Künste verjaget/[…]”; Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der edlen Bau-, Bild- und Malerei-Künste I, Nürnberg 1675 (reprint Nördlingen 1994), p. 327. Comp. Štěpán Vácha, Das Altarbild in der Kirche der Jungfrau Maria vom Siege auf der Kleinseite – Ein Sakraldenkmal für den Sieg Ferdinands II. auf dem Weißen Berg, in: Eliška Fučíková – Ladislav Čepička (edd.), Waldstein. Albrecht von Waldstein – Inter arma silent musae?, Praha 2007, pp. 191–198, here p. 191.
As a historical discipline, art history has primarily been concerned with explaining stylistic epochs, artists’ oeuvres or individual works of art in relation to their contextual circumstances.¹ This approach raises the question as to what extent art history can take into account the effect of external factors on art production and consumption. A range of opinions has been voiced in response: from the simplistic concept of progressive stages in art (with a movement towards perfection followed by a decline), influenced by contemporary social and economic developments and the interpretation of a work of art as the expression of a universal spirit of the given era, to viewing art history as an immanent process underlying the development of art forms, which occurs independently of other concurrent events. This methodical problem can also be tracked throughout the interpretations of Karel Škréta’s oeuvre against the background of the phenomenon of Baroque in Bohemia or Bohemian Baroque. There is hardly any synthesis of 17th- and 18th-century Bohemian art which would fail to describe the defeat of the Estates in the 1620 Battle of White Mountain as the essential milestone between Renaissance and Baroque. This is, however, not a matter of mere periodisation of art: relating Baroque to the White Mountain seems to be perceived as a constructive point of departure in asking questions about the very origin and essence of art. Czech art history long departed from the idea that Baroque – the originally heterogeneous cultural element – was imported to Bohemia forcibly and concurrently with the post-White Mountain re-Catholicisation, the loss of state independence, and national oppression. And although Baroque indeed disrupted the artistic development, it soon became “naturalized” in the country and eventually transformed into the distinctive, unique Bohemian Baroque. This influential concept came from the art historian Jaromín Neumann, who coincidentally was also the most significant 20th-century interpreter of Karel Škréta’s work. The model of interpretation outlined by Neumann ruled the official course of interpreting Bohemian Baroque for most of the 20th century. But if we today consider the increasing knowledge of the diversity of art originating on our territory and at the same time try to pass unbiased judgment on modern Czech history, this explanation seems hardly sustainable. Very inspiring in this respect is Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann analysing the false myth about the decline of Central European art during the Thirty Years’ War.² His study points out that Prague, to the contrary – and in spite of the permanent belligerency –, witnessed extraordinary investments in art during that period. The picture of the ravaged Bohemia from where “Mars ousted the peace-loving Muses and arts”,³ as the German painter Joachim von Sandrart (1606–1688) put it in his biography of Karel Škréta which forms part of the Teutsche Academie (1675), was largely fictitious. The alleged penurious artistic conditions in Prague prior to Škréta’s arrival as portrayed by Sandrart can be, STUDIES 33
after all, well compared to his no less suggestive picture of a devastated Germany in the foreword to the book.⁴ It is at the same time rather paradoxical that the authors of the mythical artistic decline during the Thirty Years’ War were artists active in the latter half of the 17th century. And not only that this myth heavily burdened modern art-historical research; these artists thus developed their self-stereotype as revivers and re-enactors of the “noble art of painting” in Central Europe during the post-war era. As to the issue of early Baroque painting in Bohemia and defining Karel Škréta’s place in its development, it can be said that there were two simultaneous viewpoints playing their part in the local art history. The first one was the formalist or, stylistic approach whose main aim was to examine the Prague painting style during the Thirty Years’ War as highly different from the preceding court art of Rudolf II and to assess Karel Škréta’s contribution to it. The second, speculative interpretation of the humanities traditionally linked the arrival of Baroque forms in Bohemia with the coining of a new spiritual and cultural tendency that came with the Counter-Reformation. *** The first local author who attempted to capture the character of Prague painting of the latter third of the 17th century was Franz Lothar Ehemant (1779), professor of history at Prague University.⁵ Not surprisingly, he departed from Sandrart’s interpretation of Central-European art history during the Thirty Years’ War. Ehemant presents the era of the Rudolfine court art as the golden age which was too suddenly aborted by the emperor’s death and the ensuing unrests, while the Thirty Years’ War is nothing but a period of artistic stagnation to him. In this context, he notes the robberies of art collections during the Saxon and Swedish occupations of Prague. The author moreover opines that new developments were brought to Bohemia only as late as during the second half of the 17th century by artists arriving from abroad – and even though local artists participated, too, most of them were leaving for Italy for training. As to Škréta, Ehemant merely utters that the painter was capable of imitating the styles “of very many great masters”.⁶ He in part casts the gloomy image of art during the Thirty Years’ War onto his present time, viewing the period under the reign of Empress Maria Theresa as an analogous case: as an era 34 BAROQUE IN BOHEMIA VERSUS BOHEMIAN BAROQUE
4 J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie (see note 1), I, p. 3. Comp. Karl Möseneder, Deutschland nach dem Dreißigjährigen Krieg: Kunst hat ihren Namen vom können, in: Mit Kalkül & Leidenschaft. Inszenierungen des Heiligen in der bayerischen Rokokomalerei, Franz Niehoff (Hrsg.), Band I, Landshut 2001 (Schriften aus den Museen der Stadt Landshut 17), pp. 59–83. 5 Franz Lothar Ehemant, Etwas zur Kunstgeschichte Böhmens, in: Josef Dobrovský (ed.), Böhmische Litteratur auf das Jahr 1779, pp. 205–235, here pp. 219–228. Comp. Roman Prahl, K počátkům a předpokladům dějin umění (František Lothar Ehemant), Umění LII, 2004, pp. 3–10. 6 See Edition of selected texts.
1. ← ← Bohemia, late 18th century, Jan Quirin Jahn, the place of deposition not found (reproduced after: Sbírka obrazů ing. Richarda Jahna v Praze [The Painting Collection of Eng. Richard Jahn in Prague], Praha 1902, appendix after p. 12, not paginated) 2. ← Jan Quirin Jahn, Aneckdoten, biography of Karel Škréta, Prague, Library of the Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians at Strahov (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 3. → Johann Georg Balzer after Johann Thomas Kleinhardt, Karel Škréta, 1773, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
7 F. L. Ehemant, Etwas zur Kunstgeschichte Böhmens (see note 5), pp. 234–235. 8 Gottfried Johann Dlabacž, Allgemeines historisches Künstler-Lexikon für Böhmen und zum Theil auch für Mähren und Schlesien, I, Prag 1815, pp. 14–16; see edition No. 2 in the present Appendix. 9 Jan Quirin Jahn, Aneckdoten zur Lebensgeschichte berühmter Mahler und Beurtheilung ihrer Werke, manuscript, Prague, Strahov Library of the Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians, sign. DA II 7, f. 626–635, here f. 626. Comp. Radka Tibitanzlová, in: Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674. His Work and His Era (exh. cat.), Praha 2010, p. 618, cat. no. XVII.2. 10 Karel Vladislav Zap, [Čechy –] Dějiny výtvarných umění, in: František Ladislav Rieger (ed.), Slovník naučný, II/1, Praha 1862, p. 454; see Edition of selected texts.
marked by lengthy armed conflicts and artistic decline caused by various factors, including a lack of interest on the part of the donors.⁷ Still another scholar following in Ehemant’s steps was Gottfried Johann Dlabacž. The introductory essay to his Allgemeines historisches Künstler-Lexikon (1815) describes the dismal conditions in arts in Bohemia or, respectively, Prague, and concurrently claims that the subsequent revival was due to the artists either coming or returning from other countries. Dlabacž’s leading personality among them was Karel Škréta who had just come back from Italy. The author in fact totally neglects the activity of artists who never left Prague, and exclusively perceives the local artistic development from the viewpoint of the exiles, Karel Škréta, Wenceslaus Hollar and Georg Flegel.⁸ The latter half of the 19th century witnessed the arrival of art history as an autonomous discipline, and national viewpoints were naturally coming into play. The art of early Baroque as well as Škréta himself thus received very contradictory responses at that time. No matter the authenticity of Škréta’s Bohemian origin and the success the artist eventually enjoyed in Prague – he had simply trained in Italy and became established in Bohemia as a representative of a rather foreign style. It is worth attention that the late 18th-century Jan Quirin Jahn did not hesitate to prove the “Italian” character of Škréta’s oeuvre by genetics: Škréta reportedly was the son of Italian parents settled in Prague (!).⁹ Would not Karel Škréta’s return to his homeland, then, represent importing foreign art instead of resurrecting local painting tradition, as Sandrart’s Teutsche Academie claims? The same objection clearly resounds in the relevant part of the entry History of Fine Arts in Bohemia [Dějiny výtvarných umění v Čechách], contained in Rieger’s Encyclopaedia [Slovník naučný; 1862] and written by Karel Vladislav Zap. The author judges the artistic production at the court of Rudolf II through the prism of the Romanticist approach of national art schools, and also opines that Rudolfine art had only little chance of influencing art in Bohemia due to its foreign origin. Its development was moreover forcibly interrupted by the Battle of White Mountain. 17th-century painting, viewed through the criterion of originality, was thus nothing but a foreign, mainly Italian import and – with the rare exception of Karel Škréta – it complied with the depraved taste of that period. But even Škréta’s main asset in this view was merely his “deftness” in imitating Italian models.¹⁰ STUDIES 35
The viability of Sandrart’s image of a desolated early 17th-century Central Europe deprived of all art is rather eloquently proved by the interesting treatise on Škréta by Karel Purkyně (1864). Its introduction paraphrases Teutsche Akademie almost word for word with, however, several “patriotic” connotations: “The silence of despair over the graves of our most thriving favourite sons reigned in Bohemia and Germany where the bloodthirsty god of war in the company of all his horrors had trampled every green corn underfoot. There was no fresh air for an artist who would only vainly search for the Muses of his art, for those had long taken refuge from the war pandemonium. There where one encountered the traces of shattered houses, splintered sculptures and destroyed paintings at every step and where the only image he faced always and everywhere, the image of destroyed properties and the misery of thousands of families, there was no motivation for an artist! Who would ever think there of creating something new – of painting!”¹¹ Purkyně – the first and, for a long time, also the last interpreter of Škréta – pondered on the character of the artist’s Italian lesson. He provides an informed, but still simplified description of the fight between the “academics” and the “naturalists”, at the same time claiming that “both parts departed from 36 BAROQUE IN BOHEMIA VERSUS BOHEMIAN BAROQUE
11 Karel Purkyně, Karel Skreta. Životopisný nástin, Kritická příloha k Národním listům 1, 1864, p. 103, quoted after: Růžena Pokorná-Purkyňová, Život tří generací. Vzpomínky na velké Purkyně. Listy a články Karla Purkyně, Praha 1944, pp. 342–346, here p. 342.
4. ← ← Jan Vilímek, Karel Škréta, 1889 (reproduced after: Humoristické listy [Humoristic Papers] 31, 1889, p. 9) 5. ← Gustav Edmund Pazaurek, Carl Screta (1610–1674). Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des XVII: Jahrhundertes, Prag 1889, frontispiece, library of the National Gallery in Prague (reproduced after: Gustav Edmund Pazaurek, Carl Screta (1610–1674). Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des XVII: Jahrhundertes, Prag 1889) 6. → Luděk Marold, Karel Škréta, (1885), National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
12 Quoted after: R. Pokorná-Purkyňová, Život tří generací (see note 11), p. 344. 13 Ibid., p. 345. 14 Antonín Rybička, Karel Škréta Šotnovský ze Závořic. Nástin rodoa životopisný, Světozor 3, 1869, pp. 42–43, pp. 50–51, pp. 55–56, p. 63; see Edition of selected texts.
the principle that the supremacy of the emptied and distorted idealism in art must be overthrown and replaced by some other substance and other forms”.¹² Purkyně the painter was able to acknowledge the qualities of Škréta’s oeuvre (which were far too often ignored by the previous authors); the field he himself professed nevertheless made him focus on portraits: “As far as his [Škréta’s] painting style is concerned, I must point out that he is in fact the follower of Carracci, although his uniqueness has not drowned in the method of that school so as to make him unable to subsequently also establish a school; and mainly some portraits painted by him possess something genuinely authentic in concept and execution.”¹³ K. V. Zap was not isolated in denouncing early Baroque painting. A nationalist tinge also resounds in the description of conditions ruling 17th-century Bohemian art as provided by Antonín Rybička Skutečský in one of the first heuristically-based biographic treatises on Karel Škréta (1869).¹⁴ Rybička opines that the thriving local art was totally ruined during the Thirty Years’ War and the subsequent works, however successful, cannot be perceived as “authentic and autochthonous Bohemian achievements but solely cogent imitations of the Italian, STUDIES 37
7. Paul Bergner, inspector of the Picture Gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts and organizer of Karel Škréta’s exhibition, held in the Rudolfinum Gallery in 1910, Archives of the National Gallery in Prague (photo: anonymous author, c. 1911)
Flemish and French ones, accommodated in brush, chisel or compasses of the masters in Bohemia”.¹⁵ Even Karel Škréta, on whose life and oeuvre Rybička strenuously collected valuable information, did not escape his criticism. We read that he, too, remained the mere imitator of “Italian academics and eclecticists” and nothing but his dexterous skills of imitating distinguished him from his Bohemian coevals.¹⁶ The author claims that Škréta failed to resuscitate the alleged old Bohemian national school whose last heirs either died out or “roamed through foreign lands in search of a modest living and shelter”.¹⁷ The latter quote proves how deeply enrooted the maudlin stereotype of the “exiles”, originally adopted from Czech literature – and rhetoric in general –, was in the contemporary ruminations on Czech fine arts. The Czech-German historian Gustav Edmund Pazaurek then drew yet another picture of Karel Škréta, departing from Sandrart as well as the earlier Czech literature (no matter how critical he was towards the latter). Pazaurek’s significant monograph on Škréta (1889) greatly contributes studies of the artist from the point of heuristics and it scrupulously follows all methodical principles of positivist art history. It, nevertheless, does not sufficiently reflect either on the myth of the overall devastation caused by the Thirty Years’ War, nor on the descriptions of Škréta as eclectic. It is worth attention that unlike the authors before him, Pazaurek interprets Škréta’s “imitative” inclinations as proof of his poor talent instead of his artistic deftness. His polemical remarks also further sharpen the controversies in viewing Škréta as a superficial, albeit fashionable and successful artist. This standpoint was certainly the fruit of the contemporary Czech-German disputes as to the cultural contribution of the respective ethnicities. In this respect, Pazaurek’s characteristic is crucial: “Wie einst Platon den Göttern täglich für dreierlei dankte, hätte auch Screta Ursache gehabt dem Himmel für dreierlei zu danken: dass er ein flinker Maler war, das er diesseits der Alpen arbeitete, somit die italienische Concurrenz weniger zu fürchten hatte, und ferner, dass er 38 BAROQUE IN BOHEMIA VERSUS BOHEMIAN BAROQUE
15 Ibid., p. 43. 16 Ibid., p. 51. 17 Ibid., p. 43.
18 Gustav Edmund Pazaurek, Carl Screta (1610–1674). Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des XVII. Jahrhunderts, Prag 1889, p. 33. 19 Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674, Praha 1974, p. 11. 20 Karel Chytil, [Čechy –] Dějiny malířství a sochařství, in: Ottův slovník naučný, 6, Praha 1893, p. 381. 21 Karel Boromejský Mádl, Výtvarné umění. Karel Škréta, Příloha Národních listů, enclosure to No. 278, 1910 (9. 10.), p. 9. 22 Karel Vladimír Herain, České malířství od doby rudolfinské do smrti Reinerovy. Příspěvky k dějinám jeho vnitřního vývoje v letech 1576–1743, Praha 1915. 23 Ibid., p. 19. 24 Ibid., p. 24. 25 Ibid., p. 26. 26 Ibid., p. 27. 27 Karel Vladimír Herain, Karel Škréta Šotnovský ze Závořic, Druhá příloha Českého slova of 23 October 1910 (No. 242), pp. 17–18, here p. 18.
nach Beendigung des dreissigjährigen Krieges lebte.”¹⁸ Jaromír Neumann voiced his opinion on Pazaurek’s book as follows: “[it] tried to utterly downgrade both the value and the independent nature of the artist’s oeuvre and, at the same time, discredit him”.¹⁹ The truth, however, was that Škréta’s Czech-speaking interpreters deep into the late 19th century saw the artist’s indisputable Czech origin as his greatest asset. It seems that even the pragmatic Karel Chytil – a Czech scholar who otherwise never dared to fall for nationalist stereotypes – was rather puzzled in dealing with the phenomenon of Škréta. The excerpt from his interpretation summarizing the life and work of the artist and published in the Otto Encyclopaedia [Ottův slovník naučný; 1863] proves that he defended the painter from Pazaurek solely by enumerating the array of the long established definitions: “The Thirty Years’ War and the radical changeover in Bohemian affairs indeed totally paralysed all local artistic developments […]. Karel Škréta […] returned to Bohemia and launched a new stage of Bohemian painting here. Škréta, in his numerous altarpiece paintings, adheres to the Italian academics or eclectics and his oeuvre in this sense ranks as the best achievements created outside Italy.”²⁰ Similarly, Karel Boromejský Mádl views Škréta as an artist of merely average talent whose main asset was introducing the advanced Italian patterns to Central-Bohemia – and, moreover, diminishing the relics of Rudolfine Mannerism: “Škréta’s art from both the aspect of form and mentality must be generally judged against the background of the tendencies and conditions of Italian art during the period of his youth; the art which was left behind to weaker forces by the Bologna academics and the Roman naturalists. It copes with what the artistic grandsons of the Carraccis and Caravaggios accomplished. However adapted, second- or even third-hand art displaying only minor signs of authentic artistic personality, it is still significant to Bohemia in a certain groundbreaking sense. It eradicated Mannerism and Romanticism and introduced us to a higher sense of colourful picturesqueness and animated form.”²¹ A completely different standpoint was taken by Karel Vladimír Herain (1915), the first scholar to provide a synthesis on modern Bohemian painting. His work focuses on the period between the ascendance of Rudolf II to the throne (1573) and the death of the painter Václav Vavřinec Reiner (1743).²² The subtitle of the book – Contributions to the History of Its Internal Development between 1576 and 1742 [Příspěvky k dějinám jeho vnitřního vývoje v letech 1576–1743] – suggests that Herain’s main program in this instance was to show that the development of Bohemian painting in the given era was smooth, obeying nothing but the intrinsic laws of art, and was thus clearly beyond contemporary historical events. Herain was moreover the first to acknowledge that Rudolfine art was essential to the progress of local painting production. He claims that it was largely due to the Italian-oriented, protoBaroque oeuvres of Hans von Aachen and Bartholomäus Spranger why Prague came to witness the “very distinct and supreme artistic outcomes of this style which had hitherto only been perceived as imported to our environment by the Counter-Reformation” in the early 17th century.²³ Herain is also ahead in observing “the influence of Bolognese eclecticism and also perhaps Caravaggio’s naturalism” in the work of the two above-mentioned Rudolfine masters – i.e., the stylistic aspects whose general features were otherwise linked with the much later influence of Škréta.²⁴ Political developments from between 1618 and 1620 thus did not represent any substantial turning point for the development of painting in Bohemia – just because “the changes which it succumbed to were of earlier date and inevitable” and their unfortunate consequences (in no way denied by Herain) were to surface only on a long-term basis.²⁵ The arriving re-Catholicisation then prompted local painting towards Baroque even more. This was not just due to the intensified influx of yet another topical Italian inspiration but also due to the new artistic tasks required by the Church and the aristocracy. And the artist flexible enough and ready to meet these requirements was exactly Karel Škréta, “who was later destined to attract so much attention and popularity that no other contemporary painter could equal him in this”.²⁶ Herain argued against Pazaurek even earlier, in connection with his 1910 retrospect held in the Prague Rudolfinum Gallery: “Škréta was a magnificent talent of the arts. Italy had fired the great artist in him and it also naturally gave him the means of expression. We will not use an empty cliché to value his significance; let us just say that he is the first master of Baroque in our lands. The Baroque style then became established here and bore beautiful fruit in both painting and architecture.”²⁷ K. V. Herain, however, remained isolated not only in his view of the beginnings of Baroque painting in Bohemia but also in the overall issue of Baroque. Czech art history during the inter-war period had only little understanding for such an ultimately formalist approach, assuming that a much more urgent imperative was to discover the social role in Baroque and find it a higher ideological sense in the framework of Czech or, respectively, STUDIES 39
8. ← Picture Gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts in the Rudolfinum Gallery, installation of Bohemian Baroque painting, Archives of the National Gallery in Prague (photo: Jan Štenc, c. 1919) 9. → Installation of works by Karel Škréta in the Picture Gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts in the Municipal Library in Prague. Photograph from the ceremonial handover of the Gallery’s collections to state administration on 9 February 1933, Archives of the National Gallery in Prague (photo: Czech News Agency, ČTK)
Czechoslovak history. The almanac Czechoslovak Art [Československé umění; 1926], co-written by Vojtěch Birnbaum, Antonín Matějček, Josef Schránil and Zdeněk Wirth, reads that “fine arts have been, nonetheless, the least affected by the consequences of the loss of national sovereignty because Bohemian Renaissance was nothing but a projection of Italian culture to the North and because the new political and religious tendencies supported the developments in art through the immigration of potent forces from Italy and Germany”. The Rudolfine court art thus merely represented an exclusive import, the Thirty Years’ War stood for a cultural caesura and neither was early Baroque able to produce any upswing in arts because it, too, progressed in a solely mechanical way of adopting fixed stylistic forms: “Early Baroque in Czechoslovakia – like Renaissance – nevertheless remained a provincial art in its quality, for it stemmed from the same sources and succumbed to the same deformation of exact stylistic form.”²⁸ Oldřich Stefan then polemically followed with the historically moralizing line of the famous essay by Arne Novák, entitled Baroque Prague [Praha barokní],²⁹ arguing in the treatise The Background of Prague Baroque [Pozadí pražského baroku; 1932] that, “As if we were somewhat incidentally beginning to realize that the art form is not the only content of our Baroque; that we are actually talking about the stylistic expression [sic!] of the entire 150 years of our, very important, national history: from the White Mountain to the 1770s. But we keep evading this, as if it was something that we are unsure of, that we perhaps almost fear. The reason is the helplessness which remains the characteristic feature of our relation to the historical role of this period in general.”³⁰ The helplessness is specified somewhat later in the essay. Stefan explains that the arts paradoxically developed “in the very period which we can hardly call a happy and favourable era of our history due to national, religious and economic reasons”. He perceives the arrival of Baroque in Bohemia as the result of the fateful clash of two different cultures, “the conflict between the Romance and Catholic South and the German and Protestant Western tendency; the conflict which lasted in Bohemia for the entire 16th century”.³¹ The Battle of White Mountain then caused that these two contradictory tendencies could not naturally equipoise. Baroque as an artistic opinion was forcibly imposed on the Czech population by the victorious party and “it can be said that it made its way and became widespread among common people only during the 1690s or, perhaps, even later, and only then did it begin to express their thinking. But before that, it was solely a foreign import for the upper classes”.³² Václav Vilém Štech then offered another pointed conception of the genesis of Baroque in Bohemia (1938). He was probably inspired by Max Dvořák’s theory about the contradictory worlds of ideas of Renaissance and Baroque arts, as well as by the view of Werner Weisbach from the 1920s about the “Counter-Reformation” essence of Baroque style.³³ Štech 40 BAROQUE IN BOHEMIA VERSUS BOHEMIAN BAROQUE
28 Vojtěch Birnbaum – Antonín Matějček – Josef Schránil – Zdeněk Wirth, Československé umění, Praha 1926, p. 16. 29 Arne Novák, Praha barokní, Praha 1915. 30 Oldřich Stefan, Pozadí pražského baroku, in: Artuš Rektorys (ed.), Kniha o Praze (Pražský almanach) 3, 1932, pp. 54–69, here p. 55. 31 Ibid., p. 58. Stefan thus adopted the fundamental theses of historian Josef Pekař; comp. Josef Pekař, Bílá hora. Její příčiny i následky, in: idem, Postavy a problémy českých dějin. Výbor z díla, Zdeněk Kutnar (ed.), Praha 19902, pp. 131–231, here esp. pp. 177–185. 32 O. Stefan, Pozadí pražského baroku (see note 30), p. 60. Stefan also developed on the theory about transplanting Baroque into Bohemia in his book Pražské kostely, Praha 1936, esp. pp. 51–52. 33 Václav Vilém Štech, Československé malířství a sochařství nové doby, Praha 1938–1939.
10. ↑ ↑ Exhibition of Karel Škréta in the State Collection of Old Masters in the Prague Municipal Library in 1938, Archives of the National Gallery in Prague (photo: anonymous author, 1938/39) 11. ↑ View into installation of the State Collection of Old Masters (National Gallery) in the Municipal Library in Prague. On the right in the background: section with paintings by Karel Škréta and other 17th-century Central-European painters, Archives of the National Gallery in Prague (photo: anonymous author, 1938/39) 12. ← Installation of works by Karel Škréta in the Picture Gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts in the Prague Municipal Library. Photograph from the ceremonial handover of the Gallery’s collections to state administration on 9 February 1933 (from left to right: Zdeněk Wirth, Vincenc Kramář, Prime Minister Jan Malypetr), Archives of the National Gallery in Prague (photo: Czech News Agency, ČTK)
perceives Baroque, with its aspiration towards the unity of content and form and its spirituality, as the antinomy of the highly refined and basically secular art of Rudolfine Mannerism. To him, the preconditions for adopting Baroque were provided by the newly organized Catholicism which “began long before the White Mountain”.³⁴ He once again expressed on the stylistic character of post-White Mountain Baroque painting in the exhibition catalogue Prague Baroque [Pražské baroko; 1938]. The White Mountain and all its consequences brought a radical turning point; with it, “the natural development of art was halted for a long time. Creativity sunk from elegant internationality to modest provinciality. Also the stylistic advantage was lost, as the local artists kept lingering on forms based on the Renaissance opinion. The active belligerence of the victorious Counter-Reformation began entering the forms only little by little”.³⁵ The first one to attempt a constructive approach to the relation between early Baroque painting and Karel Škréta was Vincenc Kramář who was ready to emphasize the painter’s epochal asset: “We can, however, fully acknowledge Škréta’s significance for our art only if we realize how poor and weak our painting was when the artist first appeared in public.”³⁶ Kramář also considerably contributed to the wide recognition of the stylistic points of departure in Škréta’s oeuvre. He straightforwardly interpreted the artist as timeless: “A new stage of development in our painting, including the art work of our days, indeed takes Škréta into account. And we certainly cannot more highly appraise his exploit than by saying that this outstanding painter laid the foundations of our modern artistic tradition.”³⁷ He, on the other hand, helped petrify many stereotypes which stretched through art history from as early as the beginning of the 19th century. Beside other things, he revived the age-long “exiles’” model of interpretation and agreed that the decisive stylistic turning point occurred outside Bohemia, and at the same time reduced Rudolfine art to a mere episode, utterly insignificant for future developments. Kramář also anticipated the later narrations of Jaromír Neumann by explaining Škréta’s art as an intrinsically Czech phenomenon. To him, his “lyricism” and “vigour” constituted the tradition which subsequently climaxed in the art of the “National Revival”. He thus also reflected the dispute over the character of Baroque in the Czech milieu and its significance in shaping the modern nation. The latter issue was brought to life by the so-called dispute over the sense of Czech history whose tone was determined by as influential personalities as František Xaver Šalda and Josef Pekař during the 1920s and 1930s.³⁸ Kramář employed scientific methods derived from the works of the Viennese art-history school and combined them with “instinctual” intuition. This helped him construct the bygone dream of the 19th-century nationalist authors – the new Czech national school of painting: “The time has not yet come for us talk more widely about the specific or, eventually, Czech character of Škréta’s works without being in danger of one-sidedly interpreting the features of the period. For the time being, we must depend on our inherent instinct which makes us experience Škréta’s art as something essentially close to us. And the proof that our perception of it is correct can be, for example, the composition of Drahomíra’s death. It directly evokes in us the artists whose Czech nature is undoubted: Is not the scene in the church filled with the spirituality and unaffectedness of Tkadlík, and does not the main monumental composition contain something of the vigour of Aleš’s compositions in the foyer of the National Theatre?”³⁹ Antonín Matějček, another notable representative of Czech art history in the first half of the 20th century, was considerably more critical of our artist. As he wrote in 1913, “Škréta’s transgression was his low genius”. But here, he totally failed to reflect the shift that had occurred from Pazaurek’s times, especially due to the 1910 exhibition of the painter. Matějček continues: “He lost orientation; he kept lingering on the surface of the quarrelling methods and mannerisms, adopting them indiscriminately and without understanding their inward sense. He sank to the artistic impurity of confused formulas; impurity which is ill-fated to all the weak.” His final verdict on Škréta is unambiguous: “The faithful imprint of this puzzled mind is its work.”⁴⁰ Matějček’s coarse judgment nonetheless softens throughout his later synoptic explanations of the artistic developments in Bohemia: he gradually comes to acknowledge not only Škréta’s leading role in constituting local Baroque painting but also his ability to synthesize the contradictory Italian ideological movements.⁴¹ The author conformed to the main tendencies of contemporary art history and he, too, put Škréta in contrast with the allegedly poor quality of other painters active during his era in Bohemia. As he notes, “17th-century development in painting faltered for the same reasons as the development in sculpture. The Czech lands knew almost nothing about the grandiose florescence of early Baroque Italian painting, and this or that stylistic advancement and novelty arrived to us only with delay, via the Italians professing routine eclecticism. […] 42 BAROQUE IN BOHEMIA VERSUS BOHEMIAN BAROQUE
34 Ibid., p. 57. 35 Václav Vilém Štech, Malba a sochařství, in: Výstava Umění v Čechách XVII. a XVIII. století. 1600–1800. Pražské baroko (exh. cat.), Praha 1938, p. 50. 36 Vincenc Kramář, Karel Škréta, Salon, 1932, No. 2, pp. 6–7, No. 3, pp. 27–28, here p. 28. 37 Ibid., p. 28. 38 See esp. Bohdan Chudoba – Zdeněk Kalista – Josef Vašica – Jan Racek – Albert Kutal, Baroko. Pět statí, Praha 1934; Arne Novák, Nové bádání o českém baroku slovesném, Naše věda 16, 1935, pp. 189–202; Zdeněk Rotrekl, Barokní fenomén v současnosti, Praha 1995, pp. 101–157; Jiří Rak – Vít Vlnas (edd.), The Second Life of the Baroque in Bohemia, in: Vít Vlnas (ed.), The Glory of the Baroque in Bohemia: Essays on Art, Culture and Society in the 17th and 18th Centuries, Praha 2001, pp. 33–38, 42–44. 39 Vincenc Kramář, Z mladých let Karla Škréty. Jakubův příchod k Labanovi, Praha 1938 (Příspěvky k dějinám výtvarného umění 1), p. 10, note 18. On the nationalist tendencies in the 20th-century Czech art history, comp. Milena Bartlová, Naše, národní umění. Studie z dějepisu umění, Brno 2009. Kramář, however, opined in another place that “our” Baroque school is not more significant that “our” art from the period of high Gothic; as to this, comp. the following text: “It cannot pass unnoticed that the one-sided inclination towards Catholic Italy has resulted in a certain measure of conservatism but that, on the other hand, the quality of Bohemian art raised with the appearance of Škréta, and that this gave birth to the diversified nature of our Baroque art. It would, alas, be indiscriminate to ignore that all this art, so magnificent on the outside, cannot equal our art of the 14th and early 15th centuries as far as its significance and historical impact are concerned. This nevertheless in no way devalues the important fact that it was the very Škréta who reconnected Bohemia to the world progressive tendencies and thus at the same time also established our new artistic tradition” (Vincenc Kramář, in: Stručný průvodce Státní sbírkou starého umění, Praha 1938, unpaginated introduction). 40 Antonín Matějček, Galerie v Rudolfině, Praha 1913, pp. 127–128. 41 Comp. idem, Dějepis umění. Díl pátý. Umění Nového věku III., Praha 1932, pp. 315–316.
42 Idem, Malířství, in: Zdeněk Wirth (ed. by), Dějepis výtvarných umění v Československu, Praha 1935 (Československá vlastivěda 8), Praha 1935, p. 150. 43 Antonín Matějček – Zdeněk Wirth, Český barok výtvarný, in: Co daly naše země Evropě a lidstvu. Od slovanských věrozvěstů k národnímu obrození, Praha 1939, pp. 200–206, here p. 200. 44 Ibid., p. 203. 45 Comp. J. Rak – V. Vlnas (edd.), Druhý život baroka v Čechách (see note 38), pp. 13–60, here pp. 42–46. 46 Comp. Pavel Preiss, Antonín Matějček a barokní umění, in: Antonín Matějček (1889–1950). Anthology of papers from the conference held on 31 January on the occasion of the 100th birth anniversary of Professor Antonín Matějček and jointly organized by the Department of Art History of the Philosophical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague, the Institute of Art Theory and History of the Academy of Arts of the Czech Republic, Praha 1994, pp. 47–53, here p. 51.
13. ↑ Jaromír Neumann and Jiří Mašín at the opening of Karel Škréta’s exhibition in the Prague Castle Riding School in 1974, Archives of the National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague) 14. ↗ View into installation of Karel Škréta’s exhibition in the Prague Castle Riding School in 1974, Archives of the National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
But then, due to a happy turn of fate, there came a local and Bohemian painter who possessed more external possibilities, talents and will to become a more magnificent artist than his contemporaries. Karel Škréta […].”⁴² Similar words can be found in the essay which Matějček co-wrote with Zdeněk Wirth for the almanac What Our Lands Have Brought to Europe and Humanity [Co daly naše země Evropě a lidstvu; 1939]. Although the two scholars linked Baroque with the post-White Mountain Counter-Reformation and the Habsburg absolutism, they did so with concern to its aesthetic qualities and cultural assets, and they moreover succeeded in avoiding any negative connotations.⁴³ Matějček’s passage devoted to our artist even critically, albeit in a simplified way, reflects on the earlier local tradition of art history: “Škréta, the painter highly valued by his own period and also of world renown, had long been overlooked. This was especially due to the first historians in the field of Czech art who grew up in the atmosphere of neo-Classicism of the 18th and 19th centuries. But today we know for certain that Škréta’s appraisal voiced by his comrade from Rome, Sandrart, in his Teusche Akademie (of 1675) still stands in every word and that it is necessary to view Škréta as a painter who far exceeded the standard of Central-European art. Škréta painted both religious and secular subjects; and doing so, he employed all the means which had been mastered by contemporary Italian art – and he indeed learned its lessons as a creative artist and not as a mere compiler.”⁴⁴ The favourable judgment on the Baroque master and the overall tone of the article can be explained by the nationally-defensive tendency of the almanac as well as the contemporary context: the work was published at the beginning of the German occupation whose cultural atmosphere moreover still echoed the 1938 groundbreaking monumental exhibition “Prague Baroque” [Pražské baroko].⁴⁵ We can only conclude that unlike Vincenc Kramář, Antonín Matějček actually never developed any deeper relationship to Karel Škréta and his work.⁴⁶ *** The wide range of views on early Baroque painting and the role of Karel Škréta during the inter-war period were certainly due to the still superficial knowledge of the survived fund of paintings and also the lingering prejudice towards the cultural, religious and political conditions in 17th-century Bohemia. The opinions sorted out only in the latter half of the 20th century. The leading interpreter of Bohemian Baroque at that time became Matějček’s student, Jaromír Neumann, who excelled in supporting his suggestive views on the subject with his sound knowledge of visual material. He did so for the first time in the synthesis entitled Baroque Realism: 17th-Century Painting in Bohemia [Barokní realismus: Malířství XVII. století v Čechách; 1951]. This interpretation was, however, STUDIES 43
15., 16., 17. Views into installation of Karel Škréta’s exhibition, held in the Prague Castle Riding School and in the Wallenstein Riding School in 2010 (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
rather adversely affected by the ideology of dogmatic Stalinism. Neumann, employing Sandrart’s ground plan of the devastated country but also Marxist phraseology, drew the picture of Karel Škréta as a “progressive” artist whose “realism” expressed the objective laws of the class struggle: “His art is one of deep inner conflicts, symptomatic […] of the early stages of solidifying feudalism, the period of the nascent Baroque art. Škréta did not only become a tool of the new gentry, however – he served it and was extolled by it. His greatness and significance lie in the fact that a considerable part of his work also reflected both the position and the interests of contemporary progressive social elements which were suppressed in the process of strengthening feudalism and also opposed the CounterReformation efforts of the Church.”⁴⁷ Jaromír Neumann provided his synthesizing view of 17th- and 18th-century art in the monumental work Bohemian Baroque [Český barok; 1968, 2nd edition 1974] which was simultaneously published in a German translation (1970). Neumann, too, perceives Baroque as a forcible import which allegedly helped establish foreign culture in Bohemia and departed from the ideals and principles linked with the Counter-Reformation efforts of the Church. The subsequent reversal of Baroque, however, was much more important in Neumann’s opinion: “The deep and brutally forged reshaping of economic, social and religious life gradually returned most of the population to the pale of the Church. But Baroque culture and art, which participated in realizing this upturn in the minds of the ‘rebels’, received a different meaning and different roles in the new environment than they initially had.”⁴⁸ The author thus arrives at the crucial point of his considerations, i.e. asking about the distinctive character of Bohemian Baroque. He discovers it in its ability to fuse earlier traditions and new inspirations and to transform them into a specific, national style. He opines that this style reflects the “great struggle for moral purity” whose roots he tries to find as early as in the Hussite movement. Neumann’s Bohemian Baroque – in contrast to the representative and ostentatious Baroque in Vienna or the decorative, playful and exalted Baroque in Bavaria – is colloquially robust, intrinsically serious, contemplative and truthful in emotion. The moral ethos of Bohemian Baroque then eventually and significantly enriched the art of the National Revival.⁴⁹ Neumann’s original contribution to the discourse on Bohemian Baroque was mainly his theory on the substitutive role of art.⁵⁰ He departed from the idea as to the committed character of art and culture in 19th-century Revivalist society, and turned Baroque art into the bailiwick protecting the Czech nation against political and national suppression. This protection should then serve as a space where the nation’s yet unfulfilled state-forming desires would sublime and come into existence undisturbed: “It can be said from a certain 44 BAROQUE IN BOHEMIA VERSUS BOHEMIAN BAROQUE
47 Jaromír Neumann, Malířství XVII. století. Barokní realismus, Praha 1951, pp. 72–73. But there were others, too, who succumbed to the pressure of the period. Also Jaroslav Pešina, Skupinový portrét v českém renesančním umění, Umění II, 1954, pp. 269–295, here p. 292, identified realism in Renaissance painting in Bohemia with the ideology of the progressive, liberal middle classes who employed it as “a weapon in their class resistance against the increasing pressure of the feudal and Catholic reaction”. 48 Jaromír Neumann, Český barok, Praha 1974 (2nd revisited edition), p. 16. 49 Ibid., p. 17. Jaromír Neumann in this case apparently relied on the opinion of Vincenc Kramář who – albeit far from being equally consistent – tried to give a true picture of the national character of Karel Škréta’s oeuvre, pointing to his pragmatic and realistic approach to religious subjects (see note 39). Comp. Sylva Dobalová, Mýtus o českém barokním umělci: Karel Škréta, in: Tatiana Sedová (ed.), Sociálne vedy a humanistika očami mladých, Bratislava 2006, pp. 268–273. 50 Comp. J. Rak – V. Vlnas (edd.), Druhý život baroka v Čechách (see note 38), pp. 23–24, 50–51.
perspective that the Baroque works of art, which employed the best creative skills of the Czech population, substituted – in a different, albeit often inadequate and insufficient form – that which the land was deprived of and denied after the defeat at the White Mountain.”⁵¹ Or, as Neumann states somewhat later: “As if the Czech lands, by the prompt arrivals and the hasty thrusts forward in the very field of art which is the most autonomous expression of the view of life, wanted to compensate for what the historical circumstances precluded: the serene maturing of ideas, the uninterrupted continuity of work and the free harvesting of their own sowing.”⁵² No matter how tendentious and exalted Neumann sounds here, his standpoint in the criticism of early Baroque painting style in Bohemia was rather pragmatic.⁵³ Like K. V. Herain before him, Neumann, too, noted the significance of Rudolfine painters Spranger, Aachen and Heintz, whose ingenious use of the contrasts of light anticipated the principles of Baroque painting. He moreover emphasized that their work in the form of altarpiece paintings and epitaphs could also be encountered in Prague churches. But the picture gallery of Italian, German and Netherlandish masters at Prague Castle was certainly also a valuable lesson to local painters. The production mainly came from painters arriving from abroad (Hans Georg Hering, Matthias Mayer) – but, into lesser extent, also from artists originating from Bohemia (Anton Stevens) who enriched their Mannerist point of departure by adopting the current stimuli of Baroque painting. Painting of the second quarter of the 17th century is summarized by Neumann as a transitional period which came to an end in the early 1640s with the arrival of Karel Škréta, the painter of a pronounced Baroque opinion. And it was only he, drawing on the best of his Italian training and disposing of extraordinary talents, who became the founder of Bohemian Baroque painting and the modern painting tradition in general.⁵⁴ Jaromír Neumann developed on the aspect of Škréta’s timeless significance – i.e. the significance exceeding his own era – repeatedly. Doing so, he did not avoid either inserting moral and ethical categories into historical events or coining the idea of an invariable national organism passing through the centuries. But both these points of departure were already anachronistic in the second half of the 20th century. As Neumann wrote in the introduction to the significant catalogue accompanying the 1974 Škréta exhibition, “Regardless of all the sweeping changes of artistic opinion, even Czech art in later periods remained deeply connected to his [i.e. Škréta’s] painting legacy. […] It inherited his contemplative and serious approach to reality, stemming from the national dispositions which had been shaped by historical events for centuries; it inherited his insightful matter-of-factness which we can repeatedly encounter in the greatest achievements of Czech art. It followed his robust flowing gesture as well as his subtle lyricism, and it embraced the vivid cogency and the colourful sonority of his brushwork”.⁵⁵ Neumann then tried to bridge the dilemma ensuing from the stereotype of Škréta the convert by the thesis which is in essence intrinsically romanticist: “The deep roots of his family and the inward strength of his personality allowed him to transform the moral seriousness and meditative inwardness, linked with the earlier autochthonous religious tradition, into the new artistic morphology of Baroque Bohemia. He thus enormously contributed to the birth of the phenomenon which we, within the complex ethnic mixture of the contemporary style, call Bohemian Baroque – for he laid the foundations for the future and independent artistic development of a revived nation.”⁵⁶ Sylva Dobalová in her attempt at deconstructing Neumann’s interpretations correctly observed that these theses are too far beyond the scope of Škréta’s painting oeuvre and “are instead rather aimed at revealing the attributes of the Czech nation: they present it as contemplative and serious, but still creative and having a sense of drama, at the same time being austere and unostentatious and compensating for the lack of fantasy by its sincere, only seemingly heavy-handed and coarse inwardness and peasantry”. According to Neumann, it is the very qualities of inwardness and authenticity that – and in a positive sense – distinguishes Czech art from the art of other nations: for the latter, however spectacular, is superficial, focused towards the outside, and histrionic.⁵⁷ We can nonetheless still sense the intrinsic need to “rehabilitate” the Baroque era in Bohemia behind Neumann’s reflections – and to do so through instrumentating fine arts and elevating them to the position of bearers of the national identity. Painting within this construct receives the role which the 19th-century nationalist concepts exclusively attributed to language. The reason why we so extensively quoted from Jaromír Neumann is that his interpretations very aptly translate the ideas which were influencing the discourse on Bohemian Baroque throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Yet another scholar working with the concept that Baroque was intrinsically “foreign art” was the leading expert on Baroque sculpture, 46 BAROQUE IN BOHEMIA VERSUS BOHEMIAN BAROQUE
51 J. Neumann, Český barok (see note 48), p. 11. 52 Ibid., p. 12. Comp. also p. 13: “In a country deprived of all the arms of sovereign political life, the arts […] became the most effective means of social communication, connecting the widest social strata in their viewing of the world and in their ways of thinking and feeling.” Jaromír Neumann even returned to this idea in his later essays, i.e. Aktuálnost českého baroku, Umění XXX, 1982, pp. 385–421, esp. p. 388; and idem, Osobitost českého baroku, Umění LI, 2003, pp. 137–146, esp. p. 138. 53 J. Neumann, Český barok (see note 48), pp. 72–75; also idem (see note 47), pp. 70–92. 54 Idem, Karel Škréta (see note 19), esp. pp. 42–43; respectively, idem, Škrétové. Karel Škréta a jeho syn, Praha 2000, pp. 6–11. 55 J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 19), p. 7. 56 Ibid., p. 43. 57 S. Dobalová, Mýtus o českém barokním umělci (see note 49), p. 272.
58 Oldřich Jakub Blažíček, Umění baroku v Čechách, Praha 1971, p. 7. Comp. idem, Der Barock in Böhmen, in: Kunst des Barock in Böhmen (Ausstellungskatalog), Essen 1977, p. 11: “Der Barock tauchte dabei in Böhmen als eine fremde Kunst im Gefolge der rücksichtslosen Sieger auf, […].” Blažíček clearly followed Stefan’s formulations from the 1930s which he had already referred to in his book Rokoko a konec baroku v Čechách, Praha 1948, pp. 8–9. Stefan is also quoted by Neumann, Český barok (see note 48), p. 11. 59 Josef Polišenský, Umění a společnost pobělohorských Čech, in: Oldřich J. Blažíček et al., Barok v Čechách. Výběr architektury, plastiky, malby a uměleckých řemesel, Praha 1973, esp. pp. 9–10. 60 Zdeněk Kalista, Česká barokní gotika a její žďárské ohnisko, Brno 1970, p. 9. 61 Václav Černý, Generační periodizace českého baroka, in: idem, Až do předsíně nebes. Čtrnáct studií o baroku našem i cizím, Praha 1996, pp. 261–354, here p. 263. 62 Ibid., p. 286. 63 Comp. the survey of bibliography in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 9), pp. 642–660, and, within it, esp. the recent works by Sylva Dobalová, Lubomír Konečný, Ivo Kořán, Michal Šroněk and others.
Oldřich Jakub Blažíček. As he claims in the introduction to the representative monograph The Art of Baroque in Bohemia [Umění baroku v Čechách; 1971], “Baroque art […] arrived in Bohemia in the first half of the 17th century, during the Thirty Years’ War, as art serving the new society of the White Mountain conquerors who mainly engaged in the widely constituted Counter-Reformation efforts. But it succeeded in adjusting to this milieu; it lost its foreign nature and took root”.⁵⁸ Distinct views on the arrival of Baroque in Bohemia were more or less isolated during the above-mentioned period, and if they could be heard at all, it was from the historians. The scholar worth noting in this respect is Josef Polišenský. His opening essay to the catalogue accompanying the National Gallery’s permanent exhibition “Baroque in Bohemia” in Chlumec nad Cidlinou (1973) argues against the idea of linking the arrival of Baroque art in Bohemia to the post-White Mountain re-Catholicisation and the reinforcement of the Habsburg reign and claims that this perception is no longer maintainable.⁵⁹ Zdeněk Kalista then interpreted Baroque as a universal principle which affected all spheres of life and it therefore was, in its ambivalence, equally present in Catholic and Protestant countries.⁶⁰ Václav Černý departs from the same roots, mainly postulated by F. X. Šalda in Czech milieu. His resolute argument against the traditional stereotype reads: “The mistaken idea that Baroque was merely a consequence of the Roman-Catholic seizure of power within the Czech spiritual development vanished spontaneously as soon as it became clear in the overall European context that there is, also, Protestant Baroque.”⁶¹ And it was Černý the literary scientist who, on the margin of his ambitious periodisation of Bohemian Baroque based on individual generations, presented his distinctive portrait of Karel Škréta as an artist capable of fusing the “Bohemian” and “European” spiritual components: “[…] he achieved what hitherto only literature and, to a much lesser extent, music were able to accomplish: to be entirely Baroque in his art, and not just that – he also was Baroque in an utterly unique way and on a European level, and still remained very Czech.”⁶² Černý’s interpretation, however, makes this “Czech character” of Škréta being merely something specific in form and style instead of a moral quality. *** The readers of this text who are waiting to see our patent solution on the given subject will probably be disappointed at this moment. The often very contradictory opinions selected for the purpose of this essay perhaps illustrate enough that it is simply impossible to arrive at any unambiguous interpretation here. Their variety should better help us ponder on the different ways of how the generations of art historians tried to “get a hold” on Karel Škréta. It is anyways clear that we can no longer maintain the idealistic view of Škréta as the one who would develop a national variant of Baroque – or, respectively, as a “national artist” whose oeuvre would proudly loom over the surge of time. For Škréta’s art actually was not any unwanted and foreign element which would, in its essence, defy the provincial atmosphere of the alleged culturally retired Bohemia, a country belatedly professing late Renaissance or, respectively, Mannerist forms. And it was neither a tool serving the ideology of the arriving establishment nor, even, a cunning means of supporting the suppressed social “classes” in their fight against the foreign “nobs”. It was just art which was utterly topical – and, beyond doubt, fashionable. The local milieu was very ready to accept it, and its quality and means of expression perfectly complied with the expectations and needs of the society of that period. This is, now, the real core of the greatness and the artistic success of Karel Škréta. Research in the given field, however, still remains wide open even in spite of the very many recent findings. The best proof of this fact is the essays in the present monograph which rather eloquently point not only at the wide scope of the research on Škréta but also at the high potential of studying early Baroque in Bohemia.⁶³ Translated by Lucie Vidmar
STUDIES 47
Edition of selected texts
Franz Lothar Ehemant, Etwas zur Kunstgeschichte Böhmens in: Josef Dobrovský (ed.), Böhmische Litteratur auf das Jahr 1779, Prag 1779, pp. 205–235. [p. 218] Bisher befande ich mich ausser Stand, mehr Künstler, als den Peter
größten Kupferstecher seiner Zeit; er gab eine Abbildung von Peag, die
Gemund, die Clussenberche, als die Maumeister Beneß und Ferrabosco zu nennen. Je mehr man sich aber
Prager Brücke, den gedachten Wladislaischen Saal, und viele Werke
den Zeiten des Kaiser Rudolphs näher; desto mehrere und geschisk-
nach Heinrich Golzius, Bartholomäus Spranger, Joseph Heinz, Roland Savery, ein großes Bildnis Kaiser Rudol-
tere Künstler wird man da antreffen. Nie wurden mehrere und kostbarere Kunstwerke in Böhmen gesam-
phs II. u. m. a. in Kupfer heuraus, und beschäftige sich manchmal mit dem
melt; nie mehr [p. 219] die Künstler geschätzt und kräftiger aufgemun-
Damals fand man die geschicktesten Maler in Prag, die sich in die Wet-
tert; nie hat ein Kaiser so viele Zeit in den Werkstäten der Künstler zugebracht, und sich in verschiedenen Künsten selbst geübt, als Rudolph II.: wie man sich aus der Reisebschreibung Deutschlands des Daniel Eremita, die einem andern Werkchen angehängt ist, überzeugen kann.⁶⁴ Sonach brach die goldene Zeit der Kunst in Böhmen zur Zeit Rudolphs, dieses böhmischen Salamon, wie man ihn seiner großen Schätze wegen, nannte, an. Dieser Vater der Künste ließ verschiedene Gebäude aufführen, wovon man noch einige in Prag sieht, von noch mehreren aber nur ließt, wie z.B. von den prächtigen Sternwarte für den berühmten Tycho
te bemüheten, einander zu übertreffen. Unter den Hofmalern nenne ich erstlich den Bartholomäus Spranger, der bereits von Maximilian II. nach Böhmen berufen ward, sehr viele historische Stücke malte, seiner Verdienste wegen in Adelstand, und mit einer dreyfach goldene Kette beschenkt wurde;⁶⁹ darauf den Johann von Achen, der sich eine solchen Reichthum erworben hatte, daß es kein Künstler jener Zeit mit ihm aufnehmen konnte⁷⁰; hernach den Joseph Heintz, der nicht nur an diesem [p. 221] Hofe eine große Anzahl historischer Gemälde verfertigte, die durch die Sadeler, Lukas Kilian und Isaak Major in Kupfer gebracht worden;
Brahe.⁶⁵ Er liess mit grösstem Eifer Kunstwerke, und vorzüglich Gemälde sammeln; worunter auch die Stücke des Corregio waren, die derselbe für
sondern auch von seinem Hofe nach Italien geschickt ward, um die schönsten antiken Statuen abzuzeichnen, und die bestem Gemälde zu Rom,
den Herzog Friedrich von Mantua
Venedig, Mantua, und anderswo zu kopiren;⁷¹ endlich Roland Savery, der
gearbeitet hatte, und die dieser dem Kaiser schenkte. Die berühmte Leda und ein Cupido, der an seinem Bogen arbeitet, waren die vornehmsten von besagten Stücken.⁶⁶ Nicht minder erhielt er von Nürnberg die Kreuztragung Christi, und von Venedig den berühmten hl. Bartholomäus, beydes von Dürer [p. 220] gemalt⁶⁷ u, m. dgl. Er legte eine der schönsten Galerieen von Europa an; weswegen er auch den berühmten Egidius Sadeler von Rom anch deinem Hofe berufte, und ihn zum königl. Kupferstecher ernannte. Dieser Kunstphönix (so nannte man ihn) war einer der
Pinsel.⁶⁸
Maximilian II. aus Florenz verschreieben worden;⁷⁵ und Geirg Schwanhart, der zugleich ein trefflicher Steinschneider war.⁷⁶ […][p. 223] Auch ward Allexander Abondio sammt seinem
fiengen an, sich, während eines langen Friedens, ihrem ehemaligen
Sohne dahin beruffen, die allerhand Portraite und Historien nach der
nach Böhmen beruffener Künstler, die menge Liebhaber, die den Fleiß
Natur aus gefärbtem Wachse poussierten. (Sandrart I, 344) […] [p. 225] Indessen kamen die Küns-
jener großmüthig belohnten, die Unterstützungen und Aufmunterungen der Künstler, lockten noch mehrere
te unter der Regierun des Kaiser Mathias in Böhmen zu ihrer Reife. Dieser Monachr beschloss, die Burg ganz neu zu bauenm und Vincentius Scamozzi ward ausersehen, diesen Bau zu leiten, womit auch im Jahre 1614 der Anfang gemacht wurde.
fremde Artisten ins Land, und brachten selbst unter unsern Landesleuten Männern hervor, die sich zum Theil durch ihr eigenes Genie, zum Theil in Italien ausgebildet hatten, und davon einige sich mit großen Meistern messen konnten, und daher auch ihre
Aber die Ausführung dieses Unternehmens unterblieb, indem bald darauf die Emporungen in Böhmen sich angesponnen, der Kaiser gestorben, und die Residenz von hier nach Wien
Werke in die berühmtesten auswärtigen Sammlungen aufgenommen wurden. Noch während der größten Unruhen bildete sich Wenzel Hollar zu
verlegt wurde. Wie traurig ist dem Freunde der Künste zu sehen, daß itzt die kaum anbrechende Morgenröthe, die den schönsten Tag versprach, sich plötzlich wieder in dunkler Nacht verliert! […] [p. 226] Zuerst kam im schwedischen Kriege A. 1631 der Kuhrfürst, Johann
einem vortrefflichen Kupferstecher; Philipp van de Boßche giebt im Jahre 1618 den Abriß der Stadt Prag, und später darauf der kaiserliche Kammermaler, Folpert von Alten Allen, die Abbildung eben dieser Hauptsatdt in Kupfer heraus. Etwas später zeichneten sich folgende
Georg, von Sachsen selbst nach
Maler aus, die historische Stücke,
Prag, und ließ viele Kostbarkeiten der Residentz auf mehr alss funfzig Wagen nach Dresden schleppen; welchem Beyspiele seine Sachsen
Architecturen, Portraite, Thiere, Blumen und Landschaften malten: Karl Screta, der die Manieren vieler großen Meister nachzuahmen wuß-
Glanze etwas zu nähren. Die große Menge bisher noch vorhandenen [p. 228] Kunstsachen, eine große Zahl
treulich folgten. … Sodenn berennte
te, seine Schüler, Bartholom. Klosse,
auf kaiserl. Befehl die schönsten Aussichten in Tyrol, durch zwey Jahre lang, abzeichnen musste;⁷² zuletzt den Georg Hufnagel (Höfnagel) der
der schwedische General, Graf von Königsmark im Jahre 1648 den Hradschin und die Kleinseite von Prag. Nebst andern Kostbarkeiten aus der
und Franz Paling, sodenn Joh. Georg Hering, Anton Stephani, Karl Bings, Wenzel Britz, Eissler, Johann Friedr. Heß, Johann Georg Heintsch, Johann
für Rudolphen vier Bücher von allerley Gattungen Thiere malte, vor deren
königl. Schatzkammer, ward auch das
Ongers, Rudolph Byß, Peter Brandel,
Beste aus der kostbaren Sammlung von Gemälden weggenommen und nach Stockholm geführt. […] [p. 227] [Here, Ehemant quotes the letter written by
Laurentz Reiner, Michael Halwachs, Pompejus Augustinus Aldrovandini, Johann Adalbert Angermayer, Caspar Hirscheli, [p. 229] Johann Hiebel, Ja-
Charles Patin who had the chance of visiting
kob Braun, Johann Jakob Hartmann, Wilhelm Neunhert, Adam Schöpf. […]
Unter den Bildhauern kenne ich aus diesem Zeitraume nur den Jo-
the chambers of Prague Castle alone, only in the company of Miseroni.] Nach dem westphälischen Frieden-
hann du Mont, einen Schüler des Johann da Bologna, der bereits von
sschluße erholte sich sehr bald wieder unser Vaterland, und die Künste
jedes er 1000 Goldkronen bekommen, und mit grosser Bestalltung in kaiserl. Dienste aufgenommen wurde.⁷³ Arcimboldo und Sammtbreughel arbeiteten gleichfalls zu Prag.⁷⁴
48 BAROQUE IN BOHEMIA VERSUS BOHEMIAN BAROQUE
64 Note: Status particularis Regiminis Ferdinandi II., amstelodami p. 305 u.f. 65 Note: Gassendus in Vit Tychonis. 66 Note: Winckelmann über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke, S. 53 der 2ten Aufl.
67 Note: Sandrarts Akademime, Theil II. Buch III. 1te Auflage. 68 Note: Casp. Füsslin Verzeichniss der vornehmsten Kupferst. S. 125.
69 Note: Des camps Vies des Peintres. P. I. p. 184. 70 Note: Sandrart Akademie II. Th. III. B. S. 285. 71 Note: Caso. Fuesslin Geschichte der Künstler in der Schweiz, B. 1 S. 52.
72 Note: Des camps 1. c. p. 293. 73 Note: Sandrart 1. c. p. 300. 74 Note: J. R. Fuesslin allgem. Künstlerlexikon S. 18 und 251, unter dem Artikel Heinz.
75 Note: Sandrart ibid., S. 279. 76 Note: Ibid. 1. c. p. 346.
Gottfried Johann Dlabacž, Allgemeines historisches Künstler-Lexikon für Böhmen und zum Theil auch für Mähren und Schlesien Prag 1815. [file 14] Da also wieder die Künste gut aufgenommen wurden, so vermehrte
Monarchen unterstützt und fortgepflanzt wurden! – Aber auch dieß
in der Welt so lange herumirren, biß sich wieder die Unruhen unter
großen Werke hatte der berühmte Karl Skreta, der zuvor lange Jahre in
sich auch die Zahl der Künstler merklich; deswegen legte Kaiser Rudolf II., dem die Künste ihr goldenes Zeitalter
den böhmischen Künsten ergebene Zeitalter, verschwand mit dem Tode dieses berühmten Kaisers. Rudolf
Kaiser Ferdinand II. legten, und der längst gewünschte Frieden zurück nach Böhmen kehrte. Alles wurde
Italien lebte, den größten Antheil, und suchte durch seine Kunststücke die vorige Neigung und Liebe der
zu danken hatten, eine Künstlerakademie in Prag an, und nahm Sie
starb, und Kaiser Mathias, der [file 15] eine unruhige Regierung in Böhmen
von Feinden verwüstet, und es verschwand alles, was zuvor die höchste
Böhmen zu gewinnen. […] [file 16] Aus diesem Zeitraume [i.e.,
in seinen mächtigen Schutz auf. Dieser große Monarch, der sich lieber mit Wissenschaften und Künsten, als mit
erlebte, und seinen Sitz nach Wien übersetzen mußte, konnte aber keine Hülfe den Künsten leisten, ohne wel-
Vollkommenheit erreichte. Bei allen den harten Schicksalen der Böhmen aber thaten sich doch einige Künst-
from the period after the Thirty Years’ War] sind uns folgende Künstler bekannt; als: Skreta, Bartholom. Klosse, Franz
dem Schwerdte beschäftigte, zog die größten Künstler Europens an sich,
cher doch ihr Daseyn nicht nur nicht bestehen konnte, sondern dieselben
ler hervor. (…Holar, Philipp von der Bosche, Paul Aretin von Ehrenfeld).
Palling, Joh. Georg Hering [Dlabacž mistakenly ranks Hering among the gener-
und wußte ihre Verdienste zu krönen. … Wie glücklich war also unser liebes Vaterland, da in seinem Schooße die Wissenschaften und Künste blüheten, und von einem so mächtigen
gezwungen waren, ein besseres Glück in fremden Ländern zu suchen. Der kleine Überrest, der noch in Böhmen währen der Unruhen blieb, mußte eben das Böhmen verlassen, und
Nach dem dreißigjährigen Kriege, aber kehrten wieder viele Künstler nach Böhmen zurück, und versuchten noch einmal die bildenden Künste emporzubringen. An diesem
ation following Škréta’s], Hess, Heintsch, Ongers, Rudolf Byß, Peter Brandel, Wenzel Lorenz Reiner, Halwachs, […], die sich in der Malerkunst hervorgethan haben.
Karel Vladislav Zap, (Čechy –) Dějiny výtvarných umění (Malířství) [(Bohemia –) History of Fine Arts (Painting)] in: František Ladislav Rieger (ed.), Slovník naučný 2, Praha 1862. [p. 454] Umění milovný císař Rudolf II. povolal do Prahy mnoho slavných umělců cizích, ale jejich útvory, ač domácím umělcům k jich mno-
Heintz, Jan Hoffmann, Jiří Hoefenagel a znamenitý rytec Jiljí Sadeler. […] Politickým a náboženským převratem, třidcetiletou válkou v Čechách
polovici XVII. století šlechta a duchovenstvo mnoho pro malířství podnikali a vedle cizích umělců dost znamenité množství domácích to-
nimi několik takových, kteří též evropské slávy došli, ale ti neutvořili více zvláštní třetí národní školy. Předně zasluhuje čestné zmínky Karel
hostrannosti, jížto potom dosáhli, valně pomohly, mají málo společného s uměním českým. V Praze tehdáž malovali Bartol. Spranger, Roland
způsobeným, přetržen jest podruhé chod přirozeného rozvoje národního umění, a Čechové se odtud nového národního směru v umění více
muto umění síly své věnovalo: předce zmalátnělost a všeobecně kleslý vkus v krasoumě nedaly českému duchu nového vzniku. Měli jsme pouze
Škréta ze Závořic, který vynikal obratností v nápodobení způsobu malování italských mistrů.
Savery, Jan z Cách, Jan Breughel, Jos.
dodělati nemohli. Ačkoliv v druhé
mnoho malířův, ovšem také mezi
Antonín Rybička, Karel Škréta Šotnovský ze Závořic. Nástin rodo- a životopisný [Karel Škréta Šotnovský of Závořice. An Outline of His Genealogy and Biography] Světozor 3, 1869, pp. 42–43, 50–51, 55–56, 63. [p. 43] Vůbec známo jest, kterak vzdě-
obchod, řemesla a hospodářství polní,
výtvarům nejvzácnějších umělců
české náležité, nepřízniví jich sousedé
lanost a blahobyť v zemích koruny české v prodlení XVI. století na takový
vzdělávala se umění výtvarná a všeliká jiná umění krásná; stavitelství,
a řemeslníků jižní a západní Evropy, anobrž že ona tytýž i nad ně vynikala.
však záviděli jim takovýto blahobyt a spůsob šťastný.
stupeň se vyšinuly, že ony tehdáž zaujímaly prvních míst mezi zeměmi
sochařství, malířství […] vyzdvihly se a zdokonalily se tak, že díla v oboru
[…] vůbec veškerý spůsob života společenského i kulturního ve vlasti naší
Bohužel že závist taková spojená s domácí nesnášenlivostí a nesvor-
střední Evropy. Zvelebovalo se tenkráte školství tak, jako nikdy, kvetly
umění těchto v zemích českých času toho zhotovená po bok stavěti smíme
byl takový, že nestranní cizinci s podivením pohlíželi na země ke koruně
ností a jinými nízkými náruživostmi, rozžehla nespokojenosť a bouře
STUDIES 49
nebezpečné, z nichž nedlouho na to vzešla válka krvavá, dlouholetá,
kancionály, řemeslně řezané neb malované archy, náhrobky a obra-
bělohorskou a záhubnými účinky jejími národnosť i zlatý věk vzdělanosti
author of this essay], alébrž toliko za trefná napodobování děl vlašských,
v kteréž bohaté a květoucí kraje naše ohněm, mečem, hladem a morem
zy mužů někdy v životě veřejném a crkevním proslulých a t. p. – tyť
a blahobytu domácího, čímž zanikl o starší český ráz malířský, stavitelský
flamských, francouzských, vzdělaná štětcem, dlátem a nebo kružidlem
zpustošeny, ano celá země česká a moravská na vrub jsou obráceny. Tu kde se jindy rozkládala bohatá města
mařeny, kaženy a bořeny jsou od domácích kazisvětů a zelotů, aby se zničila všeliká památka doby kacířské
a kovolijecký, jakož i pohřbena jest vůbec starší česká škola umělecká. […] Kdo tudíž cítil k sobě náklonnosti
mistrů českých. [p. 51] [Karel Škréta] Bohužel však že zabrav a vštudovav se příliš hlubo-
a k oblakům se pnuly pevné a skvostné hrady, viděti bylo nápotom jenom
a buřičské. Když se pak poněkud utišily bouře
k uměním krásným a výtvarným, nucena se viděl obrátititi se doma
ko do vzorů vlašských akademiků a eklektiků, nemohl se Škréta nápo-
kouřící se rúmy a zříceniny; kde se druhdy zelenaly úrodné role, vinice a zahrady, rozprostíraly se šíré pusti-
politické a náboženské a krajiny české a moravské začaly se zotavovati od vytrpěných neřestí válečných, zbudil
k mistrům již cizím, anebo jíti do zemí zahraničných, Vlach, Nizozemska nebo Francie – kde umění taková
tom zcela sprostiti jich názoru a spůsobu, a vyšinouti se k původnosti, samostatnosti a ráznosti takové, jaké
ny […]. Výtvary umění krásných, jimiž se druhdy stkvěly chrámy a kláštery,
se i tu zas jakýs takýs život veřejný a společenský a vzdělávala se řemesla
času toho byla v rozkvětu. Pročež když v druhé polovici XVII. století jakýs
by se vyhledávalo k obnovení starší aneb k zaražení nové české školy
paláce a hrady panské i domy měšťanské, jsou jednak zničeny surovou soldateskou, jednak zavlečeny rukou
obchody a umění; avšak pozorovati tu bylo ve vším již spůsob jiný a ráz cizí, nesrovnávající se s tím, který u nás
takýs život umělecký v Čechách zase jeviti se začal, neměl již nic společného s staročeským rázem uměleckým
malířské. Všeliké práce Škrétovy jsou totiž bedlivě a trefně provedeny, avšak v žádné z nich nepotkáváme se
loupeživou z vlasti naší do krajin sousedních i zámořských (Rakous, Ba-
panoval ve věcech těch před válkou třidcetiletou. Neboť do krajin pustých
a mistři tehdejší sebe nadanější, vzděláni jsouce vzory cizími, nemajíce
s názorem a spůsobem našeho Koldy, Zbyška, Dětřicha, Poliláře, Radouše
vor, Sas, Švédska, aj.), aby tam ovšem ještě po stoletích vysvědčovaly, jak bohaté a slavné bývaly někdy země
a lidu prázdných povoláni jsou obyvatelé kmene, jazyka i spůsobu cizího, bývalé slávy a vzdělanosti české
národního základu a neznajíce starších tradicí historických, nepovznesli se více k spůsobu samorostlé české
aneb jiných mistrů staré školy české, alebrž téměř každé dílo jeho připomíná nás bezděky na nějaký vzor
česká a moravská a jak bedlivě vzdě-
neznalí ano jí nepřízniví, ti pak, kdož
školy umělecké a třeba nám zůstavili
cizí. Pročež nelze nám také pokládati
lávali obyvatelé jejich umění krásná a všeliké vědomosti užitečné, a zůstaly-li to přese všechno ještě nějaké památky umělecké u nás – skvostné
tu zůstali z předešlého obyvatelstva, byli předešlými nehodami válečnými zbědováni a zmalátněli. Tak zničena jest osudnou bitvou
zdařilé práce malířské, sochařské a stavitelské aj., nemůžeme jich předce pokládati za opravdová a samorostlá umělecká díla česká [highlighted by the
malby a výkresy jeho za díla opravdově česká, nobrž za pouhá – ovšem velmi zdařilá – nápodobování děl vlašských a flámských.
50 BAROQUE IN BOHEMIA VERSUS BOHEMIAN BAROQUE
Karel Škréta in Prague or The Story of Two Beginnings LENKA STOLÁROVÁ – RADKA TIBITANZLOVÁ – VÍT VLNAS
1 Joachim von Sandrart, L’academia todesca della architectura, scultura & pittura oder Teutsche Academie der edlen Bau–, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste. Der teutschen Academie zweyter und letzter Haupt-Theil, Nürnberg 1679, p. 326. 2 Bohuslav Balbín, Diva Montis Sancti: seu Origines & Miracula Magnae Dei Hominumque Matris Mariae, Quae In Sancto Monte Regni Bohemiae, ad Argentifodinas Przibramenses […] in Statua sua mirabili, aditur, & colitur […], Pragae 1665, p. 127, see Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 102. 3 Quoted from: Vincy Schwarz (ed.), Město vidím veliké… Cizinci o Praze (I can see a large city… Foreigners about Prague), Praha 1940, p. 31. 4 See, e. g. Miloš Václav Kratochvíl, Čas hvězd a mandragor. Pražská léta Rudolfa II. (The Time of Stars and Mandrake. The Prague Years of Rudolf II), Praha 1972, pp. 46–51.
“Carolo Screta, Mahler von Prag. Komt nach Venedig, Bolognen, Florenz, Rom und wieder auf Prag.”¹ These were the words used by Joachim von Sandrart to define the circle of Škréta’s lifetime: he came from Prague and eventually returned there again. Bohuslav Balbín wrote about his friend in a more florid way: “Praga unum aliquem misit, antiquibus pictoribus parem, virum apud nos genitum, sed Orbi et Urbi notum”² – Prague gave us a brilliant man, who was equal to old master painters, born in this country, yet known in Rome and in the world. Škréta’s name and the name of the Bohemian metropolis became inseparably linked for later authors, as well. And rightly so, for this great Baroque painter and the city upon the Vltava River had always belonged to each other and Škréta glorified Prague repeatedly in his works. At the time of Škréta’s birth Prague experienced an epilogue of its golden era when for the second time in history it became the residential city of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire for a longer period. The Italian Jesuit Giovanni Botero wrote in 1596: “The capital city [of Bohemia] is Prague, divided into three parts, all of them situated in a large, charming basin; their names are Lesser Prague, Old Prague and New Prague. The Molta [i.e. the Vltava] separates the Lesser Prague from the Old one; but the two are linked by a most beautiful bridge of twenty-four arches. The Lesser Prague contains a noble castle built on a hill, and the Cathedral. Old Prague is adorned with many magnificent and imposing buildings; those include the tower of the astronomical clock, which actually shows the astronomical year, the movement of the Sun and the Moon, the number of months and days, a calendar of festive days, the eclipse of the Sun, the lengths of the day and night, the opposition of the Moon, the new moons, and the quadrature. This part of the city also includes the Jewish ghetto, which is a town in its own right. The New Town is divided from the Old Town by a moat, which used to be deep, but by now it has been levelled with the surrounding terrain, and there are orchards on it. All these parts of the city together are estimated to have no less a perimeter than that of the city of Rome.”³ By rough estimates, Late Rudolfine Prague, the city of Škréta’s early childhood, had something between fifty and sixty thousand inhabitants and slightly more than 3,300 houses. Its comparison to papal Rome, the rising metropolis of the European Baroque, must mainly have been a rhetorical figure, but not quite unfounded. In the mid–16th century Prague experienced a fast increase in demography and construction, thanks to which it achieved, at least within the frame of Central Europe, a position of a real metropolis. At that time Vienna, which was permanently threatened by Turkish raids, disposed of roughly half the number of houses, compared to Prague.⁴ In its size, the Bohemian capital city surpassed the traditional regional centres in the neighbouring German states, such as Leipzig, Nuremberg or Augsburg. Both in its extension and significance, it was neither equalled by the administrative centre of Silesia, Wroclaw, otherwise the only STUDIES 53
other city within the countries of the Crown of Bohemia, which could aspire the title of “metropolis”. Prague had actually achieved its position of the regional metropolis gradually during the second half of the 16th century.⁵ The beginning of this dynamic development had paradoxically been marked by the defeat of the resistance of the Czech Estates in 1547, whose consequence was the end of a monopoly position of the Prague communities as centres of the political power of the burgher Estate.⁶ The retributional steps of the monarch towards the royal cities resulted in the end of the privileges that Prague had enjoyed since the Hussite wars, but they did not disrupt its position as a natural administrative and spiritual centre of the Kingdom of Bohemia, or, in some cases, even the political centre of all the Crown of Bohemia. The restrictive measures introduced by Ferdinand I opened up Prague for the aristocracy and the Court. In the mid–16th century, Prague’s estimated population numbered 25, 000 at the most – a lower number than at the time of Charles IV. In the following decades however, the number increased rapidly.⁷ Even though the fortification walls and moats between the Old and New Towns of Prague in reality played a symbolical role only, as suggested by Botero, all the three Prague Towns – the Old, the Lesser and the New – tenaciously adhered to their autonomies and to the privileges, which had been bestowed on them by mediaeval rulers. Their surviving strong attitude to their ancient rights and freedoms showed, for example, in the jealous attacks of the three Prague town councils on Hradčany, which in 1598 was formally promoted from the Chamber status to the Royal Town. This act was mainly provoked by the natural fact that the Hradčany promontory, situated close to the royal residence, was inhabited by many prominent courtiers and court officials. In his narrative dated 1603, Pierre Bergeron used a charming formulation, telling us that “there was also another suburb called Outer Hradčany, sometimes considered another town”.⁸ In his relation of Bohemia (1609), the German topographer Matthias Quaden von Kinckelbach summarised his impression in a sentence, saying that Prague Castle “is a royal castle, which in its size and buildings rather resembles a town, than a castle”.⁹ Apart from the west outskirts of the Castle, newcomers mostly bought properties in the Lesser Town.¹⁰ The Lesser Town, same as Hradčany, was devastated by a horrible fire of the left bank of Prague in 1541. The disaster made some building sites available and thus facilitated a new and more generous town-planning solution. The Lesser Town became a town of the aristocracy and the centre of the Italian community in Prague. The Lesser Town Italians included, apart from merchants and financiers, particularly construction specialists – stuccoers, stonecutters and masons, whose share in the construction of Renaissance Prague has remained 54 KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN PRAGUE
5 Cf. Václav Ledvinka – Jiří Pešek, Praha (Prague), Praha 2000, pp. 296–323 in particular. 6 Jiří Pešek, Dějiny Prahy v letech 1550–1650 (A History of Prague in the Years 1550–1650), in: Eliška Fučíková – James M. Bradburne et al. (edd.), Rudolf II. a Praha. Císařský dvůr a rezidenční město jako kulturní a duchovní centrum střední Evropy (exh. cat.), Praha – London – Milan 1997, pp. 252–269, here, pp. 252–253. 7 Ibid, pp. 254–255. 8 Quoted from: Tři francouzští kavalíři v rudolfínské Praze (Three French Cavaliers in Rudolfine Prague), Eliška Fučíková (ed.), Praha 1989, p. 78. 9 Quoted from: V. Schwarz (ed.), Město vidím veliké (see note 3), p. 38. 10 Pavel Vlček, Proměny města v době renesance a za vlády Rudolfa II. (Changes of the City in the Renaissance and during the Reign of Rudolf II) , in: Pavel Vlček (ed.), Umělecké památky Prahy, Malá Strana, Praha 1999, pp. 34–42.
1. Johannes Wechter after Philipp van der Bossche, View of Prague (the so-called Sadeler’s prospect), 1606, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
11 Summary of the main bibliography on the Italian colony in Prague presented by Václav Ledvinka – Jiří Pešek, Měšťanstvo, městský život veřejný a soukromý (Burghers, Public and Private Life in the City), in: E. Fučíková – J. M. Bradburne et al. (edd.), Rudolf II. a Praha (see note 6), pp. 287–301, here, p. 300, note 9. 12 Cf. Dobroslav Líbal, Renesance a manýrismus (Renaissance and Mannerism), in: Pavel Vlček (ed.), Umělecké památky Prahy, Staré Město, Josefov, Praha 1996, pp. 27–30. 13 Ibid, pp. 431–434. 14 Ibid, pp. 321–323.
apparent until today.¹¹ The influx of new inhabitants resulted in dynamic building development. New houses and streets rapidly rose from the Vltava valley up to the foot of Petřín Hill, where the development quickly replaced the former gardens and vineyards in the vicinity of an ancient church of St John the Baptist. It was this church, now lost, which besides the Augustinian St Thomas’s Church became a fashionable burial ground of Rudolfine courtiers, including many famous artists. A different picture could be seen on the right bank of the Vltava River. The Old Town, a bastion of burgher wealth and prosperity, kept its original mediaeval aspects both in its town planning, and in its architectural details.¹² Whereas the vedutists of that time represented a lot of free spaces both in the Lesser Town and in the New Town – gaps in the rows of houses, empty building sites, but also gardens and vineyards – the Old Town, which was tightly enclosed by a ring of fortification walls, practically did not offer possibilities of further growth. Even though the consequences of the aborted Estates’ rebellion affected particularly hard the Old Town patricians in the sphere of politics (de iure this was the most important royal town in the country!), they did not damage the roots of their economic prosperity for good, and perhaps wre not meant to, in fact. At first, the new art and life style, the Renaissance, entered the Gothic organism of the Old Town rather timidly. As early as 1560, however, prominent patricians could afford to employ even members of the court Castle workshop of Ferdinand I to have their houses reconstructed, as can be seen, for example in the Granovsky House within the Tyne courtyard.¹³ Prague burghers were able to adopt, albeit in spatially reduced form, even the most prestigious elements of the contemporaneous palatial architecture of the Italian origin. Even after the move of the imperial court to Prague, the construction development of the Old Town, native community of Karel Škréta and his family, kept some specific features, in comparison with the left-bank towns. Newly built Renaissnce buildings remained rather rare and the new style mainly found its use in the reconstructions of Gothic houses. The foremost investors included a surprisingly low number of aristocrats, being mainly recruited from the town patricians. Those often included entrepreneurs recently moved there, who were almost programmatically uninterested in a possible share in the town self-government and rather concentrated on accumulating property. In the early 17th century, the Old Town (in much the same way as the Lesser Town, a little earlier) saw the erection of real merchant palaces, whose architecture was already influenced by Mannerism. The most important evidence of such a town residence is Teyfl’s House dated about 1610 and occupying the extensive site between Michalská and Melantrichova streets.¹⁴ STUDIES 55
Compared with the luxuriousness of the Old Town, the Renaissance New Town could appear as its poor relation.¹⁵ The wealth of the local patricians really did no match the dimensions of their Old Town or Lesser Town counterparts and in consequence of the distance from the Castle, the area was not inundated by foreigners who had decided to anchor their careers at the imperial court. However, contemporaneous vedute reveal that at least the fronts of their frequently two-storey houses were quickly adapted in accordance with the principles of Renaissance morphology. Those elements included arcaded courtyards, which, strangely enough, cannot be evidenced in the Lesser Town. Only fragments have survived from this Renaissance beauty of the New Town, focused in the areas around today’s Wenceslas Square and Žitná Street.Yet the so-called “Golden Cross” around Můstek, the area in which the main commercial zones of the Old and New Towns historically met – and directly crossed in the Rudolfine period – still forms a social and commercial centre of Prague.¹⁶ Even the contemporaneous observers noticed that Rudolfine Prague, apart from a number of advantages and lures, did not lack all the shadows characteristic of early modern age metropolises. Life was expensive, even for foreigners, who had otherwise been accustomed to Bohemian cheapness; high prices of the basics were in fact the object of the complaints by the Emperor’s mathematician Kepler. The relatively cosmopolitan agglomeration involved a rather complexly branching (and possibly even ingeniously organised) criminality, which the native population, rightly or not, often linked to the clans of the hot-bloodied Italians. The “unofficial” vedute by Stevens or Savery reveal the Prague microworld in a rather unflattering light. In a close vicinity to Renaissance palaces, delapidated hovels and ‚slums’ of the poor people were situated. All around Pohořelec, just a few steps beyond the walls of 56 KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN PRAGUE
15 Dobroslav Líbal, Nové Město a Vyšehrad v renesanci a manýrismu (The New Town and Vyšehrad in the Renaissance and Mannerism), in: Růžena Baťková (ed.), Umělecké památky Prahy, Nové Město, Vyšehrad, Vinohrady (Praha 1), Praha 1998, pp. 26–29. 16 J. Pešek, Dějiny Prahy (see note 6), p. 256.
2. Johannes Wechter after Philipp van der Bossche, View of Prague (the so-called Sadeler’s prospect), detail: the Old Town of Prague, 1606, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
17 M. V. Kratochvíl, Čas hvězd (see note 4), pp. 51–60. 18 Quoted from: V. Schwarz (ed.), Město vidím veliké (see note 3), p. 39. 19 M. V. Kratochvíl, Čas hvězd (see note 4), p. 56. 20 Summarily, Jiří Pešek, Měšťanská vzdělanost a kultura v předbělohorských Čechách 1547–1620 (Všední dny kulturního života) (Burgher Education and Culture in Bohemia of the pre-White Mountain Battle Times, 1547–1620 [Ordinary Days of Cultural Life]), Praha 1993, containing an extensive bibliography on the subject. 21 Its activity at the time, see Michal Svatoš (ed.), Dějiny Univerzity Karlovy, I, 1347/48–1622 (A History of Charles University, I, 1347/48–1622), Praha 1995, pp. 219–245. 22 Ivana Čornejová, Jezuitská akademie do roku 1622 (Jesuit Academy before 1622), in: ibid, pp. 247–268. 23 Cf. Anna Skýbová, Obnovení pražského arcibiskupství v letech 1561–1562 a jeho vztah k pražské universitě (The Renewal of the Prague Archbishopric between 1561 and 1562, and Its Relation to Prague University), Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis VII/1, 1966, pp. 2–11. 24 Jiří Rak, Vývoj utrakvistické organizace v době předbělohorské (The Development of the Utraquist Church before the Battle of the White Mountain), Sborník archivních prací XXXI/1, 1981, pp. 179–204. 25 Bedřich Peška, O Karlu Škrétovi. Dodatečné zprávy (About Karel Škréta. Additional Reports), Světozor 10, 1876, pp. 121–122, 153, here, pp. 121–122. Ibid, Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674, Praha 1974, p. 14. 26 Gustav Edmund Pazaurek, Carl Screta (1610–1674). Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des XVII. Jahrhunderts, Prag 1889, p. 33. 27 Vít Vlnas, in: Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Doba a dílo (Karel Škréta 1610–1674. His Work and His Time), Praha 2010, p. 581, cat. no. XVI.1. When he was knighted, Jan Škréta had a seal made, which was still in the possession of his son Kundrat. He used it in 1595 to seal the confirmation of receipt of 16,500 Meissen groschen from his mother, Anežka of Vodolín. The image on the seal represents the coat-of-arms of the Šotnovský of Závořice family, complemented with the initials ISZZ [=Jan of Závořice] (our thanks go to our colleague Jan Oulík for his kind help in deciphering the initials). Cf. Archives of the Capital City of Prague, Collection of Paper Documents, former sign. 16707. Related to the preparatory work for the Škréta exhibition in 2010, another seal with the coat-of-arms of the Šotnovský of Závořice was found in a private property in Switzerland. However, that one can be dated to the 19th century at the earliest and is rather reminiscent of the historical family tradition among the authentic or alleged descendants of the Prague Škréta family. 28 G. E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (see note 26), p. 13.
Hradčany, a whole town of brothels and gambling houses had gradually come into being.¹⁷ It came then as no surprise that hygiene was a recurrent problem in the three towns of Prague. In 1610 the physician Hippolytus Guarinonimus claimed that all the city, except the area of Hradčany, built on higher ground, was an unhealthy territory, unsuitable for habitation: “[These towns] are placed rather low and all their streets are plagued with wet dirt, being detestable and foul, so there is no wonder that many deaths over there are caused not by nature, or due to the country itself , which is very well endowed among many others, but due to human sloth and negligence.”¹⁸ It was not quite true, for the self-governing town councils strove to do something about it, but to keep the streets clean was evidently beyond their power. To illustrate the situation, let us quote a report of 1604, concerning the little square outside the former Písek Gate in the Lesser Town, in close vicinity to a luxurious Renaissance palace of a merchant and great usurer Herkules de Nova: “The said square features a large heap of debris and dung, in which vagabonds and mischief-makers and other useless people gather and spend their time; living close by, other people then have to put up with a very unpleasant, unhealthy and unbearable smell, coming therefrom.”¹⁹ ***
The construction development of the Prague towns in Rudolfine times reflects the process of social changes and development of cultural preferences. Prague had remained an authentic centre of the kingdom in the spiritual aspect, as well.²⁰ Important educational activities were concentrated there – apart from the only university in Bohemia,²¹ Prague was also a seat of about 15 Latin parish schools, and a Jesuit academy, which since 1565 was entitled to grant lower academic degrees.²² Naturally, the most important land administrative bodies of both the originally approved Christian Churches, the Catholic and the Utraquist, worked there. The spatial arrangement of their seats seems symbolical. Ferdinand I lent the renewed Roman Catholic Archbishopric the building of the former Gryspek House in Hradčanské Square, in close vicinity to the Castle and the Cathedral, which as the foremost church in the country was also honoured by the more moderate Evangelicals.²³ Tle Untraquist Consistory had its seat in the Carolinum and the main church of the Utraquists was that of Our Lady before Týn in the Old Town Square.²⁴ In the years 1615 to1620 this constellation was complemented by the chapel of the Czech Brethern, built in the place of today’s SS Simon and Jude’s Church U Milosrdných. Supported financially by Protestants from the Empire, luxurious Lutheran churches were erected on the two banks of the Vltava – St Saviour’s in the Old Town and the Holy Trinity Church in the Lesser Town. The topography of Prague churches thus faithfully reflected the religious variety in the Kingdom of Bohemia after Rudolf II issued his Letter of Majesty. By coincidence, the variety of confessions was greatest on the eve of the crushing victory of the re-Catholicising powers. Close to the Tyne church, just several steps away from its north portal, Karel Škréta was born in the corner Black Stag house, some time between 1608 and 1611. He was a member of the third generation of a patrician family settled in Prague, with its renown based on Jan Škréta (d. 1587). The grandfather of our famous painter, formerly a furrier and, later on, a miller and wine merchant, who also sold tapped wine, came to Prague from Moravia, from Olešnice u Kunštátu.²⁵ He was granted the right of citizenship in the Old Town in 1559 and his career in the municipal self-government culminated in his senator post.²⁶ In 1570 Emperor Maximilian II knighted Jan Škréta and his descendants, lending him a family coatof-arms and a predicate Šotnovský of Závořice.²⁷ Jan, who gradually became owner of several houses in the Old and New Towns, had at least eleven children, out of whom five were sons: Jindřich, Kundrat, Pavel, Daniel and Jiří. The eldest Jindřich (d. 1595) inherited his father’s property in the New Town of Prague, where he enjoyed the right of citizenship. By 1594 he was mentioned as a revenue scribe.²⁸ Pavel Škréta (d. after 1632) pursued his career at the mint office in Kutná Hora, where he was gradually a scribe (1604), deputy mintmaster (1608) and mintmaster STUDIES 57
(1610). He held this high post until the Estates rebellion (with a break between 1612 and 1616, when he was temporarily suspended and had to defend himself, as he was indicted of embezzlement). Pavel Škréta proved innocent and in the years 1619 and 1620 held the post of the mintmaster in Prague. He must have been engaged in an important mint reform initiated by the Czech Estates, and in consequence, he was imprisoned and interrogated after the defeat of the rebellion.²⁹ At the trial, in the spring of 1621, Pavel Škréta Šotnovský of Závořice defended himself successfully and apparently returned to Kutná Hora afterwards. In the years 1625 and 1626 he was mentioned there as a councillor. As he, like all his family, adhered to evangelical creed, he decided to go abroad after the declaration of the Renewed Constitution. By May 29, 1628 he handed his Kutná Hora possessions to an authorised representative, who was to ensure their sale. This representative was Pavel’s brother-in-law Oldřich Byšický of Byšice. But soon after that, the possessions of Pavel Škréta were claimed as confiscated property by the Chamber of Bohemia. The last known piece of evidence of the life of the former mintmaster is a brief mention in a letter, written on July 13, 1632 to Kateřina of Žerotín, née Wallenstein, the last wife of Karel the Elder of Žerotín, by the manager of her Wroclaw house: “His Grace Zdeněk of Roupov with Mr Škréta kindly came here today.” ³⁰ The relationship of Pavel Škréta and Žerotín can suggest both the depth of the Moravian roots of the Škréta family, and the firmness of their anchoring in Reformation ambience. Later on, Karel Škréta honoured the memory of “his beloved uncle” with the painting Pietà (1673), which still exists in St James’s Church in Kutná Hora.³¹ Pavel Škréta may well have been indebted for the rise in his career, and also his fall, to the influence of his younger brother Daniel (d. after 1623). This lawyer, a fanatical Utraquist in Pazaurek’s view,³² started his own career as a secretary of the Bohemian Chamber in 1603. In 1615 he became a defensor of the Utraquist Consistory and after the rebellion started, he was elected one of the directors, members of the supreme body of the Estates, numbering thirty people, which administered the 58 KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN PRAGUE
29 On the mint reform, most recently Petr Vorel, Stříbro v evropském peněžním oběhu 16.–17. století (1472–1717) (Silver in the European Money Circulation in the 16th–17th Centuries [1472–1717]), Praha 2009, pp. 259–273, there, references to earlier literature. 30 G. E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (see note 26), pp. 14–15; Tomáš V. Bílek, Dějiny konfiskací v Čechách po r. 1618, I (A History of Confiscations in Bohemia after 1618, I), Praha 1882, p. 594. 31 Michal Šroněk, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 27), p. 434, cat. no. X.5. 32 G. E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (see note 26), p. 15.
3. Václav Hollar, Great View of Prague, 1649 (drawing, 1636), National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
33 Ibid, p. 15; T. V. Bílek, Dějiny konfiskací (see note 30), pp. 593–594; Antonín Rybička, Karel Škréta Šotnovský ze Závořic. Nástin rodoa životopisný (Karel Škréta Šotnovský of Závořice. An Outline of His Family and Life), Světozor 3, 1869, pp. 42–43, 50–51, 55–56, 63, here, p. 43. 34 A. Rybička, Karel Škréta (see note 33), p. 43, G. E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (see note 26), p. 15. Cf. also J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 25), p. 14. 35 G. E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (see note 26), p. 18, note 4, identified him with the town-hall servant Jan Sroubený of Slaný, but he had been reportedly dead by 1608. 36 Cf. Johann Heinrich Zedler (ed.), Grosses vollständiges UniversalLexicon aller Wissenschaften und Künste XXXVI, Leipzig – Halle 1743, cols. 709–712, from there, A. Rybička, Karel Škréta (see note 33), pp. 42–43.
country in the period between the dethronement of the Habsburgs, and the ascension of the throne by Frederick V, Count Palatine. Daniel Škréta shared in all the principal decisions of the directorate, which after the Battle of the White Mountain resulted in a punishment of execution, loss of honour and possessions. However, the scaffold in Prague only bore his name nailed onto it, for the culprit had not waited and quickly left the country. On St Stephen’s 1620 he passed Beuthen in Upper Silesia and later settled in Danzig, where he reportedly became the city scribe. His Prague possessions, including a house in the Small Old Town Square, among others, were confisctaed by the Royal Chamber.³³ The least number of reports have survived concerning the youngest of Jan Škréta’s sons, Jiří (d. probably 1617), who was a physician and died heirless in Prague, possibly still quite young.³⁴ Kundrat or Konrád Škréta (d. in September 1613), father of the painter Karel Škréta, was Jan’s second-born son. He worked as a scribe (1594) and later as an accountant (1605) of the Bohemian Chamber, occasionally also doing administrative jobs directly for Emperor and King Rudolf II. He successfully extended the family property, and when he wrote his testament in 1612, he could bequeathe to his descendants, among others, the Black Stag House in the Old Town, the Stonecutters House in the New Town, a mill, two vineyards situated close to the Prague towns, and moreover possessions outside Prague – a vineyard with a press below Mělník Castle, and a house on the suburbs of the same town. None of those possessions were indebted.³⁵ The Black Stag House (No. 628–I), in which, as fourth of the seven of Kundrat’s children the future painter Karel Škréta was born, has not survived up to the present. Featuring Renaissnace gables and Romanesque foundations, the building was pulled down in 1898, and replaced by a neo-Gothic house. It bears Škréta’s memorial plaque, which shows a birthdate of 1604, which had long been presupposed, but is wrong.³⁶ The original house was bought by Kundrat Škréta on January 12, 1592 for 81,000 Meissen groschen from Ludmila of Morchendorf, Erhard Wolf, and Vavřinec Storka. Soon after that, a young relative of lady Ludmila, Kateřina Herkulesová of STUDIES 59
Morchendorf (d. after 1638) probably became Kundrat’s wife, who was to bear him seven children.³⁷ As we now know for certain, Škréta’s family adhered to the Unity of Brethern. A list compiled for the needs of the ecclesiastical administration in 1607 includes, among the brethern and sisters in the Prague towns, Kundrat and his wife Kateřina, and also their sons Jan and Kundrat the Younger; the two remaining boys – Jindřich and Karel – had not been born by then.³⁸ Another document informs us that the Škrétas rented rooms in the Black Stag House. In 1608 they had three lodgers: the imperial guard named Melichar, the grocer Jiřík Helm, and Kašpar, a coppersmith, which in the same source is said to have been making “children’s things”.³⁹ The consumers of his products included the sons and daughters of the Škréta house. Kundrat’s known testament of 1612 divides the family possessions equally to his widow Kateřina (under the condition that she would not marry until the youngest son was of age), and to the four sons: Jan, Kundrat, Jindřich and Karel. The daughters Anežka, Ester and Kateřina were to be provided each with a sum to pay for her wedding (12,000 Meissen groschen) and for a payment substituting for inheritance, also in the case of marriage (3,000 Meissen groschen), of which, however, the mother and other guardians had to approve. The testator appointed his brothers Pavel and Daniel Škréta, along with the burgher Jan Sroubený, as guardians.⁴⁰ In his last will, Kundrat also asked his wife to bring up the children “to obey God and to study” , so they could make their living easily, later on. This wish, which corresponded to the period ethical principles of the Unity of Brethern, was doubtless fulfilled by Kateřina Škrétová, together with her brothers-in-law. The eldest of her sons, a humanistic man of letters and physician Jan (d. January 7, 1650), left Prague for Basel, where he found refuge with his later father-in-law, Professor of theology Ludwig Lucius. Later on he settled as a respected citizen and municipal physician in Schaffhausen, with his sons also going for medicine. Jan’s son Jindřich (Heinrich) Škréta (1636–1689), known under a humanistic nickname Nicander, who graduated in Heidelberg in 1671, was a renowned polyglot, natural scientist and author of medicinal treatises, about plague cures, among others. In the German-speaking Protestant environment he was a much better known figure than his uncle, the painter – as late as the 18th century.⁴¹ Another sibling of Karel, Kundrat the Younger Škréta, also lived abroad, but according to rather obscure data, he died in his youth. The third son, Jindřich (d. after 1638), who accompanied his mother from Freiberg in Saxony, found a temporary new home with her 60 KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN PRAGUE
37 J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 25), pp. 16–17; See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 16. 38 Petr Přibyl – Lenka Stolárová, K stále rostoucí slávě našeho pilného umělce. Karel Škréta mezi Švýcarskem, říší a Itálií v zrcadle nově objevených pramenů (The Ever-Growing Fame of Our Diligent Artist. Karel Škréta between Switzerland, the Empire and Italy as Reflected in the Newly Discovered Sources), see in this book, pp. 73–79. 39 Jaroslava Mendelová, Obyvatelstvo pražských měst (The Population of the Prague Towns), in: Jaroslava Mendelová – Pavla Státníková (edd.), Život v barokní Praze 1620–1784, Praha 2001, pp. 33–35, here, p. 33. 40 Václav Líva, Studie o Praze pobělohorské III. Změny v domovním majetku a konfiskace (Studies of Prague after the Battle of the White Mountain III. Changes in house property and confiscations), in: Sborník příspěvků k dějinám hlavního města Prahy IX, 1935, p. 369. 41 Cf. Johann Heinrich Zedler (ed.), Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschaften und Künste XXXVI, Leipzig – Halle 1743, cols. 709–712, from there, A. Rybička, Karel Škréta (see note 33), pp. 42–43.
4. ↖ Fabricius’ map of Moravia, detail with the representation of Olešnice u Kunštátu, from where Jan Škréta, the painter Karel Škréta’s grandfather came to Prague, 1575 (reproduced after: http://www.staremapy.cz/ antos/ zoomify/fabricius.html) 5. ↑ Memorial coin of Jan Škréta, minted on the occasion of his knighthood, 1570 (reproduced after: Gustav Edmund Pazaurek, Carl Screta (1610–1674.) Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des XVII. Jahrhundertes, Prag 1889, p. 10) 6. → Prague, probably Dionysius Miseroni’s workshop, Coat of Arms of Šotnovský of Závořice, (c. 1650), National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
7. ↖ Memorial plaque of Karel Škréta on the building erected in the place of the painter’s native house, Archives of the City of Prague (photo: František Rameš, 1986) 8. ← Václav Jansa, The Black Stag House in the Old Town of Prague (No. 628–I) – Karel Škréta’s native house, 1896, Museum of the Capital City of Prague (reproduced after: Pavla Státníková – Ondřej Polák, Starou Prahou Václava Jansy, Praha 2008, p. 28) 9. ↗ Karel Škréta – workshop, Pietà, the painting presented by Karel Škréta to the town of Kutná Hora to commemorate Pavel Škréta, 1673, Kutná Hora, St James’s Church (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán)
62 KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN PRAGUE
42 J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 25), pp. 16–17; See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 16. 43 Petr Přibyl – Lenka Stolárová, K stále rostoucí slávě našeho pilného umělce. Karel Škréta mezi Švýcarskem, říší a Itálií v zrcadle nově objevených pramenů, (The Ever-Growing Fame of Our Diligent Artist. Karel Škréta between Switzerland, the Empire and Italy as Reflected in the Newly Discovered Sources), see this book, (see note 38). 44 Jaroslava Mendelová, Obyvatelstvo pražských měst (see note 39), pp. 33–35, here, p. 33. 45 Václav Líva, Studie o Praze pobělohorské III. Změny v domovním majetku a konfiskace (see note 40), p. 369. 46 Tomáš V. Bílek mentions that confiscations of 401 estates were carried out, out of which 275 estates were extensive, see T. V. Bílek, Dějiny konfiskací (see note 30), p. CL. According to František Kavka, confiscations afflicted 680 persons, with 166 of them losing all property , 45 forfeiting two thirds, 128 losing a half, and 215 one third of their possessions, cf. František Kavka, Bílá hora a české dějiny (The Battle of the White Mountain and Czech History), Praha 1963, p. 240. 47 The years 1624 and 1627 were other milestones, after which a conspicuous increase in confiscations and the exodus of the population from Bohemia occurred. About the period of the confiscation process in Bohemia, most recently Tomáš Knoz, Pobělohorské konfiskace. Moravský průběh, středoevropské souvislosti, obecné aspekty (Confiscations after the Battle of the White Mountain. Their Course in Moravia, Central European Contexts, General Aspects), Brno 2006, p. 389. Tomáš V. Bílek mentions the various stages of the first confiscation wave, see T. V. Bílek, Dějiny konfiskací (see note 30), p. XXV. The term “wave” was also used by Petr Čornej in his work – “the first wave of confiscations” after 1620, the second “after the Saxon invasion in 1631”, and the third one related to the “Wallenstein confiscations” after 1634; Petr Čornej, Vliv pobělohorských konfiskací na skladbu feudální třídy (The Influence of the Confiscations after the Battle of the White Mountain on the Composition of the Feudal Class), in: Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Philosophica et Historica I. Studia historica 14, 1976, pp. 178–189. 48 A scholarly edition published by Hermenegild Jireček, The Renewed Law and Constitution of the Hereditary Kingdom of Bohemia, Codex Iuris Bohemici 5/2, Praha 1888. As for the religious line, the preamble is of principal interest, as is the part entitled
in Leszno, Poland, in the service of the duke. However, Kateřina Škrétová did not live long in the exiles’ colony of the Czech Brethern in Leszno, either, for in 1638 she was recorded in Neumarkt, Upper Silesia, from where she sent her youngest son a mandate to conduct restitution lawsuits in her name.⁴² The social and existential background, which the elder brothers of Karel Škréta were able to provide him with during his apprentice and travelling years, doubtless contributed to the painter’s successful artistic development.⁴³ In the volume of their possessions, the Škréta Šotnovský of Závořice family ranked in the class of more well-to-do burghers of the Old Town of Prague, in which ownership of two or more houses, and other property in the vicinity of the towns, such as mills, vineyards, orchards or fields was taken for granted. Due to the great changes, which came about after 1620 due to the political concussions and the first waves of emigration and property transfers, the old-new class gradually came to the forefront, slowly forming the “new” patriciate. It was also based on possessions, particularly real estate, and its members recruited mainly from the ranks of urban intelligentsia, and officials employed in town councils, in the imperial or land administration.⁴⁴ Out of the former powerful and affluent patrician families, with which the Škrétas had been in contact, their possessions in Prague had been kept, and even extended, for example, by the Globic of Bučín family or the Voříkovský of Kunratice. The families, which profited from the new situation, included, for example, the Laynhoz of Břevnov or the Miserone of Lison.⁴⁵ ***
The tension between the mostly non-Catholic Estates opposition and the Habsburg monarchs in the Kingdom of Bohemia escalated from the early 17th century. After the Battle of the White Mountain on November 8, 1620, in which the demoralised and badly paid “Bohemian” army was defeated by the joint armies of the Empire and the League, most of the leaders of the opposition opted for a seemingly more advantageous capitulation. The rule was resumed by Ferdinand II, for whom the White Mountain victory facilitated a quicker achievement of his political aims. STUDIES 63
On June 21, 1621, the leading representatives of the “abominable rebellion” ended on the Old Town execution scaffold. Other participants in the rebellion, whose behaviour was classified as crimen laesae majestatis, were also afflicted with exemplary punishment, confiscation of property, and in consequence of the implemented re-Catholicising measures, many of them opted for leaving the country. The confiscation of property by the monarch took away from the culprits their material possessions, thus the economic basis, from which, among others, their influence on the political and social events resulted. The emperor was able to make full use of the powerful means that he acquired in the form of the confiscated possessions, to an extent that had been impossible before 1620. The ruler’s position in relation to the Estates and land offices was substantially reinforced; the policy of centralisation and the re-Catholicising efforts gained strength, both on the part of the Emperor, and the Catholic Church. The rebel possessions expropriated by the monarch were often used to pay off his own debts through an advantageous sale of the confiscated property. The severest forms of punishment were applied in the Kingdom of Bohemia, compared to other countries that joined the rebelling Bohemian Estates.⁴⁶ The course of the confiscation process after the Battle of the White Mountain can be divided into several stages .⁴⁷ The first and most extensive, was prepared from 1620, and more or less finished by 1622, even though it can be said that on and off it lasted until the year 1627, which was a kind of milestone. After the Renewed Constitution was declared (May 10, 1627),⁴⁸ the phase was finished of the confiscation of property related to the legal aspects of confiscation as punishment for disloyalty to the Emperor, while the Counter-Reformation aims were largely concealed.⁴⁹ The wording of the Renewed Constitution and the subsequent religious patents also affected the aristocrats and burghers of non-Catholic creed who had not been found guilty of rebelling against the Emperor, but had not so far converted to his 64 KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN PRAGUE
On Religion. The part entitled The Property Confiscated in Fines the Renewed Constitution codifies in retrospect the confiscations after the Battle of the White Mountain as a form of fine for trespassing against the ruler. 49 T. Knoz, Pobělohorské konfiskace (see note 47), p. 259.
10. ↖ List of the members of the Unity of Brethern in the Old Town of Prague, containing the entries of the parents and elder siblings of Karel Škréta, 1607, Mladá Boleslav, Museum of Mladá Boleslav region, archives of Matouš Konečný (photo: Museum of Mladá Boleslav Region) 11. ↑ Pieter II de Jode after Aegidius Sadeler, Aegidius Sadeler’s Self-Portrait, copper engraving, National Gallery in Prague, (before 1661, model before 1628), National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague) 12. → Aegidius Sadeler and workshop, Apotheosis of Emperor Ferdinand II as a Fighter for the Catholic Faith, 1629, copper engraving, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
own faith. From that moment on it was difficult to differentiate whether the exile and loss of property occurred in consequence of a crime against the law, or if it was a forced exile and subsequent sale of possessions for religious reasons, stipulated in the Renewed Constitution and the imperial patents. The events following the defeat of the rebellion of Bohemian Estates affected to a varied extent all the descendants of Jan Škréta the Elder including their families. The two guardians of the late Kundrat Škréta’s children, their uncles Pavel and Daniel, were punished for their participation in the rebellion; the property of the former was confiscated, the latter was sentenced to execution, albeit in his absence. Kateřina Škrétová, née Herkules of Morchendorf, and her children were directly concerned by the imperial patent from 1627, whose aim, among other things, was to finish the “cleansing” of the royal towns of the last Evangelicals, including the widows and orphans left by the non-Catholic citizens.⁵⁰ The mother of Karel Škréta expressly refused to give up her Czech Brethern creed and opted for exile. As she was of the privileged class, she could make use of the ius emigrandi – law of emigration, which enabled her to leave the country without the obligatory confiscation of property.⁵¹ Within a limited time, burghers of the royal towns and aristocrats were allowed to sell their real estate property to a person of Catholic confession. There is no doubt that in practice this law resulted in a number of frauds and speculations. Moreover, in view of the high number of offers the deadline of four months in which to sell their properties was not feasible, so that Protestant exiles had to realise some of the sales when already abroad, by proxy, through authorised representatives, reliable Catholics. Due to these enforced sales, the prices of real estate were going down quickly: whereas in the 1620s the exiles’ share in the market of the Prague towns was about 13 per cent, in the next decade the number increased to almost 80 per cent.⁵² Before she left for Saxony, Kateřina Škrétová was only able to sell the Šerlinkovský mill in the New Town of Prague, a property recorded in the Land Rolls, which in 1607 her husband received for his loyal service from Emperor Rudolf II. She sold 66 KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN PRAGUE
50 On this phase of the re-Catholisation in detail, see Jiří Mikulec, 31. 7. 1627. Rekatolizace šlechty v Čechách. Čí je země, toho je i náboženství (July 31, 1627. Re-Catholisation of the Aristocracy in Bohemia. Whose Is the Country, His Is the Religion), Praha 2005. 51 Cf. Ivana Čornejová – Jiří Kaše – Jiří Mikulec – Vít Vlnas, Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české VIII, 1618–1683 (A Comprehensive History of the Lands of the Crown of Bohemia VIII, 1618–1683), Praha – Litomyšl 2008, pp. 103–104. 52 Olga Fejtová, Měšťanské domy a jejich majitelé (Burgher Houses and Their Owners), in: J. Mendelová – P. Státníková (edd.), Život v barokní Praze (see note 44), pp. 28–33, here, p. 30.
13. ↖ Anonymous, Executions of the Leaders of the Estates Revolt in the Old Town Square in Prague on June 21, 1621, (1621), National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague) 14. ↑ Wenceslaus Hollar after Karel Škréta, Bust of a Youth, 1635 (drawing 1627), National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague) 15. ↗ Frans Luycx, Emperor Ferdinand III, (1648/49), National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
53 T. V. Bílek, Dějiny konfiskací (see note 30), pp. 594–595; G. E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (see note 26), pp. 20–21; V. Líva, Studie o Praze pobělohorské (see note 45), p. 26. 54 G. E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (see note 26), p. 21.
the Black Stag House in 1629, already through an authorised representative, to Ondřej Laynhoz of Břevnov, a member of the Old Town of Prague council, who let his son Severin Laynhoz use it. The price was 150,000 Meissen groschen, out of which the seller only received an advance of 60,000. The remaining sum was later confiscated?? by the Bohemian Chamber, claiming that in contradiction to imperials patents, Kateřina took away from the country underage orphans and did not return them in due time.⁵³ At the turn of the 1620s, out of the large family of Kundrat Škréta, only the daughter Anežka (d. before1638) remained in Prague, as she was married to an Italian merchant, Jan Baptista Reymundo. This daughter, along with two more authorised representatives, Catholic burghers Jakub Kozel of Peclinovec and Josef Dobřenský of Nigropont, represented the family property interests after the mother and her siblings went abroad. We have hardly any information about the two remaining sisters of Karel Škréta, Ester and Kateřina. Ester reportedly went abroad with her mother, but could not stand the hardships of the journey, and died soon.⁵⁴ The newly discovered correspondence between the STUDIES 67
Škréta brothers makes it clear, among other things, that the burden of worries over the family possessions was borne by Jindřich Škréta, who remained close to his mother and probably in fact solved those practical matters for her. It was most possibly Jindřich, who, before the family’s departure, found the two representatives to support the interests of the Škrétas in the sale and administration of the remaining possessions. In his letters addressed to his brothers, or to Jan’s fatherin-law Ludwig Lucius, we can read about his everyday worries that resulted from this grievous situation. His efforts to provide not only for himself and his mother, but to mediate so as to ensure money for both the brothers, can be felt all through his correspondence.⁵⁵ Our information concerning Prague childhood years and youth of Karel Škréta is considerably vague. As early as the 19th century, scholars have compiled knowledge of his education and painting beginnings practically exclusively from anthologies, hypotheses and later evidence. He doubtless received good-quality education, which included language classes. Due to this artist’s Czech Brethern affiliation, we can also presuppose a solid religious education. Whether Škréta was already trained “in the then usual skills, such as fencing, horse riding, music, and so on”, as his biographer Antonín Rybička claimed, is impossible to confirm.⁵⁶ His first artistic training remains a mystery, as well. Jaromír Neumann mentions that a painting was to be seen in Škréta’s grandfather Jan’s house, of an Old Testament theme of Samson, and he presupposes abundant pictorial decoration in the homes of other members of the family. The Škrétas’ friends included several artists, such as Jacob Hoefnagel or Jan Ornys of Lindperk.⁵⁷ It seeems obvious that the Evangelical patricians in the towns of the early 17th century had not taken principally negative attitudes towards artworks, and even members of the strict Unity of Brethern gradually changed their originally rigid aversion to paintings as worldly vanities. On the other hand, the participation of Karel’s uncle Daniel in the Calvinistic iconoclastic foray on the Prague Cathedral does not exactly prove a great inclination of the Škréta family towards visual arts.⁵⁸ In the light of the most recent findings, it seems increasingly probable that Karel Škréta’s teacher in Prague may in fact have been Aegidius Sadeler (1568–1628), the renowned Rudolfine engraver, who became a regular guild master in 1621, and since then reportedly pursued painting only.⁵⁹ Sadeler may have made an acquaintance 68 KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN PRAGUE
55 In greater detail, Lenka Stolárová, Karel Škréta a záalpí (Karel Škréta and the Transalpine Territories), in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 27), pp. 63–65; P. Přibyl – L. Stolárová (see note 38). 56 A. Rybička, Karel Škréta (see note 33), p. 43. 57 J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 25), p. 15. 58 G. E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (see note 26), p. 19. 59 L. Stolárová – P. Přibyl (see note 38); Cf. Sylva Dobalová – Lubomír Konečný, Karel Škréta a umělci pražského rudolfinského dvora (Karel Škréta and the Artists at the Rudolfine Court in Prague), in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 27), pp. 27–29, here, p. 28.
16. ↖ Anonymous engraver after Karel Škréta, View of Prague from the East, (published 1650), Museum of the Capital City of Prague (reproduced after: Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas [edd.], Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Doba a dílo [exh. cat.], Praha 2010, p. 512) 17. ↑↑ Fruit Market in the Old Town of Prague, the Estates Theatre in the background centre; on the left, houses Nos. 587, 573, 574, 575 (Škréta’s), and 576, Archives of the Capital City of Prague I–4409 (photo: Ateliér Alexander, 1928) 18. ↑ Houses Nos. 574 and 575 (right) in the Old Town of Prague at market time, Archives of the Capital City of Prague I–9468 (photo: anonymous, before 1929) 19. ↗ Škréta’s (Hájkovský) Red Heart House (No. 575) in the Old Town of Prague, Archives of the Capital City of Prague II–511 (photo: Jan Kříženecký, 1910)
20. Entrance Portal of Škréta’s (Hájkovský) Red Heart House (No. 575) in the Old Town of Prague, Archives of the Capital City of Prague VI 16/23 (photo: Ateliér Eckert [Jindřich Eckert – daughter], 1909)
of Karel’s father Kundrat at court, for the latter worked as rationum praefectus and supremus annonae magister, i. e. the head chamber accountant of emperors Rudolf II and Matthias. In his own words, Karel Škréta left for abroad in 1627, soon after he had finished regular training with his lehrmajstr (teacher), master of the painters’ guild, unfortunately not mentioned by name anywhere.⁶⁰ In 1640, thus at least two years after his return to Prague, the painter revealed more interesting facts about the circumstances of his trip. Among other things, he said: “[…] I had never been an emigré or exile, but to perfect my art, which I had been trained in and taken a great liking to, according to a good attestation from my lehrmeister, I left the Kingdom of Bohemia for foreign parts in July 1627 […]” ⁶¹ He in fact completely denied any religious or political reasons for his departure from Bohemia: “[…] as in those times I was no orphan thrown out of his country, nor an emigré, but because of my art, earlier than the patents were published, in fact a year earlier than my mother emigrated, I left for abroad […]”,⁶² he explained. He alluded to the Decreta de Emigrantibus orphanis dated 1628, on whose basis a remaining sum for the sale of the Black Stag House had been suspended.⁶³ However, based on this very fact, the value of Škréta’s evidence can be questioned. The painter in fact pronounced these statements during the hearings of an official lawsuit, which he also conducted by proxy on behalf of his mother and other members of the family, for the said house, or rather underpayment for it, 70 KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN PRAGUE
60 The theme of the study trip made by Karel Škréta between 1627 and 1638, most recently, Lenka Stolárová on the basis of the discovery in 2010 of the hitherto unknown sources, from which further research of the author will follow. In more detail, Lenka Stolárová, Karel Škréta a záalpí, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 27), pp. 63–65; L. Stolárová – P. Přibyl (see note 38). 61 Archives of the Capital City of Prague, Collection of Manuscripts, Manuale dictorum 1638–1641, sign. 1169, f. 179v. See also Radka Tibitanzlová, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 27), p. 592, cat. no. XVI. 13; See Edition of historical sources in this book, documents nos. 7 and 22. 62 Archives of the Capital City of Prague, Collection of Manuscripts, Manuale dictorum (see note 61), f. 182r. See also Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 22.
63 See above, note 53. Here we can mention a fact that in 1657 Karel Škréta’s wife Veronika, née Grönbergerová, was investigated by the Lesser Town council, for related to matters of inheritance left by the burgher Týc, without any permit, she took away the orphan Augustin Neumann (one of the heirs, whose guardian she was) and brought him to Škréta’s house in the Old Town, refusing to return him. During the interrogation, Veronika Škrétová “did not want to yield in her obstinacy” and she even had to be put in the town hall prison. Her husband intervened with the council of the Old Town to arrange for her release from the Lesser Town prison. However, even after that Veronika Škrétová did not hand over the orphaned Neumann (see Cyril Merhout, O Malé Straně. Její stavební vývoj a dávný život (The Lesser Town. Its construction development and ancient life), Praha 1956, pp. 101–102). Veronika Škrétová seems to have shared with her husband the proverbial strength of opinion in property causes. 64 T. V. Bílek, Dějiny konfiskací (see note 30), p. CXXXII. 65 Archives of the Capital City of Prague, Collection of Manuscripts, Manuale dictorum (see note 61), f. 173r, see Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 22. 66 Johanna Bronková, Škréta a Řím (Škréta and Rome), see the chapter in this book, pp. 81–99. 67 Archives of the Capital City of Prague, Collection of Manuscripts, Manuale dictorum (see note 61), f. 173r, see Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 22. 68 Radka Tibitanzlová, Karel Škréta – měšťan Starého Města pražského (Karel Škréta – a Citizen of the Old Town of Prague), in: Lenka Stolárová (ed.), Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a v Evropě, Praha 2011, pp. 153–160; Jan Kilián, Škrétovy mělnické vinice (Škréta’s Mělník Vineyards), in: ibid, pp. 161–165. 69 J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 25), pp. 23–24. Problems of conversion more generally, e.g., J. Mikulec, Rekatolizace šlechty (see note 50), pp. 146–154. 70 T. V. Bílek, Dějiny konfiskací (see note 30), p. 595; See Edition of historical sources in this book, documents nos. 24 and 26. 71 R. Tibitanzlová, Karel Škréta – měšťan Starého Města pražského (see note 68); See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 22. 72 Jiří Čarek, Z dějin staroměstských domů (From the History of the Old Town of Prague Houses), Pražský sborník historický 19, Praha 1986, pp. 12–13. 73 Archives of the Capital City of Prague, Collection of Manuscripts, Liber inventariorum 1687–1702, sign. 1179, f. 113v. See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 171. 74 A mid–18th-century engraving presents this house provided with a Baroque façade, two small dormers and a large gable in the middle, dating from around 1700. Approximately in the middle of the 18th century the building acquired a late Baroque front. The house was pulled down in the late 1920s, when it was necessary to free space for the construction of a bank building. However, the plan was aborted. In the 1930s the provisional exhibition pavillion of the Myslbek Association of Artists was situated there, and then the site was left empty for years, until 1994, when the Myslbek Arcade Shopping Centre was built there. Cf. J. Čarek, Z dějin staroměstských domů (see note 72), pp. 12–13; Historie pozemku paláce Myslbek (History of the Myslbek Site), http:// www.myslbek.com/content/history_site.php?lang=cz (last entry 23. 1. 2011). 75 Cf. G. E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (see note 26), pp. 27–28. See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 32. 76 R. Tibitanzlová, Karel Škréta – měšťan Starého Města pražského (see note 68).
against the new owner of the house, Ondřej Laynhoz. Restitution to the owner of the property left in the native country was made possible for those who returned, by an imperial decree of November 19,1633 (among others), along with the subsequent legal regulations.⁶⁴ Laynhoz however claimed that Karel Škréta lived abroad as a non-Catholic all the time, questioning: “How come that he could travel around Italy because of his art at the time as a non-Catholic, if there, particularly in Rome, no non-Catholic was allowed to stay, unless he deceived Inquisition offices.”⁶⁵ This was not quite true and Škréta himself must have known that Catholicism as the only true faith was required much less strictly in Rome than in Prague.⁶⁶ Of greater interest seems Laynhoz’s specific denunciation, according to which the painter converted only after his return to Bohemia: “[…] it is also generally known that Škréta, who came back to Prague a year and a half ago, was a non-Catholic, and as he was to be arrested by the mayor of the Old Town of Prague, became a Catholic at Mělník […]”⁶⁷ The mention of Mělník – the town with which Karel Škréta had numerous and in fact very special relations – deserves particular attention.⁶⁸ We naturally do not know, which of the two parties came closer to reality in their pragmatically formulated claims. The fact remains that despite all scholarly efforts it is not yet known whether Karel Škréta converted to Catholicism as early as the ‚general pardon’ of 1622, or in Rome, later on. Both possibilities were acknowledged by earlier literature, albeit without factual argumentation. Škréta’s religious turn from the Unity of Brethern to Roman Catholicism, not in fact unique under given circumstances, probably should not be seen today as a fatal drama of “conflict of faith and patriotism”, but as a rational step taken on the basis of arguable property strategy and family consensus.⁶⁹ It remains to be added that the lawsuit concerning the Black Stag House finished in 1641 in that the painter acquired 1,200 florins and was granted claim to another 1,166 florins. Škréta then agreed to give up other claims.⁷⁰ After this foreign stay Karel Škréta appeared in Prague provedly at Easter of 1638 at the latest. He probably would not have started the subsequent property lawsuit if he as a Catholic had gone to confession at Easter, which was a new rule, and asked for a receipt. We do not know his domicile of the few first years after his return; apart from Prague, it may well have been Mělník.⁷¹ In the early 1640s, when he succeeded in the lawsuit for the underpayment for the Black Stag House, the painter was already fully engaged in another cause, which concerned the Hájek House (No. 575) in the Fruitmarket, in St Gaul’s parish. The last owner of the house, Škréta’s aunt Johanna (sometime mentioned as Zuzana, Dorota or Anna) Strossburgrová, daughter of a well-known astronomer, mathematician and personal physician of Emperor Rudolf II, Tadeáš Hájek of Hájek, died around 1635. The house was then taken over by the Old Town imperial Mayor as an alleged escheat. Karel Škréta claimed the property in January 1639, and after presenting the necessary documents, he eventually obtained it in 1644. He then lived there until the end of his life, as did his son Karel (d. January 2, 1691).⁷² Both painters had an apartment and a studio in the house, which can be proved by an entry in the inventory compiled after the death of Karel Škréta the Younger: “…in the upper storey, in which a room was used for painting.”⁷³ In the 19th century, the house came to be known as the Red Heart House, according to a newly installed sign.⁷⁴ ***
The year 1644, in which Karel Škréta managed to obtain his Prague house, was a milestone in his social life. In January of the same year, this artist’s name was first mentioned in the quarterly materials of the painters’ guild, at the time shared by the Old Town and the Lesser Town artists.⁷⁵ Škréta soon built a firm position within the guild. Soon after he settled in the Old Town of Prague, he not only came to be acknowledged as a painter, but he was also considered a trustworthy authority, particularly in the higher social strata.⁷⁶ His subsequent life, during which he probably never left Prague for a longer period of time, was already characterised by social and artistic success. Translated by Kateřina Hilská
STUDIES 71
“To the continually increasing fame of our industrious artist” Karel Škréta between Switzerland, the Empire, and Italy, in the Light of Newly Discovered Sources PETR PŘIBYL – LENKA STOLÁROVÁ
1 Antonín Rybička Skutečský, Karel Škreta Šotnovský ze Závořic. Nástin rodo- a životopisný, Světozor III, 1869; Gustav Edmund Pazaurek, Carl Screta (1610–1674). Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des XVII. Jahrhundertes, Prag 1889; Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674, (exh. cat.), Národní galerie v Praze 1974; Jaromír Neumann, Škrétové. Karel Škréta a jeho syn, Praha 2000. 2 Most recently on this subject: Jana Zapletalová, Škréta, Sandrart, Oretti: poznámka ke Škrétovu působení v Itálii, Umění LVII, 2009, pp. 398–402 (Bibliography), and eadem, Škrétové z italských archivů, in: Lenka Stolárová (ed.), Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a Evropě, Praha 2011, pp. 13–20. 3 Joachim von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und MalereyKünste, Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister II, B. III., Nürnberg 1675, pp. 327–328. 4 Mladá Boleslav, Muzeum Mladoboleslavska, Archiv Matouše Konečného, Sign. A 3254 / Praha O–1607, f. 3r. (Our thanks go to Radka Tibitanzlová.) 5 Most recently on this subject: Lenka Stolárová, Karel Škréta and the Art of the Trans-Alpine Region, in: Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674): His Work and His Era (exh. cat.), Praha 2010, pp. 64–65; Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas, Karel Škréta – Artist and Man in a Time of Transition, in: Stolárová – Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674): His Work and His Era (exh. cat.), Praha 2010, pp. 17–23; L. Stolárová, recent findings in archive sources in 2010 are the subject of further research; the correspondence was written mainly in Latin (for help with translating from Latin our thanks go to Marek Dospěl). 6 L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas, Karel Škréta – Artist and Man in a Time of Transition (see note 5), pp. 17–23.
A key period in the shaping of Karel Škréta’s creative approach and growth to maturity as an artist was the time he spent outside the Kingdom of Bohemia (1627–1638), about which we unfortunately have only sketchy information. Even in the monographs on Škréta, which are otherwise carefully put together and based on archive research, this chapter of the artist’s life has been limited to a series of hypotheses.¹ The fragmentary reports about Škréta’s early works, today mostly lost,² and the absence of archive sources, have made this stage of the artist’s life an enigmatic one, to say the least. From the famous Teutsche Academie by his contemporary, Joachim von Sandrart, we learn that Škréta “…was in his childhood led to follow a charming, moral, and virtuous way of life / and in addition was attracted to the noble art of painting / whose intricate rules / he grasped very well / thanks to his innate diligence / already in his early youth he acquired a good reputation because of this: because at that time bloodthirsty Mars drove out of his country the peace-loving muses and arts / and he himself wished to acquire greater knowledge / he left for Italy / and stayed in Venice for several years very commendably in such a way / that he made the best possible use of everything that was worthy of note / and not only assembled a beautiful artistic treasure; but he also passed on these riches to lovers of art in the form of sundry fine pictures and various histories / and adorned them with the cultivation of natural affects / with ingenuity and superb invention / a good manner / and beautiful colouring / for which reason his works were much sought after and richly rewarded / to the continually increasing fame of our industrious artist …”³ Bloodthirsty Mars did not only drive out muses, but also many people whose religious persuasion did not allow them to remain in the Kingdom of Bohemia. Škréta’s family were among those condemned to an unwilling departure from their homeland and the accompanying loss of their property, because they were members of the group of non-Catholic patricians in Prague.⁴ The recently discovered and so far unpublished correspondence⁵ between the Škréta brothers – Jan, Jindřich, and Karel, the youngest – throws new light on a period of the artist’s life that has so far not been researched to any great extent. It also enables us to partially reconstruct the itinerary of Škréta’s travels and sojourns in the lands of the Austrian Empire, Switzerland, and above all Italy. Škréta’s decision to leave Prague was undoubtedly influenced by the growing pressure of re-Catholicisation and the unfavourable way the political situation was evolving for the nonCatholic inhabitants of Bohemia after the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620. But it was evidently not the only reason he took this step. Because of the social status of the family, all the children of the deceased Kundrat (Konrád) Škréta received a very good education.⁶ In the case of Karel’s brothers this culminated in a peregrination, which at the time completed the education, not only of young noblemen, but also of the sons of rich burghers. It would appear to be more than likely that Karel’s departure abroad was planned, something which he himself testified to later in lawsuits that he pursued in an attempt to have the family property returned to him and outstanding debts paid. Among other things, he stated that he went abroad in order to acquire greater art and experience, and did so after he obtained (from an artist about whom he STUDIES 73
1. ← Tiberio Tinelli, Portrait of Karel Škréta, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague) 2. → Karel Škréta, Proving the Purity of the Vestal Virgin Tuccia, 1630/1637, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
gave no further details) a certificate that he had completed his apprenticeship, in July 1627.⁷ This artist may have been Aegidius Sadeler, whom Škréta’s family in Prague knew well. This hypothesis, which has been put forward many times, is strengthened by the new finding that Karel Škréta was in contact with Aegidius’s nephew in Venice during his travels in Italy. And Aegidius Sadeler may have been the best source of recommendations of people to contact during his planned trip to Venice.⁸ The barrier between the “old” Catholics on the one hand and the Protestants (and the Protestants who converted to Catholicism after the Battle of the White Mountain) was not an impenetrable one in Bohemian society after the Battle of the White Mountain.⁹ From Škréta’s contacts it is evident that he was able to make excellent use of the social capital that his family and its social network offered. It should also not be overlooked that dynastic and estate solidarity was often more important than confessional and political affiliation. We can assume that the preparations for Karel’s peregrination were made with the appropriate thoroughness, and that while he was still in Prague the young painter made arrangements to be welcomed not only by his own blood relations, but also by friends and acquaintances who were living abroad. This assumption is supported by a letter from Jindřich Škréta, sent from Prague on 14 April 1627 to their brother Jan in Basel.¹⁰ Plans were already being made for Karel’s journey before the issuing of the “Renewed Constitution” on 10 May 1627 and Ferdinand II’s patent (31 July 1627) 74 KAREL ŠKRÉTA BETWEEN SWITZERLAND, THE EMPIRE, AND ITALY
7 Radka Tibitanzlová, Karel Škréta’s Testimony about His Person after His Return to Bohemia, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674) (see note 5), p. 592, cat. no. XVI.13. 8 Aegidius’s nephew Marco Sadeler is given as the address for the correspondence between the brothers to be sent to, see later in the text and notes 30, 32, 34, 35. 9 Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas, Karel Škréta 2010 aneb příběh uměleckého úspěchu, Art&Antiques 12, 2010, p. 14. 10 “Brother Karel has made excellent progress and is already (although against our mother’s wishes) preparing to go abroad. It is not at all easy to find money for the journey, but I hope that some help will turn up”, Staatsbibliothek Schaffhausen, Sign. Msc Scaph 8. 11 From a letter addressed to Ludwig Lucius: “The situation with us is that we have had to deal with so many disasters that we are scarcely able to breathe. What is more, we are hourly threatened with banishment, together with the loss of nearly all our property. Things are so bad so far as money is concerned that the disease called penury is spreading throughout our province. And in such evil times it is not possible to admire enough or praise sufficiently the favour which all of you show to my brothers. From this the conclusion can be drawn that through divine providence my brothers have found with you their lost homeland and your human goodness predestined to alleviate the difficulties of those afflicted by a fateful decree”, Staatsbibliothek Schaffhausen, Sign. Msc Scaph 8. 12 Jan started his studies in Basel in 1619 and achieved his master’s
13
14 15 16
17
18 19
20
degree on 20 December 1621; for more on this subject: Die Matrikel der Universität Basel, III, 1601/02–1665/66, Hans Georg Wackernagel (ed.), Basel 1962, p. 225. In 1624–1625, Ludwig Lucius held the office of Rector of Basel University; for more on this subject: Die Matrikel der Universität Basel, II, 1532/33–1600/01, Hans Georg Wackernagel (ed.), Basel 1962, p. 383. See note 12. J. Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), p. 16; J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 1), p. 16. Alena Volrábová, Václav Hollar a Evropa mezi životem a zmarem, in: Alena Volrábová (ed.), Václav Hollar (1607–1677) a Evropa mezi životem a zmarem, Praha 2007, p. 8. Alena Volrábová, Bust of a Young Man, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674) (see note 5), p. 346, cat. no. VIII.1 (Bibliography). J. Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), pp. 195–197; J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 1), p. 18, fig. 9. Ingeborg Klekler, Die Handschriften der Württenbergischen Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, III, Stammbücher bis 1625, Wiesbaden 1999, pp. 169–172. Susanna Burghartz, Das ancien Régime, Die Bevolkerungsentwicklung im Zeitalter der Pest, in: Georg Kreis – Beat von Wartburg (edd.), Geschichte einer städtischen Gessellschaft, Basel 2000, p. 120.
expelling the non-Catholic nobility from Bohemia. It is therefore likely that Škréta left Prague in 1627 intentionally and voluntarily on a journey to expand his horizons. Another letter by Jindřich allows us to make the assumption that Karel Škréta made his way to Basel in Switzerland to visit their oldest brother Jan,¹¹ who was continuing his studies of medicine there. After achieving his master’s degree¹² Jan had married the daughter of a leading professor of theology at Basel University, Ludwig Lucius (Luz; 1577–1642),¹³ and as a result of this marriage he had not only improved his social status, but was able to ensure that his younger brother received an appropriate welcome and temporary refuge. It is not without interest that before he could get married he had to prove that he was a member of the privileged social class by submitting a copy of his letter of nobility. In a further letter, addressed to Professor Lucius himself, Jindřich wrote from Prague in March 1628: “From the proceeds of selling off several vineyards I am sending my brother Jan 500 imperials, and Karel 60 imperials. I entreat you to kindly allocate these amounts to them when you receive them from the merchant.”¹⁴ Jan’s father-in-law, who supported both brothers, evidently played a key role in Karel’s sojourn in the Empire and in Switzerland. The respected humanist scholar not only guaranteed his material security but also acceptance in a social milieu. Nevertheless, we still should not discount the possibility suggested by Jaromír Neumann, that the departure of the young Karel Škréta from Prague was connected with the movements of another talented artist, later to become a well-known engraver, Václav Hollar.¹⁵ Hollar left STUDIES 75
3. ← Proving the Purity of the Vestal Virgin Tuccia, Imagines galeriae, II., f. 5a, Prague, National Library of the Czech Republic, detail from the title page (photo: National Library of the Czech Republic) 4. ↙ Bocca della Verità, Imagines galeriae, II., f. 56b, Prague, National Library of the Czech Republic, detail from the title page (photo: National Library of the Czech Republic)
Prague in 1627 and made his way to Stuttgart, where he stayed until 1629.¹⁶ Whether or not the two artists left Prague together, they could have met in Stuttgart in 1628 at the latest. Proof of this is provided by Škréta’s drawing in the Album amicorum by Johann Jacob Sparn (1602–1670), a German humanist and notary, dated in Stuttgart on 8 September 1628; it depicts a Flying Mercury, and is accompanied by a dedication in Latin, Italian, and Czech.¹⁷ It is this dedication and its wording that led Neumann to the conclusion¹⁸ that Karel Škréta found refuge with the young intellectual after he left Prague. But after a comparison with other entries in the album we can almost certainly exclude this supposition. There are a number of other messages there with very similar wordings. It is therefore probable that Škréta accompanied his drawing with a polite formula that was usual for the time. Incidentally, the pages of Sparn’s 76 KAREL ŠKRÉTA BETWEEN SWITZERLAND, THE EMPIRE, AND ITALY
21 For more detail: Régine Bonnefoit, Johann Wilhelm Baur (1607–1642). Ein Wegbereiter der barocken Kunst in Deutschland, Berlin – Tübingen 1997, pp. 38, 39. 22 J. Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), p. 17. 23 Another of Škréta’s contemporaries, Tobias Pock (1610–1683), came from Constance. Perhaps this is the basis for certain similarities in their stylistic approaches, formed not only during the Italian journey, but directly in southern Germany. For more: L. Stolárová, Karel Škréta and the Art of the Trans-Alpine Region (see note 5), p. 65; L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas, Karel Škréta – Artist and Man in a Time of Transition (see note 5), pp. 17–23. 24 Staatsbibliothek Schaffhausen, Sign. Msc Scaph 8. 25 Annamária Gosztola, Schönfelds erste Jahre in Deutschland, in: Urschula Zeller (ed.), Johann Heinrich Schönfeld: Welt der Götter, Heiligen und Heldenmythen (exh. cat.), Köln 2009, pp. 26, 27. 26 According to his first biographer Joachim von Sandrart, Venice was the first place in Italy that the young artist set out for (“begab er sich in Italien und hielte sich in Venedig etliche Jahre”); Arthur R. Peltzer, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau–, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675, München 1925, p. 203. 27 In Venice the plague appeared to abate with the coming of winter in 1630, but broke out again in the spring of 1631 and continued until the autumn; Paolo Preto, Peste e demografia: L’età moderna: le due pesti del 1575–77 e 1630–31, in: Orazio Pugliese (ed.), Venezia e la peste 1348/1797 (exh. cat.), Venezia 1980, pp. 97–98; idem, Le grandi pesti nell’età moderna: 1575–77 e 1630–31, in: Orazio Pugliese (ed.), Venezia e la peste 1348/1797, pp. 123–126, here p. 126; Petr Přibyl, Karel Škréta and Italy, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674) (see note 5), pp. 96–103, here p. 97. 28 The plague epidemic was brought to the Alpine valleys on the Italian side of the mountains that formed the border by soldiers fighting in the Thirty Years‘ War in 1629. Within a short time, especially in 1630–1631, all the major cities in central and northern Italy had to deal with attacks of the plague, among them (already in 1629) Milan and Mantua, and soon afterwards Verona, Brescia, Padua, Venice, Bologna, Modena, Parma, Livorno, and Florence. 29 A. R. Peltzer, Joachim von Sandrart Academie (see note 26), p. 203; P. Přibyl, Karel Škréta and Italy (see note 27), pp. 96–103, here pp. 97–99; Petr Přibyl, Portrait of Karel Škréta, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674) (see note 5), cat. no. III.7, pp. 114–115. 30 “[…] und nach dem ich von Venetien Verreiß han ich zwey Jahr zu Rohm gewohnt. vn in der Zeit aich zu Neapoli geweßen. Und dan ersten dieses Jahrs mich von Rohm begeben und nach Florenz kommen von dannen ich necher Pistoia berufen und mich hierimes aufhalten der herr Schwager aber werdt unbeshwert nach Venetien schreiben und den brief dem S. Marco Sadeler a S. Giovanni Chrisostomo recomandieren der werdt mihr ihm zu schicken”, Staatsbibliothek Schaffhausen, Sign. Msc Scaph 8; Ludwig Lucius (Ludwig Luz), professor of
31
32
33
34
35
36
theology in Basel, father-in-law of Karel’s brother Jan, acted as an intermediary for the correspondence between the brothers; L. Stolárová, Karel Škréta and the Art of the Trans-Alpine Region (see note 5), pp. 64–65. “Pistoia berufen” – It is not clear from the text what the writer meant by this expression and what was the nature of his stay in Pistoia. The idea that he might have been summoned as an artist is an attractive one, but we have no evidence for such an assertion. For the quotation see note 30. Marco Sadeler, a publisher and engraver mentioned in the years 1600–1644/60, worked in Venice and probably in Prague as well. He was most probably the nephew of Aegidius II Sadeler, who worked in Prague (being the son of his elder brother Marco [† 1593]). In his youth he was probably one of Aegidius’s assistants in Prague, and after his death he acquired most of Aegidius’s printing formes, which he later used successfully in Venice for new editions of sought-after prints. Aegidius II Sadeler (1568–1629) left for Italy with his cousin Jan I (ca. 1550–1600) in 1595. While Jan I settled in Venice and ran a printing work there, which was taken over after his death by his son Justus († 1620), Aegidius II went to Prague in 1597 at the invitation of Rudolf II. No doubt he would have been in good contact with his relatives in Venice; For more on Marco Sadeler see Dorothy A. Limouze, Aegidius Sadeler (c. 1570–1629), Drawings, Prints and Art Theory, (Diss.), Princeton 1990, p. 352; eadem, Umění rytiny na císařském dvoře v Praze, Grapheion 2, 1997, pp. 19–25, here p. 22; Isabelle de Ramaix, Les Sadeler: De damasquineur à graveur et marchand d’estampes. Quelques documents inédits, Le livre et l’estampe XXXV, 1989, no. 131, pp. 7–46, here pp. 25, 26; eadem, Aegidius II Sadeler, The Illustrated Bartsch, 72.1, John T. Spike (ed.), New York 1997, pp. VII, VIII; We are grateful to Blanka Kubíková for her valuable ideas and references to the literature. For more on this, see Monica Miato, L’Accademia degli Incogniti di Giovan Francesco Loredan, Venezia (1630–1661), Firenze 1998, pp. 58, 59; Francesca Bottacin, Tra Pittura e Poesia. Tiberio Tinelli e l’Accademia degli Incogniti, Studi veneziani, NS XLI, 2001, pp. 247–258, here p. 250; eadem, Tiberio Tinelli “Pittore e Cavaliere” (1587–1639), Mariano del Friuli 2004, pp. 27–33; Carlo Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie dell’Arte ovvero Le Vite degli illustri pittori veneti e dello Stato, I.–II., in: Venetia 1648, ed. Detlev Freiherrn von Hadeln, I., II., Berlin 1914, 1924, cit. II., pp. 277–288; P. Přibyl, Karel Škréta and Italy (see note 27), pp. 96–103, here pp. 97–99. Gustav Pazaurek already believed that Aegidius Sadeler may have been the artist’s first teacher. Sadeler is repeatedly mentioned as probably having been the young Škréta’s master, for example by Jaromír Neumann and Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, and recently also by Sylva Dobalová and Lubomír Konečný. On his return to Prague, Karel Škréta himself stated that he had obtained a standard certificate of apprenticeship before he left Prague in 1627, but he did not mention the name of his teacher. Theoretically this could have been Sadeler, who had been one of the guild masters since 1621; Gustav E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (1610–1674). Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte (see note 5), pp. 19–20; J. Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), p. 15; Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, The School of Prague. Painting at the Court of Rudolf II, Chicago – London 1988., p. 227; J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 1), p. 14; L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas, Karel Škréta – Artist and Man in a Time of Transition (see note 5), p. 19; Sylva Dobalová – Lubomír Konečný, Karel Škréta and Artists of the Prague Rudolfine Court, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674) (see note 5), pp. 28–29, here p. 28. Even though Aegidius Sadeler’s role in the artistic training of the young Karel Škréta cannot be confirmed, it is very likely that members of Škréta’s family knew Sadeler personally from court circles, in which Karel’s father, Kundrat Škréta († 1613), moved as clerk of the chamber; Vít Vlnas in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674) (see note 5), p. 583, cat. no. XVI.3. J. Neumann believed that Karel Škréta “was evidently indirectly familiar with the Neapolitan school of painting” (J. Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674, see note 1, p. 18), and considered this influence to be one of the most important stylistic inspirations for the artist’s work. Among the many elements to be found in Škréta’s work, this influence is constantly present in the form of the imaginative use of richly contrasting chiaroscuro. Especially in the artist’s late period, a tendency towards tenebrism is evident, and at the same time an inclination towards a realistic, almost naturalistic depiction of figures; the roots of this approach are to be found – in addition to the influence of the Roman Caravaggisti – in the works of Neapolitan artists, not only Jusepe de Ribera, but also, for example, Battistello Caracciolo, the Master of the Annunci-
album reveal that he met with many members of noble families from the lands of the Bohemian crown, where he also stayed from 1629 till 1630, during which time he likewise visited Vienna.¹⁹ A meeting with Škréta, who had left Bohemia less than a year previously, would presumably have been of interest to Sparn in view of his plans to travel there. There were no doubt many reasons why Karel Škréta left Basel and made his way to Stuttgart. One of them may have been a particularly serious attack of the plague, which struck Basel in 1628–1629.²⁰ Around 2500 people died in this epidemic of the black death, representing nearly a quarter of the city’s population. As we shall show later, the year 1628 was not the only one when Škréta chose to escape from the epicentre of an attack of the plague to seemingly safer places outside the city walls. Among other significant factors leading to the decision to set out on this new journey was undoubtedly the movements of hostile armies, for it should not be forgotten that the conflict which we are used to describing as the Thirty Years’ War was far from being over. During the time Škréta stayed in Stuttgart the outstanding graphic artist and miniaturist Johann Wilhelm Baur (1607–1642)²¹ and also Johann Heinrich Schönfeld (1609–1684) were both working there too. Whether they became acquainted there²² or did not make contact until later in Italy cannot be proved definitely. In the works of Schönfeld and Škréta we find not only the same themes but also similar compositions, based on and citing the same starting-points and inspirational models (one example being the group of Our Lady with her child in the paintings The Vision of Anthony of Padua by Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, ca. 1680, in the church of St Anthony of Padua in Milešov, and Charles Borromeo Visiting the Plague Victims by Karel Škréta, 1647, private collection). In a further letter from Jindřich addressed to Ludwig Lucius (this time sent to Constance),²³ dated 5 October 1629, we read: “Most esteemed sir, I pray your honour to kindly pass on to my brother Karel the money that I am sending him. It is a sum of 425 florins that I have only recently managed to acquire from our property.”²⁴ Before leaving for Italy, therefore, Karel Škréta travelled around the towns in what is today Baden-Württemberg, and it is not impossible that he was accompanied by Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, who was later to be his companion in Italy. For after Schönfeld left Stuttgart in 1629 he stayed some time in southern Germany before making for Italy via Basel.²⁵ As we know from the account by Škréta’s first biographer Joachim von Sandrart, on arriving in the promised land for artists the young Prague painter spent the first few years in Venice.²⁶ In view of the spread of the plague epidemic and the fact that Škréta would evidently have attempted to avoid it, as was indicated earlier, we can assume that he arrived in Venice no earlier than the end of 1630, but most probably not until 1631.²⁷ Coming to a town that was in the grip of the plague any earlier than this would have been an unnecessary risk, and in addition the sanitary measures taken, including closing down major roads during the time the epidemic of the black death was spreading, restricted freedom of travel between practically all the most important towns in northern and central Italy.²⁸ Once the scourge of the plague had died away, Venice soon became once again a pulsating city with a wide range of stimuli for the eager Prague artist, and Škréta probably remained there until 1634. This hypothesis, so far supported by references in Sandrart and the existence of a portrait of Škréta by Tiberio Tinelli,²⁹ has been confirmed by the recent discovery of a letter from Karel Škréta. In the letter, written in Pistoia in Tuscany and dated 8 June 1636, Škréta writes to Ludwig Lucius in Basel that “after leaving Venice he lived for two years in Rome”.³⁰ From the rest of the letter it is clear that in 1636 he remained in Rome, from where he travelled to Florence, and, after a short stay in Pistoia, only a few kilometres from Florence, where he had “been summoned”,³¹ he was evidently preparing to return to Venice once more. In the letter, Škréta also gives the address to which post should be sent to him. The person who would receive his correspondence was “Mr. Marco Sadeler in the parish of San Crisostomo”.³² This reference, together with the contact with Tinelli and the circle of the Academy “degli Incogniti”,³³ is a further important detail that helps to reveal to some extent the circumstances of Škréta’s stay in Venice: Marco Sadeler was the nephew of the illustrious engraver Aegidius Sadeler, who was settled in Prague and with whom Karel Škréta most probably acquired his first artistic training.³⁴ The fact that Karel Škréta first made for Venice after crossing the Alps may well be connected with the Sadeler family; it is difficult to imagine that a painter from Prague, on arriving in Venice, would not look up a close relative of the well-known Rudolfine artist (especially if, in Škréta’s case, he probably would have had a direct recommendation from Aegidius Sadeler).³⁵
STUDIES 77
From this letter we also learn a further important piece of information, namely that during his two-year stay in Rome Karel Škréta visited Naples. This excursion to the city which on the artistic level was saturated with the legacy of Caravaggio’s and Ribera’s tenebrist painting, fits in logically with the character of Škréta’s art, and, in hindsight, helps explain it very well.³⁶ The
37 38
influence of the dramatic naturalism to be found with many artists in the city below Vesuvius is particularly obvious in Škréta’s later work (for example his Passion Cycle), where it is strikingly evident, in conjunction with the permanent presence of what the artist had learned from the Bologna school of painting.³⁷ It is interesting that Sandrart does not mention Škréta’s journey to Naples, although this city (just like Venice, Bologna, Florence and Rome, which he does mention) was one of the most important destinations for an artist – and, in the case of someone starting off in the profession, virtually an obligatory one. Since Škréta himself stated that the first time he left Rome in 1636 was when he travelled to the Tuscan metropolis, it is more than likely that he did not set out for Naples until after Sandrart had left Rome in 1635, in other words in the spring of that year at the earliest; this is evidently why Škréta’s visit to Naples is not recorded in Sandrart’s Lives.³⁸ However, some sort of awareness of Škréta’s visit to Naples may have survived in Italian circles. This would partially explain the mention of his activity in Naples, which (as we know from a recent study by Jana Zapletalová)³⁹ Marcello Oresti mistakenly included in the Italian translation of Sandrart’s Lives. Oresti, however, worked from the Latin edition of the Lives, where this mistake was already present.⁴⁰ From Tuscany, as we can assume from what he said in the letter to Ludwig Lucius, Karel
39 40
Škréta most probably made his way once again to Venice, where he spent some time – probably at least until the spring of 1637. This finding enables us to raise at least two important questions: firstly, whether it was not until this occasion that Tiberio Tinelli painted the portrait of Škréta that is in Prague,⁴¹ and secondly, whether two early paintings by Škréta – Proving the Purity of the Vestal Virgin Tuccia and its counterpart Bocca della Verità – were not created as late
41
as this time. From the point of view of its form, it is certainly possible that Tinelli’s Portrait of Karel Skréta originated in 1636 or 1637, and it is comparable with other portraits painted by Tinelli at this time.⁴² The Venetian origin of the two paintings by Škréta before they were acquired by Count Humprecht Jan Černín has been frequently cited, but it has always been surprising how artistically mature they were. The colouring and sureness of their composi-
42
tion indicate a good knowledge of the Roman milieu as well as the Venetian one, and also recall the canon of Vouet’s Roman figural paintings, influences that until now it had been thought Škréta could only have been aware of indirectly.⁴³ Up until now, Škréta’s return from the Apennine peninsula to the transalpine regions had been dated 1635, when a series of portraits of the Saxon Elector Johann Georg and his four sons was engraved by Samuel Weishun. The author of the drawings on which the engravings were based had been assumed to be Karel Škréta, because they were signed with the monogram C. S. pict:. However, at the time the portraits are supposed to have been made, Škréta can
43
be shown to have still been in Tuscany, as is proved by the letter referred to above; it therefore appears unlikely that he could have been the creator of these drawings.⁴⁴ The idea that this not particularly well known artist could have accomplished a journey lasting more than a decade without any form of financial support can today no longer be considered tenable. Throughout the period he received help from his brothers that was more than generous,⁴⁵ in spite of the quite difficult situation in which the family found itself as a result of political events in the Kingdom of Bohemia. His brothers and his mother went to considerable trouble⁴⁶ to provide the young artist the opportunity to travel freely round Italy and to experience at first hand the major artistic centres and the output of artists at work in Italy at that time, and also to be able to present himself on an appropriate social level. After his return to Bohemia Karel Škréta repaid all this with interest. In Prague he developed his own career as an artist, was more than successful in recovering the family property, and, last but not least, he restored to his family its good name. 44
Translated by Peter Stephens
78 KAREL ŠKRÉTA BETWEEN SWITZERLAND, THE EMPIRE, AND ITALY
45 46
ation to the Shepherds, Mattia Preti, Artemisia Gentileschi, and others; On this, see again J. Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), pp. 18, 20, 21, 144; J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 1), p. 34. J. Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), p. 16. It is possible that Karel Škréta’s journey to Naples may have followed the pattern set by his friend Joachim von Sandrart. The latter arrived in Rome in the summer of 1629, but in the autumn of 1631 he set off for Naples (and then continued to Messina and Malta) and returned to the Eternal City in 1632. In the year 1635, when he left Italy, he is no longer listed in the status animae of the parish of Sant’Eustachio, and it is therefore more than likely that at Easter he was no longer in the Eternal City; Anthony Colantuono, Guido Reni’s Abduction of Helen. The Politics and Rhetoric of painting in seventeenth-century Europe, Cambridge University Press 1997, p. 43; Sybille Ebert-Schifferer, Sandrart a Roma 1629–1635: un cosmospolita tedesco nel Paese delle Meraviglie, in: Michel Hochman (ed.), Roma 1630. Il trionfo del penello (exh. cat.), Villa Medici, Académie de France à Rome, Roma 1994, pp. 97–114, here pp. 97, 99, 101; Christian Klemm, entry Sandrart, Joachim von, in: The Dictionary of Art, 1–34, Jane Turner (ed.), New York 1996, 27, pp. 724–726. As Sandrart specifically included Florence in the list of cities that Škréta visited, it may be supposed that when in 1636 Škréta visited the capital of Tuscany, situated on the main road linking northern Italy to Rome, it was the second time he had been there. J. Zapletalová, Škréta, Sandrart, Oretti (see note 2), pp. 398–402 (bibliography); eadem, Škrétové z italských archivů (see note 2). Marcello Oresti (1714–1787), Notizie de’professori del disegno, cioè pittori, scultori, […], Bologna, Pinacoteca comunale dell’Archiginnasio, manuscript, Sign. B 123–B 135/2; Oresti’s Italian translation is made from the Latin edition of Sandrart’s Lives, published in Nürnberg in 1683, which expressly states “in Neapoli” instead of the “In der Neustadt” of the German version. Cited from J. Zapletalová, Škréta, Sandrart, Oretti (see note 2), pp. 398–402, here pp. 399, 402, note 11. In view of our lack of knowledge of the exact chronology of the creation of Tinelli’s picture, this possibility cannot be ruled out; For the most recent examination of the circumstances in which the picture may have been painted, see P. Přibyl, Karel Škréta and Italy (see note 27), pp. 96–103, here pp. 97–99; Petr Přibyl, Portrait of Karel Škréta, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674) (see note 5), 114–115, cat. no. III.7. In terms of form and style, Škréta’s portrait is similar to Tinelli’s portraits of the poets Giulio Strozzi (ca. 1635) and Marcantonio Viario (signed and dated 1637) or of the painter Carlo Ridolfi (ca. 1638), in other words paintings that Tinelli made in the mid-1630s or slightly later under the influence of Bernardo Strozzi, who was established in Venice; On this see also Ladislav Daniel, in: Ladislav Daniel (ed.), Tesori di Praga. La pittura veneta del ’600 e del ’700 dalle collezioni nella Repubblica Ceca (exh. cat.), Electa 1996, p. 148, cat. no. 36; F. Bottacin, Tiberio Tinelli (see note 33), pp. 106–110, 116–117, 122–123. In connection with this possibility, the question once again arises of the technology used in the paintings (the grey oil base for Proving the Purity of the Vestal Virgin Tuccia), which led J. Neumann to date them to the beginning of Škréta’s stay in Italy. However, the most recent findings show that the painter used this method throughout the 1630s; a grey oil base has been confirmed on his Portrait of a Painter of Miniatures (before 1640) and the Nativity of the Virgin Mary (ca. 1640). The hypothesis that the pictures were painted in the years 1636–1637 would explain better the evident familiarity with Roman models which we assume when studying the two paintings; J. Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), pp. 148–151; J. Neumann, Škrétové, (see note 1), pp. 22, 25–26; recently Sylva Dobalová, The Chastity of the Vestal Virgin Tuscia, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674) (see note 5), p. 118, cat. no. III.10; M. Vondráčková, Mythological Wedding (Cupid and Psyche), in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674) (see note 5), p. 54, cat. no. I.11 (citing the restorer’s report by A. Pokorný, manuscript, 2007); recently Sylva Dobalová, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674) (see note 5), p. 124, cat. no. III.13. More in Stolárová, Karel Škréta and the Art of the Trans-Alpine Region (see note 5), p. 65. Staatsbiliothek Schaffhausen, Sign. Msc Scaph 8. Staatsbiliothek Schaffhausen, Sign. Msc Scaph 8; more on this in a study being prepared by L. Stolárová.
Škréta and Rome JOHANA BRONKOVÁ
1 Anno 1634 kam er nach Rom und perfectionirte sich daselbst durch Ämsigkeit und Fleiß dergestalt, daß er sich reich genug schätzte, wieder in sein Vatterland Prag zuruck zu kehren und daselbst die Früchte seines Füllhorns auszuschütten. Joachim von Sandrart, L’academia todesca della architectura, scultura & pittura oder Teutsche Academie der edlen Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste. Der teutschen Academie zweyter und letzter Haupt-Theil, Nürnberg: in Verlegung des Authoris, 1679, III. Buch, XXII. Capitel, p. 327. 2 New archive documents discovered by L. Stolárová after delivering this study to the editors definitely prove Škréta’s sojourn in Rome and central Italy where the Prague painter stayed between 1634 and 1636. Comp. Petr Přibyl – Lenka Stolárová: To the Continually Increasing Fame of our Industrious Artist. Karel Škréta between Switzerland, the Empire, and Italy, in the Light of Newly Discovered Sources, in this volume, pp. 73-79, note 30. 3 Cornelis de Bie, Het gulden Cabinet vande edel vry schilder const, inhoudende den lof vande vermarste schilders, architecte, beldthowers ende plaetsnyders van dese eeuw, T’Antwerpen: Ian Meyssens, 1661, p. 251. 4 See Zprávy o Karlu Škrétovi v evropské literatuře 17. a 18. století (Reports on Karel Škréta in European literature of 17th and 18th Centuries) in the present volume. 5 Jean Baptiste Descamps, La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois, avec des portraits gravés en taille-douce, une indication de leurs principaux ouvrages, et des réflections sur leurs différentes manieres, Paris: C. A. Jombert, 1753–1764, II, p. 367. 6 Arnold Houbraken, De groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen, Amsterdam: vor den Auther, 1718–1721, II, p. 144. 7 The mistake survived as long as to Hoogewerff (Godefrius Joannes Hoogewerff, De Bentvueghels, ’s-Gravenhage 1952, p. 133). Swillens‘ edition of Houbraken is more precise and its index correctly associates the cognomen Slagzwaard with Škréta: Pieter T. A. Swillens (ed.), De grotte Schouburgh der nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessendoor Arnold Houbraken. Volume II, Maastricht 1943–1953, p. 352. 8 Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi, Abecedario pittorico nel quale compendiosamente sono descritte le patrie, i maestri, ed i tempi, ne’quali fiorirono circa quattromila professori di pittura, di scultura, e d’architettura diviso in tre parti, Bologna: Costantino Pisarri, 1704, p. 112.
“Arriving in Rome in 1634, he perfected himself there thanks to his watchfulness and diligence to such an extent that he felt enriched enough to return to Prague, back to his homeland, in order to pour out the fruit of his replenished horn.”¹ We have no more precise date of Karel Škréta’s sojourn to Rome than this one, mentioned by Sandrart in his biography of the Bohemian painter. ² Can we, however, trust the author? Such a doubtful question must be asked by everyone who critically explores reports about Škréta’s life. Sandrart’s Academia todesca was written more than 40 years after he himself and the artist had left the Eternal City. But if Škréta did not spent any time in Rome, how could the Netherlandish notary and rhetorician Cornelis de Bie – as early as in 1661 – devote the following passage to the Prague painter which was undoubtedly related to the Roman milieu: “Carolus Creten stayed with Willem Bouwer in Italy, and he received the cognomen ‘slach-swaart’ in the Bent in Rome.”³ Ironically enough – and irony seems characteristic of our painter –, this very anecdotal reference provided the name “Škréta” a place in biographic literature for the following two centuries, right amongst artists of the Netherlandish Golden Age. Yet another thoroughly literary existence of the Bohemian painter would good look in the history of misinterpretations and guileless inventions, oftentimes “committed” by writers who aspired to the exhaustive as well as encyclopaedic perfection.⁴ The literature published outside Central Europe displays Škréta’s name most often as some variants of De Bie’s Carlo Creten, usually stated as Créeten in the Roman countries during the 18th century, as it was established by Jean-Baptiste Descamps.⁵ The most significant biographer of the 17th-century artists, Arnold Houbraken, does devote Škréta a brief mention, but he altogether omits his name in the index and moreover attributes Škréta’s nickname to Johann Wilhelm Baur,⁶ which is a mistake that survived in professional literature up to the 20th century.⁷ The oddest thing, however, is that the memory of the Bohemian painter entirely vanished in Italy. None of the more significant biographers mentions him and his brief entry among four thousand other ones, collected by Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi in the early 18th century, explicitly refers to the Latin translation of Sandrart, thus testifying to the absence of other than literary passing on of the reports about Škréta’s Italian journey.⁸ One would almost succumb to awaking the rigorous spirit nourished by the scepticism of our age and claim that Škréta perhaps never visited Rome and that all his proclamations about his peregrination through Italy were just an intentional fable in a proprietary dispute. But we would thus even more so have to abandon our rigorous positions, label our painter a liar and begin inventing detective plots in order to explain the existence of that peculiar Roman nickname recorded by the Lier notary, or a similar disinformation campaign which affected Sandrart. And not just that – we would repeat the mistake of the above-mentioned biographers: we would totally overlook Škréta’s oeuvre for the sake of our “love for paper”. We therefore cannot but come to terms with the incompleteness STUDIES 81
of our knowledge and try to reconstruct Škréta’s sojourn in the Eternal City on the basis of the surviving minor reports while keeping in mind the oeuvre of the artist in which, in Sandrart’s words, our “noble art of painting lingering in mud was reinstalled to its former place and brought to its prime”.⁹ What is linked with the year 1634 which so suddenly surfaces in the otherwise rather general Sandrart’s text? Was it a flash of memory in which Sandrart recalled the figure of the Prague painter shortly before his own departure from Rome? That can certainly be assumed, but such memories do not necessarily have to be exact.¹⁰ Although Sandrart still dwelled in the Eternal City that year, it is for instance suspicious that the same date can be found in the biography by Johann Wilhelm Baur. The latter author claims that the Strasbourg miniaturist returned from Naples at that very time, but new research proves that he arrived from the South as early as in 1632 in order to start working on the prints for the monumental chronicle of the Spanish fight against the Netherlandish revolt, entitled De bello belgico, by the Jesuite Famiano Strada.¹¹ Sandrart surprisingly does not know the work and motivates Baur’s return from Naples with an entirely personal reason: “to make him forget about a certain person”.¹² However wrong Sandrart is in this respect, the identical date concerning the two artists can be hypothetically ascribed to a memory of some kind of meeting where they happened to appear next to each other, which would indirectly confirm the report of Cornelis de Bie, i.e. that Škréta moved in Baur’s company in Rome. That should not be too surprising because the painters knew each other already from Stuttgart, they shared the Protestant tradition, were of the same age and spoke the same language, and it cannot even be excluded that they set off to travel across the Alps together.¹³ Baur’s name (one
82 KAREL ŠKRÉTA AND ROME
9 J. Sandrart, Academia todesca (see note 1), II, p. 326. 10 Comp. Christian Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart: Kunst-Werke und Lebens-Lauf, Berlin 1986, p. 345; Sybille Ebert-Schifferer, Sandrart a Roma 1629–1635: un cosmopolita tedesco nel Paese delle Meraviglie, in: Olivier Bonfait (ed.), Roma 1630, Il trionfo del pennello (exh. cat.), Milano 1994, pp. 97–114, esp. p. 101; Esther Meier, Joachim von Sandrarts “LebensLauf. Dichtung und Wahrheit?”, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 31, 2004, pp. 205–239. 11 Comp. Régine Bonnefoit, Johann Wilhelm Baur (1607–1642). Ein Werbereiter der barocken Kunst in Deutschland. Tübingen–Berlin 1997, pp. 15, 51. Here also see other bibliography on Baur. Famiano Strada, De Bello belgico, decas prima, ab axcessu Caroli V Imp. usque ad initia Praefecturae Alexandri Farnesii Parmae ac Placentiae Ducis An MDLXXVIII…, I, Romae 1632. 12 J. Sandrart, Academia todesca (see note 1), II, p. 306. Reports about Baur in Sandrart’s biography diverge from the chronology confirmed by modern historiography. Sandrart states that Baur worked for Duke Orsini prior to his departure to Naples. The inaccuracies are surprising because the two painters probably stayed in Naples simultaneously, as is proved by their capturing of the Vesuvius eruption on 16 November 1631, reportedly executed by both Baur and Škréta in situ. R. Bonnefoit, Johann Wilhelm Baur (see note 11), p. 45, fig. 48. 13 According to Bonnefoit, Baur left for Italy in the company of Škréta and Schönfeld. The author does not prove this by any document, and it is thus probably his pure assumption at which he arrived on the basis of researching the relations among the individual artists. Régine Bonnefoit, Johann Wilhelm Baur, la vie et l’oeuvre, in: Marie Koefoed (ed.), Johann Wilhelm Baur 1607–1642. Maniérisme et baroque en Europe (exh. cat.), Strasbourg 1998, pp. 19–33, p. 21.
1.–3. Giovanni Maggi, Plan of Rome, 1625 – streets between Piazza del Popolo and Piazza di Spagna, mainly occupied by Cisalpine artists (reproduced after: Stefano Borsi, Roma di Urbano VIII, La Pianta di Giovanni Maggi, 1625, Roma 1990)
14 Comp. ibid., pp. 25–26; R. Bonnefoit, Recueil de la Collection Reiber, ibid., p. 74. 15 Prague City Archives (Archiv hlavního města Prahy; hereinafter, AHMP), Collection of Manuscripts, Manuale dictorum 1638–1641, sign. 1169, f. 166v–186r. See also the edition of documents in this volume, document n. 22. 16 It is an etching from the series Capricci di varie bataglie. R. Bonnefoit, Johann Wilhelm Baur (see note 13), p. 24. 17 Archivio storico del vicariato di Roma (hereinafter, ASVR), S. Lorenzo in Lucina, 1634, sign. s. a., n. 134, fol. 28. 18 As it can be assumed from the letter “C” situated next to Baur’s name, Baur converted to Catholicism in Rome or, at least, approached the sacrament before Easter in 1634. I unfortunately failed to more closely attribute the names Christoforo Skicher (Fischer?) and Filippo di Manper (Mamper, Maupem, Mauzer?). They can nevertheless be found in the inventory of Flemish painters in Archivio della Accademia di San Luca (hereinafter, AASL), vol. 69, f. 104, where they are filed as Christoforo Tedesco and Mompert, just next to crossed-out Baur’s name. This proves their affiliation with the group of the Northern artists.
of the very few catching points provided by the earliest biographer) was not utterly unknown in Rome at that time; it was, on the contrary, linked with numerous pre-eminent exponents of Roman nobility – the families of Farnese, Colonna, Orsini and Borghese –, and the rank of his admirers included the future cardinal and the already then successful diplomat, Giulio Mazzarino. Baur leaves Rome as late as in the autumn of 1637 and the itinerary of his way back to the Cisalpine can be very precisely documented thanks to his surviving drawings: he travels through via Flaminia to Narni; then, although Protestant by origin, visits Loreto, and continues along the Adriatic coast to Rimini, Ravenna, Chioggia, Padua, Venice and, passing through Graz, to Vienna.¹⁴ It would be rather enticing to attribute him the Prague painter as his companion, hurrying to Prague to deal with his inheritance matters and to settle in the town of his predecessors. Škréta’s statements given at the court, which situate his return to Prague from his travels to 1638, would allow for this but, considering the lack of other documents, it is a far too fictional excursus.¹⁵ The surviving sources document Baur very well during the crucial 1634. His first work for the Duke of Bracciano, Paolo Giordano II Orsini, is dated to that very year,¹⁶ and his name at the same time plays part in the Status animarum of the parish of San Lorenzo in Lucina.¹⁷ The Guglielmo Paur, pittore reportedly stayed in Via Vittoria, one of the streets connecting Via del Corso and Via del Babuino, in the company of two other men, also artists of Nordic origin.¹⁸ The record thus proves that Škréta was not staying with Baur in the early spring of 1634. This, however, does not really answer the question as to the credibility of De Bie’s and Sandrart’s information, because the Status animarum of the following year did not survive and Baur cannot be documented at that address in 1636 any longer.
STUDIES 83
4. Johann Wilhelm Baur, Self-Portrait of Johann Wilhelm Baur, 1637, Strassbourg, Cabinet des estampes et des Dessins (photo: Musées de Strasbourg)
The so-called Status animarum or the inventory of souls was often kept in utmost detail in 17th-century Rome. Pastors did their regular rounds through their parishes in the period between the St Martin holiday (11 November) and Easter, visiting all houses one by one and recording the dwellers of the individual apartments videlicet, and also accompanying the individual entries by notes of whether the persons recorded approached the sacrament. The statements, however, are not solely limited to these data. They oftentimes include remarks about the practiced trade and the age and status of the inhabitants, and mention who lived in poverty or lead a licentious life. They usually moreover enumerate the staff of aristocratic palaces, inns and other lodging facilities.¹⁹ They undoubtedly represent immensely valuable evidence of demographic patterns of that period, profusely exploited both in past and present, but they are not such a reliable and exhausting source as we would wish.²⁰ This is because the record-keepers were not always consistent, often writing down only first names and recording the names of foreigners in most bizarre distortions. In addition, the papal city during Škréta’s sojourn to Rome totalled 86 parishes, most of which were relatively vast after the late 16th-century reforms and encompassed numerous subsidiary churches.²¹ New archive research provisionally offers only hypotheses that encourage new findings.²² The community of Cisalpine artists mainly occupied the newly established quarters at the heel of Monte Pincio, between Piazza di Spagna and Piazza del Popolo, which came under the parishes S. Lorenzo in Lucina, S. Andrea delle Fratte and S. Maria del Popolo. The hope of documenting Karel Škréta in this area comes with the inventory of Flemish painters, issued in the effort of the St Lucas Academy to map out all those obliged to pay tax of their trade and craft to its treasury.²³ Thoroughness, however, was not the author’s chief asset; he probably put together the list blindfold without even trying to specify or nail down the data, let alone verifying them. Most of the artists are solely listed by their first names, accompanied by the approximate addresses. The bottom right column reads: “Carlo con doy altry todeschy al vicolo de S. Jacobo per il Babuino.” Favourable to our case is the reported company of two German painters because – as is profusely testified by the confessional lists – the members of the individual national communities often lived together. The state of souls in the S. Maria del Popolo parish, under which these streets came, is unfortunately silent about any German painters between 1634 and 1636.²⁴
84 KAREL ŠKRÉTA AND ROME
19 Most parish archives are today deposited in the archives of the Roman vicarage (Archivio storico del Vicariato di Roma; hereinafter, ASVR). Some are in the funds “Camerale” and “Buon Governo” in Archivio di Stato Roma, while the registers related to the St Peter parish in Vatican can be found in Archivio del Capitolo di S. Pietro. 20 The funds of the Status animarum were vastly employed in mapping out the sojourns of Cisalpine artists to Rome. Let us at least mention the main writings: Friedrich Noack, Das Deutschtum in Rom seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, Stuttgart 1927, II, p. 549; Godefrius Joannes Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italie, Omtrent Nederlandsche Kunstenaars en Geleerden, ’s-Gravenhage 1913; Jacques Bousquet, Recherches sur le séjour des peintres français a Rome au XVIIe siècle, Montpellier 1980. 21 Eugenio Sonnino, Gli “stati delle anime” a Roma dalle origini al secolo XVII: origini, consistenza, contenuti ; con appendice sulle altre registrazioni parrocchiali, Roma 1977, p. 136; Mariano Armellini, Le chiese di Roma dal secolo IV al XIX, Roma 1891, pp. 86–88. 22 My research in Archivio Storico del Vicariato di Roma allowed me to go through the stati delle anime from between 1634 and 1635 (and the ambiguous ones made me also verify the period between 1633 and 1636) from the following parishes: Sant’Eustachio, S. Lorenzo in Lucina (the year 1635 did not survive), Sant’Andrea delle Fratte (the year 1635 did not survive), S. Stefano in Piscinula, S. Nicola in Arcione, Ss. Vincenzo e Anastasio, S. Maria del Popolo, S. Marcello, S. Lorenzo in Damaso, S. Maria sopra Minerva, and S. Maria in Via. 23 AASL, sign. 69, fol. 104. G. J. Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italie (see note 20), pp. 96–98. The author includes a transcription of the document and links it with the assembly of the Academy’s directorate, held on 14 November 1636. The negligence of the record, however, also allows for the possibility that someone included Sandrart’s name solely through inertia, not knowing about his definite departure in the early 1635. But the lists of Italian painters, too, contain names of artists who did not dwell in Rome at that moment, but were members of the Academy. For example, the list of July 1635 (AASL, sign. 166, n. 68) reads, among others: “Lanfranco a Napoli”. 24 ASVR, S. Maria del Popolo, sign. s. a. , n. 65, 1633–1636.
25 Ibid., fol. 18 (Strada Laurina). 26 Pigionante means “in lodging”. 27 The foundation stone was laid on 3 April 1633 and the construction of the relatively simple small church was entrusted to a young Milanese architect, Carlo Buzi. The church was consecrated on 17 January 1636. Its front and reconstruction were executed by Carlo Rainaldi during the 1670s. Luigi Salerno, Gesù e Maria, in: Via del Corso, Roma 1961, p. 141; Alfredo Marchionne Gunter, Gesù e Maria, in: Elio de Rosa (ed.), Roma Sacra, 1, Napoli 1995, pp. 38–43. 28 Jaroslav Vystrčil, Syn rebelův. Kulturní obraz ze 17. století, Olomouc 2005, p. 148. The same book, on p. 132, reads the assumption that P. Augustine could have met Škréta in person. On p. 149, Vystrčil becomes inclined to the hypothesis (previously outlined by Neumann) that Škréta was introduced to the Zderaz monastery by Dionysius Miseroni (Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 [exh. cat.], Praha 1974, p. 66). 29 I am indebted to Adéla Šmidlauerová for her consultation. 30 Gabriele Raimondo, Gli agostiniani scalzi, Genova 1955, pp. 278–283. 31 Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674, Praha 1974, p. 66. 32 For an overview of probable hypotheses, see the text by the present author: Škréta a komunita záalpských umělců v Římě, in: Lenka Stolárová (ed.), Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a Evropě, Praha 2011. The most seductive are the following records: “Carlo pittore” on Vicolo di strada Margutta in 1635 (ASVR, S. Maria del Popolo, sign. s. a., n. 65, 1635, fol. 8v) and “Carlo sciotto todesco” (ASVR, Sant’Andrea delle Fratte s. a., n. 38, 1634, fol. 4v). 33 F. Noack, Das Deutschtum in Rom (see note 20), p. 549. 34 Judith Verberne, The Bentvueghels in Rome (1620/21–1720), in: Peter Schatborn (ed.), Drawn to Warmth, 17th-century Dutch Artists in Italy (exh. cat.), Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Zwolle 2001, pp. 22–32; idem, De Bentvueghels (1620/21–1720). Een Nederlandse kunstenaarskolonie in Rome, unpublished diss., Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. There are still, however, elementary works by the long-term director of the Netherlandish Institute in Rome: G. J. Hoogewerff: Godefrius Joannes Hoogewerff, De Bentvueghels, ’s-Gravenhage 1952; idem, Nederlandsche kunstennars te Rome (1600–1725), ’s-Gravenhage 1942; idem, Il conflitto fra la insigne Accademia di San Luca e la banda dei pittori neerlandesi, Archivio della Società romana di storia patria LVIII, 1935, pp. 189–203; idem, Intorno al sepolcro di Bacco. Le feste degli artisti olandesi e fiamminghi a Roma nel Seicento, in: Roma. Rivista di studi e di vita romana II, 1924, pp. 119–128; idem, Bescheiden in Italie, Omtrent Nederlandsche Kunstenaars en Geleerden, ’s-Gravenhage 1913. The more recent studies worth mentioning are, for example, the following: Didier Bodart, Les peintres des Pays-Bas méridionaux et de la principauté de Liège à Rome au XVIIème siècle, Bruxelles–Roma, Accademia Belgica 1970; idem, Les fondations hospitalières et artistiques Belges à Rome, in: Les Fondations nationales dans la Rome potificale, Torino 1981 (= Collection de l’École française de Rome 52), pp. 61–69; Thomas Kren, Chi non vuol Baccho: Roeland van Laer’s Burlesque Painting about Dutch Artists in Rome, Simiolus 11, 1981, pp. 63–80; David A. Levine, The Bentvueghels: “Bande Académique”, in: Marilyn Aronberg Lavin (ed.), Il 60, Essays Honoring Irving Lavin on His Sixtieth Birthday, New York 1990, pp. 207–226; idem, Pieter van Laer’s Artists’ Tavern. An Ironic Commentary on Art, in: H. Bock – T. W. Gaehtgens (edd.), Holländische Genremalerei im 17. Jahrhundert: Symposium Berlin 1984, Berlin 1987, (= Jahrbuch Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Sonderband 4), pp. 169–191; Jos de Meyere, Alle Wege führen nach Rom, in: David. A. Levine – E. Mai (edd.), I Bamboccianti, Niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock (exh. cat.), Köln 1991, pp. 46–64, esp. pp. 57–62; Liliana Barroero, “Il se rendit en Italie”. Artisti stranieri a Roma nel Seicento, in: Roma moderna e contemporanea, I, 1993, pp. 13–34; Wendy Thompson, “Pigmei pizzicano di Gigante”, The Encounter Between Netherlandish and Italian Artists in SeventeenthCentury Rome, diss. Johns Hopkins University, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1997. 35 The Bent companions also took several men of non-artistic professions among themselves: two pharmacists, a surgeon and even General Alexander van Waekerbaart. Comp. J. Verberne, The Bentvueghels in Rome (see note 34), p. 23. 36 Antonino Bertolotti, Artisti belgi ed olandesi a Roma nei secoli XVI e XVII. Notize e documenti raccolti negli achivi romani, Firenze 1880, p. 13. “Purtroppo anche oggidí in Roma il forestiere é facilmente vittima dell’albergatore, del bottegaio, e dell’artigiano, ai quali si abbisogna ricorrere, ma i fiamminghi avevano trovato mezzo di rimediarvi alquanto con trarre seco proprii albergatori, sarti, calzolai, ecc.”
If we want to look for a record which would comply with the inventory from the St Lucas Academy, we cannot but manage with the vague “Pittori dui o tre” two small streets further, on Via Laurina.²⁵ In the same street, there then appears some “Carlo pigionante” in 1635 and some “Clemente scarpellino pig[ionante]” with him, and a year later, at the same address, again some “Carlo pig[ionante], Bonifatio pig[ionante] con dui altri pig[ionanti]”.²⁶ But the lack of any data about nationality and profession would make us move in too muddy waters here. As concerns the attempts to more closely situate Škréta’s sojourn in the papal city, yet another topographic circumstance is nevertheless worth noticing. Among the streets connecting Via del Corso and Via del Babuino, where we are referred to by both the scarce information about our painter and the general information about Northern painters, a new church of the Barefoot Augustinians, called Gesù e Maria, was built on the garden of Cardinal Flavio Orsini, known as Viridarium magnum, between 1633 and 1636.²⁷ It was perhaps due to the construction works why the inhabitants of the adjacent streets often changed addresses and moved between Vicolo di S. Giacomo, Vicolo degli Orsini and Via Laurina, as can be proved by more thorough comparing of records in the Statuta animarum. The German painters from the inventory issued for the Roman academy thus could well hide beyond the above-mentioned anonymous record. In the same period, between 1634 and 1638, P. Augustine from the blessed Clara of Monte Falco, Wenzel Rudolf Harant of Polžice and Bezdružice by his proper name – son of the famous traveller and pre-White Mountain rebel, Christoph Harant –, studied and underwent his monastic formation with the Barefoot Augustinians in Rome.²⁸ The idea that Škréta might have lived with this compatriot in the same neighbourhood, or even in the same block of houses, is very tempting, especially if we consider that the very commission from the Barefoot Augustinians at Zderaz provided Škréta a springboard for his career after the return to his homeland.²⁹ Moreover, the assembly of the general chapter of the Barefoot Augustinians was held in the convent associated with the church Gesù e Maria in 1635, and also a representative of the Prague convent was obliged to participate.³⁰ Hypotheses as to the contacts with the Augustinians, already raised by J. Neumann, thus receive more concrete outlines. ³¹ The fund of the Status animarum in the Archives of the Roman vicarage, however, offers more hypotheses for Škréta. But none of the records is precise enough to safely document our Prague painter.³² While Karel Škréta the Younger was already found in the parish S. Andrea delle Fratte by Noack,³³ the Roman address of his father will probably remain secret to us. Bentvueghels Membership of the group of Northern artists, called Bent, Bentvueghels, or Schilderbent, is – besides Sandrart’s dating and Baur’s name – the third and the last lead in our investigation of Škréta’s traces in Rome. The Bent was established in the early 1620s as a free society of artists, mainly painters and engravers mostly originating from North Netherlands and Flanders. Their circle willingly accepted other artists who travelled to gain experience in the shadow of St Peter’s dome. Approximately 480 members passed through the Bent during the one hundred years of its existence.³⁴ The society had no written statutes, no headquarters and no permanent directorate. Its members were men of art and related professions, usually between the ages of 20 and 25 who had their first training behind them and came to the Eternal City in order to gain perfection through the studies of classical art as well as their famed contemporaries, but also because having Rome in their curricula usually opened ways to prestigious commissions.³⁵ The Bent society was undoubtedly started by the solidarity of compatriots, which was necessary for their survival in a city not only far from their home but also full of competition where “a foreigner can easily fall prey to a hotelkeeper, merchant or craftsman whose services he needs”, as observes Bertolotti with unlimited validity and regret.³⁶ No less strong motivation, however, was their vice for good wine which, in the South, even those who had to dig deep into their pockets could enjoy almost without restrain. The Bentvueghels – “society birds” in English, as the Bent members nicknamed themselves – took advantage of every suitable occasion for benders which became notorious in Rome. No wonder that we most often learn about these ventures from the period records, i.e. the files of lawsuits reflecting the less pleasant side of the unbridled STUDIES 85
revels. The disturbances occurred mainly in the bars during long winter evenings. But as Bertolotti mentions in the introduction to the extensive volume of archive documentation from criminal, notarial and financial archives of the Roman gubernatorate, the subjects of disputes usually disappeared along with the alcohol vapour, and a night spent together in jail usually reconciled the disunited sides to such an extent that they refused to testify against each other the next morning.³⁷ The attention of the Bent contemporaries – both outside observers and eyewitnesses – was attracted by the initiation ritual of the new members which was at the same time the only firm institution of the society. One of its earliest descriptions can be found in Sandrart’s autobiography.³⁸ His characteristic of the entrance ritual, which occurred soon after he arrived in Rome in 1620 with his cousin Michel Le Blon, is not void of idealization. Sandrart vividly portrays how the Bent cronies used borrowed pieces of furniture in a room adjacent to a pub, where he hosted forty people, to stage a tableau vivant representing allegorical figures of Poetry, Sculpture and Painting which, accompanied by Mercury, mounted Parnassus with Apollo. Apollo then ordered the Muses to accept the neophytes as guests and poured them nectar “originating from Castelli”, it is Castelli Romani, the traditional winegrowing region which has been supplying Roman trattoria until today. “Meanwhile they all raised their goblets, exclaiming in the rain of fireworks: Viva, viva Sandrart a le Blon!” The text emphasizes the artful direction of light and recalls the laurel wreaths which they all received on their heads, but nevertheless avoids whatever mention about the wine christening by which the ritual culminated. It instead remarks that the two neophytes, crowned with laurels, received honorary places and that the company remained in enjoyment and quickwitted conversation till the morning. A somewhat different view of the Bent initiation ceremony is offered by Škréta’s coeval and writer of famous biographies, Giambattista Passeri. As he notes in the biography of Pieter van Laer, “[The Flemings] often threw ingenious pastimes […] When some of them arrived in Rome, and were therefore called ‘neophytes’, they treated the whole company of compatriots to a sumptuous repast in some of the legendary pubs […] These banquets lasted at least twenty-four hours ceaselessly, without them leaving the table. They had wine brought in entire barrels and only little respectfully called these pastimes ‘baptismal ceremonies’. They brashly used that sacred name for such jesting, because during these pastimes they gave the neophytes different names derived from their figure, physiognomy or behaviour, and thus baptised them with wine.”³⁹ Passeri, an admirer of Domenichino and Baroque Classicism, a representative of the official St Lucas Academy, who even had himself ordained a priest towards the end of his life, probably used even more strict words in the original version of the quoted passage.⁴⁰ His description, on the other hand, well illustrates the atmosphere in the papal city during the 17th century. The pranks of the young artists were not judged too rigorously and participation in similar events in no way hindered the engagement of the Flemish painters by the influential prelates of the papal court. For example in 1631, Cardinal Francesco Barberini and his brother Taddeo accepted two Bentvueghels at once among the familiars – Jan Borsman and Jacob Duyvelandt. Similarly, Jan Both and Jan van Caustren lived in the palace of cardinal Nepot. A sententious air and a certain indulgent reserve resound in the treatise by Samuel van Hoogstraten, Rembrandt’s student, who encountered the Bent during his journey to Rome during the 1650s. “When taking a new candidate, the companions make an artful construction and honour the new member with a characteristic name. Sweet [beverage] from Albano is drunk to purify souls of all worries and foolish pride. Oh how happy are those to whom this seems useful […] and who survive certain follies unhurt! This rowdiness surely entertains but is full of danger, especially for an astute soul which readily falls in love and easily is seduced.”⁴¹ The Schilderbent ceremonies took place in Roman taverns, most often in the Osteria della Fontana on Via Condotti, in the place where the cult coffeehouse of Romantic poets, Caffè Greco, opened in the 18th century. It seems that the Bentvueghels gathered regularly right there.⁴² The walls were decorated with portraits of the society members and ironic comments, as we learn not only from Theodor van der Schuur’s report about the dispute with French painters, provoked by the satyric poem by the painter of Christina of Sweden in 1665, but also from a surviving illustration, today kept in Berlin.⁴³ And this is where our painter, too, probably received his name Bentnaam.⁴⁴ 86 KAREL ŠKRÉTA AND ROME
37 A. Bertolotti, Artisti belgi ed olandesi a Roma (see note 36), p. 8. 38 J. Sandrart, Academia todesca (see note 1), p. 9. In this context, Sandrart is already quoted by G. J. Hoogewerff (Intorno al sepolcro di Bacco, see note 34, p. 122) as well as by all the following writers. 39 Giambattista Passeri, Vite de’pittori, scultori ed architetti cha anno lavorato in Roma, Morti dal 1641 fino al 1673, Roma 1772, p. 54. 40 Passeri wrote his Biographies probably around 1675. They first came out in print as late as one hundred years later. The editor made sure to let clear them of all “false eloquence of the 17th century and the ideas attuned to wordplays” but also “moderated in expressions”. Comp. ibid, pp. x-xi. 41 Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten: Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst, Rotterdam 1678, p. 207. Quoted by G. J. Hoogewerff, Intorno al sepolcro di Bacco (see note 34), p. 125. 42 G. J. Hoogewerff, Intorno al sepolcro di Bacco (see note 34), p. 126. 43 A. Bertolotti, Artisti belgi ed olandesi a Roma (see note 36), pp. 154–165. The poem, entitled La Gazette de la Place d’Espagne, was written in summer 1665. Its author ended up in jail and the poem was confiscated and only kept in the judicial files. A. Houbraken (De groote Schouburgh, see note 6, p. 552) quotes the description of the tavern, provided by the Dutch painter Willem Schellinks in connection with this conflict: “[…] the walls all around bear drawn portraits of Dutch painters as well as painters of other nations. But portraits of the French were wiped off and could not be discerned at all.” Quoted by G. J. Hoogewerff, Intorno al sepolcro di Bacco (see note 34), p. 126; idem, De Bentvueghels (see note 7), p. 118; D. A. Levine, Pieter van Laer’s Artists’ Tavern (see note 34). 44 Osteria della Fontana, however, was not the only place to host the rituals – for instance, the 1632 initiation of the goldsmith Abraham Colin was held in the tavern La Spada (J. Verberne, The Bentvueghels in Rome, see note 34, p. 26). Another favourite pub was between the Diocletian’s spa and Villa Montalto at Esquilin (G. J. Hoogewerff, Intorno al sepolcro di Bacco, see note 34, p. 126).
5. ↗ A record documenting that J. W. Baur and two other German artists stayed on the right side of Via Vittoria (in the direction from Via del Corso) in 1634, Status animarum S. Lorenzo in Lucina 1634, Archivio Storico del Vicariato di Roma, fol. 28 (photo: author's archive) 6. ↗↗ The Inventory of Flemish and German artists, issued for the St Lucas Academy probably before 1635, reads bottom right: “Carlo con doy altry Todeschy al vicolo de S. Jacobo per il Babuino”, Archivio dell’Accademia di San Luca, vol. 69, c. 104 (photo: author's archives)
45 Jean Baptist Descamps, La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandais, Paris 1753–1754, II, p. 367. Descamps – the author of this form of the name repeated by later literature on Škréta – was born in Dunkerque and lived in Rouen from 1740, i.e. in Normandy. This is why ‘espadron’ instead of the French ‘espadon’ became common in the Upper Normal dialect. 46 Comp. ‘spadone’, in: Salvatore Battaglia (ed.), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, Torino 1998, pp. 670–671. 47 The initiation ritual is, for example, illustrated by the following: M. Pool after Dominicus van Wijnen, The Bentvueghel Initiation Ceremony, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam (RijksmuseumStichting, Amsterdam), copper engraving; Anonymous artist, Bentvueghel, Initiation Ceremony, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, no. A 4672 (Dutch school, c. 1660, in: Pieter Jacobus Johannes van Thiel [ed.], All the Paintings in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1976, p. 910). 48 G. J. Hoogewerff, De Bentvueghels (see note 7), pp. 108–111; J. Verberne, The Bentvueghels in Rome (see note 34), p. 25.
“Slach-sweert”, as de Bie writes – ‘het slagzwaard’ in modern Dutch and ‘espadron’ in Upper Norman dialect, as was introduced by Descamps,⁴⁵ ‘espadon’ in French and ‘spadone’ in Italian – is a long double-edged sword called a claymore. It is questionable why Škréta received such a nickname. As far as it can be assumed from the wide semantic register of the word, it is not always flattering to the bearer of such name: its meaning ranges from lascivious connotations and belligerent egotist and swellhead as far as to the total opposite, used by Giovanni Battista Marino in the contemporary lexis – i.e. eunuch, which is allowed by a metaphor taken from botany where it describes sterile fruit.⁴⁶ The ritual which Škréta had to undergo can hardly be reconstructed in detail. The rituals changed depending on the nature and number of participants. The unwritten rules nevertheless demanded the candidate be introduced by one of the stalwart members and the initiation had to be assisted by at least nine Bent cronies. The allegorical production celebrating the majesty of the arts was followed by a Bacchic scene which climaxed with dousing the novice’s head with wine and giving him the nickname by which he was henceforth called by his companions. The ceremony was usually chaired by a ‘field pope’; the title and functions of the individual ‘popes’ were, however, as variable and unstable as everything else in these improvised frisks.⁴⁷ They were sometimes called stewards or patrons and sometimes had a marshal or usher alias the Swiss with halberd and a ‘field priest’ – the executor of the ‘baptism’ – by their side.⁴⁸ The description of the ceremony in the book of travels by Cornelis de Bruyn, who became a member of the Bent in 1674, even mentions a diploma signed by all attendees. De Bruyn received it as a brand new member shortly before the company resorted to the set table where – as he adds with cheerless STUDIES 87
7. Pittori duì o tre at Strada Laurina in the parish of S. Maria del Popolo, Status animarum S. Maria del Popolo 1634, Archivio Storico del Vicariato di Roma, fol. 18 (photo: author's archives)
laconism – a celebration held at the expense of the new Bentvueghel began.⁴⁹ It is not precisely known when – but it was during the 1650s at the latest – the first stage of the ritual in a Roman pub came to be followed by a pilgrimage to the St Constantine mausoleum at daybreak, where the company used to “water”, as De Bruyn writes, the Bacchus’ grave. The 16th-century treatises on architecture repeatedly describe this small temple above a circular ground plan as from Classical Antiquity, and the porphyry sarcophagus of Emperor Constantine’s daughter with scenes with geniuses reaping grapes was named Tomba di Bacco by folk creativeness. A new Bent member then inscribed his name, cognomen and often also the year into one of the niches to the side of the sarcophagus. But this was not the end yet: “In an osteria adjacent to the church, a new Bentvueghel is then shown the most beautiful vistas of Rome and they all spend the rest of the day there in gaiety,” Le Bruyn adds. Škréta, however, was probably spared this trip outside the Roman bulwarks because the most frequent and readable inscriptions at St Constantine originate from as late as the 1640s.⁵⁰ The parody character of the Bent rituals was far from being so avant-garde as it would seem at first sight, and the company of painters did not just seek amusement at some other’s expense. Comical names and self-irony were widespread features of private Renaissance literary academies.⁵¹ As David A. Levine postulated, also the interpretation of the name Bentvueghels should keep out explicit connotations. It is because Giovanni Battista Alberti’s contemporary text of 1639 derives the origin of both public and private academies from the Alexandrian museum established by Ptolemy Soter, whose philosophers were derisively called “birds”, since they were kept in cages like exotic animals. According to Alberti, this museum does not refer to anything but “uccelliera delle Muse” and modern academies are therefore, as he claims, sometimes also called “aviaries”.⁵² Northern painters who often arrived penniless – following Van Mander’s recommendation to travel to Rome to become familiar with the Classical Antiquity but also with new painting, more inspired by Nature than old masters (i.e., Caravaggio) – suddenly found themselves at this modern Parnassus, in a city where the forms of new epochs swelled and ripened and idyllic paintings alternated for them with a tough fight for social status or even survival. Part of the Bent rituals certainly illustrated the ironic attitude of its members towards official institutions, but they also reflected the contrast between the “noble art of painting” which the artists travelled and strived for and the difficult existence of enthusiasts lacking material security which they certainly would like to forget about. I do not dare to deduce to what extent they related the Dionysian ecstasy to the divine spark of authentic art that cannot be bound by rules and regulations.⁵³ Even more so that we would look in vain for a shared artistic expression of the Schilderbent members, stretching from
88 KAREL ŠKRÉTA AND ROME
49 Cornelis de Bruyn, Reizen van Cornelis de Bruyn door de vermaardste delen van Klein Azië, Delft 1698, pp. 5–6. Quoted by G. J. Hoogewerff, Intorno al sepolcro di Bacco (see note 34), pp. 123–124. 50 Henk van de Schoor, Bentvueghel Signatures in Santa Costanza in Rome, Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 38, 1976, pp. 77–86. 51 D. A. Levine, The Bentvueghels (see note 34), pp. 211–212. Comp. Accademia degli Addormentati, Apatisti, Insensati, Incolti, Immaturi, Rozzi, etc. 52 Ibid., p. 215; Giovanni Battista Alberti, Discorso dell’origine delle accademie publiche, e private, e sopra l’impresa de gli Affidati di Pavia, Genova 1639, p. 9. 53 D. A. Levine, The Bentvueghels (see note 34), pp. 217–219. Levine opines that the Bent actually followed a certain artistic program. Contrary to the official academies coining the idea that ultimate art can be achieved via following fixed and established methods, the Bent members claimed that authentic art is of divine or mystic origin and it therefore cannot be restricted by any rules.
54 On the dispute between the St Lucas Academy and the Bent, see: G. J. Hoogewerff, Il conflitto fra la insigne Accademia di San Luca (see note 34); W. Thompson, Pigmei pizzicano di Gigante (see note 34), esp. pp. 229–240. In connection with Škréta, see the brief summary in the essay by the present writer, entitled “Škréta a komunita záalpských umělců v Římě”, in: Lenka Stolárová (ed.), Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a Evropě, Praha 2011. 55 Luigi Salerno, Vita e opere di Giulio Mancini, in: Adriana Marucchi – Luigi Salerno (edd.), Considerazioni sulla Pittura II., Roma 1957. 56 Comp. ibid., p. XI; Benedetto Varchi, Due lezzioni, Firenze 1549, p. 113; Giovanni Battista Marino, Dicerie sacre sulla Pittura, la Musica e il Cielo, Milano 1618, p. 48. 57 Comp. L. Salerno, Vita e opere di Giulio Mancini (see note 55), II, p. XII. 58 “Ma se questo intelletto per indirizzar questa facultà motiva a moversi e disegnare habbia bisogno della fantasia, o della memoria, non è ancor da dubitare. Perchè o noi formiam di nuovo, over noi ritraiamo dall’oggetto presente. Nel primo modo non è dubbio che bisogna che noi ricorriamo alla fantasia e memoria per poter con questa compor, separar, et cosi fermar di nuovo immagini di cose et esprimerle con il disegno et attion del disegnare. Dal presente noi andiam retrahendo vi è di bisogno di memoria con la qual riserviam il fantasma, o immagin della visione fin all’espressione. Onde si venga a disegnar quella cosa impressa nella memoria.” Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms. Vat. Barb. Lat. 4315, f. 149, quoted by L. Salerno, Vita e opere di Giulio Mancini (see note 55), pp. XII–XIII. 59 Vincenzo Danti, Il primo libro del trattato delle perfette proporzioni, Firenze 1567, Chapter II; Federico Zuccaro, L’idea de’ scultori, pittori e architetti, Torino 1607, Chapter VIII; L. Salerno, Vita e opere di Giulio Mancini (see note 55), p. XIII. 60 Mancini writes: “[…] onde essendo arte di necessità, che habbi in se quello che si dice recta ratio cioe regula certa da poter ben et artificiosamente operare.” On the Aristotelian-scholastic definition of art which Mancini adopted from Zucarro, see L’Idea 1607, I, Chapter X. Comp. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1. VI, c. VI. S; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II, I, qu. 57, art. 3: “[…] ars nihil aliud est, quam ratio recta aliquorum operum faciendorum”. L. Salerno, Vita e opere di Giulio Mancini (see note 55), p. XIII, note 27. 61 Salerno points to the dependence on Aristotle who places the skill to assess works of art and beauty right admist the knowledge of disegno, which Mancini directly quotes with reference to Politica, VIII, 3. Aristotle opines that disegno ranks among the four subjects essential to citizens’ education. 62 Gregorio Comanini, Il Figino, Mantova 1591, p. 81; quoted by L. Salerno, Vita e opere di Giulio Mancini (see note 55), p. XIV. 63 Giulio Mancini, Considerazioni sulla Pittura I., Adriana Marucchi (ed.), Roma 1956, pp. 13–14. “[…] Più tosto questi tali si devon dir copiatori che Pittori.”
the bambocciate to Classicist works executed entirely in the style of the dominant taste and pursued not only at the St Lucas Academy. Numerous Dutch and Flemish artists testify especially in the latter half of the 17th century that affiliation to the Bent in no way hindered their membership in the official Academy.⁵⁴ Theory and Practice How did people think about art and what atmosphere reigned in Rome in the period of Škréta’s arrival? We must mainly say that the first half of the 1530s was an era of a grandiose synthesis whose critical reflection, as is common after all, arrived only with delay. The Rome of Pope Urban VIII saw the coexistence, confrontation and mingling of Classicist painting tendencies, following up with the Bologna school, and radical Baroque of da Cortona type. The colony of Cisalpine artists asserts itself by genre paintings, and even those who perhaps take offence at the “low” subjects, unworthy of the bambocciate, acknowledge the Northerners as masters of portrait painting. Škréta is in fact very lucky: he arrives to the situation which does not lack undoubted authorities who will be his role models for many decades, and simultaneously finds himself side by side with many artists who successfully follow their great heritage. However, if we want to correctly comprehend which way the opinions on art wended, we should pay attention to theoretical reflections whose time of origin is close to Škréta’s Italian journey. Aristotelian orientation is characteristic to the treatise Considererazioni attorno alla pittura, written by Giulio Mancini (1558–1630) between 1619 and 1621. Mancini was a physician by profession and, from 1623, even personal doctor to Urban VIII. Later, he was apostolic pronotary and canon at St Peter’s.⁵⁵ Between 1623 and 1624, he followed his theoretical reflections on painting, supplemented by a survey of painters including some foreign ones living in Rome, with the first guidebook to the Eternal City in today’s sense, entitled Viaggio a Roma. Mancini ranks among the new group of art connoisseurs defined as ‘virtuosi’, ‘amatori’ or ‘dilettanti’, passionately advocating their right to express their opinion on works of art – similarly as Dolce and Borghini did before him – and even claiming that artists themselves are poor art critics. He actually launched the tendency which would take 17th-century criticism as far as to overrate content to the detriment of form and would finally result in Félibien labelling the execution of a work a mechanical part of art and would moreover determine ‘invenzione’, i.e. the literary contents of mute poetry, as its substance.⁵⁶ Contrary to the Mannerist view emphasizing the natural disposition of an artist, Mancini’s “nesciun nasce Pittore” claims that no one is born a painter; the author instead opines that the painting profession can be acquired through diligent studies, i.e. through imitation – in the same way as one adopts intellectual habits.⁵⁷ Referring to Aristotle, his most often quoted writer, Mancini explains that intellect aiming at a particular work always proceeds through fantasy and memory. No matter if the work is born of painter’s own invention or as a portrait of things which he has directly before him, it is always an imitation of the images in mind.⁵⁸ Each and every painting must first emerge in the artist’s mind, similarly as does the idea in the Mannerist theory or Lomazzo’s “disegno interno” which, as a programme and concept, precedes the realization of disegno, and thus also the inception of a work.⁵⁹ The ability to conceive disegno is an abstraction, called “matematica media” or “habitus contemplativus” by Mancini, and it does not necessarily have to be realized in matter.⁶⁰ This abstraction then results in the ability to distinguish between fine and poor executions.⁶¹ In spite of the above-mentioned, however, Mancini in his evaluating judgements does not hesitate to bring up the old distinction between imitation after reality, i.e. the so-called direct imitation, and imitation of images contained in one’s mind. While for example Comanini views the direct imitation (imitazione icastica) as a painter’s virtue and advantage which he has contrary to a poet,⁶² a painter to Mancini is “the more perfect the more he employs his fantasy and invention” while those who just simply imitate should better be called “copyists instead of painters”.⁶³ The metaphysical values previously attributed to idea by Lomazzo or Zuccaro are absent in Mancini; he instead expects certain empirical idealism from painting, and Nature in his opinion should be perfected through fantasy. The concept of ideal beauty which would become central to the 17th-century aesthetics, however, is not a straightforward subject in STUDIES 89
8. ← Church of St Constantina (Santa Costanza) on Via Nomentana, interior view (photo: author’s archives) 9. → Signatures of the Bentvueghels, inscribed into one of the niches to the side of the St Constantina church (photo: author’s archives)
his writing. Mancini connects it with the issue of proportions and decoro and eventually subordinates everything to the latter. He perceives decoro in two layers of meaning – first as convenienza, i.e. convenience acquired by excluding all inappropriate, and then as adequacy to the aim and character of a depicted thing.⁶⁴ He thus reflects the extensive postTridentine reflection of sacral art as it was systematically developed by Gabriele Paleotti, but transfers it into general theory of art.⁶⁵ As Luigi Salerno already pointed out, there is a certain discrepancy between identifying artistic and physical beauty on the one hand and emphasizing the content, the literary conception of painting on the other. It is because historical subjects require individual characteristics, and individuality is often and mainly characterized by a certain defect.⁶⁶ Reconstructing reality, either the historical or the immediate one, and capturing a moment become superior to idealization due to the very theory of decoro. The ultimate artistic disciplines to Mancini are frescoes and historical subjects. He distinguishes between “various kinds of painting, depending on the differences among the things imitated” – in other words, between genres. They also include those attributed to our painter from the very beginning, i.e. portraiture and histories. Mancini distinguishes portraits as simple and complicated ones,⁶⁷ and while the first only seek mere similarity, the complicated portraits, which an uneducated person always fails to appreciate, express the stirs, states and affections of mind.⁶⁸ Mancini defines history as the depiction of events developed by a larger number of persons and applies Aristotle’s definition of drama to it. In his view, one must first consider where, in what section of time and when the particular event occurs. He lays emphasis on lighting and the relations among the leading and secondary figures, but he mainly revolves around the central concept of decoro. Although he ranks it among other requirements on the painting of histories, he in fact forges a superior category which includes requests as to the presumable appearance, capturing the mentality of the persons depicted and reconstructing their mutual relations.⁶⁹ His definition of painting as art, when one faces a work submitted to one’s own judgement, also logically results in criticism of those painters of histories whose leading figures cannot be discerned at first sight because the artists locate the main action into programmes that are secondary within the composition.⁷⁰ From the aspect of contemporary perception, Mancini’s classification of painters active in Rome into three schools, accompanied by their brief characteristics, is also interesting.⁷¹ The first scuola includes Caravaggio and his followers. The typical feature in Mancini’s opinion is their treatment of light: using a solid, focused ray of light falling from above without 90 KAREL ŠKRÉTA AND ROME
64 As Salerno (XV) points out, Mancini’s theology originates from Socrates according to Xenophontos (Memorab., III, c. 8). It can be found in Vincenzo Danti in the 16th century. A much more immediate source of inspiration to Mancini, however, was the treatise by Cardinal Paleotti who followed up with the Council of Trent by discussing the subjects of decoro and the adequacy of depiction in detail. 65 Comp. Gabriele Paleotti, Discorso intorno alle immagini sacre et profane, Bologna 1582, in: Paola Barocchi (ed.), Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento II, Bari 1961, pp. 117–509, esp. pp. 332–336. 66 L. Salerno, Vita e opere di Giulio Mancini (see note 55), II, p. XV. 67 G. Mancini, Considerazioni sulla Pittura I (see note 63), pp. 115–116. 68 Here, Mancini follows the tradition which ascribes the keenness for mere appearance to common folk. The concept is derived from Quintilianus, Inst. Orat, IX, 4: “docti rationem artis intellegunt, indocti voluptatem.” See Lionello Venturi, La critica d’arte in Italia durante i secoli XIV e XV, L’Arte XX, 1917, p. 36; Ludovico Dolce in his Dialogo della pittura (Venezia 1557, p. 36) writes: “E questo diletto non intendo io quello che pasce gli occhi del volgo, o anco de gl’intendenti, ma quello che cresce, quanto piu l’occhio di qualunque huomo ritorna a guardare.” 69 G. Mancini, Considerazioni sulla Pittura I (see note 63), I, p. 117. That is, he requires “la similitudine probabile, affetto e costume, il decoro e la gratia”. 70 His examples are Bassano and ‘fiaminghi’. 71 G. Mancini, Considerazioni sulla Pittura I (see note 63), pp. 108–111.
72 “Proprio di questa schola è di lumeggiar con lume unito che venghi d’alto senza reflessi, come sarebbe in una stanza da una fenestra con le pariete colorite di negro, che […] vengono a dar rilievo alla pittura […] con modo non naturale […]”. 73 “Questa ha per proprio l’intelligenza dell’arte con gratia et espression d’affetto, proprieta e composition d’historia […]. Vede il naturale, lo possiede, ne piglia il buono, lascia il cattivo, lo migliora, e con lume naturale gli dà il colore e l’ombra con le movenze e gratie.” 74 “ha per proprio un spirito e proprieta di natura, con buona compositione e gratia et in particolare delle teste […] ha in se quella vaghezza che in un tratto rapisce l’ochio e diletta.” 75 “Gran sapere di disegno, di colorito, d’inventione e compositione.” 76 Giuliano Briganti, Pietro da Cortono o della pittura barocca, in: Olivier Bonfait (ed.), Roma 1630. Il trionfo del pennello (exh. cat.), Milano 1994, p. 27. 77 The text came out much later, in 1646, under the name Giovanni Antonio Massani, i.e. Agucchi’s secretary. The treatise was published by Denis Mahon, Studies in Seicento Art and Theory, London 1947. As to Massani’s text, see pp. 230–275, of which Agucchi’s part is on pp. 240–258. For the most recent edition, see “Trattato della pittura” dalla edizione di 1646, in: Ricardo de Mambro Santos (ed.), Arcadie del vero: arte e teoria nella Roma del Seicento, Sant’Oreste (Roma) 2001, pp. 139–180. 78 Agucchi’s career climaxed during the short pontificate of Gregory XV (1621–1623) when he was active as papal secretary. Urban VIII then appointed him to the position of apostolic nuncio and sent him to Venice where Agucchi lived until his death in 1632. 79 On the relationship between Domenichino and Agucchi, see Silvia Ginzburg Carignani, Domenichino e Giovanni Battista Agucchi, in: Domenichino (1581–1641), Milano 1996, pp. 121–137. The same author also presented a wider analysis of Agucchi’s links to the Roman environment; see Giovan Battista Agucchi e la sua cerchia, in: Olivier Bonfait et al. (edd.), Poussin et Rome, Paris 1996, pp. 273–291. On the authorship of the treatise, see Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Felsina pittrice II, Bologna 1678, II, p. 243. Domenichio’s letter to the Roman collector Francesco Angeloni includes a discussion recorded by Agucchi: “Mi adoperai nel distinguer, e far riflessione alli maestri, e maniere di Roma, di Venezia, di Lombardia, et a quelli ancora di Toscana […]” (Giovanni Petro Bellori, Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni, Roma 1672, p. 359). Mahon dates the letter to 1632 (D. Mahon, Studies in Seicento Art, see note 75, p. 121).
a reflection to illuminate a scene, as if everything occurred in a room with a single window and walls painted in black. Mancini is thus not critical towards the selection of subjects or the painting style, but he blames Caravaggio for his improbable environments and arrangements of figures.⁷² Mancini has nothing but praise for the second school which includes the Carraccios and their followers: Reni, Albano and Domenichino. He ascribes to them great deftness in art, accompanied by grace and ingenious skill in expressing state of mind as well as pertinence in conceiving histories: “[This school] can see the natural, seizes it, gets hold of the good and disregards the bad, refining it and providing it colour and shadow by natural light, vividly and with utmost charm.”⁷³ The third school includes Cavalieri d’Arpino, appreciated for both his spirit and grace, mainly in painting heads, and Mancini adds that his style possesses the loveliness which immediately captures the eye and pleases.⁷⁴ The last, fourth, school are artists like Cristofano Roncalli, Domenico Passignano, Ludovico Cigoli or Giovanni Baglione, for whom Mancini does not find any particular shared features and neither sees any apparent points of departure in their oeuvres. The conclusion of the treatise, however, once again resounds with high recognition of Reni, Albano, Domenichino and others who took the Carracios’ path, following their great art of drawing, work with colour, invention and composition. Mancini observes that they are still waiting for their opportunity to come and foretells their dazzling careers.⁷⁵ However this classification appeared more than ten years prior to Škréta’s arrival in Rome, and it therefore necessarily lacks the echo of the radical Baroque of Pietro da Cortona, Mancini’s insights describe one of the leading tendencies in theoretical reflection which was further developed during the 1630s and climaxed in Bellori’s work. Even more embedded in what Briganti calls “the eternal Classicism of Italian culture”⁷⁶ is the treatise on painting by Giovanni Battista Agucchi (1570–1632).⁷⁷ The Bologna aristocrat, a relative of the Aldobrandini family, comes to Rome after the election of Paul V.⁷⁸ Agucchi takes the young Domenichino under his patronage and resigns all public offices in order to indulge in studies of history and literature. The fruit of his frequent discussions with the young artist is the treatise on painting, written at the turn of the first and second decades of the 17th century and published in 1646 under the name of his secretary Massani.⁷⁹ Agucchi’s attempt at dividing painting into various schools and giving a true picture of their tendencies overcomes the age-long competition for primacy between the Venetian STUDIES 91
10. ↖ Anonymous artist, The Bentvueghels in c. 1623, Rotterdam, Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum (photo: Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum) 11. ← Johann Wilhelm Baur, The Bentvueghels Group, 1634–35, Coburg, Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg (photo: Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg)
flamboyant colours and Florentine drawing (Dolce and Aretino versus Vasari) and, in the second decade of the 17th century, lays the foundations to clear classification of individual styles. But it also develops a classification which would henceforth be very difficult to surpass. The Roman school, for example, represented by Raphael and Michelangelo in Agucchi’s view, “followed the grandeur of sculptures and drew near to the art of the elders”. The painters from Venetia and the Mark, with Titian in the lead, “rather imitated the beauty of Nature as it appears to the eye”, while Correggio “as the first of the Lombards, was an imitator of Nature, one of the greatest, because he followed it tenderly, with ease but grace, too, creating his own style (maniera)”. What comes next, however, is the decline of art, thorough knowledge fades away and new styles are born, remote from truth and the probable, based on the imaginary instead of the essential, which took painting astray.⁸⁰ Amidst these artistic heresies, Agucchi writes, the Carracios arose in Bologna. The paragraph describing their 92 KAREL ŠKRÉTA AND ROME
80 G. B. Agucchi,”Trattato della pittura” (see note 77), p. 149 (1646, fol. 8–9). 81 G. B. Agucchi, “Trattato della pittura” (see note 77), p. 152 (1646, fol. 11). 82 Comp. Carlo Volpe, “Trattato della pittura” di Giovanni Battista Agucchi, in: De Mambro Santos (ed.), Arcadie del vero (see note 77), pp. 115–137, here p. 120. Agucchi briefly outlines the course of Annibale’s studies: after his early experience gained in Bologna and in the North and his inclination to Venice painting and Correggio, the artist arrives in Rome where his style transforms face to face Renaissance masters, mainly Raphael, and Classical masters in general. 83 Comp. Domenichino’s letter to Angeloni, quoted by Bellori – G. P. Bellori, Le Vite (see note 79, p. 359) – where he directly refers to Alberti’s treatise. 84 Volpe (C. Volpe, “Trattato della pittura”, see note 82, pp. 124–125) points out that Agucchi’s passage is almost identical to an analogical one from the treatise by Vincenzo Danti (V. Danti, Primo libro del trattato delle perfette proporzioni, Firenze 1567, in: Paola Barocchi [ed.], Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento, vol. I., Bari 1960, p. 239). 85 Francis Haskell – Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Scupture, 1500–1900, New Haven–London 1982. 86 Giovanni Battista de’Cavalieri, Antiquarum statuarum Urbis Romae primus et secundus liber, s. l., s.d. [Roma post 1570/ante 1584]. 87 Françoise Perrier, Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum, Quae temporis dentem invidium evasere Urbis aeternae ruinis erepta, Typis aeneis abce commissa Perpetuae vene rationis monumentum, Roma 1638. 88 Let us point out at the excellent study by Białostocki: Jan Białostocki, L’antico: regola della natura nel Seicento, in: Il Classicismo. Medioevo. Rinascimento. Barocco, Atti del Colloquio Cesare Gnudi, Bologna 1993, pp. 259–265. 89 J. Białostocki (ibid., pp. 260–261) exemplifies Bellori’s quote from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: G. P. Bellori, Idea (1664); Erwin Panofski (ed.), Idea contributo alla storia dell’estetica, Firenze 1952, p. 188. Charles Alphonse Dufresnoy, De arte Graphica, Roger de Piles (ed.), Paris 1668, p. 21. 90 Paul Fréart De Chantelou, Viaggio del Cavalier Bernini in Francia, Palermo 1988, p. 152. 91 J. Sandrart, Academia todesca (see note 1), I, pp. 33–41; ibid., II, pp. 1–14. Joachim von Sandrart, Scupturae Veteris Admiranda, sive delineatio vera perfectissimarum eminentissimarumque statuarum, una cum artis hujus nobilisimae Theoria, Norimberga 1680. An extensive bibliography to Sandrart’s prints was most recently published by Brigitte Kuhn-Forte, Le statue antiche nella Teutsche Academie di Sandrart. Alcune considerazioni e identificazioni, in: Sybille Ebert-Schifferer – Cecilia Mazzetti di Pietralata (edd.), Joachim von Sandrart: ein europäischer Künstler und Theoretiker zwischen Italien und Deutschland, München 2009, pp. 137–163 (=Akten des Internationalen Studientages der Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rom, 3–4 April 2006). 92 J. Sandrart, Academia todesca (see note 1), I, p. 33.
arrival in Rome became the catch-motto of Classicist theories in the latter half of the century: “As soon as they beheld Roman sculptures and paintings by Raphael and Michelangelo, contemplating especially the Raphael’s, they found themselves encountering much deeper insight and more refinement of drawing than in the workshops of Lombardy, and concluded that the emergence of an utmost perfect maniera would require combining the delicacy of Roman drawing and the beauty of the Lombard colour scale. And since they soon comprehended how Raphael studied Classical things so as to be able to create the idea of the beauty not found in Nature […] they embarked on studying the most renowned Roman sculptures, and since they both already were grand masters, they benefited from this greatly in no time.”⁸¹ If some passages of Agucchi’s text seem to remind one of the not-too-distant characteristics of our painter’s Italian journey, it is not altogether accidental. As the most recent research certainly and correctly discerned, the requirement of col disegno finissimo di Roma unire la bellezza del colorito Lombardo is not an eclectics’ manifest but a recommendation to young artists of how to best take advantage of their sojourn to the Eternal City.⁸² Similarly, l’idea di quella bellezza, che nella natura non si trova appears here side by side with empirical studies and abandons all neo-Platonist inspirations. The idea of beauty which would become the motto of theoretical ruminations on art during the decades to come is conceived by Agucchi as a follow-up to Alberti’s treatise On Painting (published 1435 and 1547 in Italian) where we can, too, find the selective method, i.e. the duty to choose from what Nature offers.⁸³ On the one hand, there is the “mere imitation” of what appears to the sight and satisfies the simpletons and, on the other, the understanding of the idea of “the beautiful”, the perfection of what Nature itself would like to express.⁸⁴ Agucchi moreover distinctly indicates the way to this perfection: it is based in exploring famed Classical sculptures. Studying Classical Antiquity Copying Classical sculpture was one of the main reasons why artists from all over Europe headed to Rome.⁸⁵ Those who did not have the chance drew inspiration from their reproductions. The long array of publications on this subject was launched as early as during the 1570s with Giovanni Battista de Cavalleri’s Antiquae statuae urbis Romae.⁸⁶ Afterward, antiquarian interest systemizes in an effort to offer exempla, or even human typology after the surviving Classical monuments. In 1638, François Perrier publishes his Segmenta nobelium signorum et statuarum which aspires to establish prototypes of beauty and human typology, equally as Sandrart does somewhat later.⁸⁷ Perception of the antithesis of Nature and Classical Antiquity transforms during the 17th century.⁸⁸ While Renaissance artists followed the Classical due to its ability to provide true and flawless picture of Nature, Vasari already views Classical sculpture as Nature’s direct antithesis, while for Bellori during the latter half of the 17th century, Nature even follows the arts and Dufresnoy sees Classical sculpture as reflecting the rules of Nature or its measure.⁸⁹ This, however, was not the domain of the Classicists. Bernini, too, in his lecture given at the Paris Royal Academy (1664), views copying Classical sculptures as a significant part of training young artists, aimed at developing their skill to correct Nature.⁹⁰ An eloquent picture of the attention paid to Classical sculpture and mainly of the significance attributed to copying it in the period of Škréta’s Italian sojourn is offered by Joachim von Sandrart. The author includes the chapter devoted to Classical sculpture right in the first volume of his Teutsche Academie of 1675 and then returns to it in more detail in the second volume – which we are well familiar with thanks to Škréta’s biography – and, in 1680, he publishes a collection of graphic reproductions of Classical sculptures, accompanied by Latin annotation, under the title Sculpturae Veteris Admiranda.⁹¹ “Everyone who desires to capture the perfect looks and the situation of the human body, according to its race, sex, disposition, craft, age or muscular structure, can find all of this in Rome, in the white marble of Classical sculptures in Belvedere, in the papal garden and also other gardens, which I see to be the only universal source, the mother and the universal fodder to all these merited disciplines, and I myself drew from them with great benefits for my own studies, copying the style in which they were formed, their disegno (zeichnen) and their proportions.”⁹² Sandrart adds that similar exercise on Michelangelo and Raphael was pursued by all who wanted to learn something. He nevertheless notes with regret that the Germans are not among those who would have these grandiose models (vortreffliche Studien) in front of their eyes all the time, and offers them a helping hand with prints created after his own STUDIES 93
drawings. He apparently wants to provide his compatriots with some exempla, doing so with remarkable consistency – for example in the case of Laocoon who should be the prototype of an old man, he is ready to ignore his sons and thus finds no trouble decomposing the famous group sculpture as a whole.⁹³ The other side of the coin is returning these abstracted, carefully selected models, mastered through diligent studies, to Nature. Baroque paintings and prints breathe new life into the ancient marble, no matter if it happens by reviving the sculptures’ expression – as Białostocki demonstrated in the case of the “redivivus” busts of Roman emperors, philosophers and other heroes, executed after drawings by Rubens from the last years of his life (1638–1639) – or by situating Classical sculptures into a particular environment, landscape or architectonic frame, as Elisabeth Cropper and Sybille Ebert Schifferer documented in Sandrart.⁹⁴ Although there is not enough space here to analyze Classical motifs in the oeuvre of our painter in more detail, it seems that he treated them in the very spirit of updated historical reconstruction. For instance, we cannot find the exact model for the triumphal arch in the background of the scene with St Martin and the beggar. The urban context nonetheless suggests that it might be a poetic completion of the so-called Arco di Portogallo – the arch that intersected Via Lata (which is, today, Via del Corso) and was torn down in 1662.⁹⁵ Official Academies and Centres of Art No general overview of opinion on art and of animated theoretical discussions in 1630s’ Rome should omit the official art society associated with the St Lucas Academy. Its protector during Škréta’s sojourn to Rome was Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII, and the principe was the pope’s favourite painter, Pietro da Cortona (1634–1637). Alongside him, the leading voice was given to the radical Baroque tendency which sharply confronted the tendencies of Classicism. The clash echoed in the famous polemic between Cortona and Andrea Sacchi – a polemic simultaneous to the dispute between the Academy and Schilderbent. Moreover, some opine that the dispute occurred during the meeting summoned in order to finally smooth out the discrepancies between the Northerners and the official circle of painters.⁹⁶ During the latter event, Sacchi blamed Cortona for inappropriately holding onto the ostentatious and insufficiently tending to the essential. ⁹⁷ The debate, situated right amidst the panel of scholars, subsequently revolved around the issue of the number of figures in a painting and the question whether – as advocated by Sacchi – a composition should remain lucid and focused on a single event after the example of Classical tragedies, because the beauty of all ingenious works is grounded in simplicity and unity. Cortona argued that more figures can depict more activities and the large-dimensional format of histories can withstand multiple episodes, if they are well-composed by the master’s hand and interlinked by lights and shadows. He also compared the secondary scenes, sketching in the exposed central subject, to choirs which accompany the main story in the above-mentioned tragedies. The St Lucas Academy – an official institution enjoying the support of the pope as well as countless privileges – was certainly a prestigious place, often successfully sought by foreign artists who stayed in Rome for longer periods of time. The 1634 lists of its members include not only Poussin and Duquesnoy, but also Sandrart and Friedrich Greuter.⁹⁸ There was thus no problem to appoint Lodewijk Cousin to its head in the latter half of the 17th century. Cousin was called Luigi Primo in Italy and was a member of the Bentvueghels with the cognomen gentile (the Academy’s principe between 1651 and 1653). It is, however, apparent from many indications in the biographies of the leading artists that artistic life in the shadow of St Peter’s dome throbbed elsewhere. Even the stalwart members of the official institution ran their own academies (which we do not know much about), but it is absolutely certain that they were places of theoretical discussions, close in content to Agucchi’s and Mancini’s reflection, and of copying Classical sculptures and reliefs. As Bellori writes, many young painters attended Domenichino to study ‘al naturale’, that is to copy Classical sculptures and Raphael.⁹⁹ It was not a workshop practice, educating assistants of a single studio.¹⁰⁰ Zampieri’s private academy was attended by Poussin, Pietro Testa and Bellori, and the theoretical grounds gained in this environment subsequently reflected in their 94 KAREL ŠKRÉTA AND ROME
93 B. Kuhn-Forte, Le statue antiche (see note 91), p. 139. Comp. Johann Jakob Thurneysen after Joachim von Sandrart, Laocoon, in: J. Sandrart, Academia todesca (see note 1), I Theil, II. Buch, IV. Capitel, fig. c. 94 J. BiaŁostocki, L’antico: regola (see note 88); Henrica M. Zijlstra-Zweens, Antieke karakterkoppen van Rubens, Hermeneus, XLIX, 1977, 3, pp. 202–206; Elizabeth Croppper, Vincenzo Giustiniani’s Galleria. The Pygmalion Effect, in: Cassiano dal Pozzos Paper Museum, vol. I, Ivrea 1992, pp. 101–126; Sybille Ebert Schifferer, Naturalezza e “maniera antica”. Joachim von Sandrart disegnatore dell’Antico, in: Silvia Danesi Squarzina (ed.), Caravaggio e i Giustiniani. Toccar con mano una collezione del Seicento (exh. cat.), Milano 2001, pp. 57–64. 95 Ian Campbell (ed.), The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, Ancient Roman Topography and Architecture, I, London 2004, pp. 248–249. 96 That is, the Academy gathering held on 14 November 1636 which Hoogewerff views as a culmination of the fight of Cisalpine artists with the Academy (G. J. Hoogewerff, Il conflitto fra la insigne Accademia di San Luca, see note 34, p. 201). The records of the session, held in the big hall of the Cancellerie, are kept in the Academy archives (AASL, Liber Academiae Sancti Lucae). The list of participants proves that the Northerners formed almost half of the assembly (32 – Italian, 12 – French, 3 – Spanish, 2 – German, and 42 –Flemish and Dutch). 97 Melchior Missirini, Memorie per servire alla storia della romana Accademia di S. Luca fino alla morte di Antonio Canova, Roma 1823, pp. 111–113 (Titolo LIX). Reprinted in: Olivier Bonfait (ed.), Roma 1630. Il trionfo del pennello, Milano 1994, pp. 243–245. 98 AASL, sign; 166, n. 68, fol. 10r. 99 For example in Poussin’s biography, Bellori mentiones “circa il naturale frequentava l’Accademia del Domenichino, che era dottissima” (G. P. Bellori, Le Vite, see note 79, p. 427). 100 Comp. Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Le vite de’pittori, scultori e architetti moderni, ed. Evelina Borea, Torino 1976, p. 358; G. Passeri, Vite de’pittori (see note 39), pp. 46–47. Both writers state that Domenico Zampieri disliked witnesses while working and was in contact with only few friends.
101 Comp. Elizabeth Cropper, Bound theory and blind practice: Pietro Testa’s notes on painting and the “Liceo della pittura”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 34, 1971, pp. 262–296; Richard E. Spear, Domenichino, New Haven–London 1982; Elizabeth Cropper – Charles Dempsey, Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and the Love of Painting, Princeton 1995; Claudio Strinati – Almamaria Tantillo (edd.), Domenichino 1581–1641 (exh. cat.), Milano 1996; here, see esp. Almamaria Mignosi Tantillo, Domenichino… il piú sapiente… La vita e le opere, pp. 21–55; S. Ginzburg Carignani, Domenichino e Giovanni Battista Agucchi (see note 79), pp. 121–137. 102 Comp., for example, Mancini’s biographies of Pietro da Cortona and Poussin; see G. Mancini, Considerazioni sulla Pittura, I (see note 63), pp. 261, 262. 103 Donatella Livia Sparti, Le collezioni Dal Pozzo: storia di una famiglia e del suo museo nella Roma seicentesca, Modena 1992, p. 29. Dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum was thoroughly explored in a modern edition: The Paper Museum of Cassiano Dal Pozzo: a catalogue raisonné: drawings and prints in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, the British museum, the Institut de France and other collections. Francis Haskell – Jenifer Montagu (edd.), London 2001–2004. On the personality of Cassiano dal Pozzo, see Francesco Solinas (ed.), I segreti di un collezionista: le straordinarie raccolte di Cassiano dal Pozzo, 1588–1657 (exh. cat.), Roma 2001; idem, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Atti del seminario internazionale di studi, Napoli, 18 e 19 dic. 1987, Roma 1989. 104 Regular visitors to Pozzo’s palace during the first half of the 1630s were not only Poussin but also painters Pietro Testa and Giovanni Battista Ruggieri, engravers Giovanni Andrea Podestà, Claude Mellan and Anna Maria Vaiani and sculptor François Duquesnoy, i.e. the same company which frequented Marquis Giustiniani’s palace. Comp. E. Cropper – Ch. Dempsey, Nicolas Poussin (see note 101), p. 64. 105 Along with Sandrart, Palazzo Giustiniani often hosted the Italian painter and engraver Pietro Testa, the four Dutchmen Michael Natalis, Regnerus von Persin, Theodor Matham and Cornelis Bloemaert, and the French engraver Claude Mellan. Comp. Arthur R. Peltzer (ed.), Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau–, Bildund Mahlerey-Künste. Leben der Berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, München 1925, pp. 247–249. 106 Sandrart’s autobiography, edited by Sigmund von Birken on the basis of his own notes, ascribes him the role of inspirer of the entire project; see Joachim von Sandrart, LebensLauf und KunstWerke des Woledlen und Gestrengen Herrn Joachims von Sandrart auf Stockau, Hochfürstl. Pfalz-Neuburgischen Rahts, Nürnbergh 1675, p. 12. See also Sybille Ebert-Schifferer, Sandrart a Roma 1629–1635 (see note 10), pp. 97–114; Giulia Fusconi, Classicismo e realismo nei disegni di Sandrart per la Galleria Giustiniana, in: Giulia Fusconi (ed.), I Giustiniani e l’Antico (exh. cat.), Roma 2001, pp. 15–27; ibid., pp. 221 and 497, and E. Meier, Joachim von Sandrarts LebensLauf (see note 10), pp. 205–239. 107 Luigi Salerno, The Picture Gallery of Vincenzo Giustiniani, I: Introduction, The Burlington Magazine CII, 682, 1960, pp. 21–27; idem, The Picture Gallery of Vincenzo Giustiniani, II, The Inventory, Part I, The Burlington Magazine CII, 684, 1960, pp. 93–104; idem, The Picture Gallery of Vincenzo Giustiniani III: The Inventory, Part II, The Burlington Magazine, CII, 685, 1960, pp. 135–148. On collection inventories of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani, see Silvia Danesi Squarzina, The collections of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani. Part 1, Documents for the History of Collecting, The Burlington Magazine CXXXIX, 1136, 139, 1997, pp. 766–791; idem, The collections of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani. Part II, The Burlington Magazine CXL, 1139, 1998, pp. 102–118; Silvia Danesi Squarzina, La collezione Giustiniani. Inventari 1, 2. Documenti 3. Torino 2003. 108 It was probably Fabio Giustiniani who arranged the commission to decorate the presbytery for Rubens. Rubens himself based his knowledge of Classical Antiquity on copying the marquis’ collections in Palazzo Giustiniani. Silvia Danesi Squarzina, La collezione Giustiniani. Benedetto, Vincenzo, Andrea nostri contemporanei, in: Silvia Danesi Squarzina (ed.), Caravaggio e i Giustiniani (exh. cat.), Milano 2001, pp. 17–45, esp. p. 24 S. Danesi Squarzina, I Giustiniani e l’Oratorio dei Filippini, in: Storia dell’Arte 85, 1995, pp. 369–394. 109 S. Danesi Squarzina, The collections of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani (see note 107), p. 789 (the 1621 Inventory, Inv. No. 203). 110 Giovanni Bottari, Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura ed architettura, S. Ticozzi (ed.), Milano, 1822, pp. 121 and 129. Reprinted in: Olivier Bonfait (ed.), Roma 1630. Il trionfo del pennello (exh. cat.), Milano 1994, pp. 241–243; Luigi Grassi, Teorici e storia della critica d’arte. Parte seconda: l’eta moderna il Seicento, Roma 1973, pp. 35–37.
own treatises on painting and procured the existence of Classicism inspired by the Bologna school in the entire next generation of painters.¹⁰¹ The practice documented in Domenichino’s case was related to more general intellectual fashion which influenced wide strata of low as well as high aristocracy, intellectuals and poets, all nourished by curiosity and desire for knowledge and grasping the sense of things, so characteristic of the 17th century. We can find most various experts on Classical Antiquity in the ranks of librarians and writers on the fringe of the papal court and Roman nobility, who were surrounded by groups of enthusiasts, the so-called “amatori” or “dilettanti”. These circles mediated contacts between the artists and commissioners, motivated aristocrats to establish collections and participated in their development. Apart from famous personalities such as Giulio Mancini or Cassiano dal Pozzo they, for instance, included Leonardo Agostini (1593–1676), friend of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, who was later appointed ‘antiquario pontificio’ and commissioner for Classical Antiquity in Rome and Lazio and who owned the “Museo vario di statue e marmi antichi” on Via della Madonna di Costantinopoli, in the place of, what is today, Piazzo Barberini. Other ones were Carlo Ferrante, friend of Lanfranco, Francesco Angeloni and many more. Direct contact with these enthusiasts and their collections of not only fragments of original Classical sculptures and other objets d’art, but also their drawings and copies almost unwittingly formed the new 17th-century academies, reflected as ‘accademie dal vivo’ by biographers.¹⁰² The most renowned and today certainly the most thoroughly explored collection of this kind was built by Cassiano dal Pozzo, first on Via della Croce and, from 1627, in the palace on Via dei Chiavari, across from the church Sant’Andrea della Valle.¹⁰³ Dal Pozzo, secretary to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, member of Accademie dei Lincei and legendary patron of Poussin but also other more or less well-known artists, resolved to accumulate either originals or copies of all available Classical relics.¹⁰⁴ The famed Museum Chartaceum holds a collection of drawings of Classical as well as early medieval buildings, sculptures, reliefs and other objects which Dal Pozzo often documented with the fervour and preciseness of a modern scholar. His effort nonetheless fully corresponds to his era: his aim was to help the artists, to whom he so generously opened his door, refine their style in the sense mentioned earlier. Yet another easily accessible opportunity to encounter Classical Antiquity and also works by the contemporary and previous generations of artists was offered by the collection of Marquis Giustiniani, whose graphic documentation, published under the title Galleria Giustiniana, was executed by Sandrart and a group of Northern artists during the 1630s.¹⁰⁵ Although the part he played in Palazzo Giustiniani near the Pantheon, where he lived from 1632 at the latest, was properly corrected by recent critique, the reports that he personally executed countless drawings after Classical models appear reliable.¹⁰⁶ The circle around Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani was certainly no less impressive than his collection, numbering almost 600 paintings and more than 1,800 Classical sculptures according to the inventory compiled after his death in 1638.¹⁰⁷ Giustiniani was in close contact with the reformatory tendency of Catholicism in the Roman environment, mainly represented by the followers of St Philip Neri, i.e. the oratorians from S. Maria in Vallicella whose ranks were even joined by several members of his originally Genoese family over the time. It seems that one of them, Fabio Giustiniani, made the community commission Rubens to decorate the local presbytery.¹⁰⁸ The cornerstones of the collection were laid by the influential Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani, Vincenzo’s brother, ten years older than him. He developed a remarkable collection of paintings which could serve as a “pattern book” of iconography of sacral art and also of stylistic attempts at combining it with naturalist detail. He, on the one hand, anticipated the popularity of the Bologna school and had the 1594 Crucifixion by Annibale Carraci in his bedroom¹⁰⁹ and, on the other hand, appreciated and owned paintings by Caravaggio, Ribera and Lanfranco. Generosity combined with an almost unerring intuition in finding the best contemporary painters is also reflected in the theoretical treatise on painting which survived in the form of a letter addressed by Vincenzo Giustiniani to the Flemish attorney and Spanish agent settled in Rome, Dirk van Ameyden (Teodoro Amideni).¹¹⁰ Here, the writer discerns twelve various categories of painters and painting styles which he claims to STUDIES 95
12. ↖↖ Jan Asselijn, The Bentvueghels, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (photo: author's archives) 13. ↖ Pieter van Laer, The Bentvueghels in a Tavern, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (photo: author's archives) 14. ← Roeland van Laer, The Bentvueghels in a Pub, Roma, Museo di Roma (photo: author's archives)
have discovered all by himself. His classification basically distinguishes between individual genres, from ‘spolveri’ – that is colouring a pre-printed model –, copying, caricature and still-life to the ultimate art, enrooted in developing a unique style (maniera; in the sense of the ability to paint after one’s own fantasy without any models) and in the skill to paint things directly observed by the painter, but not merely as a simple portrait of things but on the basis of their versant conceiving – i.e. designing and proportioning (buon disegno e proporzioni) – as well as the masterful treatment of colour and light. Vincenzo Giustiniani views the synthesis of these two ways as the immaculate, twelfth degree of painting achieved by “the most magnificent, first-class painters […] in our times, Caravaggio, the Carracios and Guido Reni”.¹¹¹ The notes made by Marquis Giustiniani therefore testify to the viability of discussion which yet did not have the chance to fossilize in the rigid schemes of the later Classicist theories. To him, Caravaggio and the Carraccios are equipollent artists, worth exploring and following. Roma nova et vetera We certainly will not be far from the truth to imagine Škréta in the company of intellectuals, antiquarians, poets, merchants and artists debating over the collections of Classical objects, from precious sculptures to the curios. He perhaps also used to tour after the art of the elders around Roman environs where people often went drawing in plein-air, as we are reminded by Sandrart in the description of his own trip to Tivoli in the company of Van Laer, Lorrain and Poussin.¹¹² Or maybe he just went out in front of his house with a sketchbook or to the imperial fora with their bizarrely protruding fragments of Classical monuments, sunk several meters underground and symptomatically called Campo Vaccino at that time.¹¹³
96 KAREL ŠKRÉTA AND ROME
111 Giustiniani does not claim that his list of the first-category artists is complete; he, on the contrary, notes that there are other ones besides those mentioned: “[…] tra i quali taluno ha premuto piú nel naturale che nella maniera, e taluno piú nella maniera che nel naturale, senza però discostarsi dall’uno, né dall’altro modo di dipingere […].” Comp. Vincenzo Giustiniano al signor Teodoro Amideni, in: Olivier Bonfait (ed.), Roma 1630 (see note 110), p. 242. 112 Comp. Sandrart’s description of his Tivoli trip, undertaken in the company of the mentioned artists. See A. R. Peltzer (ed.), Joachim von Sandrarts Academie (see note 105), p. 184. 113 Plein-air drawing was the realm of the Northerners. The proof of this practice is, for example, the drawing by Jan Asselijn, The Bentvueghels Drawing and Painting in Plein-Air, Berlin-Dahlem, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv. No. 144.
114 Pompilio Totti, Ritratto di Roma moderna, Roma: appresso Filippo de Rossi, 1645. It represents a supplemented version of the 1638 guide, published again in 1652. 115 Ibid., p. 7. 116 Comp. Joachim von Sandrarts Academie, A. R. Peltzer (ed.) (see note 105), p. 270. 117 G. Passeri, Vite de’pittori (see note 39), pp. 39–42. 118 G. Briganti, Pietro da Cortono (see note 76), pp. 38–39. 119 Comp. ibid., p. 45. 120 Apart from the two mentioned works, Félibien also mentions The Deposition by Daniel da Volterra; see André Félibien, Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellens peintres anciens et modernes, Paris 1666–1688 (3rd ed., Trevoux 1725, VII, p. 478). According to Bellori, Sacchi was of the same opinion; see G. Bellori, Vite de’pittori (see note 79), p. 309. 121 Comp. the author’s contribution Škréta a komunita záalpských umělců v Římě, in: Lenka Stolárová (ed.), Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a Evropě, Praha 2011, p. 7–12. 122 Maurice Vaes, Les fondations hospitalières flamandes à Rome du XVe au XVIIIe siècle, Bulletin de l’institute historique belge de Rome I, 1919, pp. 161–371. Matizia Maroni Lumbroso – Antonio Martini, Le confraternite romane nelle loro chiese, Roma 1963, pp. 177, 272–274, 236–238; Joseph Schmidlin, Geschichte der Deutschen Nationalkirche in Rom S. Maria dell´Anima, Freiburg – Wien 1906. On elder history of the confraternity S. Maria in Vampo Santo recently: Knut Schulz, Confraternitas Campi Sancti de Urbe: die ältesten Mitgliederverzeichnisse (1500/01–1536) und Statuten der Bruderschaft (= Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte: Supplementheft, 54), Roma 2002.
“The two Romes, the old and the new, are so interlinked as if they were not two sisters of similar looks but, instead, one and the same person of different ages,” reads the introduction to one of the most popular guides to the Eternal City.¹¹⁴ The Rome of Urban VIII appeared as a grandiose metropolis even to those who arrived from much closer than our young Northerner. Pomplio Totti for example, Umbrian by origin, enthuses with fascination about St Peter’s basilica as follows: “Everyone who beholds it cannot but confess to seeing a creation of angels as to its beauty and of titans as to its vastness,” and is confident that the new Vatican temple surpasses the Seven Wonders of the World and no monument of the past can bear comparison: “[…] after all, even the Pantheon, the supreme achievement of art, is much smaller than a mere drum of the Vatican cupola which, so to say, as if rested on air”.¹¹⁵ The experience of Rome during the 1630s cannot be reduced to fashionable copying of either the Classical and Raphael or the famed Titian’s Bacchanalia held in the collection of Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi or, respectively, in his villa in the Gardens of Sallust which revived the manuscript of the Roman, Classicist-oriented painters and contributed to developing of what Roberto Longhi labelled the neo-Venetian movement.¹¹⁶ It is nonetheless true that our painter might personally have encountered the doyenne of Baroque Classicism, Domenichino, who had a hard time in 1634 due to the incomprehension of Caravaggio’s supporters headed by Ribera, and better secretly fled from his commission in the Neapolitan cathedral of St Jannuarius (St Gennaro) back to Rome.¹¹⁷ But the papal city also offered other, somewhat mute encounters with artists who had passed through it and left behind their works, which were certainly more eloquent than any treatises for an artist. The effort to provide their complete list would be lost beforehand, and we can thus only illustrate that no artist would indifferently pass S. Luigi dei Francesi with Caravaggio’s paintings in the Contarelli chapel. A similar case is Chiesa Nuova where Rubens’ 1608 decoration of the presbytery with its perspective composition of side paintings climaxes in the vision of the open heaven where the rays of divine light radiate from a source so high and distant that they suggest infinity.¹¹⁸ In 1622, Guercino bequeathed Rome his robust, pictorial style of expressive colour scale in the form of his monumental Glorification of St Crisogonus, executed on the ceiling of the basilica in Trastevere and consecrated to the same saint and, a year later, gave it the large-dimensional canvas The Burial of St Petronilla for the altarpiece by one of the pilasters in the cupola of St Peter’s basilica. Guido Reni then left behind The Holy Trinity, conceived as a revelation making the viewers contemplate, above the main altarpiece in S. Trinità dei Pellegrini (1625). The new approach to altarpieces – that is as stages – is proved in a more narrative variant by Sacchi’s Miracle of St Gregory the Great, created for the Vatican basilica (c. 1627). And let us finally mention Pietro da Cortona who, as soon as 1626, in his reconstruction of Classical life and institutions, breathed life into marble with his fresco cycle at St Bibiana and enforced the Baroque principles in painting in opposition to the Ciampelli’s frescos. In 1633 he began working on the fresco for Palazzo Barberini – a work which can bear a single comparison in Rome: the famed Galleria Farnese. It seems that in painting, too, the winner in the frequently discussed dispute between the new and the old suddenly becomes the modern age through Da Cortona’s Triumph of Divine Wisdom.¹¹⁹ It also seems that Škréta was not attracted by the accelerated rhythm of high-Baroque compositions aimed at monumental synthesis and immediate effect. He would perhaps have more willingly agreed to Poussin’s view reproduced by Félibien and Bellori – that the best paintings in Rome are Raphael’s Metamorphosis and Domenichino’s Last Communion of St Jerome.¹²⁰ It is, however, much easier to imagine Škréta in the company of painters and sculptors from the narrow streets between the Spanish Square and Piazza del Popolo, being close to the sombre perfectionist Duquesnoy relentlessly perfecting the type of modern putti, whose studio came to be attended by Artus Quellinus just upon Škréta’s arrival – the Quellinus who later provided reports about the Prague painter to Cornelis de Bie.¹²¹ He also undoubtedly became familiar with the main hubs of art around which the Northern artists gathered, i.e. the confraternity affiliated to the national churches S. Giuliano dei Fiamminghi, serving the entire Flemish community, and S. Maria in Campo Santo, situated right in the shadow of St Peter’s basilica and frequented by German and Flemish artisans, as well as S. Maria dell’Anima with its concentration of higher middle-class Germans, Flemings and Dutchmen living in Rome.¹²² Although Škréta’s cognomen received in the Schilderbent testifies to his familiar relations STUDIES 97
with the group of Flemish painters, at that time headed by Caravaggio’s supporter Jean Ducamps – known as Giovanni del Campo in Italy – and the bamboccio Peter van Laer, we can find almost no signs of following the style of the bambocciate in Škréta’s oeuvre.¹²³ Criticizing them, as can be found in Pietro Testa and Andrea Sacchi, was far from sporadic and our painter certainly did not aspire to the label of a barbarian who would resign the “hardly achievable recognition of the authentic beauty of Nature” and the obstacle of “depicting it with appropriate grandeur of the random”.¹²⁴ His opinion was undoubtedly much closer to the critics and it even seems that he indeed absorbed the views of art which prevailed in Rome during the 1630s. In any case, the proclaimed ideas did not trouble the painters in their reflections as much as the theoreticians struggling to define them. The artists were in much more intimammediate contact with their respected models and predecessors through their own sketches and drawings. In Agucchi’s anecdote, well illustrating the relationship between theory and practice, the words “we, the painters, speak through our hands” can be read from the lips of Annibale Carracci and it surely is of more general validity.¹²⁵ We can hardly imagine to what extent Škréta followed these examples during his sojourn to Rome. Each and every artist lacking background in the form of a rich supporter and donor faced a rather uneasy situation. The more difficult it must have been for Škréta the immensely ambitious person which can be discerned in his life after the Roman experience. The demand for works of art was high. As Vincenzo Giustiniani observes in the above-mentioned letter, Italy was not the only country where it was commonplace to cover the walls of palaces with paintings instead of precious fabrics.¹²⁶ Dealing in art nevertheless “enjoyed” the status of something undignified. The academics, for example, were supposed to refrain from all art deals under the threat of immediate expulsion from the Academy.¹²⁷ As late as in 1670, the Roman St Lucas Academy laments the deplorable phenomenon of “the works intended to decorate sacred temples and provide grandeur to noble dwellings but being displayed in shops and on streets as despicable merchandise”.¹²⁸ But the permissions (the so-called patente) – surviving in the files of the Academy and given to those willing to sell either their own or someone else’s works by the official artists’ association upon obligatory request – prove that dealing in art during the 17th century experienced rather unprecedented prosperity.¹²⁹ The only choice for an artist arriving in the Eternal City and owning nothing but his brushes was to get hired for a wage by one of the local art dealers. Johan van Gool writes about this in his description of the financial conditions of the Bent members, featuring it as “painters’ galley slavery”. Young painters were either hired for a daily wage or were paid per item, producing portraits of saints in endless variations which were then exported to Spanish and Portuguese colonies to decorate newly established churches and monasteries.¹³⁰ If we can nonetheless trust the earliest biographers of our painter, they seem to testify to his somewhat better position: if Škréta indeed gained fame as a painter of portraits, he was probably not condemned to any “slavery” like as other artists who vainly struggled for recognition, and some of his works perhaps still await discovery, resting somewhere high on the walls of Roman noble galleries. And we can only speculate whether the necessity to earn some living made him frequent the motifs of renowned Italian artists in paintings intended for South-American churches. Translated by Lucie Vidmar
98 KAREL ŠKRÉTA AND ROME
123 Except perhaps the rather deducted figural canon in the St Wenceslas Cycle. 124 The quote comes from the letter of 28 October 1651, written by Andrea Sacchi and addressed to Francesco Albani; see Carlo Cesare Malvasia (ed.), Felsina pittrice, II, G. Zanotti (ed.), Bologna 1841, pp. 179–181. On criticism of Pietro Tesca, see Elizabeth Cropper, Virtue’s wintry reward: Pietro Testa’s etchings of the Seasons, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 37, 1974, pp. 249–279, here p. 271; idem, Ideal of painting: Pietro Testa’s Düsseldorf notebook, Princeton 1984, p. 55, pp. 104–105. 125 Agucchi illustrates the rather complicated relationship between theory and practice with an anecdotic story from the life of the Carracis: Agostino, a fan of discussions, talked about the Laocoon sculptural group in a circle of art-loving aristocrats and asked Annibale to contribute to his analysis. But Annibale just turned away to the wall of the room and drew Laocoon in charcoal on it so vividly as if he faced him at that instance, responding to the admiring words of the gathered as follows: “Noi altri Dipintori habbiamo da parlare con le mani” (If us the painters of a different kin have something to say, we use our hands to say it). Agucchi in no time adds that the painter then executed a sketch of yet another Laocoon – his own invention – which nonetheless was not second to the famed Classical sculpture: it was “splendidly conceived in every part, well-considered, harmonious and complete”, and as soon as the cardinal saw it, he commissioned the Carracis to decorate his palace. G. B. Agucchi, “Trattato della pittura” (see note 77), p. 153 (1646, fol.12). 126 Letter written by Vincenzo Giustiniani, in: Olivier Bonfait (ed.), Roma 1630 (see note 110), p. 243. 127 The concept, which was included in the 1617 statutes of the Academy as early as 1617, is confirmed by the 1667 document. See Loredana Lorizzo, Il mercato dell’arte a Roma nel XVII secolo: “pittori bottegari” e “rivenditori di quadric” nei documenti dell’Archivio Storico dell’Accademia di San Luca, in: Marcello Fantoni – Louisa C. Matthew – Sara F. Matthews-Grieco (edd.), The Art Market in Italy (15th–17th Centuries), Ferrara 2003, pp. 325–336, esp. p. 327. 128 M. Missirini, Memorie (see note 97), p. 126. Quoted by L. Lorizzo, Il mercato (see note 127), p. 327. 129 Lorizzo (ibid.) describes three categories of merchants in the field of art: painters selling their paintings (pittori bottegari), mere dealers with paintings (rivenditori di quadri), and art dealers and frame sellers (coronari). Paintings on sale were moreover on display in windows (regattieri) or sold through itinerant sellers. 130 Johan van Gool, De nieuwe schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen, II, Haag 1750–1751, pp. 470–474. Juditz Verberne nonetheless warns against possible moralistic distorting of the situation because, to Van Gool, morality, artistic success and social prosperity are inseparable. Comp. J. Verberne, The Bentvueghels in Rome (see note 34), pp. 26–27.
Facing the Public Škréta’s historiae sacrae from the Perspective of the Art Theory and Painting Practice of His Time∗ ŠTĚPÁN VÁCHA
* For a stimulating discussion on the topic, I am indebted to Prof. Milena Bartlová of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, valuable information was contributed by Dr. Martin Mádl from the Art History Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and I am grateful to Strahov Library’s Dr. Hedvika Kuchařová for her assistance with translations from Latin. 1 Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674). His Work and His Era (exh. cat.), Prague 2010, p. 17; also Jaromír Neumann, Škrétové. Karel Škréta a jeho syn, Praha 2000, p. 6. 2 Johann Quirin Jahn, VIII. Nachrichten von einigen böhmischen alten Malern und Künstlern, Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und der freyen Künste, Neunzehnten Bandes Zweytes Stück, Leipzig 1776, p. 322: “Zu verwundern ist es, daß er verschiedene Rollen spielen konnte; ich will sagen, daß er die Manier so vieler großen Maister vortrefflich nachahmte; denn er wußte sich nicht nur an die Stelle eines Michelangelo, Merigi, und Lanfranc zu versetzen, sondern auch in dem Geiste eines Raphael von Urbin, Dominichino, insonderheit aber Guido Reni, den er besonders als seinen Liebling ansah, auszudrücken. Auch macht er von demjenigen Gebrauch, was er aus der Venetianischen Schule, nach einem Titian und einem Paul Veronese gelernet hatte.” Cf. Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta (1610–1674), Praha 1974, pp. 9–10. 3 Jan Quirin Jahn, Aneckdoten […] (See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 149): “Ja er nun (nach Zeigungs J. Scandrart[!], der ihm gekennet hat) die samment[lichen] italiänische Kunstschulen durchpassiret und mittelst seiner natür[lichen] scharfen Vernunft als eine fleißige Bühne von allen besten Blumen den Süssen fast der Kunst zusammen gesamlet hatte, […]” 4 Esp. Gustav Edmund Pazaurek, Carl Screta (1610–1674). Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des XVII. Jahrhundertes, Prag 1889, esp. pp. 60–64. Cf. J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 2), pp. 9–12. 5 Esp. Vincenc Kramář (ed.), Výstava obrazů Karla Škréty, Praha 1938, pp. 8–13.
Appreciations of Karel Škréta generally include an appraisal of the artist’s extraordinary receptiveness to varied sources of inspiration and his ability to recast these into a singular vision. Despite the multifarious nature of his stylistic and technical approaches, Škréta never lapsed into mere imitation of the mannerisms of any one master; nor did he resort to verbatim borrowing from the work of others. His art, characterised by thematic imaginativeness, formal richness, emotional intensity and spiritual depth, is always distinctive and original. His exceptional painting talent, fortuitously cultivated during his stay in the leading art centres of the Apennine peninsula, and his ability to continue to grow creatively after returning to Prague, are the qualities we use to measure Škréta against his peers in Bohemia. Whether altar canvases or portraits, religious- or secular-themed narrative paintings, an iconographically and inventively demanding thesis prints or book illustrations – in each of these genres Škréta reveals himself to be a consummate artist far surpassing his contemporaries, capable in every instance of applying a unique approach. For these reasons, we may deem Karel Škréta to be the “founder of the modern Czech painting tradition”.¹ It must be noted that art historians have only very gradually come to this realisation based on accruing facts about the artist, the increasing number of works attributed to Škréta and the gradual professionalization of the discipline. Assessments of an artist always reflected current aesthetic standards. Thus it was that in the latter half of the 18th century Jan Quirin Jahn praised Škréta as a painter who “superbly emulated the stylistic manner of the greatest masters” like Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Lanfranco, Raphael, Domenichino, Reni and the Venetians Titian and Veronese.² In Jahn’s eyes, Škréta embodied the contemporary ideal of the academically trained artist, as “he had visited all the Italian art schools and, owing to his inborn and astute judgment, selected the best they had to offer”.³ That which had been attributed to Škréta as a strength, came to be seen in the late 19th century as a weakness and sign of eclecticism.⁴ Vincenc Kramář, who attributed Škréta with creative originality and progressiveness, fully rehabilitated the artist’s reputation in the period between the first and second world wars. Indeed, Kramář not only identified the specific sources of Škréta’s Italian instruction, chiefly Venetian colourism and Roman principles of composition and chiaroscuro modelling, but also underlined Škréta’s highly evolved feeling for elaborating the tangible and his predilection towards the specific attributes of the terrestrial world.⁵ Jaromír Neumann also looked at Škréta, whom he introduced in a monograph-type oeuvre-catalogue of 1974 as a multifaceted painter possessing a broad range of expression and, in addition to the already mentioned synthesis of Venetian colourism and Caravaggian realism, traced influences of Bolognese and Roman classicism in his work. The objective of the recent Škréta exhibition, complemented by an extensive scholarly catalogue, is STUDIES 101
to introduce the artist’s work within the broader contexts of contemporary European and Bohemian painting. It is primarily be employing stylistic critique, supported by formal and iconographic analyses of individual works and heuristic research, that we gain access to Škréta’s work, clarify its conception amid existing developmental contexts and define a place for Škréta in our constructed “story” of the Bohemian and (central) European Baroque. Such an approach is clearly warranted, as well as being essential to the work of the art historian, but it must be stated that the research results primarily testify to our understanding of the artist’s work and have little to do with how he was perceived by his contemporaries. Although our overall estimation of Karel Škréta does not differ from the laudatory assessments of his contemporaries and, like them, we consider him to be the greatest Bohemian painter of the 17th century, it is difficult to square our idea of him with art theoretician and painter Joachim von Sandrart’s (1606–1688) assertion that Škréta “was not only a universal theoretician, but also a highly experienced practitioner at all times expertly taking nature as his guide”.⁶ This skewed conceptual and material view is understandable: 17th-century art critique employed a different conceptual apparatus and professed other aesthetic perspectives; indeed, fine art itself held a different social status and performed another function. The fact that Škréta’s paintings are able still to engage the lay viewer clearly demonstrates their universal and timeless value. Still, we cannot imagine these works being perceived by today’s gallery visitors, art historians or restorers as they were by the 17th-century public. Here we face the essential dilemma inherent in any historical interpretation, a dilemma that may, in the case of Karel Škréta, be expressed in the following paradox: on one hand, we have the temporal perspective afforded by several centuries, owing to which we are able ever more objectively to come to know Škréta’s work within its broader historical and developmental contexts; on the other hand, we have a temporal chasm of equal length, resulting in our great distancing from the psychological and spiritual world of Baroque man – his visual and aesthetic sense – and obviating an unmediated understanding of Škréta’s oeuvre. This assertion seeks not to impugn the meaningfulness of the art historian’s work, but rather to point up a hitherto neglected aspect of the research as represented by the study of the contemporary theoretical and broader socio-cultural assumptions underlying Škréta’s work and its reception in his time. While presenting Karel Škréta as “man and artist”, the editors of the new exhibition catalogue stressed that his illustrious success – as evidenced by his social ascendance and material prosperity – was based not only on his painterly abilities, but also his extraordinary adaptability to the circumstances of his time and demands of his society.⁷ Of course, Škréta’s paintings represent not just a reflection of the artist himself, but also of the requirements for status and prestige and the degree of cultivation and taste of the public – Škréta’s public, in other words. i.e. the complex social structure to which those both commissioning and consuming the artworks belonged, meaning church visitors, members of the clergy (especially preachers) and Škréta’s professional colleagues.⁸ It is receptive aesthetics that furnishes a methodological starting point for an examination of Škréta’s public; when applied to the history of art, it counts the viewer as a constitutive element of the creative process.⁹ It is not exclusively the artist and his intentions – not the work understood as an imprint of his artistic genius and an expression of his time and country – but rather the viewer, with his attendant expectations and demands, who forms the point of reference for any interpretation. If we allow that Škréta created through interaction with public demand and response, then several questions come to the fore: How was Prague prepared for Škréta’s art? What innovation did the painter bring to Bohemia and how specifically did he influence local painting? Moreover: to what degree was Škréta’s work formed by specific local conditions, namely his customers’ quest for representative status and the public’s taste? The artist’s sacral-themed paintings best serve the search for an answer to these questions, though there is no doubt that an analogous set of questions could be formulated with respect to the portrait genre.¹⁰ Karel Škréta and historiae sacrae It is a generally known fact that the sacred image newly garnered the attention of Catholic theologians in the latter half of the 16th century in response to Protestant iconoclasm. 102 FACING THE PUBLIC
6 See further for details regarding Sandrart’s assessment of Karel Škréta. 7 Cf. Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas, Karel Škréta – The man and artist at a time of transformation, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 1), pp. 17–23. 8 The phenomenon of Škréta’s public, though referring to a narrowly chosen segment of believers (“viewers of holy drama”) has been treated by Sylva Dobalová, Pašijový cyklus Karla Škréty. Mezi výtvarnou tradicí a jezuitskou spiritualitou, Praha 2004, pp. 96–102. 9 The art historical literature on this topic is extensive; generally on the issue see Wolfgang Kemp’s introductory study Kunstwissenschaft und Rezeptionsästhetik included in an anthology of texts: Wolfgang Kemp (ed.), Der Betrachter ist im Bild. Kunstwissenschaft und Rezeptionsästhetik, Berlin 1992, pp. 7–27. 10 Recently, Marcela Vondráčková, Karel Škréta’s Portraiture, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 1), pp. 271–275.
11 For the paradigm shift in painting in the early modern period, see Hans Belting, Bild und Kult. Eine Geschichte des Bilder vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst, München 19912. 12 “[…] pareria a noi che la pittura, la quale ha da servire ad uomini, donne, nobili, ignobili, ricchi, poveri, dotti, indotti, et ad ogniuno in qualche parte, essendo ella il libro popolare, dovesse ancor essere formata in modo che proporzionatamente potesse saziare il gusto di tutti.” – Gabriele Paleotti, Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane, Bologna 1582, in: Paola Barocchi (ed.), Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento. Fra Manierismo e Controriforma, Volume secondo: Gilio – Paleotti – Aldrovandi, Bari 1961 (Scrittori d’Italia 221), pp. 117–509, here p. 493. Cf. W. Kemp, Der Betrachter ist im Bild (see note 9), pp. 9–10; Christian Hecht, Katholische Bildertheologie im Zeitalter von Gegenreformation und Barock: Studien zu Traktaten von Johannes Molanus, Gabriele Paleotti und anderen Autoren, Berlin 1997, pp. 193–204. 13 W. Kemp, Der Betrachter ist im Bild (see note 9), p. 10. 14 Regarding the last mentioned, see two of Balbín’s epigrams (See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 116) or the poem by Litoměřice Bishop Maxmilián Rudolf of Šlejnice on the painting The Stoning of St Stephen in Litoměřice Cathedral (more on this further in the text) included in the second edition of his epigram collection Memorabilium Romanorum Exornatorum […] of 1672 (See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 128). About Bishop Šlejnic see Vít Vlnas, Maxmilián Rudolf Šlejnic jako mecenáš Karla Škréty. Ke vzájemnému vztahu barokní historiografie a výtvarného umění, in: Zuzana Pokorná – Martin Svatoš (edd.), Bohuslav Balbín a kultura jeho doby v Čechách. Sborník z konference Památníku národního písemnictví, Praha 1992, pp. 136–145; Vít Vlnas, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 1), pp. 604–605, cat. no. XVI.25. 15 V. Kramář, Výstava obrazů Karla Škréty (see note 5), p. 11. 16 Václav Vilém Štech, Československé malířství a sochařství nové doby, Praha 1938–1939, p. 59. 17 Jaromír Neumann, Malířství XVII. století v Čechách. Barokní realismus, Praha 1951 (České dějiny III). 18 Idem, Český barok, Praha 19742, p. 76. 19 See the studie by Štěpán Vácha and Vít Vlnas in this book.
The need arose to re-define its meaning and legitimacy, where the line of theological argumentation that the Church had started to elaborate during the iconoclastic storms of the Middle Ages was combined with the need to reflect its aesthetic qualities as a work of art, one that had become a subject of broad theoretical discourse during the Renaissance. No longer just a cult and sacred object, the religious painting attained the status of artwork and became subject to critical reflection.¹¹ Thus, for example, did Gabriele Paleotti in his Discorso intorno alle imagini (1582) not only propound a teleological definition of religious painting derived from the relevant Trident Council decree provisions, but also delved into the relationship between art and the public. He propounds the belief that “[…] painting, which should serve men and women, the noble and rustic, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, everyone in its whichever of its parts, just like a favourite book, should also be rendered in a manner that reasonably satisfies the tastes of all”.¹² The requirement that art shall contrive to interest the broader public corresponds to the division of humankind into four classes: the painter (i pittori), the scholar (i letterati), the unschooled individual (gl’idioti) and the spiritual person (gli spirituali), each of them finding in an artwork something that pertains to them: the painter appreciates the artistic rendering, the scholar a satisfactory explication of its content, the simple person is captivated by the painting’s beauty and the spiritually-inclined draws religious instruction from the painting.¹³ The specific position of the early modern religious painting, which served not only for religious meditation, but also as the subject of expert, intellectual and aesthetic evaluation, derives from the nature of its display location. The form and content of such a painting, whether forming part of an altarpiece or decorating a sacral interior, was shaped by the architectural space, cult function and anticipated behaviour of the viewer. Its public nature and intrinsic representative role clearly differentiate the religious picture from other painting types such as portraits and cabinet and other pieces. It served as both a universal interpreter of ethical values and a supreme work of art through which contemporary society as a whole was brought into contact with artistic expression of the highest quality and which was to be jointly experienced and critically reflected upon. Thus, it is not surprising that these qualities enable us fully to appreciate the pre-eminent position of the religious painting in 17th-century central European painting. Škréta’s religious-themed paintings, moreover, garnered the greatest of acclaim during his time and life. Many were graphically reproduced or were made in replica or employed as a subject of literary reflection.¹⁴ In this respect, the exemplary works are his narrative paintings with their abundant figural crowds, e.g. the Zderaz cycle lunettes (fig. 15 and 16), the altarpieces St Charles Borromeo Visitsing the Plague-Stricken (fig. 5) or St Thomas of Villanova Distributing Alms to the Poor (fig. 11), and the large canvases of Assumption of the Virgin and Easter cycle. Art historians, well aware of how truly pivotal these paintings are, use them as a starting point when examining Škréta’s oeuvre and attempting to grasp its singular qualities. Thus did Vincenc Kramář remark that such paintings are religious in theme only “because an intense interest in reality leads the artist to a terrestrial, almost genre approach”.¹⁵ Similarly, Václav Vilém Štech noted in the “legendary scenes , the calm of the things naturally unfolding and freely associated with the topic’s storyline. […] The storyline is freely associated and interposed with varied subjects and episodes. In these ancillary points – be they firkins, casks, crystal dishes or landscape vistas or needlework and lace, are manifested the richest painterly delicacy and sense of objects in space”.¹⁶ Jaromír Neumann went furthest with this interpretation in his published dissertation on Baroque realism in Bohemian 17th-century painting when, citing Marxist aesthetics and the interpretation of early modern history as the period of the feudalist class war, he uses an historically inapposite ideological purpose to explicate the “realistic” expression of Karel Škréta and other painters.¹⁷ Notwithstanding this tendentious sidestep, the young researcher also put forth many valid observations appreciated in later years in their more mature form. Neumann concisely named and appropriately verbalized the observational and realistic tendencies in Škréta’s work, that is the “vivid narration and feeling for dramatic conflict, meticulously observed and internally experienced events, the ability through natural gestures both psychologically penetratingly and poetically to express typical life situations”,¹⁸ which took root in the phraseology of Czech Baroque scholarship and were subscribed to by several generations of scholars.¹⁹ A question we may pose here is to what degree such characteristics would be STUDIES 103
understandable to the 17th-century viewer. Although we look at the same paintings or are captivated by observing the same visual phenomena, our manners of seeing and verbal descriptions of rendered realities derive from divergent psychological experience and serve other objectives. We, too, appreciate the colour and light composition, the precise compositional scheme, adroit use of architecture to construct the pictorial space and delineate significant relationships between the interacting figures, the diversity of the physiognomic types and psychologically convincing expressions of the human figures, the apt characterisation of the setting and ingenious linking of material artefacts or animals in genre-like harmonious units, but in our overall interpretation, we tend toward a stylistic evaluation of Škréta’s artistic expression, which we chiefly perceive as realistic or as the outcome of myriad stylistic influences. To gain insight into the manner in which the paintings were perceived in their time, it is of considerable use to turn to the accounts of Bohuslav Balbín (1621–1688), indisputably the greatest scholar in Škréta’s Bohemia and one who, in his own words, was intimately familiar with the painter and his work.²⁰ In Verisimilia humaniorum disciplinarum, a large textbook and theoretical treatise on the humanities published in 1666, Balbín advises students to examine remarkable paintings when staging theatre productions and costuming actors. He explicitly mentions “portraits” (“imagines”) and “paintings” (“picturae”) by the best European painters, amongst whom he includes Karel Škréta, as a designer of thesis prints²¹: “It is – and I have oft repeated this – something of a praiseworthy curiosity, carefully to examine the portraits and paintings of great artists such as Raphael of Urbino and other Italians, Rubens, Dürer, Sadeler, Gal, Moncornet, and here at home the emblematic sheets of a Bohemian painter who never intended to remain in the background of the old masters: Karel Škréta. They show not only the figures’ attire, but also their most characteristic and original gestures in emotional situations.”²² Still more instructive is his “How to Look at Pictures” found in the chapter Poetic Pictures (Imagines poëticae). When referencing his personal experience and advising adepts of poetic art to gain inspiration by surveying artistic creations, mainly paintings, Balbín says: “I usually advise students to ingrain deeply in their mind the artworks of great artists, painters, sculptors and architects, etc. This is absolutely necessary in poetry and of great importance for any description of things and persons. I praise ardent and scholarly curiosity (particularly in this respect), which encourages fantasy and a certain capacity for imagination for us to learn how to essay things in an appropriate, i.e. poetic form. After all, painters and artists have much in common with poetry – both engage in creating something, and what poets say in poetry, artists say in colour… In a painting or sculpture, it is necessary to behold a garment or clothes, attributes, colours, hair, gestures of hands, major facial expressions and any adjacent happenings, such as what is going on around the scene, be it in the sky or on the ground. Should anyone wish to do it as I do: when I encounter works of art by great artists, I first scan everything with my eyes until I have committed the entire scene in detail to memory; then, I picture the individual things as painted with my eyes closed and store them in my mind, in case I should have need of them at a later time.”²³ Indeed, Balbín’s instructions for how to look at, or read, paintings, that is through concentrated and lasting observation and the joining of imagination and memory, assume a specific pictorial language based on a functional linking of painting and word. This humanistic concept, underpinned by the famous Horatian dictum “ut pictura poesis” (poetry is like painting) that Balbín paraphrases in the above-mentioned quotation, apprehends paintings as painted poems or tales.²⁴ To describe such a type of painting, we find in the period sources the term history (in Latin: historia; in Italian: storia).²⁵ History was first defined as a separate painting genre by Leon Battista Alberti in his 1435 tract On Painting.²⁶ Starting from the principles of the ancient art of rhetoric, Alberti deemed history worthy of admiration and praise, if it succeeds in engaging the educated and unsophisticated viewer alike, evoking both sensory pleasure and emotional response.²⁷ All of this is mediated by the rendered human figure, which – captured in natural behaviour and motion grounded in observation of nature – causes us to “mourn with the mourners, laugh with the laughers and share the pain of those who suffer”.²⁸ When rendering hands in motion, the rest of the arms must be rendered in a manner that, in our subjective experience, naturally couples with such motion. Similarly, a group of figures engaged in some action is not composed additively, but subordinately, with each subject being connected to the unfolding scene in a different manner.²⁹ 104 FACING THE PUBLIC
20 See Balbín’s statement about Škréta in the 3rd book of the 1st decade of Miscellanea of 1681, p. 134: “[…] which I say about him not only out of the friendship he so abundantly showed me when alive.” See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 139. Cf. Lubomír Konečný, Bohuslav Balbín a emblematika, in: idem, Mezi textem a obrazem. Miscellanea z historie emblematiky, Praha 2002, pp. 44–66, here p. 53 (with a reference to the literature); also Pavel Preiss, Patria mihi pro coelo est. Karel Maxmilián Lažanský, žák Bohuslava Balbína Několik poznámek ke kulturnímu profilu barokního šlechtice, in: idem, Kořeny a letorosty výtvarné kultury baroka v Čechách, Praha 2008, pp. 153–175. 21 In the Latin original “emblemata”, here in translation “emblematic sheets”. Similarly, Joachim von Sandrart (Teutsche Academie der Bau–, Bild und Mahlerey-Künste II, Nürnberg 1675, bk. 3, p. 327) praises Škréta’s “die fürnehmste Conclusiones und Emblemata”. See Konečný, Bohuslav Balbín a emblematika (see note 20), pp. 53–54. 22 Bohuslav Balbín, Rukověť humanitních disciplín = Verisimilia humaniorum disciplinarum, ed. Olga Spevak, Praha 2006, pp. 472–475 (incl. the original Latin). Cf. Jiří Kropáček, Výtvarné umění u Bohuslava Balbína, in: Z. Pokorná – M. Svatoš (edd.), Bohuslav Balbín a kultura (see note 14), pp. 111–121. 23 B. Balbín, Rukověť (see note 22), pp. 220–223 (incl. Latin original). On the function of memory (ars memoriae) in literary, theatrical and fine art aesthetics from the Middle Ages to the 17th century, see Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory, London 1972. 24 For a basic study on this topos in fine art, see Rensselaer W. Lee, Ut pictura poesis. The Humanistic Theory of Painting, New York 1967. 25 We also find the term history (= historie) in Czech-language 17th-century sources. Cf. the decedent’s estate of Karel Škréta Jr. († 1691), where it is used in the following ways: “No. 65. model of a history; No. 98. model of an older history; No. 112. large portion of a history in which there are 5 persons and a child; No. 135. old painting, a history with many persons; No. 147. poetic history”. See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 171. 26 Leon Battista Alberti, Das Standbild. Die Malkunst. Grundlagen der Malerei = De statua. De pictura. Elementa picturae, ed. Oskar Bätschmann – Christoph Schäublin, Darmstadt 2000, pp. 256–264. For a comprehensive history of the “historical painting” genre, see Ekkehard Mai, Historia! Von der Figurenmalerei in Theorie und Praxis seit dem 16. Jahrhundert, in: Ekkehard Mai – Anke Repp-Eckert (edd.), Triumph und Tod des Helden. Europäische Historienmalerei von Rubens bis Manet, Milano 1987, pp. 15–29; see also the anthology of sources on this genre, Thomas W. Gaehtgens – Uwe Fleckner (edd.), Historienmalerei, Berlin 1996 (Geschichte der klassischen Bildgattungen in Quellentexten und Kommentaren I). 27 Cf. L. B. Alberti, Das Standbild. Die Malkunst (see note 26), chap. 40, p. 264: “Historia vero, quam meritis possis et laudare et admirari, eiusmodi erit quae illecebris quibusdam sese ita amenam et ornatam exhibeat, ut oculos docti atque indocti spectatoris diutius quadam cum voluptate et animi motu detineat”. Similarly, Wolfgang Brassat, Das Historienbild im Zeitalter der Eloquenz. Von Raffael bis Le Brun, Berlin 2003 (Studien aus dem Warburg-Haus 6). 28 L. B. Alberti, Das Standbild. Die Malkunst (see note 26), chap. 41, p. 269: “Fit namque natura, qua nihil sui similium rapacius inveniri potest, ut lugentibus conlugeamus, ridentibus adrideamus, dolentibus condoleamup.” 29 Cf. Alois Riegel, Das Holländische Gruppenporträt (Textband), Wien 1931, pp. 7–22, also pp. 209–213. 30 Hubert Locher, Raffael und das Altarbild der Renaissance. Die “Pala Baglioni” als Kunstwerk im sakralen Kontext, Berlin 1994 (Acta humaniora. Schriften zur Kunstwissenschaft und Philosophie), esp. pp. 104–109. 31 For the most comprehensive treatment of this topic to date, see Wiebke Windorf, Sakrale Historienmalerei in St Peter in Rom. Faktizität und Fiktionalität in der Altarbildausstattung unter Papst Urban VIII. (1623–1644), Regensburg 2006, esp. pp. 55–99 (the section Das Historienbild und Trient).
1. Karel Škréta, The Holy Family with St Anna, St Charles Borromeo and St Francis Seraphic, c. 1660, Hradec Králové, Bishopric (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán)
The aesthetic conception of a narrative painting (history) as an ideal form for capturing dramatic events and human passions and emotions developed by Renaissance theoreticians and artists was first applied to paintings with secular themes and, in churches, to wall paintings; after 1500, Raphael successfully translated the concept to the altarpiece.³⁰ Inspired by his examples, 16th- and 17th-century artists cultivated the religious history (historia sacra) genre. For them, the multifariousness of Christian iconography combined with current developmental trends provided an ideal opportunity to advance their own creative inventiveness, compositional craft and virtuosity in figural painting.³¹ The attractiveness of this artistic task is in the high degree of such work’s accessibility: by displaying a painting STUDIES 105
in a church, an artist could create a broader awareness of his work and in so doing reach new customers. Of course, benefits also accrued to the Church in terms of its soul-saving efforts. If, according to Gabriel Paleotti, it was “the primary objective of Christian paintings to bring people into the fold and deliver them to God”,³² then the historiae sacrae depicting human action and spiritual affection performed this demanding task to a generous degree. The scope of this study does not provide for a detailed survey of this genre’s development; however, some typical examples, which were admired by generations of artists and became for them an endless source of inspiration, deserve to be mentioned. These are Raphael’s monumental panel painting The Transfiguration of Christ (1518–1520, Pinacoteca Vaticana)³³ and the canvas The Death of St Peter the Martyr, which Titian painted in 1530 for the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, but was lost in the 19th century.³⁴ In line with the requirements of this painting genre, however, the demands placed on painters grew, too. In order to accomplish the difficult task of reaching the educated and uneducated public alike, they had themselves to be possessed of sufficient education, be well read and study history.³⁵ In matters of practical painterly skills, they were expected to employ artistic means ensuring the imprintability of a painting in the viewer’s mind. Balbín’s emphasis on observation of the concrete particularities, gesticulations and facial expressions of the figures depicted in paintings essentially formulates the criteria for a good painting: visual appeal, intelligibility and emotional urgency. Škréta applies these criteria, corresponding in principle to Neumann’s characteristics of vivid narration and psychological incisiveness, with a marked intensity in his paintings. Let us begin with conventionally static devotional scenes (known as the sacra conversazione³⁶), such as the altarpiece The Holy Family with St Anna, St Charles Borromeo and St Francis Seraphic painted for the Church of Sts Peter and Paul On Poříčí in Prague’s New Town (fig. 1).³⁷ In his pyramidal grouping of five figures around Jesus, the painter succeeds, through his skilfully composed hand gestures, turns of the head and directed looks, to portray relationships rich in expressive intensity. The rigorous subordination of the figures derives from the dramatic unfolding of the two saints’ adoration of the Divine Child. The Christ-child accepts their expressions of devotion, as evidenced in his benedictory gesture, but the rigid posture and facial expression respond with apparent misgiving and uncertainty to the “odd” behaviour of the two men. The Christ-child’s fearfulness, the likes of which the painter had likely observed in the natural reaction of a child to an unfamiliar face, is mitigated by the comforting gestures of Maria and Anna. Josef remains off to the side, though his interest in the scene is clear from the pronounced turn of his head and rising posture, as indicated by the position of his hand resting atop the table. These are indeed episodic motifs with the strong psychological charge that runs through Škréta’s work, drawing the viewer in. This same artistic approach to the material, contingent on an observer’s intellect incited during long and concentrated observation, is also evident in Škréta’s cabinet painting The Virgin Mary Teaches the Christ-child to Read in the Presence of St Joseph and John the Baptist (fig. 4), where the artist convincingly expresses the intense concentration of the child reading from the slate toward which his mother gestures with a pointer, as a curious St Joseph looks on.³⁸ We see the same approach in the group Portrait of the Gem-Cutter Dionysius Miseroni and His Family (fig. 2).³⁹ The exceptional composition and spatial construction of this last painting are established by the diagonal leading from the upper left to the lower right corner in relation to which the figures of Dionysius’ youngest sons are uncompromisingly subordinated and proportionally reduced. Simply by rendering the portrait of the large family of the well-to-do burgher and successful artist/businessman, Škréta created a compelling scene in which the subtly ranged looks and gestures of all the portrait’s subjects evoke an atmosphere of familial comfort and solidarity, while, simultaneously, the material luxury stemming from the operation of the cutter’s factory (which we see in the upper right corner of the painting) is translated into a reciprocal communication with the use of various handicraft objects. Dionysius, as head of the family and operator of the family enterprise, naturally stands above in the complicated figural composition. Of the entire group, only the little daughter Kristina Jana Renata establishes eye contact with the viewer; her head rests in the palm of her father’s hand, her inquisitive look adding greater veracity and psychological cogency. The singular qualities of Škréta’s treatment, which lay in how the artist constitutively connects all the family members to the scene, are thrown into even
106 FACING THE PUBLIC
32 G. Paleotti, Discorso intorno (see note 12), p. 215: “[…] dicemo, che il fine di esse [= delle imagini cristiane] prencipale sarà di persuadere le persone alla pietà et ordinarle a Dio; […]” 33 Pierlugi De Vecchi, Raffael, München 2002, pp. 333–345; Rudolf PReimesberger, Tragische Motive in Raffaels “Transfiguration”, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte L, 1987, pp. 89–115. 34 Patricia Meilaman, Titian and the Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice, Cambridge 2000. 35 Evonne Levy, Ideal and Reality of the Learned Artist. The Schooling of Italian and Netherlandish Artists, in: Laurie Rubin (ed.), Children of Mercury. The Education of Artists in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Providence 1984, pp. 20–27. 36 For a detailed treatment of the holy conversation (sacra conversazione) painting type, see Heidrun Stein-Kecks, “Santa (sacra) Conversazione”. Viele Bilder, ein Begriff und keine Definition, in: Karl Möseneder – Gosbert Schüssler (edd.), Bedeutung in den Bildern. Festschrift für Jörg Traeger zum 60. Geburtstag, Regensburg 2002 (Regensburger Kulturleben I), pp. 413–442. 37 Martin Mádl, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 1), pp. 238–239, cat. no. V.19. 38 Marcela Vondráčková, in: ibid., pp. 428–429, cat. no. X.2. 39 Marcela Vondráčková, in: ibid., pp. 290–291, cat. no. VI.8.
2. ↗ Karel Škréta, Portrait of the Gem-Cutter Dionysius Miseroni and His Family, 1653, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague) 3. → Tobias Pock, Self-Portrait with Family, 1669/1670, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
4. ← Karel Škréta, The Holy Family with St John the Baptist, 1650/1655, private collection (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán)
greater relief by a comparison with the typologically similar Self-Portrait of the Painter Tobias Pock with Family (fig. 3).⁴⁰ While here, too, we find that individual figures possess attributes of professional activity and family solidarity (the painter’s tools are strewn across the table, Tobias himself holds a drawing in his hands, his youngest son Johann Jakob draws on a sheet of paper, the older Joseph Franz shows his masterly painting The Holy Family, Tobias’ wife holds a small dog and a rose as expressions of loyalty and love and some family portraits hang on the wall), there is a lack of any real contact among the figures. Despite the varied depictions of the figures and their faces, they are autonomous, additively arranged likenesses, together creating what is a minimally harmonious and visually attractive unit. St Charles Borromeo Visiting the Plague-Stricken, created for the main altar of the Church of the Virgin Mary and St Charles Borromeo at the Italian Hospital in Prague’s Lesser Town (fig. 5) is generally considered to be Škréta’s most original work, and one in which the principles of narrative painting are rigorously applied.⁴¹ There is no question that in the artist’s entire body of work we will not find a more strongly formulated demand that the viewer play a role in reading the depicted tale. The eccentric placement of the saint, rendered in profile commensurate with the direction of his entry into the hospital hall, prompts the observer not to apprehend him statically as a subject of devotion, which would be expected for an altarpiece, but rather in the context of the activities unfolding in his presence that he himself has instigated. The painting’s narrative conception directly ensues from its wide format, providing a sufficient field to vividly render the hospital’s operation during the great epidemic of the plague in Milan in 1576–1577, when the cardinal distinguished himself through unstinting performance of his pastoral duties and Christ’s command to love one another. The painting, at a quick glance, captivates with its ingenious spatial construction and rigorous compositional arrangement (fig. 6), all of which gains in intelligibility when we project onto the painting the orthogonal network that stems from the crossing of the two main axes (in red in the figure) and the vertical edge and corners of the room and of the architectonic retable, which intersect with the horizontals of the beds, the edge of the altar-mensa top and the framing of the altar edicule (in yellow). If the perpendiculars demarcate the space, then the horizontals serve to organise the large figural crowd into three depth fields – the anterior, in which the saint meets with a group of unclothed men, the middle, comprising groups of women treating the ill and a benefactor pointing to 108 FACING THE PUBLIC
40 Anja Kerstin Ševčík, in: ibid, pp. 82–83, cat. no. II.10. 41 Michal Šroněk, in: ibid, pp. 214–215, cat. no. V.5. 42 Michal Šroněk, Alena Volrábová, in: ibid, pp. 216–218, cat. no. V.6, V.7., V.8.
5. ↑ Karel Škréta, St Charles Borromeo Visiting the Plague Sufferers, 1647, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
a dedication plate in the posterior field, where a cross is placed on the altar top and below that an altarpiece depicting the saintesses in adoration of the grace-giving image of the Mother of God. The volume values of the depicted figures are fully realised owing to the stream of light that slantingly penetrates the space from the left; the genre grouping of nurses and their patients is accorded equal importance as that of the grouping of the saint and his companions. An interesting detail sure to rouse the viewer’s imagination is the sideways glance of the last man in the cardinal’s retinue. It is directed toward the poor wretch lying outside the pictorial scene, whose presence may be deduced from the unshod foot on the bed at the far right. The singularity of the design, which Škréta applied with a good dose of self-assurance by inserting his own likeness behind the back of his saintly namesake, is underlined by a comparison with two preparatory drawings and a smaller painting (modello), which perhaps also represents an alternative design for the same altarpiece (fig. 7).⁴² The final arrangement of the scene presenting the saint in a narrative hospital scene is entirely STUDIES 109
6. ← Karel Škréta, A Compositional Arrangement of Škréta’s Painting St Charles Borromeo Visiting the Plague-Stricken, 1647 (photo: National Gallery in Prague; graphic presentation by Štěpán Vácha) 7. → Karel Škréta, St Charles Borromeo Treating the Plague-Stricken, 1647, private collection (photo: National Gallery in Prague) 8. → → Giovanni Battista Crespi, St Charles Borromeo Selling his Principality of Oria and Distributing Money to the Poor (detail), 1602, Milan, Cathedral (reproduced after: Marco Rosci, Il Cerano [L’opera completa], Milano 2000, pp. 100–102, cat. no. 52)
distinct and derives from the concept of the history. What art models and literary material could Škréta have had at hand when he composed the painting? When the plague reached Milan in the summer of 1576, a city health commission (Tribunale della Sanità) was established.⁴³ It stepped up hygienic precautions, set up a tent camp for the infected on the city’s outskirts and a checkpoint for those wishing to enter the city. Although the Spanish Vice-Regent Marquis d’Ayamonte prohibited nobles in public service from leaving the city without special permission, the wealthiest Milanese, including magistrates, fled. The poor were left to their own fate in the collapsing city, while chaos and criminality reigned. In this most dire of situations, Charles Borromeo not only provided his own monies for the material needs of the ill and the poor, he also saw to their spiritual welfare. He emphatically challenged the ever more reluctant clergy to visit the sick and the dying and provided them with the example of his own actions. Three narrative scenes illustrating St Charles Borromeo’s unflinching efforts during the plague epidemic became fixed in the rich saint’s iconography, whose origins lay in a twenty-piece cycle of large canvases (the “Quadroni”) from a Milanese cathedral rendered by a team of painters under the stewardship of Giovanni Battista Crespi on the occasion of the saint’s 1602 beatification⁴⁴: Administering the Sacraments to the Plague Sufferers, Distributing His Clothing to the Plague-Stricken and Taking Part in the Penitential Process of the Holy Nail.⁴⁵ The first two charitable scenes unfold either in an open landscape dotted with tents and shelters or before the municipal hospital of St Gregory outside Milan. However, neither of these scenes corresponds to the situation that plays out in the Prague painting. In composing his hospital scene, Škréta apparently eschewed the established plague iconography of the Milanese archbishop with which he was familiar (compare the sketch from the National Gallery in Prague depicting the saint in a tent camp among plague victims), but formally referenced the depiction of the saint among a community of men on another of Crespi’s canvases from the same cycle St Charles Borromeo Selling his Principality of Oria and Distributing Money to the Poor (fig. 8).⁴⁶ However, the literary material behind Škréta’s unique telling of the narrative likely came from the description of Charles’ heroic acts during the epidemic by Giovanni Pietro Giussano, the author of the saint’s official hagiography published in 1610, the year of his canonisation: 110 FACING THE PUBLIC
43 Fabiola Giancotti, Per ragioni di salute. San Carlo Borromeo nel quarto centenario della canonizzazione 1610–2010, Milano 2010, esp. pp. 450–460. 44 Anna Maria Brizio – Marco Rosci, I quadroni di San Carlo del Duomo di Milano: La Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano nella ricorrenza del quarto centenario dell’ingresso in Milano dell’Arcivescovo Carlo Borromeo, Cardinale di Santa Prassede, Milano 1965. 45 Cf. Pamela M. Jones, San Carlo Borromeo and Plague Imagery in Milan and Rome, in: Gauvin Alexander Bailey – Pamela M. Jones (edd.), Hope and Healing. Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague (1500–1800), Chicago 2005, pp. 65–96, here pp. 74–79. 46 Marco Rosci, Il Cerano [L’opera completa], Milano 2000, pp. 100–102, cat. no. 52.
47 Giovanni Pietro Giussano, Vita di P. Carlo Borromeo prete cardinale del titolo di Santa Prassede Arcivescovo Milano, Roma 1610, (chap. Provede d’aiuti Spirituali a’ sequestrati per la quarantena, i quali visitava frequentemente), p. 286: “Havendo adunque questo Beato, et vigilante Pastore, ordinate tutte le cose nel modo descritto, acciò che ogn’uno si contenesse in ufficio, e facesse la parte sua, e tutto il governo caminasse con ogni quiete, e con perfetta osservanza degli ordinati dati, egli stesso poi, come capo, e guida principale, usciva ogni giorno in visita, cosi della Città, come delle Capanne, e Lazaretto […] La onde egli era sempre in continuo moto, non tanto il giorno, quanto ancora la notte, e ben spesso fino a sei, e sett’hore, per provedere a molte cose, che occorrenano. Le quali visite erano di massimo frutto, perche oltre che tenevano quieto tutto il Popolo […] Et era tale la sua carità, che non si guardava d’entrare nelle case, e dentro le camere istesse, e Capanne infette di peste, per aiutare i poveri infermi, e disporli a morir’ volentieri per amor di Dio; e fù visto tal voltra entrar per le finestre, con le scale a mano per visitare infermi, ove ritrovava impedito l’ingresso della porta; non potendo comportare, che ne anche una persona sola restasse priva d’aiuto, ne che un’anima fosse in pericolo di perdersi.” 48 M. Šroněk (see note 41), p. 214. 49 Cf. Christine Göttler, Die Kunst des Fegefeuers nach der Reformation. Kirchliche Schenkungen, Ablaß und Almosen in Antwerpen und Bologna um 1600, Mainz 1996 (Berliner Schriften zur Kunst VII), pp. 23–48. 50 Eduard Maur, Problémy demografické struktury Čech v polovině 17. století, Český časopis historický XIX, 1971, pp. 830–870, here p. 859; Ludmila Fialová, Epidemie zaznamenané v matrikách u sv. Jindřicha na Novém Městě Pražském v první polovině 17. století, in: Jiří Pešek – Václav Ledvinka, Ponížení a odstrčení. Města versus poražení, Praha 1998 (Documenta pragensia XVI), pp. 227–234, here p. 228. Most recently, Karel Černý – Jiří M. Havlík, Jezuité a mor, Praha 2008 (Knižnice Dějin a současnosti XXXIV).
“When this saint and attentive shepherd tended to all as described above, and everyone could go on about their own business and everything ran smoothly, peacefully and in accordance with the issued instructions, then he, the head and spiritual leader, visited the town, shacks and the hospitals daily… He was constantly on the move, day and night, often until six or seven o’clock, seeing to the many things that had occurred. His visits were very useful as they kept people at peace. Such was his love for his neighbour – he never hesitated to enter houses, rooms and shacks befallen by the plague to help prepare poor sufferers for death by committing them to the love of God. He was often seen entering a house through a window by ladder, if he had found the door closed; he could not bear the idea of anyone going without aid or their soul being in danger of perdition.”⁴⁷ Consonant with Giussano’s telling, we find in Škréta’s painting the Milanese archbishop as the organiser (spiritus rector) of charitable activities on one of his many visits to the city’s hospitals, where he provides spiritual solace to the sick and the dying. As Michal Šroněk remarks in the new exhibition catalogue, the emphasis placed on the depiction of nursing activities and the hospital environment was undoubtedly linked to the artist’s intent to highlight the charitable mission of the Italian Hospital and “bolster the representative role of the painting in depicting the members of the hospital’s Board of Directors”.⁴⁸ In order to evaluate this thematic updating, emphasised by the presence of the man who commissioned the painting, Antonio Cassini de Bugella, we must be aware that the Italian Hospital represented one of the smaller institutions of its kind in Prague. It was established in the early 17th century, a time when Catholic reforms – which, according to conciliar teachings on justification, placed a strong emphasis on charity and demanded that each person be involved in charitable actions, whether by distributing alms or personally serving the poor and the suffering – were being introduced in Bohemia.⁴⁹ The Italian Hospital’s operation was funded by contributions from members of the Italian Marian congregation (founded in 1573) and alms collected from the city’s inhabitants. After 1645, the expansion of the complex housing a church consecrated to the Virgin Mary and St Charles Borromeo and a three-wing hospital building enabled the hospital to provide a refuge for up to sixtythree individuals from among the poor, foundlings and orphans; however, this capacity was exceeded in times of crisis. In the first half of the 17th century, when Prague was almost under constant assault by plague epidemics (1598, 1607, 1613, 1624–1625, 1633–35, 1639–1640, 1648–1649),⁵⁰ the Italian Hospital also took in plague suffers (this is explicitly documented in the years 1639 and 1649) and members of the congregation brought home STUDIES 111
orphaned children;⁵¹ when the Thirty Years’ War ended, the hospital also provided a haven for war invalids.⁵² To be able to imagine the setting for which Škréta’s painting had been rendered, one must be familiar with the order of divine services in the hospital church. According to Týn Church Priest Johann Florian Hammerschmid, every morning at the main altar, a mass was held for the hospital’s benefactors during which young inmates prayed the rosary for the imperial family; on the November 4th feast day of St Charles Borromeo, a saint’s handwritten brief was offered to be venerated by worshippers with the possibility of receiving indulgences; a forty-hour worship service was also held and, in addition to the private votive masses, four other masses were conducted. This continued for the entire octave that followed.⁵³ These facts clearly indicate the possibilities for the public impact of Škréta’s painting. In line with Balbín’s instructions, a viewer regularly taking part in church services would have been expected to engage in a close intellectual reading of the scene as a complex narrative. The illustrative rendering of charity and care for the material and spiritual welfare of the destitute not only drew the viewers’ attention, but also incited their engagement in the appropriate moral attitude as they sat listening to the homilies delivered in the hospital chapel. The inventive originality, multiple illusion of an image within an image, scenographicallycomposed scene ending with a backdrop in the form of an altar retable, theatrical staging of the actors of the narrative as if entering the proscenium from behind the wings at the sides; all of this attests to the deep theoretical knowledge behind the artist’s pictorial composition, perspective and narrative conception. Is there yet more evidence attesting to Škréta the “educated painter”? I shall attempt to answer this question in the next chapter. Universal Theoretician and Experienced Practitioner Although Škréta left behind no learned disquisitions on painting or other reflections testifying to his theoretical foundation, there are available a number of statements made by contemporaries about him and his paintings. For our investigation, the soaring encomiums about the artist often found in church chronicles, annals and historiographic works: “pictor primarius et celeberrimus Regni”,⁵⁴ “pictor aetate nostra in Patria summus”⁵⁵ or “insignis artifex” are understandably irrelevant.⁵⁶ Similarly inapposite are assessments of Škréta’s paintings as “picturae nobiles”⁵⁷ or “imagines elegantes”,⁵⁸ even in cases where the writer used a more sophisticated phraseology such as “simulacrum Apellea Scretae manu raro artificio expictum”.⁵⁹ The nature of the written sources in which superlative, more or less stereotypical, pronouncements appear indicates that these are neither artistic critiques nor deeper reflections on narrative depiction. Appraisals of this type offer no more than general characteristics concerning artistic appeal, while their informative value is compromised by the fact that similar sentiments were expressed about other far inferior artists. The more expert assessments of Škréta’s art world colleagues, whose competence is cited by the painter’s close friend Bohuslav Balbín, undoubtedly carried much more weight. In the book Přepodiwná Matka Swato Horská Marya (published in a Czech translation in 1666), he remarks that “[…] everybody praises him as an artist without reason and contend he has no equal in Bohemia who would be as capable as he of rendering any face of any man or image so well,”.⁶⁰ In connection with the Easter cycle paintings in the Lesser Town St Nicholas Church, Balbín writes in his Miscellanea (1681) that “Paintings of equal beauty grace the St Nicholas Church in Prague, which is embellished with works from the rare brush and industry of Karel Škréta, our superb painter, which I say about him not only out of the friendship he so abundantly showed me when alive, but based also on the words of painters whom I often heard praise [him].”⁶¹ Even if we do not know which specific painters Balbín had in mind, one important written testimonial is extant. This is the curriculum vitae of Karel Škréta contained in the first book in Sandrart’s extensive three-volume compendium of fine art Teutsche Academie published in Nuremburg in 1675. Although not particularly detailed, Škréta’s biography offers important information about the artist’s personal and professional life as well as providing an exceptionally erudite reflection on his oeuvre. Even though Sandrart, as with other artists, probably obtained much of his information directly from the artist himself or a reliable communicant,⁶² the curriculum vitae is neither a superficial compilation skimming the surface 112 FACING THE PUBLIC
51 Peter Rigetti – Johann Christoph Pannisch, Historische Nachricht sowohl von der Errichtung der Wellischen Congregation unter dem Titel Mariae Himmelfahrt als auch des dazu gehörigen Hospitals B. V. Mariae Ad P. Carolum Borromaeum. Bey Gelegenheit dey feyerlichen Begängniß des zweyten Jahrhunderts von Errichtung ermeldter Congregation, Prag 1773, pp. 191–192, also pp. 201–203. 52 Ibid, pp. 193–199. 53 Joannes Florianus Hammerschmid, Prodromus Gloriae Pragenae […], Pragae 1723, pp. 495–496; also František Ekert, Posvátná místa král. hl. města Prahy. Dějiny a popsání chrámů, kaplí, posvátných soch i jiných pomníků katolické víry a nábožnosti v hlavním městě království Českého I., Praha 1883, p. 198. 54 See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 100. Cf. Josef Kopeček, Karel Škréta na Svaté Hoře, Podbrdsko. Sborník Státního okresního archivu v Příbrami IX, 2009, pp. 164–175, here p. 165. 55 Bohuslaus Balbinus, Miscellanea Historica Bohemiae, Decadis I. Liber V., Pragae 1683, p. 79. See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 140. 56 See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 88 [Prague, National Archives, Archive of Closed Monasteries, Annales Monasterii P. Wenceslai, f. 23i/r,v (entry for the years 1641–1644, recorded 1659)]. 57 J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 2), p. 48. 58 See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 132 [National Library of the Czech Republic, Annuae litterae provinciae Boemiae Societatis Jesu 1671–1674, sign. XXIII C 105/8, f. 331r]. Also, Petra Oulíková, Poznámka k Pašijovému cyklu Karla Škréty, in: Lenka Stolárová (ed.), Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a Evropě, Praha 2011, s. 39–47. 59 See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 127 [National Library of the Czech Republic, Annuae litterae provinciae Boemiae Societatis Jesu 1671–1674, sign. XXIII C 105/8, f. 166v]. 60 See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 103 [Bohuslav Balbín, Přepodiwná Matka Swato Horská Marya, W Zázracých a Milostech swých na Hoře Swaté nad Městem Přjbrami Hor Střjbrných den po dni wjc a wjc se stkwěgjcý […], Litomyšl 1666, p. 26]. 61 “Eadem imaginum gratia spectabilis est ecclesia S[ancti] Nicolai Domus Professae Pragensis, quae Caroli Scretae, eximii apud nos pictoris, pretioso penicillo, et laboribus illustratur; quod non amicitiae (quae mihi cum vivente intercessit maxima) tribuo, sed pictorum sententiis, quos saepius audivi laudantep”; Bohuslaus Balbinus, Liber III. Decadis I. Miscellaneorum Historicorum Regni Bohemiae, […], Pragae 1681, p. 134. See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 139. 62 Cf. statement of Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der edlen Bau–, Bild- und Malerei-Künste, Nürnberg 1675 (the entire work further presented as the abbreviated TA 1675 or TA 1679 [2nd volume]; the first (Roman) numeral represents the volume and the second (Arabic) one the book within the volume), p. 212: “Ich bekenne zwar hierbey freywillig/ daß ich/ wie gern ich mehrern und umständigern Bericht von eines und andern Künstlers Stadt/ Geburtsund Ableibens-Zeit geben wollen/ dannoch/ nach angewandter großer Bemühung im Nachfragen und Schreiben/ ein mehrers nicht erhalten können.”
63 Several indicia exist pointing to the fact that Sandrart and Škréta were personally acquainted. I shall treat on the relationship between Sandrart and Škréta elsewhere. 64 Cf. Christian Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart. Kunstwerke und Lebenslauf, Berlin 1986 (Jahresgabe des Deutschen Vereines für Kunstwissenschaft 1985/86), pp. 39–54. 65 TA 1675, II, bk. 3, p. 327: “[…] zu der edlen Mahler-Kunst gezogen/ dern gründliche Regeln er/ vermög einer ihme angebornen Arbeitsamkeit/ wol ergriffen […]”. 66 Ibid: “[…] daß er alles denkwürdige sich bästmöglichst zu Nutzen machte/ und nicht allein einen schönen Kunst-Schatz samlete; sondern auch von diesem Reichtum den Kunstliebenden wieder allerhand schöne Bilder und beliebige Historien mittheilte/ und dieselbe mit Ausbildung natürlicher Affecten/ wolgezeichneten Inventionen/ guter Manier/ künstlichen Erhebungen und herlichem Colorit/ zierte/ […]” 67 Ibid: “Von dannen begab er sich durch noch immeranreitzende KunstBegierde getrieben nach Bolognen und Florenz/ und mehrte auch auf diesen Kunst-Schulen merklich seine Wißenschaft/ Anno 1634. kam er nach Rom/ und perfectionirte sich daselbst durch Aemsigkeit und Fleiß dergestalt/ daß er sich reich genug schätzte/ wieder in sein Vatterland Prag zuruck zu kehren/ […]” 68 “[…] melden wir nur/ daß seine Werke meistens in großen Historien und Contrafäten bestanden/ so bey den höchsten Potentaten selbiger Landen in großen Ehren gehalten worden/ wie derselben sehr viele in Prag bey P. Nicolai/ auf der kleinen Seiten bey P. Thomas und P. Wenceslai: In der Neustadt bey P. Stephan/ in der Layenkirchen/ zu P. Martini/ Salvatoris, in der Jesuiten-Closter / desgleichen zu Königssaler Closter/ in Plaßer Closter/ zu Leit[m]eriz in der Bischofskirchen / zu P. Laurentii in Melnich und an andern mehr Orten zu sehen/ die alle gnugsame Zeugnus geben/ daß unser Künstler nicht allein ein universaler Theoreticus, sondern auch ein wolerfahrner Practicus gewesen seye/ und der Natur in allem rühmlichst nachgefolget habe: […]” 69 On Sandrart’s art theory, see recently Michèle-Caroline Heck, Théorie et pratique de la peinture. Sandrart et la Teutsche Academie, Paris 2006 (Passagen XV); Karl Möseneder, Ars docta – Joachim von Sandrarts Teutsche Academie, in: Hartmut Laufhütte (ed.), Künste und Natur in Diskursen der Frühen Neuzeit, Wiesbaden 2000 (Wolfenbütteler Arbeiten zur Barockforschung XXXV), pp. 157–213. 70 M.–C. Heck, Théorie et pratique de la peinture (see note 69), pp. 36–46. On the ideal of an academic education in the 16th and 17th centuries, see Cynthia E. Roman, Academic Ideal of Art Education, in: L. Rubin (ed.), Children of Mercury (see note 35), pp. 81–95. 71 Cf. Hans Dickel, Deutsche Zeichenbücher des Barock. Eine Studie zur Geschichte der Künstlerausbildung, Hildesheim – Zürich – New York 1987 (Studien zur Kunstgeschichte XLVIII), pp.158–163; also Diane De Grazia, Drawings as Means to an End. Preparatory Methods in the Carracci School, in: Andrew Ladis (ed.), The Craft of Art. Originality and Industry in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque Workshop, Athens, Ga. 1995, pp. 165–186. 72 TA 1679, III, p. 12; Cf. K. Möseneder, Ars docta – Joachim von Sandrarts Teutsche Academie (see note 69), pp. 174–175.
of the subject’s biographical data nor a conventional appreciation. Sandrart’s personal interest in Škréta’s work is clear from the content and, as we will see, he coins his own terms (defined elsewhere in the book) in his evaluation of the painter.⁶³ The text is clearly laudatory in spirit and, given the book came out a year after Škréta’s death (about which the author writes in the conclusion of the curriculum vitae), it additionally serves as a ceremonial obituary. A feature of Škréta’s artistic profile, as laid out in Teutsche Academie, that cannot be overlooked is his broad erudition and knowledge of the theoretical foundations of painting. The concept of the “educated painter” (pictor doctus), which Sandrart systematically constructs and illustrates using himself as an example in Teutsche Academie,⁶⁴ is easily discerned in the description of Karel Škréta’s early years. According to Sandrart, even when young Škréta “was drawn to the noble art of painting, whose fundamental rules he thoroughly adopted owing to his inborn industriousness”.⁶⁵ In order to acquire “greater knowledge” (“größere Wissenschaft”), he set off for Italy, first to Venice, where over the course of several years he developed as an artist by acquiring the experience that he later utilised when painting “beautiful paintings and diverse histories, [which] he creatively adorned with natural emotions, superbly drawn creative inventions, a good stylistic manner, ingenious volume modelling and excellent colouration”.⁶⁶ The young artist, “spurred on by artistic eagerness”, then set out for Bologna and Florence, where he augmented his “knowledge” at their academies (“Kunst-Schulen”); his schooling culminated in Rome, whence he returned to Bohemia.⁶⁷ The text does not enumerate specific Škréta works; Sandrart only mentions generally the painted histories and portraits: “His work chiefly comprises narrative histories and portraits, which are held in high esteem among the foremost nobles of this land and many of which may be found in Prague’s St Nicholas Church, in the Lesser Town in the Churches of St Thomas and St Wenceslas; in the New Town in the Church of St Stephen, in the parish church of St Martin, in the Salvatore Church, in the Jesuit college, as well as in the Zbraslav monastery, Plasy monastery, in Litoměřice in the Bishop’s Church, in St Lawrence Church in Mělník and many other places. All of these [works] are sufficient testimony to the fact that our painter was not only a universal theoretician, but also a highly experienced practitioner who, in everything he did, brilliantly emulated nature.”⁶⁸ This passage is significant for several reasons. Primarily, it offers important information on the accessibility of Škréta’s paintings, that is his “narrative histories and portraits”. While Sandrart glosses over their representation in the collections of Czech aristocrats by briefly stating that the works are “held in high esteem”, there follows a long list of publicly accessible locations, i.e. churches and monasteries in Prague and elsewhere in Bohemia in which the artist’s paintings may be found. The latter, that is religious-themed paintings, are included in the category “narrative histories” (“große Historien”). According to Sandrart, through these works one may gather a clear idea of Škréta’s mastery, i.e. his theoretical knowledge and practical skills or his ability “in everything brilliantly to emulate nature”. What exactly do these characteristics of our painter harbour? Clearly, these are not randomly used words, but rather terms wholly specific in their content. Indeed, terms such as “theory”, “practice” and “emulation of nature” play a key role in Sandrart’s conception of art as an activity both intellectual and noble.⁶⁹ It must also be emphasised that in the interpretation of these terms, Sandrart in no way differs from his contemporaries; despite practical theses and illustrative instructions, his work remains, from the theoretical perspective, a compilation of the opinions of earlier authorities (primarily Giorgio Vasari, Karel van Mander, Federico Zuccari, as well as Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci and others) and in his summary he echoes the period ideal of the academicallyeducated artist.⁷⁰ In this sense, the emphasis he places on the atelier method of drawing instruction and education is significant.⁷¹ An understanding of the principles of fine art (theory) and their practical acquisition through diligent training (practice) may only be achieved at art academies, which Sandrart places in stark contrast to the painters’ workshops in which perfunctory and empirically-conducted instruction is provided unsupported by any systematic theoretical grounding.⁷² The basis of academic training is drawing the human figure, first after good two-dimensional models (etchings and drawings), and then after paintings by the foremost artists and three-dimensional objects (ancient statues and casts) and finally after live models. Perfecting drawing technique requires especial diligence and STUDIES 113
long years of training and practice in the copying and emulating “of that which nature has produced”. Only “once the intellect is capable of devising imaginative concepts and the hand, after many years of effort in learning the art of drawing, ingeniously transfers them to paper, do both the painter and his art achieve discernible excellence”.⁷³ Although it may seem that the fundaments of the art of painting lay in atelier instruction, Sandrart recommends that the more advanced adept also “go more often into society, where he may observe people of varied character. Here he follows their ways and behaviours while engaged in work, discussion or a trade, during quarrels and laughter, amid disputes and melees, and the gestures that each of these situations elicits in both those acting and those looking on.”⁷⁴ A central tenet of Sandrart’s concept is the formulation of a relationship between depicted and visible fact, which – as a key theme in early modern period art theory – resists a simple definition owing to its marked ambiguity.⁷⁵ Sandrart understands natürlichkeit, systematically translated in the Latin edition of Teutsche Academie of 1683 as imitatio naturae (thus an imitation of nature) in the much broader sense of the word naturalness, as may be understood from the abundant use of the evaluative adjective natürlich (naturalis) and from the overall contextualising of the term – and this despite the fact that in several minor cases, indeed in the case of Škréta’s curriculum vitae, Sandrart uses the paraphrase: “der Natur in allem rühmlichst nachgefolget” (Latin: “naturam in omnibus secutus sit simplicissime”⁷⁶), eliciting the notion of artistic creation in a purely mimetic role.⁷⁷ Thus for Sandrart, the greatest quality an artwork can have is “true and living naturalness”.⁷⁸ In his words: “Only naturalness makes an artist great, excellent, famous and worthy of praise”.⁷⁹ A faithful imitation of nature, which in the advanced phase of the learning process represents the drawing of live models, will not suffice to achieve such mastery. This is only preparatory training, whose subsequent course should be directed toward “a well developed, assured naturalness” where “the hand and mind become accustomed to extraordinary grace, vividness and lightness”⁸⁰ and the artist is able to create from memory, that is “without a model, and naturally”.⁸¹ His setting of the creative undertakings of an artist on a par with the fertile and ever resurgent power of nature is clearly seen in the advice that the painter “not tie himself to any style or established custom, but, like nature itself, always change and give birth to something; even we ourselves should continually effect inner change and go from good to better”.⁸² Of course, further requirements are the befitting idealisation of artistic forms and grace (gratia) via which the artwork achieves loftiness and grandeur, as expressed in the formulation that “just as nature itself rarely happens to attain the best, and only rarely achieves absolute perfection, so the artist must, when rendering beauty in all things, expend great effort, which for many remains unachievable, and who is capable of this or is possessed of such grace, let him consider it a gift from God for which he must offer thanks”.⁸³ Although what knowledge we have makes it difficult to draw any specific conclusions about the academic education Škréta may have received in Italy (no written documents exist; we know of virtually no drawing done after a model⁸⁴), Sandrart’s professed ideal of the universally-educated artist (pictor doctus⁸⁵), applied to Karel Škréta, in no way contradicts what we know about the painter. Škréta came from a humanistically-oriented family and learned the basics of the art of painting presumably from the intellectuallyinclined Aegidius Sadeler;⁸⁶ immediately after leaving Bohemia in 1627, he spent time in the scholarly circle of Basel-based theology professor Ludwig Luz⁸⁷ and most likely sought out similar experiences during his Italian sojourn.⁸⁸ According to the probate inventory of the painter’s son Karel the Younger, there was no lack of works of ancient classics, historical treatises and theoretical discourses on rhetoric (Nicolas Caussin, De eloquentia sacra et humana) and fine art (Ripa’s Iconologia, Vitruvius’ Ten Books on Architecture) in the family library.⁸⁹ His extensive work as a thesis print inventor, which Sandrart also highly praises, further speaks to the idea of Škréta as artist-intellectual.⁹⁰ The countless sketches, studies and painted modellos that Škréta created as precursors to his narrative pictorial compositions are key evidence of his “academic” foundation.⁹¹ Together this body of work provides eloquent testimony to his theoretical and practical mastery of the concept of the drawing (disegno), a universal means of expressing the artist’s imagination and creativity, likened to the creative power of God or nature.⁹² Sandrart’s much emphasised “naturalness”, that is the ability by memory and imagination to capture any idea, figure or motif, is manifest in Škréta’s sheet with six studies of Our Lady of the Sorrows (fig. 9), in which the painter incrementally worked his way through to a final 114 FACING THE PUBLIC
73 TA 1675, I, bk. 3, p. 60: “Was für eine Hand zum Zeichnen erfordert werde. Es ist aber zu der Zeichnung vonnöten/ daß die Hand mit sonderbarem Fleiß und durch langwürige Ubung sich expedit, färtig und hurtig mache/ alles mit der Feder/ Griffel/ Kreide oder Kohle/ abzuzeichnen oder wol nachzubilden/ was die Natur hervor gebracht. Dann wann der Verstand seine wol-ausgesonnene Concepte heraus lässet/ und die Hand/ durch vieler Jahre langen Fleiß in zeichnen geübet/ solche nach der Vernunft zu Papier bringet/ so wird die vollkommene Vortrefflichkeit so wol des Meisters/ als der Kunst/ verspüret.” 74 Ibid: “Nachdem man auch die Perspectiv wol begriffen/ und aller Dingen Gliedmaßen und Leiber in sein Gedächtnus eingedrucket/ so kan der Mahler zum öftern unter die Leute Lustwandlen/ wo unterschiedliche Standspersonen anzutreffen und zu sehen sind. Da beobachte er dann ihre Art/ und Manier im arbeiten/ reden/ handlen/ zanken/ lachen/ streiten und schlagen/ was für Gebärden sowol sie/ als die umstehende Zuseher/ führen.” 75 R. W. Lee, Ut pictura poesis (see note 24), pp. 11–27. 76 Joachim von Sandrart, Academia nobilissimae artis pictoriae, Noribergae 1683, p. 323. 77 Similarly, Sandrart writes regarding the brothers van Eyck (TA 1675, II, kn. 3, p. 216) that the older Hubert “in der Kunst den Zügen der Natur fleißig nachgefolget”; in the Latin translation (p. 205) “in arte nostra naturae sedulo secutus fuerat ductus”. On Sandrart’s use of the term “Natürlichkeit”, see Ch. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart (see note 64), pp. 41–42; K. Möseneder, Ars docta – Joachim von Sandrarts Teutsche Academie (see note 69), esp. pp.172–176; M.–C. Heck, Théorie et pratique de la peinture (see note 69), pp. 323–333. 78 TA 1675, I, Foreword, p. 2: “Die Köstlichkeit einer Kunst-Sache/ wird nach der wahren lebhaften Natürlichkeit beurtheilet: Ich fuße und gründe mich auch darauf/ daß eine Sache um so viel köstlicher/ vollkommenund schöner ist/ je mehr sie von der Natürlichkeit in sich hat.” 79 TA 1675, I, bk. 3, p. 61: “Dann die Natürlichkeit/ macht den Künstler groß/ excellent, ruhmreich und gepriesen.” 80 Ibid: “Wann man nun/ in solchem nachzeichnen/ durch viele Ubung/ eine gute practic und Gewonheit/ auch sichere Hände/ erworben/ mag man zur Abzeichnung der lebendigen Dinge schreiten/ und darinn mit ämsigem Fleiß und Aufsicht sich so lang üben/ bis man eine nach den Regeln wolgegründete sichere Natürlichkeit erwerbe. […] Solche Dinge/ die der Natur zum ähnlichsten/ können dem durch langen Fleiß abgematteten Künstler/ seine Mühwaltung/ mit Ehre und Gewinn wieder vergelten/ als wordurch Hand und Verstand zu einer sonderbaren gratia, Lebhaftigkeit und Leichte angewöhnet wird.” 81 Ibid: “[…] damit er solche/ auch ohne Idea und Exemplar/ natürlich zu gestalten wisse”. Cf. similar requirement placed on the artist by Vasari; see C. E. Roman, Academic Ideal of Art Education, (see note 70), p. 84. 82 TA 1675, I, bk. 3, p. 102: “Man soll sich an keine Manier/ Gewonheit oder angenommenen Gebrauch binden/ sondern wie die Natur immer alles verändert und anderst gebieret/ also sollen wir immerzu in allem uns verändern und von dem guten zum bässern wenden.” Cf. K. Möseneder, Ars docta – Joachim von Sandrarts Teutsche Academie (see note 69), pp. 172–173. 83 TA 1679, III, p. 13: “Also bleibet nun wahr/ und fest/ daß/ gleich wie der Natur selbsten schwer fället/ auf das Höchste zu kommen/ und sie selten die äusserste Vollkommenheit gebiert/ also auch dem Künstler/ das Allerschönste in allen Dingen zu bilden/ die meiste Mühe mache/ ja bey vielen unmöglich sey; und wer solches vermag/ oder diese Gnade hat/ es billig für eine Gabe Gottes/ und Verpflichtung des Danckens/ erkennen möge.” 84 Rare documentation is Bust of a youth extant in a graphic rendering by Václav Hollar, and a sheet with records of figural motifs based on paintings most likely acquired during his Italian sojourn. See Alena Volrábová, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 1), p. 60, cat. no. I.14; resp. Pavel Preiss, Marginalia on Škréta’s drawing oeuvre, in: Z. Pokorná – M. Svatoš (edd.), Bohuslav Balbín a kultura (see note 14), pp. 130–135, here p. 131, fig. 1. 85 See the study by Sylva Dobalová and Lubomír Konečný in this book. 86 Sylva Dobalová – Lubomír Konečný, Karel Škréta a umělci pražského rudolfínského dvora, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 1), pp. 27–29, here p. 28. 87 See the study by Lenka Stolárová and Petr Přibyl in this book. 88 Škréta’s contact with the Accademie degli Incogniti association of painters and poets during his stay in Venice is assumed by Petr Přibyl, Karel Škréta a Itálie, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 1), pp. 95–103, here p. 97. 89 Cf. the sub-section The Karel Škréta Family Library, ibid, pp. 557–575. 90 Cf. the sub-section Karel Škréta and His Contemporaries as Designers of Prints, Ibid, pp. 367–419. 91 Cf. P. Preiss, Marginálie (see note 84); idem, Betrachtungen zu Karel Škrétas zeichnerischer Eigenart, Barockberichte XXXI, 2001
9. Karel Škréta, Six Sketches for Our Lady of the Sorrows, 1644, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
92
93
94 95
(Ehrenheft Franz Wagner zum 70. Geburtstag), pp. 42–52. See also the chapter by Alena Volrábová in this book, pp. 151–155. On the term disegno, see Wolfgang Kemp, Disegno. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Begriffs zwischen 1547 und 1607, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft XIX, 1974, pp. 219–240; Sergio Rossi, Idea e accademia. Studio sulle teorie artistiche di Federico Zuccaro. I. Disegno interno e esterno, Storia dell’arte XX, 1974, pp. 37–56. Sylva Dobalová, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 1), p. 212, cat. no. V.3; P. Preiss, Marginálie (see note 84), pp. 131–132. Cf. J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 2), pp. 219–220, cat. no. 150, fig. 174. D. De Grazia, Drawings as Means to an End (see note 71), pp. 166–167.
conception of the figure for the large altarpiece The Crucifixion for the St Barbara chapel of the Church of St Nicholas in Prague’s Lesser Town.⁹³ Škréta understandably did not use a live model; all the versions were born of his imagination. The Berlin drawing with eight versions of the reaction of the Virgin Mary to the Angel of Annunciation represents another such example.⁹⁴ These and numerous other drawings clearly point to an acquired methodological approach to painting preparation, indeed to the approach of an academically-trained artist.⁹⁵ This approach included a clarification of the overall composition and patterns of light and shadow, and an elaboration of the poses of the individual figures in a number of separate sketches; special attention was devoted to key details, most importantly hand gestures. It must, of course, be said that even though Škréta, as an experienced portrait STUDIES 115
artist, will have been no stranger to drawing from live models,⁹⁶ no nude studies are extant. Let us return, however, to Škréta’s paintings, specifically his “narrative histories”, found in Prague churches and elsewhere in Bohemia, which were the reason for Sandrart’s high praise for the artist. The attribute “narrative” (verbatim in German, groß, i.e. great or large) does not chiefly pertain to the dimensions or format of the painting, but rather to the number of figures in the rendered scene. When in his general treatise on painting, Sandrart interprets invention (Erfindung) and drawing as the main requirements, he also states that: “From the above described exercise [in drawing] human bodies comes the invention or ingenuity that determines how to incorporate into narrative histories four, eight, ten, fifteen, twenty and more figures or an entire army during skirmishes or on the battlefield.”⁹⁷ Sandrart then goes on to clarify the history genre (Geschicht-Mahlerey): “A history should be filled with all manner of things, though each [of them] should serve the intended purpose. The rank, role and behaviour, senescence and youthfulness of the protagonists must be mirrored in their faces, gestures and general appearance. Thus, when capturing women or youths, it is necessary to render the face somewhat more daintily and finely than for men; older individuals must be rendered with upright and self-possessed gestures, especially if they are members of the clergy or highly-placed individuals. Care must also be taken to ensure that each thing resonates with the work as a whole and that this pictorial harmony may be felt at first glance. A fierce woman should be rendered with defiance and a goddess of love with gentleness, so that all may recognize the artist’s intention without additional explanation. Figures who are meant to look very petulant or savage, must be rendered as looking brazen. Others depicted in the background should be rendered casually in gradually darkening and fading colours.”⁹⁸ Other criteria apply. A sign of mastery is the rendering of overlapping human figures, some of which are only partly visible in the scene or become less visible and are lost in the scumbling.⁹⁹ Emphasis is placed on perspective: the properly painted thing must be proportionally rendered in space; all the architectonic details should be conceived “ponderously and cleanly and soothe the eye”, and the colour perspective should resonate with the overall spatial composition.¹⁰⁰ In a special chapter, Sandrart discourses on the principles to be respected when painting histories.¹⁰¹ The first step is to become familiar with the history’s literary model; a reading of various authors who have taken different approaches to the material contributes “to the proliferation of ideas” (“zur Mehrung der Gedanken”). Once the painter has arrived at a general conception, he may commence to prepare the sketches. The final form, including the colour schema, is presented as a painted model to be approved by the commissioner. While creating a painting, the artist should avoid empty corners, while ensuring at the same time they are not overfilled; there must be a background vista. If the horizon is set low, then the artist himself (and not his assistants) must – with great care – paint the landscape, architecture and clouds. The scene must have a sufficient number of active figures concentrated wherever the main plot is unfolding. For greater clarity, the key actors should be emphasised with light effects. The painting’s excellence should be increased by suitable concomitant devices that engage the beholder through decorativeness or unusualness (“gute Beyfügungen/ und der Materie anständige fremde Ersinnungen”), fitting poses and expressions of mental affect; the figures should be rendered in profile, in partial cover, standing, sitting, lying and kneeling, partially or fully clad, all mutually intermingled. And all the foregoing shall be executed in suitable proportion and degree. Although it is desirable for all available artistic means to be employed, they must ultimately serve in the telling of the rendered tale. In order to understand the significance Sandrart attributed to the history painting genre, it behoves us to look at his description of Raphael’s genius, which – as Karl Möseneder noted¹⁰² – is not a mere summary of others’ opinions, but the writer’s own assessment, reflecting his personal taste and the aesthetic sentiments of the time. Sandrart writes of Raphael as “a universal, accomplished, uncommon and experienced painter” because he excelled “in invention and histories, which he composed in a lucid and none too dull manner, in making all kinds of decorative trifles embellishing his paintings considerably and pleasing the viewer. He was also a master at making his models charming – he knew how to furnish women, children, the young and the old not only with enchanting accessories, clothes, hair trimmings and other things, but also how to depict natural movements befitting every situation in such a wonderful way that it could be done no better – stampeding horses, the 116 FACING THE PUBLIC
96 In this respect, an exception is formed by the carefully rendered drawing Portrait of a young man. See Marcela Vondráčková, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 1), p. 354, cat. no. VIII.11. 97 TA 1675, I, bk. 3, p. 62: “Von der Invention, worinn sie bestehe: Aus besagter Ubung an natürlichen Leibern/ entspringet die invention oder Erfindung/ welche anordnet/ wie man in großen Historien vier/ acht/ zehen/ fünfzehen/ zwanzig und mehr Figuren/ oder ganze Heere in Bataglien und Feldschlachten/ stellen solle.” 98 Ibid: “Geschicht-Mahlerey/ und was bey den Figuren zu beobachten: Eine Historie soll erfüllet seyn mit vielen unterschiedlichen Dingen/ doch daß jedes auf den vorgesetzten Zweck ziele. Es mus auch der Figuren Amt/ Dienst und Verrichtung/ Jugend und Alter/ aus dem Gesicht/ Gebärden und Area zu spüren seyn. Dahero an einem Frauenbilde/ wie auch an einem Jüngling/ das Gesicht etwas lieblicher und zärter/ als an Männern/ zu bilden: die Alten/ müßen mit sittsamen und bedachtsamen Gebärden/ absonderlich so sie geistliche oder hohe Stands-Personen praesentiren/ gestaltet werden. Man hat auch allezeit zu beobachten/ damit jedes Ding mit dem ganzen Werk einstimme/ und also/ gleich in erster anschauung des Gemähls/ eine Harmonie zu spüren sey. Trotzig soll eine Furie, und freundlich eine Liebes-Göttin/ gebildet werden: damit man des Mahlers intention oder vorhaben/ ohn Beyfügung einer Erklärung/ erkennen möge. Die Bilder/ so ernsthaft/ zornig und wild erscheinen sollen/ müßen eine freche Gestalt bekommen. Andere/ die man in die ferne ordnet/ müßen als flüchtig/ mit allgemach-dunklen und abnehmenden Farben beygebracht werden.” 99 Ibid: “Verlierung der hinter einander stehenden Bilder: In diesem aber bestehet hierbey die meiste Meisterheit/ daß sie die nackende Bilder lebhaft und natürlich treffen/ ingleichen hinter einander also eintheilen/ und nach und nach zu- oder abnehmen machen/ daß sie zum theil herfür kommen/ die andere aber/ der Ordnung nach/ durch brechung der Farben/ nach der Kunst sich verlieren und entweichen.” 100 Ibid: “Die Perspectiv mus wol beobachtet werden: Es mus aber allhier/ wie in allem/ die Perspectiv künstlich beobachtet werden: daß nämlich erstens das vorgenommene Stuck/ nach proportion des Orts und der Regeln/ sich entweder ordentlich verliere/ oder sich herfür thue und ergrößere; Ferner daß alles/ nach Ordnung des Gebäues/ der Zimmer und Seulen/ klüglich und sauber eingerichtet/ lieblich in die Augen falle; und endlich/daß/ gleichwie das perspectivische Gebäu selber/ also auch die Höhe und Helle/ Gänze oder Härte der Farben/ wie oben gedacht/ sich gemächlich verliere. Und aus solcher guten Eintheilung/ wird des Künstlers Verstand geprüfet.” 101 TA 1675, I, bk. 3, pp. 79–80. See also, M.–C. Heck, Théorie et pratique de la peinture (see note 69), pp. 243–255. 102 K. Möseneder, Ars docta – Joachim von Sandrarts Teutsche Academie (see note 69), pp. 170–171.
103 TA 1675, II, bk. 2, pp. 97–98: “[…] als nämlich in invention und Zusammenfügung der Historien/ welche er nicht allzu confus, auch nicht allzu arm ordiniret/ ferner in Ausbildung allerhand zierlicher NebenSachen/ womit er seine Gemälde sehr bereichert/ und die Anschauer belustiget hat. So war er auch der fürtreflichste Meister in holdseligen Gesichtern; Frauen/ Kindern/ Jungen und Alten wuste er nicht allein zierliche Aussätze/ Kleidungen/ Haar-Zierrathen und anders zuzuordnen/ sondern auch natürliche/ und jedes seiner condition gleichförmige Bewegungen anzubilden/ daß man sie unmöglich schöner machen konte: Das fliehen der Pferde/ die Grausamkeit der Soldaten/ artliche Landschaften/ erschreckliche Gewitter/ schöne prospective, zierliche Gebäude/ Poetische Fabeln und anders wuste er sowol zu mahlen/ daß man/ kurtz zu reden/ wol von ihme aussagen mag/ er seye ein universaler, vollkommener/ ungemeiner und erfahrner Mahler gewesen.” 104 TA 1675, I, bk. 3, p. 79. Cf. Christian Klemm, Pfade durch Sandrarts Teutsche Academie, in: Teutsche Academie der Bau–, Bild und Mahlerey-Künste. Nürnberg 1675–1680. In ursprünglicher Form neu gedruckt mit einer Einleitung von Christian Klemm, Nördlingen 1994, pp. 9–32, here p. 17. 105 TA 1675, (Sandrart’s biography), p. 20. See also, Michèle-Caroline Heck, D’une école de peinture à une “académie de papier”. Les retables de l’église de Lambach, in: Sybille Ebert-Schifferer – Cecilia Mazzetti di Pietralata (edd.), Joachim von Sandrart. Ein europäischer Künstler und Theoretiker zwischen Italien und Deutschland, München 2009 (Römische Studien der Bibliotheca Hertziana XXV, Rom und der Norden III), pp. 85–95; also Ch. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart (see note 64), pp. 232–251, cat. no. 117–123. 106 Cornelis De Bie, Het Gulden Cabinet vande edel vry Schilder Const, inhovdende den lof vande vermarste Schilders, Architecters […], Antwerpen 1661, p. 251. I provide the full wording of the biography in the English translation, which I did together with Dr. Jakobijn Kiel: “[…] Karel Škréta lived in Italy with Willem Brouwer, in Rome he aquired the surname Slach-sweert in the painter’s society. He is very good at painting compositions, portraits, both large and small, his art is in demand by all the domestic aristocrats and highly prized. He presently lives in Prague, where he is widely known and continues to produce his paintings.” 107 Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 1), pp. 262–265, cat. no. V.33 (modello), cat. no. V.34 (painting).
cruelty of soldiers, neat landscapes, awesome storms, beautiful vistas, pleasing architecture, poetic fables and others […]”¹⁰³ These observed qualities of Raphael’s compositions facilitate an understanding of Sandrart’s high esteem for works of historical narrative by the great Venetian masters “Titian, Veronese and the masterful Tintoretto”,¹⁰⁴ as does the encomium he painted seven altarpieces in the monastery church in Lambach, which he does not hesitate to designate as “an excellent school in the art of painting in its entirety” (“eine vollkommene Schule der ganzen Mahlerey Kunst”),¹⁰⁵ and finally his praise of Škréta’s altarpieces. It is worth noting as an aside the similar striking evaluation of Škréta in an otherwise brief biography of the artist in the book Het gulden Cabinet (1661) by the Flemish scholar Cornelis de Bie, who writes that Karel Škréta “is a very good painter of compositions [= ordonnantien] and portraits, both great and small,[…]”¹⁰⁶ Let us focus now on several superb examples of Škréta’s narrative histories that afford us a sufficiently representative sample through which to treat all of Sandrart’s stated criteria. One work that naturally belongs here is the aforementioned painting St Charles Borromeo Visiting the Plague Sufferers, which employs pure spatial forms and abundant figural staffage. A no less excellent example is the monumental canvas The Stoning of St Stephen ordered by the bishop Maxmilián Rudolf of Šlejnice for the main altar of the newly constructed St Stephen Cathedral in Litoměřice (in German, Leitmeritz) in the North-Western Bohemia (fig. 10).¹⁰⁷ In rendering the death of the martyr, Škréta apparently invoked the received iconographic tradition employed by leading artists of the Italian Cinquecento (namely Giulio Romano, Giorgio Vasari and Lodovico Cigoli) based on the rendering found in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 7:55–60); on the other hand, it is a wholly original interpretation of the theme incorporating a number of remarkable details that bespeak a singular ability to create a narrative scene and use special means to underline the dramatic impression of the event. Even a cursory glance makes clear that the Litoměřice painting perfectly exemplifies the history genre. The low landscape horizon affords a view to the suburban landscape. To the left, we see the silhouette of a fortification; the right edge is bordered by a superb specimen of classical architecture (clearly, the Damascus Gate, where the martyrdom occurred) and at a distance great trees are accentuated against the heavenly skies. Of particular significance is the light coming from above, adding to the three-dimensional modellation of the figures and dramatization of the scene. The large figures of the players in the drama are placed in the pictorial foreground, hence closest to the viewer. In the richness of their forms and diversity of their movements, the men who surround the kneeling Stephen on all sides amply fulfil the requirement of varietas in rendering the doings and dispositions of the human figures. The idea of a physically mismatched tussle is expressed in the powerless gesture of the martyr’s extended arms and the stressing of the physical dimensions of his persecutors, their fury amplified by their motions and expressions. While a goon, naked from the waist up and bent double, gathers stones on the left, his nearest compeer in a tattered shirt raises his hand to cast a stone; to underline the brutality of the anticipated attack, the figure at left grasps the saint’s shoulders. Both have visual counterparts in two figures whose mirroring of their movements magnifies the scene’s dramatic effect. One of the men also bends over, but in contrast we are given to see the fury on his face, and his torso is clad in a blue tunic and cloak; to his right is a giant whose unclothed back is to the viewer, one hand holding a stone is lowered and the other is raised, so as easily to surmise the figure’s range of motion, which is echoed in the movement of the figure behind him and to his right, captured in profile with a white kerchief on his head. With more concentrated observation of the scene, we notice the large number of supernumeraries ranged into several distinct groups. At far right, together with the repoussoir figure of Saul, who, in Luke’s telling, watched over the murderers’ clothing for them and approved Stephen’s death (Acts 7:58 and Acts 8:1), is a group of onlookers comprising both the curious, atop a rock, and the Roman Guard watching the gate, specifically a soldier, his back turned, carrying a banner bearing the coat of arms of the Bishop of Šlejnice (who had commissioned the painting), and a second armed man, his face averted, likely as an expression of his disapproval of the lynching. The role of curious observer – here further exciting the viewer’s curiosity by virtue of his uncommonness – is played by the Moor STUDIES 117
depicted at the far right whose presence does not constitute a purposeless and unfitting exoticism, as might seem to be the case at first glance. In accordance with the text of the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles that immediately follows the depiction of the Stoning of Stephen, this figure is an Ethiopian courtier baptized by the Apostle Philip en route to Gaza about whom the text says “he had come to Jerusalem for to worship” (Acts 8:27). The caricatured figures of the Jews in the background of the martyrdom scene play a different role. Their horrible faces and hand-covered ears eloquently express their unwillingness to listen to the words of Stephen about the history of Redemption delivered before the Jewish council (Acts 7:2–53), at which “they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth” (Acts 7:54). For one of the Jews, clad in a white robe, Stephen’s words are ultimately so unbearable that he stops his ears and turns away. The background grouping on the far left – now difficult to make out – comprises Christians. Specifically, there is a girl who looks back over her shoulder as she wipes away tears, and then a mother and child, likely referencing Stephen’s diaconal vocation, which included the duty to care for unprovided-for women and orphans. The partially-rendered leg fleeing at the far left evokes the persecution of the Christians in Jerusalem that occurred after Stephen’s death (Acts 8:1–3). Also vital to the scene is the large figure of the angel in the painting’s upper half, in one hand carrying the palm of martyrdom and in the other the laurel wreath of eternal glory. It is a part of Stephen’s vision of the heavens opening and his seeing “the Son of man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55–56). The pair of heavenly persons is captured in the upper lunette of the canvas. A glance at the beaming faces of the angel and the protomartyr may also evoke Stephen’s transfigured appearance during his speech before the council: “[They] saw his face as if it had been the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15). Škréta’s extraordinarily developed ability to transpose literary subject matter into a complex visual whole may also be admired in his decidedly non-dramatic religiously-themed scenes which, in their static nature, more closely approximate devotional paintings. One such example is the altarpiece St Thomas of Villanova Distributing Alms to the Poor in the Church of St Thomas at the Augustinian Hermits Monastery in Prague’s Lesser Town (fig. 11).¹⁰⁸ We may infer from brief extant reports that the Monastery commissioned the painting sometime in the years 1670–1671 with the clear aim of spreading the cult of the order’s saint (who was canonized in 1658).¹⁰⁹ The painting was highly valued, as documented by the unsuccessful negotiations of a certain mid–18th-century buyer to purchase the painting for the exorbitant sum of 5,000 guldens and replace it with a copy.¹¹⁰ The darkened parts of this otherwise richly-detailed multi-figure scene have become difficult to discern due to the base of thinly applied colour layers that now shows through. St Thomas of Villanova, born Thomas Garcia (1488–1555), also the Archbishop of Valencia, celebrated for his exemplary care of the poor and needy, took in unprovided-for and abandoned children and orphans. The acts of grace and of love for one’s fellow man performed by this “Father of the Poor” or “Holy Almsgiver” are documented in detail in the four chapters of the hagiography compiled by the Augustinian Nicasius Baxius.¹¹¹ His boundless munificence is characterized thus: “As [St Thomas of Villanova] donated so much in currency and alms to the hungry, the impecunious, the down-trodden, impoverished nobles, virtuous women, clergy, maidens and widows, orphans, foundlings, plebs, it seemed, when he summed up his income in the annual accounting, to have come from God and was greater than any human fortune.”¹¹² Working from Baxius’ or similar descriptions, and perhaps, too, in direct connection with the saint’s iconography,¹¹³ Škréta depicted the Almsgiver in a monk’s habit, an archbishop’s pallium on his chest, in the act of giving coins to an elderly man. The scene unfolds on the stairs leading to the archbishop’s residence amid a large group of supernumeraries. The saint in the centre is flanked on both sides by flocks of supplicants; his retinue stands at the rear left by the palace entrance. As we have seen in earlier instances, while there is a multiplicity of character types engaged in various activities, all the actors cohere around the saint, the prime mover of all that is going on in the scene. Even the two angels in flight at the upper left toss coins onto the tray held by the man standing just in front of the saint and, in the right throughview, we find on the balustraded balcony servants carrying dried fish on tenters and still others with bundles of clothing. In contrast to the Litoměřice painting, in the Lesser Town painting the viewer immediately grasps the identity of the title figure, whose silhouette is accentuated against a neutral 118 FACING THE PUBLIC
108 J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 2), pp. 130–131, cat. no. 40; J. Neumann, Malířství XVII. století (see note 17), p. 56, p. 84. 109 See Edition of historical sources in this book, documents no. 125 and 126. 110 Stated by Bohumil Matějka, Přestavba a výzdoba chrámu sv. Tomáše při klášteře poustevníků řádu sv. Augustina na Menším Městě Pražském, Památky archaeologické a místopisné XVII, 1896, pp. 81–152, here p. 122, with reference to a currently unaccountedfor source. 111 Nicasius Baxius, Sanctus Thomas a Villanova, Cognomento Eleemosynarius, ArchiEpiscopus Ecclesiastes Imp. Caroli V. a Sanctissimo Papa Nostro Alexandro VII. Anno M.DC.LVIII. in Festo Omnium Sanctorum Fastis eorundem adscriptus, Monachii 1659, pp. 90–120 (Caput XX. Sanctus Thomas verus pater pauperum ac egenorum, quibus admiranda subvenit charitate; Caput XXI. Magna pietate, et benevolentia recipit infantes expositios, eisdemque alimenta iubet dari; Caput XXII. Aliquot miracula, que Antistes, inter eleemosynas dandum, fecit; Caput XXIII. Nudos vestit, et pietatis administras sartrices excitat). 112 Ibid, pp. 103–104: “Tantum enim depluebat nummorum, et munerum in famelicos, inopes, afflictos, nobiles attenuatos, matronas honestas, sacerdotes, virgines viduas, pupillos, expositios partus, vulgusque promiscuum egens, ut ineunti rationem annui eius proventus, divinum quiddam, ac ope maius humana videatur.” 113 On the iconography of St Thomas of Villanova in the role of Almsgiver with a mention of the works of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Francisco de Zurbarán etc., which arose after his canonisation, see Antonio Iturbe Sáiz, Iconografia de Santo Tomás de Villanueva, in: Conmemoración del 450 aniversario de la muerte de Santo Tomás de Villanueva, Valencia 2008, pp. 213–270, here pp. 248–249.
10. Karel Škréta, The Stoning of St Stephen, 1669, Litoměřice, Cathedral of St Stephen (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán)
114 We often find Škréta’s paintings exerting this effect. A random sampling includes St Martin Sharing his Cloak with a Beggar, The Death of Drahomíra, Annunciation of the Virgin Mary from Church of Our Lady before Týn or Test of the Chastity of the Vestal Virgin Tuccia. 115 Cf. Christine Göttler, «Actio» in Peter Paul Rubens’ Hochaltarbildern für die Jesuitenkirche in Antwerpen, in: Joseph Imorde (ed.), Barocke Inszenierung. Akten des Internationalen Forschungscolloquiums an der Technischen Universität Berlin, 20.–22. Juni 1996, Emsdetten 1999, pp. 10–31, here pp. 14–16. 116 Cf. Francesco Mozzeti, Educare per immagini. Gesti di carità e attivismo caritatevole, Venezia Cinquecento VIII, 1998, pp. 53–80, esp. pp.75–77. 117 Cf. TA 1675, I, bk. 3, pp. 68–69. This figural type has its origins in one of the nude figures in Michelangelo’s Battle at Cascina (1504–1506). See Rudolf Kuhn, Der Aufbruch zur Schlacht von Cascina. Ein Gründungswerk der klassischen, monumentalen, vielfigurigen Breitkomposition nach Komplexen, in: Friedrich Piel – Jörg Traeger (edd.), Festschrift Wolfgang Braunfels, Tübingen 1977, pp. 215–222. 118 Recently, Petr Skalický, Vera effigies sv. Václava z někdejšího kostela sv. Václava na Malé Straně v Praze, Umění LVI, 2008, pp. 437–446. 119 On the Zderaz cycle, see the section The St Wenceslas Cycle and Other Paintings for the Zderaz Monastery in the exhibition catalogue Karel Škréta (see note 1), pp. 156–203; also J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 2), pp. 65–85, cat. no. 1–8. 120 Prague, National Archives (henceforth NA), Archive of Abolished Monasteries (henceforth AZK), Liber primus Annalium Nostri Excalceato-Augustiniani Asceterii Sub Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, […] A Fratre Severino a Sancta Anna Ordinis Eremit. Fratrum Discal. Sancti P. N. Augustini Sacerdote Professo (issued c. 1749), inv. no. 2451, manuscript 10 (formerly 3480 a), fol. 84 (record to 1628): “Nec templum jam a squalore liberum suo congruo ornatu caruit: Vita Sancti Patris Augustini in viginti novem Tabulis eleganter conspicua, et circumquaque ad parietes pensilis non modice decus ecclesiae, et pietatem fidelibus conciliavit, et hucusque conciliat.”
11. Karel Škréta, St Thomas of Villanova Distributing Alms to the Poor, 1670–1671, Prague, Church of St Thomas (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
background represented by the smooth-surfaced pilaster of the palace architecture.¹¹⁴ The dominant position of St Thomas within the greater group arises from his placement on the elevated stairway landing, which also serves subtly to contrive his insertion into the centre of the composition. Typologically, the manner in which its theme is rendered ranks Škréta’s painting as a “contemplative history” in which the telling (historia) is joined with a conventional depiction of the saint and his personal attributes (imago).¹¹⁵ In this sense, the genre treatment of the group of paupers in fittingly ragged clothing, with bare feet or sunken faces and toothless mouths, serves not only to illustrate the tale, but in conjunction with the young woman standing at left holding a child in her arms – an allegorical rendering of love for one’s fellow man (Charitas) – achieves a greater moral significance and indirectly prompts the viewer to contemplate the practice of charity as an essential expression of Christian virtue.¹¹⁶ Škréta used two anecdotal motifs to heighten the appeal of his scene. One is the dog in the lower right corner whose general posture expresses absorption in the goings-on. The raised head, forward-tilted body and tension in the legs together with the tautness of the leash held by its owner, not pictured in the scene, concisely express the dog’s eagerness to come as close as possible to the saint. No less engaging of the viewer’s eye is the youth who sits on the ground just beside the dog and pulls on his stockings. This motif, much more visible in the preparatory drawing for the canvas (fig. 12), suprisingly corresponds with the depiction of the naked man (“Strumpfanzieher”) in Teutsche Academie (fig. 13).¹¹⁷ With the figure pulling on his stockings “in haste and with full force”, Sandrart demonstrated the artist’s ability to render human limbs even in a foreshortened perspective. Readers of the paintings We have thus far looked at Škréta’s work from the perspective of the scholar and the educated artist. Our starting point was Balbín’s instructions for reading paintings and contemporary theoretical discourse on painting as transmitted through the writings of another contemporary painter, Joachim von Sandrart. The relevance of these accounts is underlined by the fact that both men knew Škréta and his paintings personally. The two men represent a narrowly-cultured tier of society, which was able duly to appreciate the artist’s quality and craft. However, there is nothing there to speak to the broadest part of Škréta’s public; that is, the regular church and monastery visitors – whether educated or uneducated, rich or poor – who came into daily contact with his paintings. Is it at all possible to say more about their attitudes, if we lack any direct accounts? In the case of Karel Škréta, such a possibility is afforded by the annals of the Augustinian Zderaz Monastery in the New Town of Prague, which richly document the painter’s activities from his early days in Prague in the 1640s. Reformed Augustinian Eremites first came to Prague during the post-White Mountain recatholization and settled in the originally Ultraquist St Wenceslas Church at Zderaz in 1625. In their zealous recatholization efforts advanced within Prague’s New Town quarter, where the non-Catholic community was most populous in comparison with the Lesser and Old Towns, they took advantage of the exceptional genius loci. The nearby curative spring, associated in legend with the main holy patron of the land, Duke Wenceslas, and the vera effigies of this saint preserved in their monastery,¹¹⁸ became the starting point for developing the local St Wenceslas cult, and, in the early 1640s, found an artistic analogue in a thirty-two piece painting cycle from the life of St Wenceslas in the cloisters jointly created by Karel Škréta and other artists.¹¹⁹ As is clear from reports recounting how the church and monastery were fitted out, the Zderaz Augustinians accorded great importance to the artistic embellishments and their effect on the population (referred to in sources as the “fideles”, i.e. believers). From the perspective of their recatholization pursuits and the efforts of the new monastic community to establish itself in Prague, the fact that they were soon able to engage the inhabitants of the New Town and other Prague towns in their undertakings may be considered an unequivocal success. Whereas the Zderaz chronicles make no mention of the donors of the twenty nine “beauty-laden” paintings depicting scenes from the Life of St Augustine hanging on the walls of the monastery church since 1628,¹²⁰ the situation as concerns the St Wenceslas cycle, some of whose extant paintings bear the dedicatory inscriptions STUDIES 121
12. ← Karel Škréta, St Thomas of Villanova Distributing Alms to the Poor, preparatory drawing for an altarpiece, 1670–1671, Weimar, Klassik Stiftung Weimar (reproduced after: Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674, Prague 1974, cat. no. 161, fig. 187) 13. → Joachim von Sandrart, “Strumpfanzieher”, Depiction of a Young Man Wearing a Sock at Teutsche Academie (photo: Štěpán Vácha)
and coats of arms of their donors, is very different. The lunette St Wenceslas Having Pagan Idols Razed was paid for by Doctor Isaias Haan settled in the New Town, St Wenceslas Pressing the Sacramental Wine by the Old Town City Councilman and vineyard official Felix Had of Proseč, The Death of Drahomíra by the wealthy patrician and later Old Town Councilman Václav Voříkovský the Younger of Kunratice, and Priest Hostivod Impetrating for the Finger of St Wenceslas by the Appellate Court Scrivener Daniel Ferdinand Rabštejnský of Guten- and Friedenthal.¹²¹ According to the monastery chronicles, another of Škréta’s lunettes was financed by Prague Castle Captain Jan Karel Příchovský of Příchovice, who also contributed the considerable sum of 600 guldens for construction of a magnificent, intricatelycarved pulpit for the church.¹²² His daughter Anna Žofie funded Škréta’s no-longer-extant large painting St Mary Magdalene with Christ as a Gardener (Noli me tangere), which was done for the atrium of the Holy Sepulchre Chapel.¹²³ The bequest of another benefactor, Supreme Scrivener of the Kingdom of Bohemia Kryštof Wratislav of Mitrovice († 1645), interred in the same crypt, was used to purchase another painting by Karel Škréta for the altar of the same chapel, depicting the Lady of Sorrows with St John the Evangelist and the 122 FACING THE PUBLIC
121 I am grateful to Jan Oulík for the identification and correction of the benefactors’ identities. 122 See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 93. 123 Ibid.
124 See Edition of historical sources in this book, documents no. 91 and 92. 125 See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 114. 126 See Tomáš Sekyrka, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 1), p. 181, cat. no. IV.13. 127 Martin Svatoš, Sv. Václav v literatuře 17. a 18. století, in: Jan Royt (ed.), Svatý Václav v umění 17. a 18. století, Praha 1994, pp. 22–25; recently, Petra Zelenková, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 1), p. 179, cat. no. IV.11. 128 “Quae omnes, totam S[ancti] Wenceslai Bohemiae Patroni, et olim Ducis Martyris vitam, pulcherrime adumbrantes, mire exornant totum claustrum et ingredientes extraneos magna admiratione suspensos detinent.” See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 88. 129 “[…] quae structuram claustri mire exornantes oculos spectantium animis ad pietatem non parum accensis vehementer rapiunt.” See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 89. 130 The monastery chronicler explicitly mentions the visit to the monastery by both Habsburgs in 1646 (at that time, Ferdinand IV was crowned as Bohemian king on 5 August) elsewhere; Praha, NA, AZK, Liber secundus seu Continuatio Annalium ExcalceatoAugustiniani Nostri Asceterii Sub Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, inv. no. 2452, manuscript 11 (formerly 3480 b), fol. 55.
Two Marys.¹²⁴ Some twenty years later, Škréta painted two canvases for the monastery refectory based on a commission from New Town bookbinder Hieronimus and Lesser Town bookseller Bartolomeo Lucerna: The Last Supper and The Washing of Feet.¹²⁵ For the sake of completeness, it should be mentioned that Škréta is also the author, inter alia, of the paintings of church teachers and evangelists with the Virgin Mary that adorn the monastery library, a portrait series of fifteen leaders of the Italian congregation of the reformed Augustinian order, and the paintings St Wenceslas and St Ludmila in the church sacristy. Soon after it was completed, the St Wenceslas cycle became a Prague sensation, attracting the city’s residents and visitors to the monastery. Therefore, not suprisingly it was included in the list of Prague sights Descriptio Honorificentissima Nobilissimae […] Urbis Pragensis by Martin Čaban published in Prague in 1652.¹²⁶ A still more eloquent documentation of its renown is the booklet by Monastery Prior Giles from St John the Baptist called Věnec blahoslavenému a věčně oslavenému knížeti […] svatému Václavovi (in English, A Crown for the Blessed and Eternally Glorified Duke St Wenceslas), which came out in 1643 (and 1644, respectively) in three language versions (Czech, German, Latin) in order to reach the greatest number of readers possible.¹²⁷ The time lag between the painting of the cycle (1640–1641) and the booklet’s publication attests to the fact that it was added later, evidently based on the public’s unflagging interest in the paintings. The richly illustrated octavo booklet in which each canvas had its own graphic reproduction accompanied by the relevant passage from the saint’s legend and epigraphs was meant to serve as a “pocket gallery” and illustrated guide for discerning viewers visiting the monastery ambit (fig. 14). According to the author of the Zderaz annals, “all these [paintings] beautifully depicting the entire life of the martyr St Wenceslas, Bohemian patron and one time duke, wonderfully embellish the entire cloisters and draw newcomers from outside to gaze upon it with great wonderment”.¹²⁸ Similarly, a later version of the Zderaz annals writes of the paintings, which “powerfully captivate the viewers’ eye and, in no small measure, set [their] souls aflame with devotion”.¹²⁹ An extraordinary report is one that describes the spontaneous reaction of the art-loving Emperor Ferdinand III when he and his son Ferdinand IV stayed in Prague in the summer of 1646 and visited Zderaz Monastery.¹³⁰ The following anecdote moreover illustrates how highly-valued Škréta’s work was (50 guldens for one lunette as compared to the usual
STUDIES 123
fee of 32 or 30 guldens paid to other painters): “The most distinguished Emperor Ferdinand III, during a tour of the monastery interior and the cloister, when examining the individual paintings, not being acquainted with this art, gave only a cursory glance at the work of other artists, but stopped at the paintings by Škréta and, while studying them and becoming familiar with the artist’s hand, made this comment in German to the prior who was accompanying him: «Škréta is a good painter, but he makes sure to be paid well.»”¹³¹ Wherein lay the success of the St Wenceslas cycle and how were Škréta’s paintings exceptional compared to the works of other painters? It has already been said that visual art played a key role in the Augustinians’ missionary work undertaken in Prague’s New Town. Thus does the chronicle say of the St Augustine cycle of 1628 that the paintings were “a major embellishment of the church while also stirring the devoutness of believers.¹³² The St Wenceslas cycle had the same impact, though in this case it seems that the quality of the artistic rendering evidently outshone the intended didactic purpose. This is made clear in the foreword of the aforementioned booklet by Monastery Prior Giles from St John the Baptist, in which the reader-viewer is admonished not to lose sight of the spiritual mission of the paintings in the face of their sensual beauty: “Our Duke and heir St Wenceslas was so far hidden as if behind a kind of curtain, on the walls of our ambulatory, depicted and painted in 32 canvases, but now he comes out accompanied with many engraved figures and an apt historical treatise for you, faithful Bohemian, not only to feast your eyes on these material paintings but rather to find a mirror and vivid example in them for yourself and to seek to follow it yourself and encourage others to do so.”¹³³ I believe this quotation not only justifies the publication of the book, but also provides an answer to the above formulated question concerning the exceptionality of Škréta’s lunettes. Reports on public reaction at the time confirm that the individual paintings of the Zderaz cycle were perceived as autonomous works that stood on their own artistically and that, in their narrative structure, surpassed their literary models such as the medieval St Wenceslas legend Ut annuncietur, and the relevant passages in Hájek’s Kronika česká (Czech Chronicle), published in 1541, and in Jan Dubravius’ Historiae Regni Boiemiae (1552).¹³⁴ 124 FACING THE PUBLIC
131 “Unde Augustae memoriae Ferdinandus III. Imperator, dum quadam vice Caesarea Sua praesentia interiora subiret monasterii, videns claustrum, et singulas imagines contuens, uti erat non imperitus huius artis, in aliorum opera levem vibrabat palpebram, at picturis Scretae fixo pede, ac lumine inhaerens manu artificis cognita hoc elogium Patri Priori sese comitanti idiomate teutenico dixit: Screta est bonus pictor, sed curati sibi bene solvi.” See Edition of historical sources in this book, document no. 89. 132 See note 120. 133 Aegidius a Sancto Johanne Baptista, Wienec Blahoslawenému a wěčně Oslawenému Knijžeti Cžeskému, Mučedlnijku Božijmu, druhému Abelowi, Swatému Wáclawowi […], Praha 1643, p. A3/b. 134 Cf. M. Svatoš, Sv. Václav v literatuře 17. a 18. století (see note 127).
135 Jaromír Neumann, Ke komposičním principům Škrétova svatováclavského cyklu, Výtvarné umění VI, 1956, pp. 162–168, here p. 165.
14. ↖ Double page of the 10th Chapter in the Booklet “Ehren Krantzlein so dem Heyligen und Glorwürdigsten Martyrer Wenceslao […]”, (1643) with the Illustration St Wenceslas Pressing the Sacramental Wine (photo: Štěpán Vácha) 15. ↑ Karel Škréta, The Birth of St Wenceslas, 1640, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
Let us take as an example the lunette The Birth of St Wenceslas, which begins the cycle (fig. 15). The scene is embellished with anecdotal motifs such as the overturned copper bowl with a sponge for washing the newborn, the birthing rope hanging from the bed, a pair of servant girls, their backs turned, warming diapers and a cat gazing into the hearth; the masterly rendered structure and rich colours of the various materials draw the eye. Although the painting is furnished with the appropriate title Nativitatis S. Wenceslai ex Wratislao principe Christiano et Drahomira pagana. Anno 908, also a reference to Hájek’s chronicle (Hagec: fol: 65) and the verse metaphorically expressing the birth of the saint from the bosom of the pagan princess (Nascitur ex spina Rosa, purpura, nixaque, […]), in none of these passages (nor in medieval legend) is the birth of the saint rendered as it is in Škréta’s painting. A conventional birth scene is transposed into a psychologically-escalating conflict between the pagan Drahomíra and her mother-in-law St Ludmila, whose outcome is left to the viewer’s imagination. As Jaromír Neumann noted of the midwife holding the newborn, “the expression in the midwife’s eyes considerably enhances the confrontation between the two different female types and emphasises the hidden tension between them”.¹³⁵ Her placement at the centre of the conflict and perhaps, too, the uncertainty and helplessness reflected in her gaze testify to the deeper meaning of the scene, which only becomes apparent upon reflection on the other circumstances of the story. This is not merely a conflict between two different worlds personified by the pagan and the Christian princess, as is usually posited, but rather a mortal struggle over the fate of the child who will later be taken from Drahomíra and raised in the Christian faith. We may also see the objective of rendering a history independently of its literary model by adding a series of scenic motifs that go beyond a general telling and lend it a significantly deeper psychological dimension in other of the cycle’s extant works. It will suffice as just one example to mention the painting St Wenceslas Pressing the Sacramental Wine in which the saint is modestly rendered performing manual labour while a view to the vineyard with STUDIES 125
the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene under Letna hill is skilfully incorporated into the scene. We might also mention the scene St Wenceslas Buying Pagan Children (fig. 16), which is built upon the emotionally harrowing depiction of an abandoned child turning away from his benefactor Duke Wenceslas and trying in vain to make contact with the retreating mother at left who, with the empty cradle under her arm, greedily counts her money. The side episode at right, where we see a teacher, rod in hand, giving lessons, evokes the future destiny of the boy who was purchased to be given a brighter future. Conclusion It has been the aim of this study to provide a new way of looking at the oeuvre of Karel Škréta free from stylistic art critiques and iconographic interpretations, indeed one that places the subject within the context of period art theory and receptive aesthetics. It would be premature to answer the questions formulated in the introduction to this study given the topic’s complexity; rather, the results set out here represent a point of departure for further exploration. In this respect, it was beneficial to work with the concept of the narrative painting (history), whose principles I essayed in various genres represented in Škréta’s art, such as the sacra conversazione type of devotional painting (fig. 1), the cabinet painting (fig. 4), the group portrait (fig. 2) and above all the narrative religious-themed scenes (historiae sacrae), i.e. altarpieces (Figs. 5, 10, 11) and hung paintings (Figs. 15 and 16). In each of these cases, we see the artist’s theoretical erudition and ability to express himself through visually appealing and modern forms, and his ability to use artistic means designed to capture the viewer’s attention. The focus while interpreting individual works was always on Škréta’s viewers, their attitudes related to us by written sources of various natures. One of these was the scholar and cleric Bohuslav Balbín, the second was art theoretician and painter Joachim von Sandrart and, finally, there were the regular “consumers” of these paintings, that is the faithful, here represented by the socially diverse classes comprising those commissioning the works as well as those visiting Zderaz Monastery. The Baroque was a foreign concept to an artist freely creating his art out of inner impulse and without deference to public taste. The secret of success was to create not 126 FACING THE PUBLIC
16. Karel Škréta, St Wenceslas Buying Pagan Children, c. 1641, Castle of Mělník, Collection of Jiří Lobkowicz (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán)
136 See the exhibition review by Petr Kováč, Oslava české umělecké tvořivosti, in the daily newspaper Právo of 7 December 2010, p. 16.
a provocative, but rather an appealing, comprehensible and sufficiently representative work. This enables us to understand Karel Škréta’s transformation from a painter of secular-themed cabinet paintings and portraits during his sojourn in Italy into the creator of large-scale altarpieces after his return to Prague. This turnaround is not only testimony to the painter’s universality and artistic genius, but also provides important information about the key formative influence of the environment on his artistic development. If in the highly competitive environment of the Italian cities it was very difficult for the young and socially unestablished painter to win prestigious commissions such as altarpieces, the situation in Bohemia was quite the opposite. A comparison of Karel Škréta and painters of the European Baroque, as presented in the recent exhibition, should not elicit speculation as to how illustrious a career Škréta might have had if he had chosen to settle abroad.¹³⁶ On the contrary, the observations set out here show that the skills Škréta acquired in Italy would have had little application for him without the great artistic opportunities that awaited him in Bohemia. Škréta, who during his stay in Italy not only became highly conversant in the visual language of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque, but also gained the requisite theoretical knowledge, was the ideal artist for the task. Translated by Gita Zbavitelová
STUDIES 127
Karel Škréta – pictor doctus SYLVA DOBALOVÁ – LUBOMÍR KONEČNÝ
1 Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Doba a dílo (exh. cat.), Praha 2010. On this portrait see also Miroslava Kacetlová, Autoportrét v českém barokním malířství (M. A. thesis, Charles University), Praha 2006, pp. 89–90 and 182 (cat. no. 68). 2 On this problem see, in particular, Jan A. Emmens, “Ay Rembrandt, maal cornelis stem”, Nederlands Kusthistorisch Jarboek 7, 1956, pp. 133–165; John Shearman, Only Connect: Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance, Princeton 1992, p. 108–148. 3 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de piu eccellenti, pittori, scultori ed architetti, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, vol. 7, Firenze 1881, p. 560. 4 Jana Zapletalová, Karel Škréta: Notes from Archives in Italy, Umění LVIII, 2010, pp. 153–158 (153 and 157, notes 12 and 13).
The Painter and the Book Most probably at the end of 1634, shortly before Karel Škréta left the city on the lagoons for Rome, his portrait was painted by the Venetian artist Tiberio Tinelli (fig. 1).¹ It is evident that within its category (portrait of a painter) it is a quite unusual work. If it were not for the “text, which was most probably re-written on a secondary canvas during an old restoration”, we would not have known who the author of this painting was, or who was portrayed on it. The inscription on the reverse reads: “Il Ritratto di Carlo Screta / Io che l’imagi altrui / soglio eterna formar / co mei penelli / Vergil hora Imagin mia / Opera tua gran Tenelli /Viva spirar, che non so / piu s’io sia, o pitor’/o de pinto / S’all versimil / e l’finto / ch’infinita n’havian / tu Glorial / lo vita / Aless. Berardelli” [“Portrait of Karel Škréta. I, who am accustomed to create the eternal portraits of others with my brush, now see my own image, your work, great Tenelli, breathe as if alive, so that I do not know whether it is I, or an illusion painted as though real, and so from this we have, you endless glory and I endless life, Alessandro Berardelli.”] The painter portrayed is, then, Karel Škréta, who, in the words of the poet and painter Alessandro Berardelli, praises the portrait whose author was a further Venetian, Tiberio Tinelli. Berardelli used as the leitmotiv of his short text the traditional idea of the inability or unfitness of the work of art (as opposed to a living human being) to breathe and speak. Berardelli undoubtedly knew this ancient, but still effective cliché of artistic praise, the tradition of which goes back into antiquity. Especially in Greek and Roman epigrams we find a whole series of testimonies to the fact that the highest form of praise that could be accorded to a statue or painting was the observation that it would clearly soon begin to breathe or talk.² Berardelli as a poet had doubtless read a great deal of ancient poetry, but as a painter it would have been enough to open Vasari’s Lives, where he could have read, for instance, that the painting of The Holy Conversation, the author of which was Giulio Clovio, lacked only breath and speech to be alive.³ Jana Zapletalová recently pointed out the fact that both Tiberio Tinelli and Alessandro Berardelli were members of the Venetian Accademia degli Incogniti, the Principe of which was Giovan Francesco Loredan. Even though Škréta’s name does not appear on the (unfortunately incompletely preserved) list of members of this academy, “it may be assumed that during his stay in Venice he was in direct contact with this academy or at least with some of its members.”⁴ This fact explains the somewhat unusual character of this portrait as the portrayal of a painter. Škréta has a “slightly melancholy gaze turned away from the onlooker” and (especially) in his hand he holds a book in which the fingers of his right hand are inserted. If we give rein to our fantasy, then we might imagine that he was thus marking the place of the text quoted above, which was “later” copied on the reverse of Tinelli’s canvas. Even more important, however, is the fact that the Czech artist is not STUDIES 129
1. Tiberio Tinelli, Portrait of Karel Škréta (around 1634), National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
equipped with any of the attributes that would have qualified him as a painter – brush, palette or easel. In the history of portraits and self-portraits of painters this is a relatively rare case, as Škréta is holding only a book.⁵ This situation could be explained on the one hand by the fact that this portrait came into being in the context of a literary academy. On the other hand, and in combination with other biographical details, it designates Karel Škréta as a learned or educated painter: pictor doctus.⁶ Probably the first fundamental opinion on this problem was contributed by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) in the third book of his De pictura (1435) / Della pittura (1436), which is the foundation work of modern art treatise. “The aim of painting,” wrote this humanist artist, “is to provide the artist with pleasure, friendship and fame rather than wealth […]. It would be necessary for the painter, in order to remember these things well, to be a good man and educated in the free arts. [Finis pictoris laudem, gratiam et benivolentiam vel magis quam divitias ex opere adipisci. […] Sed cupio pictorem, quo haec possit omnia pulchre tenere, in primis esse virum et bonum et doctum bonarum artium.]”⁷ Alberti’s statement, that the painter should be “a good man and educated in the free arts”, has its origin in Cato’s famous characterisation of the ideal public speaker: “vir bonus dicendi peritus”.⁸ Transferred to the
130 KAREL ŠKRÉTA – PICTOR DOCTUS
5 The literature on this “genre” is literally immense, and therefore we mention only a few of the recent titles, which contain further bibliographies: Joanna Woods-Marsden, Renaissance Self-Portraiture: The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist, New Haven – London 1998; Julian Bell, Five Hundred Self-Portraits, London 2000; Ulrich Pfisterer – Valeska von Rosen (edd.), Der Künstler als Kunstwerk: Selbstporträts vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, Stuttgart 2005. For the symbolic significances of the book itself see Justyna Guze, Ksiąźka jako symbol treści intelektualnych w sztuce doby humanizmu: XV–XVI w., in: O ikonografii świeckiej doby humanizmu: Tematy – symbole – problemy, Warszawa 1977, pp. 159–243; Jan Białostocki, Books of Wisdom and Books of Vanity, in: In Memoriam J. G. van Gelder 1913–1980, Utrecht 1982, pp. 37–67 (reprinted under the same title in: idem, The Message of Images: Studies in the History of Art, Vienna 1988, pp. 42–63, 242–245). 6 On this term and the concept of painting creativity connected with it see at least some of the fundamental, but far from exhaustive titles: Rensselaer W. Lee, Ut pictura poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting, New York – London 1967, pp. 41–48; J. A. Emmens, “Ay Rembrandt, maal cornelis stem” (see note 2), pp. 188–208.
7 Leon Battista Alberti, Das Standbild, Die Mahlkunst, Grundlagen der Malerei / De statua, de pictura, elementa picturae, Oskar Bätschmann – Christoph Schäublin (trans. & edd.), Darmstadt 2000, p. 292. Because the only existing Czech translation of Alberti’s treatise (František Topinka, Praha 1947) is inaccurate and in places verges on the unintelligible, we are using, apart from the already quoted Bätschmann edition, the two following English translations: Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting, John R. Spencer (trans. & ed.), New Haven – London 1966; idem, On Painting, Cecil Grayson (trans.), Martin Kemp (ed.), London 1991. 8 For this argument see Heinrich F. Plett, Rhetoric and Renaissance Culture, Berlin 2004, pp. 311–312. On the relationship between ancient rhetoric and Renaissance art theory see especially John R. Spencer, Ut rhetorica pictura: A Study in Quattrocento Theory of Painting, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 20, 1957, pp. 26–44; Michael Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of painting in Italy and the discovery of pictorial composition 1350–1450, Oxford 1971. 9 L. B. Alberti, On Painting, J. R. Spencer (ed.) (see note 7), pp. 90–91. On this iconography in detail: David Cast, The Calumny of Apelles: A Study in Humanist Tradition, New Haven – London 1981; Jean Michel Massing, Du texte a l’image: La Calomnie d’Apelle et son iconographie, Strasbourg 1990. 10 Evonne Levy, Ideal and Reality of the Learned Artist: The Schooling of Italian and Netherlandish Artists, Children of Mercury: The Education of Artists in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (exh. cat.), Providence, R. I. 1984, pp. 20–27; Eva Maringer, Schönfeld als “pictor doctus”: Bemerkungen zu einem künstlerischen Selbstverständnis, in: Ursula Zeller – Maren Waike – Hans-Martin Kaulbach (edd.), Johann Heinrich Schönfeld: Welt der Götter, Heiligen und Heldenmythen (exh. cat.), Friedrichshafen – Stuttgart 2009, p. 86–89. Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to becone acquainted with the work of Maurits Ameyers, Jan van Eyck “Pictor Doctus”, Onze Alma Mater, 1991. 11 Jan Białostocki, The Doctus Artifex and the Library of the Artist in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries, in: De arte et libris: Festschrift Erasmus 1934–1984, Amsterdam 1984, pp. 11–22 (reprinted under the same title in: idem, The Message of Images (see note 5), pp. 150–165 & 267–270, where yet another bibliography is given). See also John Bury, El Greco’s Books, The Burlington Magazine 129, 1987, pp. 388–391; Bert van Selm, De bibliothek van Pieter Saenredam, Kunstschrift Openbaar Kunstbezit 12, 1988, pp. 14–19; Gerda Panofsky-Soergel, An Artist’s Library in Rome around 1600, in: Victoria von Fleming – Sebastian Schütze (edd.), Ars Natura adiuvans: Festschrift für Matthias Winner zum 11. März 1996, Mainz am Rhein 1996, pp. 367–380; Frans Baudouin, Rubens pictor doctus, zijn bibliothek en zijn lectuur, in: Prosper Arents (ed.), De Bibliotheek van Pieter Pauwel Rubens: een reconstructie, Antwerpen 2001, pp. 47–87; Amy Golahny, Rembrandt’s Reading: The Artist’s Bookshelf of Ancient Poetry and History, Amsterdam 2003; Frans Baudouin, Rubens and his Books, in: idem, Rubens in Context: Selected Studies, Antwerpen 2005, pp. 125–135; Lubomír Slavíček, Potřebné knihy? Ikonografie, knihy emblémů a artifex doctus v Čechách na konci 18. století, in: Beket Bukovinská – Lubomír Slavíček (edd.), Pictura Verba Cupit: Sborník příspěvků pro Lubomíra Konečného / Essays for Lubomír Konečný, Praha 2006, pp. 79–93 (81–87); Susan Anderson, The Library of Cornelis Dussart: Between Artist and Gentleman, Oud Holland 123, 2010, pp. 133–165. 12 See in particular the classic work: R. W. Lee, Ut pictura poesis (see note 6). 13 Ivo Kořán, Knihovna architekta Bonifáce Wolmuta, Umění 8, 1960, pp. 522–527. 14 Thea A. G. Vignau Wilberg-Schuurman, Die emblematische Elemente im Werke Joris Hoefnagels, Leiden 1969; Thea Vignau Wilberg, Pictor Doctus: Drawing and Theory of Art around 1600, in: Eliška Fučíková – J. M. Bradburne et al. (edd.), Rudolf II and Prague: The Court and the City (exh. cat.), Prague – London – Milano 1997, pp. 179–188. (In the Czech version of this catalogue the expression “Pictor Doctus” was unfortunately omitted, p. 179.)
ideal painter: “vir bonus pingendi peritus” – a man who is of good character and who has received a good education in the free arts (pictor doctus, pictor poeticus or pictor literatus). Therefore – continues Alberti – artists should, for their pleasure, consort with poets and speakers who know many things. This might be useful in the conception of “history” (istoria), the greatest significance of which lies in invention (of theme). Beautiful invention has, according to him, such value that it is pleasing in itself even without the painting that is based on it – and as an example he mentions Lucian’s famous description (ekfrasis) On Calumny, which was created by perhaps the most famous painter of antiquity, Apelles (Calumnia, 5).⁹ The Painter and the Library It is not surprising that more than one painter active from the second half of the 15th century, first of all in Italy and then in the Transalpine area, was given the title of pictor doctus, although it is often a matter of modern art-historical usus.¹⁰ Far from all painters (such as Agnolo Bronzino), however, were at the same time active as writers or had the opportunity to be more or less intensively personally acquainted with writers and scholars. There was here, however, one alternative solution, and this was the artist’s private library. Today we know that more than one painter, especially in the 17th century, owned a relatively rich collection of books from which he extracted varied knowledge and skills. It is to the merit of the Polish art historian Jan Białostocki that he was the first to systematically gather information about the libraries owned in the 16th and 17th centuries by painters in particular and to put these in context with contemporary theories about the learned painter and the connection between painting and poetry.¹¹ Through books artists could be confidentially acquainted with belle-lettres, especially with ancient and Renaissance poetry, and from this could draw the themes for their works – all in harmony with the doctrine of the close relationship of painting and poetry (ut pictura poesis). ¹² Clearly the first “artist” to own a library in Bohemia was the architect Bonifác Wolmut, as documented by the list of property made out after his death at the beginning of 1579.¹³ As opposed to what we might have expected in this case, Wolmut’s library did not contain writings about architecture, but mostly works about astrology, astronomy and related subjects, knowledge of which was recommended to architects already by Vitruvius and Alberti. It is therefore necessary to agree with the opinion that “the preserved ensemble of [Wolmut’s] library shows the immense breadth of education of the architect, who was able to cover whole apparently distant scientific branches.” A difficult case is that of Joris Hoefnagel, a Flemish painter of miniatures and humanist, who worked for Emperor Rudolf II in Prague in the nineties of the 16th century.¹⁴ Recent research has shown that this artistic genius conceived his depictions of natural objects not only on the basis of his own observation, but also with knowledge of their symbolic interpretation, which we know mainly from contemporary books of emblems. We know nothing, however, of Hoefnagel’s library. Did it exist at all? With his nomadic way of life we do not even know where, when and what he read – whether at home in Flanders or later on his travels in Spain, Italy, Germany, Bohemia or elsewhere. As was shown especially in many of her studies by Thea Vignau-Wilberg, there is absolutely no doubt that Joris Hoefnagel was an outstanding expert, especially in emblems and so-called hieroglyphs (inventor hieroglyphicus et allegoricus). The Library and Books: Why and How? It is notoriously well known that books were and are read mainly in order that we may acquire instruction, pleasure and amusement. The role of learning (docere) naturally increases if the library is the instrument for cultivating the profession of its owner. The German painter Joachim von Sandrart, with whom Škréta was acquainted during his stay in Italy in the years 1630–1635, the author of the first biography of the Czech artist in 1675, wrote, among other things, that “our artist was not only a universal theorist, but also an experienced practician [daß unser Künstler nicht allein ein universaler Theoreticus, sondern auch ein wohlerfahrener Practicus gewesen seye].” Shortly after this he continues: “It can therefore be said that this discreet Škréta is the Apelles in the Imperial Parnassus of Muses and that in his wise brain there arose outstanding theses and emblems, which occur in this ancient university [scil. in Prague] more frequently than elsewhere [es seye dieser discrete Secreta der STUDIES 131
2. ← Karel Škréta, Design of frontispiece for the manuscript of Bohuslav Balbín Epitome historica rerum Bohemicarum, 1669, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinet (photo: author's archives) 3. → Karel Škréta, Design for the thesis of Count of Halweil, 1672, present location unknown (photo: author's archives) 4. → → Karel Škréta, Detail of the design for the thesis of Count of Halweil (photo: author's archives)
andere Apelles auf diesem Kayserlichen Musen-Parnass gewesen / aus deßen klugen Hirn die fürnehmste Conclusiones und Emblemata, (dern auf dieser uralten Universität mehr / als an andern Orten herfür kommen)].”¹⁵ Sandrart’s use of the terms “Conclusiones und Emblemata” does not refer in this case to standard emblems, which consist of three parts (picture / imago / pictura + inscription / lemma / motto + subscription / epigram),¹⁶ but to university theses, which were used at Jesuit educational institutes (and therefore also in Prague) for the visualisation of the conclusions of students’ work. When the Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg visited the Jesuit College in the Prague Clementinum on 25 August 1733, he wrote in his diary that he saw there paintings with emblems, which defendants used in public disputations (“illorum picturas cum emblematibus quas loco publica defendentes sistunt”).¹⁷ It is extremely probable that a number of them were the work of Karel Škréta (see CATALOGUE, No. IX.2, 4–10, 12, 14–17) and this very fact proves that the painter was in contact with scholars – not to speak of the important personalities of contemporary social life who had their portraits painted by him or ordered pictures from him. Nevertheless, the most fundamental proof of the artist’s contacts with scholars continues to be his friendship with the Jesuit polyhistorian Bohuslav Balbín, according to whom Škréta was “Pictor aetate nostra in Patria summus”. Let us mention at least two examples. At the close of a short list of artists whose work should be studied by the authors of dramatic works, Balbín recommends “in this country the emblems of a Czech painter, who is determined in no way to lag behind the Old Masters: Karel Škréta [apud nos antiquis nos cessuri, Bohemi pictoris Caroli Scretae emblemata]”.¹⁸ In 1669 the artist designed the frontispiece for Balbín’s manuscript Epitome rerum Bohemicarum, which is one of his most successful allegorical works (fig. 2). On the sheet, divided into three horizontal bands, the natural scenery of the “temple of the Bohemian past” is cleverly combined with personifications. The publication of this important historical work did indeed meet many obstacles, but the book was nevertheless published a little later (1677), with a frontispiece by the Augsburg engraver Matthäus Küssel. For the personifications of seventeen different virtues and vices on this frontispiece Škréta used the Iconologia, which was unusually popular in the 17th century and widely used by artists, the author of which was Cesare Ripa and which was also to be found in Škréta’s library. This book represents an alphabetically arranged set of personifications, compiled for the purpose of providing instructions on how to depict the greatest possible number of concepts, ideas and phenomena contained in the experience of an educated man of the first half of the 17th century. The first edition, unillustrated, was published in Rome in 1593; it was followed by further editions and translations into national languages. The third edition (Rome 1603) was illustrated (probably by Giovanni Guerra) and further editions were corrected, expanded and provided with various indexes. From this point of view the very best is the Venice edition of 1646, which contains almost 700 concepts and over 132 KAREL ŠKRÉTA – PICTOR DOCTUS
15 Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Bau–, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste, Nürnberg 1675–1680, Christian Klemm (ed.), Nördlingen 1994, vol.1, p. 327. For brief basic information and bibliography see Štěpán Vácha, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), p. 617, cat. no. XVII.1. 16 On emblematics and books of emblems (in domestic literature): Lubomír Konečný, Mezi textem a obrazem: Miscellanea z historie emblematiky, Praha 2002. 17 Quoted according to Oldřich J. Blažíček, Pražská sbírka universitních thesí: Kapitola z užité grafiky barokní, Hollar 16, 1940, p. 33. We know a large quantity of similar emblematic conclusiones, for instance, from Brussels: Karel Porteman, Emblematic Exhibitions at the Brussels Jesuit College (1630–1685): A Study of the Commemorative Manuscripts (Royal Library, Brussels), Turnhout 1996. 18 Bohuslai Balbini Verisimilia Humaniorum Disciplinarum / Bohuslav Balbín, Rukověť humanitních disciplín, Olga Spevak (transl. & ed.), Praha 2006, pp. 573–575. See Konečný (see note 16), pp. 53–54 and 65–66.
19 Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (exh. cat.), Praha 1974, p. 243, cat. no. 189, fig. 216; Sibylle Appuhn-Radtke, Das Thesenblatt im Hochbarock: Studien zu einer graphischen Gattung am Beispiel der Werke Bartholomäus Kilians, Weißenhorn 1988, pp. 101–105. 20 Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, Padova 1625, pp. 152 and 154. 21 Idem, pp. 132–133.
one thousand illustrations from Abundantia (Abundance) to Zelo (Zeal), derived from various literary and visual sources. Škréta, however, most probably owned and used the edition printed in Padua in 1625. The best example of how thoroughly and in what manner Karel Škréta used Ripa’s Iconologia is his drawing for the thesis of Count František Antonín Josef Leopold of Halweil, which was given graphic form in 1672 by Bartholomäus Kilian (fig. 3).¹⁹ The iconographically complex and unusually rich composition depicts the Virtues of the Emperor Leopold I chasing vices out of the Austrian House and it is peopled by a quantity of figures, mostly unidentifiable at first glance. Fortunately, however, the painter marked them all with numbers and accompanied this with inscriptions in his own hand, which determine their iconography. A detailed comparison of Škréta’s figures with those of Ripa shows irrefutably that the painter used Ripa’s Iconologia in conceiving this demanding composition. This comparison, however, brings yet another finding: the Czech painter used only the iconography of Ripa’s figures, not their formal design. What, then, was his modus operandi – the way he handled the Italian’s instructions and models? For a start let us say that he must have done something with them. Ripa’s personifications are mainly depicted standing upright and facing the spectator and they are equipped with a whole range of attributes, whether these are animals or the most varied objects. Škréta therefore first and foremost reduced the amount of paraphernalia, especially if they are the bearers of identical meanings. It is further evident that the personifications, for the most part just standing still on the pages of the Iconologia, have changed with the Czech painter into figures of flesh and bone. As acting dramatis personae they can no longer follow Ripa absolutely literally because the theme of the victorious battle of the virtues with the vices required that they should flee, fall, gesticulate wildly (and simultaneously frequently overlap one another). It is natural that Škréta’s figures are much closer to life than their models in the book. As an example let us compare three figures in the centre of the first plane of Škréta’s composition with their opposite numbers in Ripa’s book (fig. 4). Number 8 (“Fidelitas” – Loyalty) holds a seal ring in his right hand, in his left a key and at her feet is a dog; it therefore corresponds to the appropriate depiction in the Iconologia (fig. 5), which was construed on the basis of two of Ripa’s instructions for the depiction of “Fedeltà”: “Donna vestita di bianco, come la Fede, con due dita della destra mano, tenga un’anello, over sigillo, & à canto vi sia un cane bianco […]. Donna, vestita di bianco, con la destra mano tiene una chiave, & alli piedi un cane.”²⁰ Her escort (No. 12) is “Castigo” (Punishment), depicted with a mighty axe and in Ripa’s book accompanied by a lion, which is pawing at the defeated bear (fig. 6): “Dipingeremo per il Castigo un’huomo in atto feroce, & severo, che tenghi con la destra mano una scura, o accetta, che dir vogliamo, in maniera che mostri di voler con essa severessimamente dare un sol colpo, & à canto vi sia un Leone in atto di sbranare un orsa.”²¹ STUDIES 133
Figure No. 7, whose clothing is grasped by the jaws of Loyalty’s dog, personified “Rebellio” and Cesare Ripa describes it in the following words (fig. 7): “Huomo giovane, armato, & sopra il cimiero porti un gatto, sotto all’ armatura haverà una faldiglietta fino al ginocchio […], & alato la spada, mostrera in prospettiva la schiena, & con la testa stara in atto di si mirare indietro con guardatura superba & minaccievole, terra con ambe le mani le cime vi sia il ferro, & per terrà per dispregio vi sia una Corona, & sotto alli piedi terra un giogo […]”.²² It is therefore evident that in the conception of Halweil’s thesis Škréta made perfect use of Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, which stood on one of the shelves of his library. In the interest of the better clarity and intelligibility of his figures, however, he thoughtfully reduced the iconographic material contained in the book, utilised the synonymity of some terms and the multiple significance of some attributes. His use of the Italian bestseller was inventive, but at the same time adequate to the order – a university thesis allegorically celebrating Emperor Leopold I. Škréta’s intelligent and truly creative work with Ripa’s Iconologia thus confirms the already quoted evaluation of the Czech artist from the pen of Joachim von Sandrart: In matters concerning the art of painting he was “nicht allein ein universaler Theoreticus, sondern auch ein wohlerfahrener Practicus” – or, in other words: pictor doctus. The Painter and the Book of Books As Sandrart also states, Škréta contributed to art-lovers “many beautiful pictures and popular histories” (“schöne Bilder und beliebige Historien”). In the second half of the description of the career of the Czech Apello Sandrart then adds that Škréta’s work consisted “mainly of great histories and portraits” (“großen Historien und Contrafäten”).²³ The associated list of buildings in Prague and in Bohemia in which it was possible to see these “histories” leaves no-one in any doubt that these were paintings with a religious theme. It was the way in which religious themes were depicted that underwent fundamental reform as a result of the protestant criticism following the Trident Council, the results of which were far-reaching.²⁴ Art works are intended to stimulate piety and be a means to salvation; they must be cleansed of all that is heretical and immoral (secular) and might cause those unable to read to misunderstand them. The post-Tridentine theologists of depiction criticised in particular the content side of the painting. In their opinion mistakes occurred rather due to the irresponsibility of the painters than thanks to shortcomings of Catholic doctrine. Treatises appeared which are reminiscent of iconographic handbooks. Errors and inconsistencies in the depiction of holy tales must be corrected by the painters on the basis of established precepts and approved literature, otherwise they were committing a sin or heresy. A painter might consult on a theme with a wise and educated man and then he was permitted eventually to include in a scene also “probable” facts or ideas. Art came under the direct control of the Church; the appropriate Bologna bishops were responsible for the decoration of a church. No artist any longer had such freedom as Michelangelo in the painting of the Sistine Chapel. One of the most influential theorists of this period, the 134 KAREL ŠKRÉTA – PICTOR DOCTUS
22 Idem, p. 552. 23 J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie (see note 15), vol. I, p. 327. 24 Of survey literature see in particular: Christian Hecht, Katholische Bildertheologie im Zeitalter von Gegenreformation und Barock. Studien zu Traktaten von Johannes Molanus, Gabrielle Paleotti und anderen Autoren, Berlin 1997; Giuseppe Scavizzi, The Controversy on Images: From Calvin to Baronius, New York 1992; Anthony Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy 1450–1600, Oxford 1994 [1st ed. 1962], pp. 103–136; Paola Barocchi, Trattati d’arte del cinquecento: Fra manierismo e controriforma, II: Gilio – Paleotti – Aldovrandi, Bari 1961; Emile Mâle, L’art religieux après le Consile de Trente: etude sur l’iconographie de la fin du XVI siècle, du XVII, du XVIII siècle: Italie, France, Espagne, Flandres, Paris 1932.
5. ↖↖ Loyalty, in: Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, Padua 1625 (reproduced after: Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, Padova 1625) 6. ↖ Punishment, in: Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, Padua 1625 (reproduced after: Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, Padova 1625) 7. ↑ Rebellion, in: Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, Padua 1625 (reproduced after: Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, Padova 1625)
25 Recently about Paleotti see in particular two dissertation works: Ilaria Biancchi, La politica dlle immagini nell’età della Controriforma: Gabrielle Paleotti teorico e committente, Bologna 2008; Holger Steinemann, Eine Bildtheorie zwischen Repräsentation und Wirkung: Kardinal Gabriele Paleottis Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane (1582), Hildesheim 2006. The first study concentrates on Paleotti’s influence in Bologna, the second generally on the problems of Paleotti’s art theory. 26 R. W. Lee, Ut pictura poesis (see note 6), pp. 42–43. 27 Thomas W. Gaehtgens – Uwe Fleckner (edd.), Historienmalerei, Berlin 1996 (Geschichte der klassischen Bildgattungen in Quellentexten und Kommentar, Band 1), p. 23. 28 Ch. Hecht, Katholische Bildertheologie (see note 24), p. 263. 29 A basic bibliography on the St Wenceslas Cycle is given in the introductory text and individual entries of the catalogue L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), esp. pp. 156–179. 30 Publication of two versions of the legend see Vita sancti Wenceslai, incipiens verbis “Ut annuncietur”, transl. Antonín Podlaha, Praha 1917 (cf. Bohumil Ryba, Poznámky k překladům legend, in: Antonín Matějček – Jaroslav Šámal [edd.], Legendy o českých patronech v obrázkové knize ze XIV. století, Praha 1940, pp. 119–122). The translation of the version Ut annuncietur contained in Liber depictus by B. Ryba see Život slavného mučeníka svatého Václava se zázraky, in: Idem, pp. 49–94.
Cardinal of Bologna, Gabrielle Paleotti, not only devoted attention to iconography in his manuscript Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane (Bologna 1582), but also attempted to formulate a certain artistic theory.²⁵ His work is also interesting to us in how strongly it appeared in the paintings of his native city, which Škréta visited half a century later during his Italian travels, and in the end the question arises of whether it was the paintings of Rome or rather of Bologna, which were decisive for his further orientation. Paleotti, among other things, placed the painting of holy stories (storia) in first place in the hierarchy of genres of painting. This also meant that scenes had to be treated in such a way as to be in keeping with decorum; they could not be in any way lascivious or otherwise profane. In this connection it may be pointed out that the artist’s observance of decorum was always linked to his knowledge of the text, which does not concern only the painting of religious themes.²⁶ According to Paleotti, however, a Christian painter must always feel what he is painting within himself. The Bolognese theologist even goes so far as to say that the most capable painter is not the one who shows invention, but the one for whom verity (veritá, verisimilitudo) is the highest measure.²⁷ The painter should follow the description of events according to the Bible. He must compose pictures simply and intelligibly so that even the poorly educated spectator can understand the movement of the thoughts of the actors in the tale on the basis of the action depicted. Similarly the painting of “histories” was already formulated by Alberti, quoted several times in this article (De pictura, 41), who had in mind in particular a story with many acting figures in which a drama is performed, which is inspired by classical authors, the Bible or mythology. According to Paleotti, but also other post-Tridentine authorities such as Gilio da Fabriano or Molanus before him, the scene must not, however, be complicated by decorative details; each and every element must be essential to the theme. If possible it should be stated in the Bible – and this applies not only to the age of the protagonists or the place where the action takes place, but also to all other particulars. The influence of the post-Tridentine reformers was such that towards the end of the 16th century the need for knowledge of religious literature is placed in the leading positions on the imaginary ladder of mandatory reading; metaphorically it may be said that it replaced the earlier knowledge of poetry. From the viewpoint of the Church, then, the knowledge of classical antiquity was to be replaced by Christian archaeology. A large part was also played, however, by tradition – for instance there was consideration of the historically correct arrangement of the Last Supper, but priority was given in the end to the traditional depiction, where the apostles are sitting round a table.²⁸ In spite of the fact that the Church in the 17th century did not insist any longer on some of its earlier teachings, the impact of these opinions did not end with the close of the 16th century. The Painter and “Painted History” The preserved paintings from the St Wenceslas Cycle for the Church of the Barefoot Augustinians at Zderaz, the first dated work by Škréta in Bohemia, appear at first glance to be exemplary “painted histories” (see IV.1–IV.2; IV.4–IV.8).²⁹ It is evident that Škréta and the painters who participated in the production of the cycle had to know a great deal – or else the significance of the individual scenes of the cycle must have been explained to them in great detail. On the lunettes are accompanying texts of dual origin and the entire cycle is depicted in the treatise D. Wenceslao Bohemorum Duci ac Martyri inclyto Sertum […] (Pragae 1643) and its Czech and German versions. We may undoubtedly take the manuscript as the original iconographic programme of the cycle (cf. IV.11). We can easily imagine that the author of the book, the Zderaz Prior Father Aegidius a S. Joanne Baptista, selected the individual scenes from the life of St Wenceslas on the basis of the study of various resources, especially Dubravius’ Historiae Regni Boiemiae, the Czech Chronicle of Václav Hájek z Libočan and one of the versions of the medieval legend Ut annuncietur.³⁰ He arranged these in sequence according to Hájek’s Chronicle. We would most probably then assume that Škréta had read Aegidius’ description and then created the composition of the picture to order as an illustration of this, or had enriched it with some details inspired by the text of the individual chapters. Or else, with regard to the fact the verses of Father Aegidius also appear on the pictures as well as the actual title, these verses may well have been of key importance for the selected composition, or might conceal the basis of the testimony STUDIES 135
of the picture. Already on analysing the first picture of the cycle, The Birth of St Wenceslas (see no. IV.1), the origin of which is dated 1640³¹ and the composition of which we consider to be so well known that it is unnecessary to describe it here in detail, we find that the relationship of the picture and the text will not be so straightforward (fig. 8). Aegidius’ text in the Czech printed version states in the first sentence that pagan Princess Drahomíra bore her husband Vratislav a son, but it deals in greater detail mainly with the personality of Drahomíra – that she did not wish to accept baptism after the birth of her son and Wenceslas therefore could not “take his first sustenance from a heathen”. Even after this Drahomíra remained as firm as a rock – she came from the hard people of Žatec. Vratislav and the Bishop of Mainz prayed that “from this hard and painful thorn might spring a flower to correct what she did not wish”. In no way is there a mention here of the circumstances of the birth of Wenceslas and there is no mention at all of Ludmila, mother of Vratislav. The poet’s turn of phrase presenting Wenceslas as a rose is the basis for the Latin quatrain, which as an epigram introduces the text commenting the appropriate scene in the Latin version of the treatise (in the Czech version the verses are not included): “Nascitur ex spina Rosa, purpura, nixá; decore/ Nix Rosa Virgineo, purpura Martyrio / Haec, si nosse cupis, Rosa, quo fragravit odore, / Postulat emunctis naribus illa legi.” The actual text of the Latin version of the treatise differs from the Czech. It is not as narrative; on the contrary it consists of various biblical similes, designating the birth of St Wenceslas from such a mother as a miracle; it does, however, draw attention to Ludmila, martyr of Christ. In general it provides the painter with few figural guidelines, but it bears the unequivocal message to which the composition of the painting responds, emphasising the conflict between the pagan Drahomíra and the Christian Ludmila. The second inscription on the painting – actually the first in order, as it is the title of the scene – is identical to the apt title of the chapter as given in the Latin text.³² It may be summed up as follows: if Škréta consulted a text, which might already have been prepared when the pictures originated, then it must have been the Latin version; he might, however, have known 136 KAREL ŠKRÉTA – PICTOR DOCTUS
31 Dating was uncovered in the restoration of the picture in 2010, see Sylva Dobalová in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), pp. 160–161, cat. no. IV.1. 32 The names are translation of excerpts of the text from Hájek, or manuscript notes, situated in the Zderaz manuscript of the legend Ut annunciatur; see Jaroslav Šámal, Barokní cykly svatováclavské. Jejich význam v obraze sv. Václava, (diss., Charles University), Praha 1945, typescript, pp. 29–31.
8. Karel Škréta, Birth of St Wenceslas, 1640, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
33 Sylva Dobalová, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), cat. no. IV.5 (there is listed a transcription of verses from the painting); Lubomír Konečný, Škréta a Tempesta, Drahomíra a Proserpina, Opuscula Historiae Artium. Studia Minora facultatis philosophicae universitatis brunensis, F 45, 2001, pp. 79–82. 34 L. Konečný, idem, p. 79; analysis of the poems of Aegidius on the linguistic side see: Martin Svatoš, Jiljí od sv. Jana Křtitele, Fridrich Bridel a jejich tázání Co člověk?, in: Literární archiv. Sborník Památníku národního písemnictví 27, 1994, pp. 117–157. 35 Mina Grigori – Rodolfo Maffeis (edd.), Un altra belezza: Francesco Furini (exh. cat.) Firenze 2007, p. 182, cat. No. 16; the picture was intended for the decoration of the villa La Petraia. 36 The drawing was ascribed to Škréta by G. Kyslikh, see Galina Kyslikh, Nemeckij, avstrijskij i švejcarskij risunok. Gosudarstvennyj Muzej Izobrazitel’nych Iskusstv imeni A. S. Puškina, Vol. I, XV–XVIII veka, Moscow 2009; for greater detail see Sylva Dobalová in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674). 37 Bettina Baumgärtel, Die Ohnmacht der Frauen: sublimer Affekt in der Historienmalerei des 18. Jahrhunderts, Kritische Berichte 18, 1990, No. 1, pp. 5–20. As far as concerns the historical truth of midwifery, a so-called birthing stool was used. Already in 1581 a medical book was published on caesarian birth: François Rousset, Traitte nouveau de l’hysterotomotokie ou enfantement caesarien|qui est extraction de l’enfant par incision laterale du ventre […], Paris 1581. 38 Ch. Hecht, Katholische Bildertheologie (see note 24), esp. pp. 298–301.
only the appropriate epigrams. It is more probable than that he knew only the name of the scene, in this case: “Nativitas S. Wenceslai ex Wratislao principe Christiano, & Drahomira pagana. Anno 908. Hagec: fól: 65”. This is shown in particular by a further of the pictures in the cycle, depicting The Death of Drahomíra (“Drahomira frustra tech/nas filio struens, diris / que eum devovens, viva ter/re sorbetur. A 924”; see IV.5), concretely the descent of Drahomíra into Hell. Aegidius’ verses are then a variation of Virgil’s description of the descent of Aeneas into Purgatory, where the kingdom of Hell is designated in the epigram by the name of the god who reigns there (Hades – Dis). Škréta found his visual model in the scene with the abduction of Persephone, as portrayed in the famous edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses by Antonio Tempesta (1606, sheet 47).³³ In any case it has already been pointed out that the combination of Škréta’s painting, the inscription and the explanatory epigram recalls the structure of an emblem.³⁴ Although it may be said that the history of St Wenceslas was surely well known to Škréta, the painter did not approach the creation of the picture by composing the scene The Birth of St Wenceslas completely anew. On the contrary, he referred in it to visual sources he had seen in Italy; particularly close to it is Furini’s painting of Rachel giving birth, she who died on the way to Bethlehem during the birth of her second son Benjamin (Gen. 35, 16–20). This is a painting with a rare theme, which was created in 1632 in Florence for Lorenzo de Medici³⁵, and Škréta might perhaps have been acquainted with it during his stay in Florence. For he did not take inspiration from the compositions with the birth of the Virgin Mary or John the Baptist, where the woman giving birth (a holy woman) is always decently concealed in the background of the picture (one of the exceptions is the painting by Vouet, quoted by Neumann, in the Roman Church of S. Francesco a Ripa). According to theologians such themes should be depicted with good taste; and Škréta showed this, after all, in the painting of The Birth of the Virgin Mary (from the National Gallery in Prague) and the drawing of The Birth of John the Baptist (in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, fig. 9).³⁶ In the St Wenceslas Cycle he decided, on the contrary, on a composition where the heroine is displayed in the foreground of the canvas. The model for the depiction of Drahomira might have been Tempesta’s illustrations from the above-mentioned edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, concretely the scene of The Birth of Hercules (sheet 86, fig. 10). But whereas the seated Alcmene in Tempesta’s illustration is actually giving birth beneath her robe, Drahomira is depicted in a swoon, being brought round by a servant girl with scented essences: the pose of her body expresses one of the few passions by which female heroines were distinguished in works of art (without exception, by the way, these were tragic heroines, although the causes of their swoons were varied).³⁷ It was perhaps intentional when Škréta used for the depiction of the pagan Drahomira a model from a book often described as the “painters’ Bible” and in both cases passions belonging to women of antiquity, in order thus to emphasise the contrast between the two worlds; in the picture of the death of Drahomira also the Princess is falling into Hell in the close vicinity of a Catholic church. The theme of the fight against heresy is, by the way, one of the key themes of church art. In the debates of theologians of the picture the problem is also discussed of ancient art models, in the sense that a painting of Christ or the Virgin Mary should not be made according to the model of ancient deities. On the other hand, for example, Antonio Possevino SJ emphatically rejects any ancient themes in his treatise, but nevertheless praises the group statue of Laocoon as an important work, which a contemporary artist should always have before his eyes during the painting of martyrs. According to Christian Hecht, whose opinions I quote here, this problem nonetheless did not hold an important place among the other opinions of the Church.³⁸ In any case it is obvious that Škréta, by following visual sources, did not in any way make his work as a painter easier, although it might seem so at first glance. Also in the visual sources used by Škréta are, in particular, the depictions of St Wenceslas in the St Wenceslas Chapel of St Vitus Cathedral in Prague, created around the year 1500 and painted over at the beginning of the 17th century. The scenes from the Zderaz monastery and in the cathedral do not, however, overlap in their selection and although there is here, for example, the scene with the redemption of the pagan children by St Wenceslas, in this case the artist did not go according to it and compiled his own composition, as opposed to the scene St Wenceslas has the pagan idols cut down and Christian churches built (see IV.2). As an educated painter Škréta undoubtedly had his own opinion on how the STUDIES 137
act of redemption might have taken place and he took particular pains in depicting the pagan world with architecture reminiscent of the Pantheon; with similar emphasis he also enriched the pagan environment in other scenes, outstanding among which is the picture of Drahomira pursuing the Christians, known only from the engraving by Frater Henricus in Wenceslao Bohemorum Duci (fig. 11). In the case of the scene of St Wenceslas Working in the Vineyard, however, he only altered Wenceslas’s costume; he thus did not have the saint ostentatiously treading the grapes with bare legs and in the background he placed the existing chapel, which did indeed indicate the land of the donor of the picture (see IV.4), but on the other hand the vineyards within sight of Prague Castle already existed in the Middle Ages. It is evident that the intention pursued by Škréta in the St Wenceslas Cycle was the principle of historical truth. Related to this is not only the appropriate clothing of the figures or the considered description of the environment in which the action takes place. The requirement also concerned, for instance, the correct forming of the human figure as stimulated by passion with regard to Mannerist distortion. Jaromír Neumann saw the cycle as an example of the influence of Carravaggio; in the active figures he saw human and unembellished types and he commented that the birth of the saint took place without angelic manifestations. It cannot be denied that it is surprising that St Wenceslas is portrayed without any glorification; after all, even the halo occurs only on the graphic prints of Frater Henricus and not on the paintings (fig. 12). Undoubtedly we can see here the reflection of the naturalism cultivated chiefly in Bologna, Florence and Rome (in other words, in the cities visited by Škréta), which for the Church became a satisfactory solution to the problem of how to reconcile the heavenly and earthly kingdoms in such a way that Catholic art achieved its targets with recipients. Also connected with the requirement of historical truth is Sandrart’s observation that Škréta followed Nature in everything – it is no coincidence that the second area of painting in which the “Czech Apelles” excelled was the art of the portrait. The Painter, the Book and the Client In the painting of religious pictures the artist had understandably first and foremost to follow the Bible as accurately as possible. Of course, a number of typically Baroque themes do not occur in the Bible and artists were able to form an impression of them only on the basis of the combination of the most varied sources or specialised disquisitions, which had to be approved by the Church. It is evident that an educated painter could defend the concept selected himself. A typical theme of the Catholic Baroque was, in particular, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which Škréta painted several times in his lifetime as an artist. There were many source texts – among the basic ones was The Golden Legend, but especially in the Jesuit environment further writings came into being, some of which, such as the Adnotationes et Meditationes in Evangelia of Jerome Nadal (Antwerp 1593 and revised in 1595) or De Vita et Laudibus Deiparae Mariae Virginis Meditationes Quinquaginta by Francisco Costero (Ingolstadt 1588) had responses even outside the environment of the Order.³⁹ The oldest painting by Škréta with this theme is the Assumption of the Virgin Mary from St Thomas’ Church in the Lesser Town of Prague (fig. 13)⁴⁰, prepared with a modello that has not been preserved, which displays an almost exhaustive range of motifs that might have been present at the Assumption. Perhaps the only item missing is the fruit mentioned in The Golden Legend, which symbolises the fertility of Mary’s virtues. Several cherubim are lightly raising the slim and youthful Virgin Mary upwards; others are scattering flowers around them and waving garlands of flowers. The event is set in the dramatic environment of a narrow ravine so that the radiance accompanying the miracle stands out. The second in order is the Assumption for the Italian Chapel in the Old Town of Prague, which we know only from the print of Samuel Weishun (1647, fig. 14, see also IX.3).⁴¹ Two types of angels are assisting rather symbolically in the Virgin’s ascension; the main mover of the miracle is a mighty cloud on which Mary is enthroned. Here we find no trace of flowers, Nature or angelic music; the event takes place in an area characterised only by two high columns, representing the Gates of Heaven. This concept, reduced to only the basic event, is already coming close to Škréta’s painting for the main altar of the Church of Our Lady before Týn (around 1649), which is concentrated exclusively on the Apostles gesticulating in a wide range of emotive passions and on a crowd of angelic
138 KAREL ŠKRÉTA – PICTOR DOCTUS
39 Recently (with regard to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary) Jan Royt, Úcta k Panně Marii a k českým zemským patronům v řádu Tovaryšstva Ježíšova v barokních Čechách, Bohemia jesuitica 1556–2006, Tomus 2, Petronilla Cemus (ed.), Praha 2010, pp. 1279–1309. 40 Neither Jaromír Neumann nor any other researchers paid much attention to the picture, see Jaromír Neumann, Malířství 17. století v Čechách: barokní realismus, Praha 1951, p. 76; idem, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (exh. cat.), Praha 1974, pp. 27, 89 and 97; idem, Škrétové, Praha 2000, pp. 48–49. 41 Petra Nevímová, La Capella Italiana della Citta Vecchia / Vlašská kaple, Praha 2005; Pavel Preiss, Italští umělci v Praze, Praha 1986, pp. 263–264; J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 40), p. 97. Cf. Petra Zelenková in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), p. 375, cat. no. IX.3.
9. ↗ Karel Škréta, Birth of St John the Baptist, Moskva, Pushkin Museum, Moscow (reproduced after: Galina Kislykh, Nemeckij, avstrijskij i švejcarskij risunok. Gosudarstvennyj Muzej Izobrazitel'nych Iskusstv imeni A. S. Puškina, Vol. I, XV–XVIII veka, Moskva 2009, p. 294) 10. ↗↗ Antonio Tempesta, Birth of Hercules, in: Ovidius, Metamorphoseon, Antwerp 1606 (reproduced after: The Illustrated Bartsch XXXVI) 11. → Frater Henricus after Karel Škréta, Drahomíra Pursuing Christians, in: Aegidius a S. Joanne Baptista, D. Wenceslao Bohemorum Duci […], Prague 1643–1644 (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 12. → → Frater Henricus after Karel Škréta, St Wenceslas Pressing Wine for the Mass, Baking the Wafers and Digging the Vineyard, in: Aegidius a S. Joanne Baptista, D. Wenceslao Bohemorum Duci […], Prague 1643–1644 (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán)
STUDIES 139
manifestations on whose backs Mary is ascending, celebrated by several victorious laurel wreaths. A document was found recently from which it emerges that a good five years after the completion of the painting Škréta was paid more money to add in a further two figures.⁴² Although the number of Apostles present at the event varied, on the canvas from the Church of Our Lady before Týn the most usual twelve are depicted – so it appears that Škréta enriched the scene only in the part with the angels, the final version of which differs from the draft sketch and the whole group is realised in a more compact manner. Škréta created the last two Assumptions for the Cistercians in Plasy (1666) and in Zbraslav (1665–1668). In the first case by the grave there are three additional pious women, who were present when Mary’s body was laid in the grave.⁴³ These are not mentioned in any texts and were only popularised by Peter Paul Rubens; in significance they are usually linked with the three Maries by the tomb of Christ.⁴⁴ In the canvas at Zbraslav, the composition of which we know only from the preserved modello and which is considered to be the most imaginative of the whole group (see V.26), the scenes of the Assumption and the receiving of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Trinity take place within the space of one painting. The Abbot’s request for one painting with the Twelve Apostles, glories with cherubs and “Kindeln” and the Holy Trinity was resolved by Škréta in that he combined the Assumption with the Coronation of Our Lady; he prepared two drawings for this, one of which relates more to the canvas from Plasy, where, however, the usual version was selected with the Holy Trinity separately on the altarpiece. The detailed discussion of the preparatory drawings for these paintings, and eventually other works with the theme of the Assumption, would, however, exceed the intentions of this article. A multitude of drawings and preparatory works is, by the way, another of the classic devices, which belong intrinsically to the educated painter; if we have quoted Alberti so many times in this text, let us just recall that according to him a historia must be prepared with a quantity of sketches and drawings, both of the whole and of parts, so that it is evident that even before the completion of the picture the artist had a complete idea in mind; otherwise it is not necessary to recall that the concepts of disegno and idea form one of the basic problems of art theory in the 16th and 17th centuries. Škréta’s strong point was undoubtedly the creativity with which he was capable of finding more and more new solutions. In the group of paintings studied with the Assumption of the Virgin Mary this can also be demonstrated well on the appropriate scenes with the Holy Trinity, which in each of the canvases is created with a different cast or different composition. The first of these, for instance, the St Thomas canvas situated not on the upper part of the altarpiece above the Assumption, but on the altar on the opposite side of the presbytery,⁴⁵ adopts a veristic idea of the sending down of the Holy Spirit to earth – the heavenly hierarchy is depicted as part of the Ptolemaic model of the Universe, where around the earthly sphere is depicted the band of the ecliptic in which the astrological signs are situated (fig. 15). It is interesting that the signs of the planets Saturn and Jupiter are placed beneath the holy duo of Christ and God the Father – the two Greek deities personifying these planets were also in a father-son relationship; the placing of the signs beneath Christ and God the Father is, of course, with their relationship the other way round.⁴⁶ Nevertheless, apart from this exception, it cannot be said that Škréta’s paintings with the themes of the Assumption and the Holy Trinity were in any way exceptional from the iconographic point of view; the three paintings intended for monasteries, however, are more nuanced in meaning and more spiritual than the two intended exclusively for the general public, which correspond more to the “populated”, solemn and dynamic type of composition made famous by Annibale Carracci in contest with Caravaggio in the Cerasi Chapel of the Santa Maria del Popolo Church in Rome. This may be summarized by saying that our knowledge of sources so far speaks more of the ideas of the clients and the visual sources pertaining to Škréta’s paintings tell more of the breadth of Škréta’s artistic knowledge and perhaps also the extensive nature of his collection of prints, which is something we may assume, rather than his work with concrete texts. In any case it did happen that Škréta prepared a solution, which was not accepted and had to be altered, as in the case of the non-traditional order for the Crucifixion with Souls in Purgatory from the St Nicholas Church in the Lesser Town (see V.2). On the other hand this shows that in his clients he had partners who were in no way indifferent to the visual form of the resultant work and were capable of formulating their requirements precisely. 140 KAREL ŠKRÉTA – PICTOR DOCTUS
42 This information was from Štěpán Vácha, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), cat. no. V.14., where a bibliography is also given. See esp. J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 40), pp. 65–68; J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 40), pp. 96–97, cat. no. 15. 43 J. Neumann, Umění 17. století (see note 40), pp. 84–85 and 129, cat. no. 23–24; idem, Karel Škréta (see note 40), pp. 123–124, cat. no. 34–35; idem, Škrétové (see note 40), p. 88. 44 For iconography of the women by Mary’s grave see David Freedberg, A Source for Rubens’s Modello of the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin: a Case Study in the Response of Images, Burlington Magazine CXX, 1978, pp. 432–441 (432). 45 In his older texts Neumann speaks of the canvas in the sense that it has been devalued by over-paintings (J. Neumann, Malířství 17. století [see note 40], p. 76), in his monograph of the year 2000 he already accepts Škréta as the author without reservation, see J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 40), p. 48. 46 Beneath the feet of Christ is found the sign for Saturn, beneath the feet of God the Father the sign for Jupiter. To the right of the sign for Jupiter is the sign of Mars and in the back part of the ecliptic we further find a poorly decypherable symbol, which either designates the planet Mercury or the Zodiac sign of Taurus (the sign of the planet Mercury differs from the sign of Taurus only in an equal-armed cross added in the lower part of the sign; it is not, therefore, certain whether the sign was not damaged and altered by over-painting). The reason why precisely these signs were placed on the ecliptic is not clear. We thank our colleague Ivo Purš for the consultation. 47 Last mentioned by J. Royt, Úcta k Panně Marii (see note 39), p. 1281.
13. ↑ Samuel Weishun after the painting by Karel Škréta, Assumption of the Virgin Mary, 1647, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague ) 14. → Karel Škréta, Assumption of the Virgin Mary, 1644, Prague, Church of St Thomas in the Lesser Town (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán)
It is evident that Škréta must have use a hagiographic handbook such as the Acta Sanctorum, which was first published in Antwerp in 1643 and to which Bohuslav Balbin also contributed.⁴⁷ The critical approach of their creators, known as the Bollandists, is demonstrated by the title page of the edition, common to all the volumes of the manuscript – it is decorated with the writing figure of Wisdom, surrounded by books, who is supported in her efforts by the allegories of Erudition (Eruditio) and Truth (Veritas). Škréta was, for example, well acquainted with the life and deeds of St Servatius, less well known in Bohemia, who was promoted by the Engels of Engelsflus (a reliquary from the time of Charles IV was found in the St Vitus Treasure). Škréta prepared for the painting for the chateau chapel in Mníšek pod Brdy two detailed drawings perfectly depicting the struggle of Servatius against Arianism, which he also described in the inscribed commentaries that supplement the drawings (about the relationship of the drawings see V. 32, VI.16). STUDIES 141
15. ↑ Karel Škréta, The Holy Trinity, 1644, Prague, Church of St Thomas in the Lesser Town (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 16. ↗ Hieronymus Wierix, Christ before Caiphas, in: Biblia Sacra, Antwerp 1583 (reproduced after: Sylva Dobalová, Pašijový cyklus Karla Škréty, Praha 2004, p. 19)
142 KAREL ŠKRÉTA – PICTOR DOCTUS
48 The appropriate part of Acta Sanctorum was published, however, only in 1680; for more detail see Jos Koldeweij, Van Maastricht naar Mnisech. Karel Screta’s Servatius uit 1654, Antiek. Tijdschrift voor oude kunst en kunstnijverheid, 30:5, 1995, pp. 208–212. The hagiography of St Servatius is presented in detail by idem, Der gude sente Servac. De Servatiuslegende en de Servatiana: een onderzoek naar de beeldvorming rond een helige in de middeleeuven, Assen – Maastricht 1985. (Maaslandse Monografieën Groot Formaat 5). On interrelationship of drawings see L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), pp. 260–261, cat. no. V.32; pp. 360–361, cat. no. VIII.16. 49 Sylva Dobalová, Pašijový cyklus Karla Škréty: Mezi výtvarnou tradicí a jezuitskou spiritualitou, Praha 2004, pp. 58–60; the frontispiece was analysed by Lubomír Konečný, Karel Škréta a François Le Roy, S. J. neboli: Historie téměř detektivní, Bulletin of the National Gallery in Prague 10, 2001, pp. 87–92. 50 Petra Oulíková, Poznámka k Pašijovému cyklu Karla Škréty in: Lenka Stolárová (ed.), Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a Evropě, Praha 2011, pp. 39–47; Petra Nevímová, Funkce obrazu v umění jezuitského řádu, in: Dějiny umění v české společnosti: otázky, problémy, výzvy. Příspěvky přednesené na Prvním sjezdu českých historiků umění, Milena Bartlová (ed.), Praha 2004, pp. 107–115. 51 For details see S. Dobalová, Pašijový cyklus (see note 49), pp. 19–20, notes 11, 12 and 14, fig. 4 and p. 22, note 18. 52 The development of the genres was studied from this angle by Daniel Arasse, see Daniel Arasse, Le détail: pour une histoire rapprochée de la peinture, Paris 1992 (rev. 2008). 53 This frequently quoted response is given, for instance, by Paul Smith – Carolyn Wilde (edd.), A Companion to Art Theory, Oxford 2002, p. 52.
The appropriate attributes of the saint, such as his crosier, keys and chalice, were not, however, drawn after the concrete objects, which have been preserved in Maastricht.⁴⁸ When the Book is not enough? It might well have been the Jesuits who facilitated Škréta’s access to the necessary literature, but the library of the Monastery of the Barefoot Augustinians in Zderaz was also a rich one. In any case it would appear logical that the Passion Cycle, which Škréta created at the close of his life for the Jesuit Church of St Nicholas in the Lesser Town (see VII.6–15), would be influenced by Jesuit texts, or that it would, as already indicated by Jaromír Neumann, be exposed to the principles of the spiritual exercises of the founder of the Jesuit Order, St Ignatius of Loyola. The hypothesis then appeared particularly promising that the painter might have been inspired by the treatise of François le Roy from the Jesuit Monastery in Douai, Occupatio Animae Jesu Christo Crucifixo deutae (Pragae 1666), for which he created the well-known frontispiece with the depiction of souls meditating over Christ’s Crucifixion, which is allegorically conceived in the spirit of Jesuit emblematic treatises as artistic activity – the creation of the painted and sculpted portrait of Christ Crucified, and which contains meditations on the individual events of Christ’s Passions (see IX.11).⁴⁹ No direct relationship between the pictures and the text has, however, been confirmed. In addition it has been refuted that the paintings were to have been intended exclusively for the Jesuits in the Profession House. On the contrary, those qualities were emphasised that made the pictures attractive for viewers from wide social strata, especially the Brotherhood of the Mortal Agonies of Christ and the noble donors who shared in payment for the paintings together with the Jesuits. The archive sources even indicate that the canvases were not ordered all at once as a cycle and that several of them were exhibited during Easter on the main altar of the church in keeping with liturgy.⁵⁰ The actual concept of the compositions is relatively traditional and the same applies to the visual sources of the cycle, which were determined in the prints of the Wierix brothers and well-known works of Italian Masters like Tizian or Ludovico Carracci. For instance, in the depictions of the trials of Christ, the description of which differs slightly in the individual Gospels, Škréta used, apart from some loans from Dürer, the more contemporary prints from the Wierix workshop, which were used directly to illustrate the large-format Bible from the Plantin Printing House (fig. 16).⁵¹ From the viewpoint of the painting the Passion Cycle stands out in Škréta’s work through its twilight concept and the concentration of the scene on the actual protagonists of the action, expressing their passions in the foreground of the painting or in an environment essential to the understanding of the sense of the scene. Extremely attractive, however, is the variety used in the creation of the individual figures, especially Christ, whose physical and mental state is recorded thoughtfully and sometimes even bleakly in the individual scenes. After all, it is in these very moments that we might seek the influence of Jesuit imagery. The gaze of the onlooker is drawn by attractive details, of which there are not many, and the eye of the viewer is decidedly not distracted by them. Among these there are also objects, which were not the standard equipment of Baroque Passions – such as the spike-block (fig. 17), which the Netherlandish and German artists of the 15th and 16th centuries delighted to include in the repertory of Christ’s instruments of torture, or the feather cap, which Jesuit missionaries might have brought back from their travels in South America (see VII.10 and VII.7). Although Škréta painted the pictures with a far more economical technique and a more relaxed painting style than usual for him, he embodied in them at the close of his life the principle that permeated his work throughout the whole of his creative period – that sacred art is on the top rung in the hierarchy of genres; and that one of the basic characteristics of a high genre concentrating on the painting of figures is the severity with which details are curtailed and with which their use is limited and controlled.⁵² At this time it was not yet the custom for a painter to record his opinions of art in written form and so, as is also the case with Poussin, we must read Škréta’s theoretical standpoint straight from his work. The teachings of the Catholic authorities of the post-Tridentine period indicate that verity, as well as erudition, should be ranked above artistic creativity. Gilio da Fabriano, for instance, demanded of Italian artists that in scenes of Christ’s suffering they should not forget to portray clear signs of wounds and torture, but the Italian artists replied that “this would be against decorum”.⁵³ However much Škréta in his paintings held to the limits appropriate STUDIES 143
17. ← Karel Škréta, The Flagellation of Christ, 1673/1674, Prague, St Nicholas’ Church in the Lesser Town (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 18. ↑ Marci Tvllii Ciceronis opera […], Basel 1534, National Library in Prague, detail from the title page (photo: National Library of Czech Republic)
to sacred art in the Central European environment, when his pictures seem to be from the iconographic point of view not very surprising, especially in comparison with his proposals for university theses,⁵⁴ in any case we cannot accuse him of insufficient decorum and invention. Karel Škréta was well-read and educated, but when standing in front of the canvas, he was first and foremost an essential painter. Translated by Joanne P. C. Domin
144 KAREL ŠKRÉTA – PICTOR DOCTUS
54 The problem of Škréta’s university theses has been dealt with recently in particular by Petra Zelenková; for the most recent see in particular: eadem, Karel Škréta and His Contemporaries as Designers of Prints, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), pp. 369–371 and the following catalogue entries on pages 372–374, 376–387, 392–399 and 414–416, containing further bibliographical data.
List of Books in Škréta’s Library
The list given below is an attempt to identify books from the estate of Karel Škréta the Younger, which was written up in brief after his death in 1691. This is a working version which was used to compile a representative selection of books for the exhibition Karel Škréta: Time and Work, 2010, Section XV: Škréta’s Library, pp. 558–575 (introductory text and cat. nos. XV.1–XV.16; for the inventory see pp. 610–611, cat. no. XVI.30). The inventory lists 62 items (de facto, however, there are 63, see item no. 48 below), but in the last sentence of the list of books it is stated that Of the bound books in octavo 12 et 16 in Latin, French, Italian and German, there were counted –– 248 items. Written out in greater detail, then, is a mere fraction of the family library and evidently it is rather the items of larger dimension that are recorded; but this does not always apply. The original records, as newly transcribed in 2009 by Radka Tibitanzlová, are written in italics in the list presented; the numbering was carried out secondarily. An identified publication is listed under the first or one of the oldest editions, which corresponds as precisely as possible to the name from the inventory; it is nevertheless not possible to determine a concrete edition from the original records and the data is purely
STUDIES 145
orientational. The determination of some items is disputable because the brief name of the publication corresponds to several possibilities. It is evident that the official generally wrote down the first words of the name of a book and tried at the same time to add its author; sometimes he gave the names in Czech transliteration. As far as concerns the Iconologia of Cesare Ripa (item no. 44), it was concluded that Škréta most probably owned the Padua edition of 1625 (see p. 571, cat. no. XV.12). So far only two books have been found, which truly came from Škréta’s library. The manuscript listed under item no. 17 is in the National Library in Prague; for details see p. 575, cat. no. XV.16. In the National Library there is also to be found a copy of a book signed by Karel Škréta the elder, this being: Marci Tvllii Ciceronis opera qvae aedita svnt hactenvs omnia, in tomos distincta quatuor, Basle 1534 (Klem 6 A 000014/T.2). On the title page of the book is the manuscript address: “Velle Dei velle meum est. KScreta á Prague 1627.” and further “Collegij Nouodomensis Societatis JeSu Catalogi incriprus.” (fig. 18.) This book is not expressly listed in the inventory.
Sylva Dobalová
1 Bible česká in folio Bible Česká
7 Policie historická Politia Historica. O Wrchnostech
mari nuovamente ritrovati, et
Praha 1549 (so-called Bible Melantrichova)
a Spráwcých Swětských. Knihy patery.
delle nuove città da lui proprio vedute, per acqua et per terra in quattordeci anni.
Bible Česká Kralice 1579–1593/94 (so-called Bible Kralická)
Praha 1584 Author: Lauterbeck, Georg
Venetia 1565 Author: Benzoni, Girolamo
2 Beschreibung der Contrafactur der vornehmbsten Stätt der Weldt, in magno folio, 2 Theile Beschreibung und Contrafactur der vornembster Stät der Welt Köln 1574–1618 Authors: Braun, Georg; Hogenberg, Franz
8 Flavius Josephus německá. Historien vnd Bücher: Von alten Jüdischen Geschichten, zwentzig, sambt eynem von seinem Leben: Vom Jüdischen Krieg, vnd der Statt Jerusalem, vnd des gantzen Lands verstörung siben […] Strassburg 1574 Author: Josephus, Flavius
15 Philippi Theophrasti Bombast von Hohenheimb in par. fol. Title of the book undetected Author: Paracelsus 16 Díl pátý a šestý bible české nového zákona. Bible Kralická. 5th volume: Kralice 1588 6th volume: Kralice 1593–1594
3 Právo městské Práva městská Království českého
9 Titi Livii römische Historien. Titi Livii Römische historien mit
v krátkau summu vvedená Praha 1579
etlichen newen translation auß dem Latein […]
Author: z Koldína, Pavel Krystyán
Meyntz 1530 Author: Livius, Titus
4 Zřízení zemské Obnowené Práwo a Zřjzenj Zemské Dědjčného Králowstwj Cžeského Praha 1627 5 Herbář Matthiola in folio Herbář, jinak Bylinář velmi užitečný Praha 1562 Author: Mattioli, Pietro Andrea 6 Historie církevní in folio Historia cýrkewnj Eusebia přigmjm Pamfilla biskupa Cesarienského w Palestýně, na knihy desatery rozdělená. Téhož Eusebia Pamfilla, o žiwotu neyswětěgssjho cýsaře Konstantý-
10 Kněha německých carminův in fol. Not specified book of German poems 11 Posloupnost knížat Paprockého Diadochos id est Svcessio, jinák: Poslaupnost knížat a králův českých, biskupův a arcibiskupův pražských a všech třech stavův slavného Království českého, to jest panského, rytířského a městského, krátce sebraná a vydaná Praha 1602 Author: Paprocký z Hlohol a Paprocké Vůle, Bartoloměj
17 Privilegia království Českého psaná Privilegia regum et regni Bohemiae, rukopis Praha, Národní knihovna České republiky, sign. XIX.A.44 18 Kniha z regálního papíru, v ní něco receptů napsaných, ostatek prázdná Manuscript with recipes (not specified) 19 Fürmahlung und Beschreibung der Horologien alten truckhs Fürmalung vnd künstlich beschreibung der Horologien: nemlich wie man der sonnen vren mit mancherley weys vnd form, vnd auff allerley gattung entwerffen soll […] Gemacht allen kunstliehabern zu gefalle[n], durch autor Basel 1537 Author: Münster, Sebastian
12 Beschreibung der Schiffart und Reiss in
na welikého, knihy čtwery […], Praha 1594 Author: Eusebius Pamphili Historia Cyrkewnj Kassiodora
die Türkei Niclas Kamling Beschreibung Dero Reiß vnd Schifffahrt in die Türckey, so beschehen durch Weylandt Herrn
Ržjmského Senátora, nazwaná Tripartita: Zetřj Historykůw
N. Nicolai […]
philosophen, warhafftigsten
Köln 1593 Author: de Nicolay, Nicolas
Geschichtsschreibers, vnd allercheürsten Hauptmans Xenophontis Commentarien und
Ržeckých, Sozomena, Sokratesa a Theodoryka sebraná, a na Dwanáctery Knihy rozdělená. Nazad přidáni dwá Traktátowé: Geden o Sněmu Effezském proti Kacýřstwj Nestorya Biskupa Konstantynopolitského: Druhý o Sněmu Chalcedonském proti Kacýři Eutychesowi a následownjkům geho […], Praha 1594 Author: Cassiodorus, Flavius Magnus Aurelius
13 Lexicon philosophicum Rudolphi Goclenii in par. fol. Lexicon philosophicum, quo tantam clave philosophiae fores aperiuntur Francofurti 1613 Author: Goclenius, Rudolph (the Elder) 14 Historie del mondo in par. fol. La historia del Mondo Nuovo di m. Girolamo Benzoni […]. La qual tratta dell’isole, et
146 KAREL ŠKRÉTA – PICTOR DOCTUS
20 Comentarien und Beschreibung von dem Leben und Heerzug Cyri des ersten, alten Truckhs Des Hochgelörtesten
beschreibungen von dem leben und heerzug Cyri des ersten Künigs in Persien […] Augspurg 1540 Author: Xenophon 21 Marci Velseri Libri octo
22 Francisci Petrarchae Trostbücher Von Hülff und Rath in allem anligen. Des hochweisen fürtreflichen Francisci Petrarche zwei Trostbücher von Artznei beydes des güten und widerwertigen Glücks. Franckfurt am Meyn 1551 Author: Petrarca, Francesco 23 Miscellanea Bohuslai Balbini Miscellanea historica Regni Bohemiae […] Pragae 1679–1688 Author: Balbín, Bohuslav 24 Accuratae Effigies Pontificum maximorum Accurate effigies Pontificum maximorum, numero XXVIII, ab Anno Christi […] ad vivum ex Romano prototypo expressae iisque singulorum pontificum elogia, eorum res gestas summatim comprehendentia, ab Onuphrio Panvinio Veronense Strassburg 1573 Author: Panvinio, Onofrio 25 Architectura Militaris in fol. Architectura militaris nova et aucta, oder Newe vermehrte Fortification, Von Regular Vestungen, Von Irregular Vestungen und Aussenwercken, Von Praxi offensiva et Defensiva Leyden 1631 Author: Freitag, Adam Architectura militaris oder gründliche Underweisung […] Amstelodami 1645 Author: Cellarius, Andreas Architectura militaris oder Anleitung wie auff unterschidliche arten starcke Vestungen zubawen […] München 1664 Author: Heidemann, Christoph 26 De serponte právní kniha in quarto Promptuarium s. i. leichter Einfund in die K. verneuerte Böhmische und Mährische LandsOrdnung, wie auch St Wentzls Vertrag, mit angeheffter Bergwerg-
Marci Velseri Matthaei. f. ant. n patricii. Aug. Vind. Rerum.
Vergleichung, dann königl. Novellen […]
Augustanar [um]. Vindelicar: libri. octo. Venetiis 1594
Prag 1678 Author: Serponte et Bregaziis, Franciscus Ferdinandus de
Author: Welser, Marcus
27 Nicolai Caussini Trecensis e Soc[ietas] Jesu Nicolai Caussini Trecensis, è Societate Jesu, De eloquentia sacra et humana libri XVI Coloniae Agrippinae 1626 (2nd edition) Author: Nicolas Caussin 28 Dikcionář latinský a český Dictionarium linguae latinae ex magno Basilii Fabri thesauro collectum […] interpretatio bohemica addita est Pragae (1579) Author: Faber, Basilius;
I dieci libri di architettura di Leon Battista de gli Alberti Vinegia 1546 Author: Alberti, Leon Battista 34 Daniel Schwentzers Geometriae practicae Geometriae Practicae Novae et Avctae Tractatus […] Nürnberg 1623–1627 Author: Schwenter Daniel 35 Cento novelle scelte Cento novelle scelte da piu nobili
41 Scripta philosophica Abraham Calovi D. Theol. Antehac Regiomontani […] Scripta Philosophica […]
Büchlein aller-u. eusserlicher Artzney, wieder die abschewliche
Lubecae 1651 Author: Calov, Abraham
kranckheit der Frantzosen, u. Lähmung […] Amberg 1609
42 Glinnalidi Cornelio Tacito Gli Annali Di Cornelio Tacito Venetia 1582 Author: Tacitus, Cornelius 43 L’historia di Milano M. Bernardino Corio
scrittori Venetia 1561
L’historia di Milano volgarmente scritta, dall’ eccelent.
z Veleslavína Daniel Adam
Author: Sansovino, Francesco
29 Lectiones Joannis Christophori Schambogen
36 Akta Království českého léta 1547 Akta těch všech věcí, které sau
oratore M. Bernardino Corio gentil’huomo Milan […] Vinegia 1554
Lectiones publica, seu tractatus juridicus […] In quo quaestiones
se mezi nejjasnějším knížetem a pánem, pánem Ferdinandem,
ad duas rubricas Qui testam: facere possunt, et quemadmodum testamenta fiant […] Pragae 1683 Author: Schambogen, Johann Christoph
římským, uherským, českým rc. králem rc. a některými osobami z stavuov panského, rytířského a městského Království českého létha tohoto etc. XLVII zběhly tuto vytištěné Praha 1547
30 Revelationes Nicolai Drabicio Revelationum Divinarum, in usum Seculi nostri quibusdam nuper factarum […] 1663 Authors: Drabík, Mikuláš; Kotter, Kryštof; Poniatowská, Kristýna; Komenský, Jan Amos
37 Theatrum poeticum Theatrum poeticum atque historicum: sive Officina Io. Ravisii Textoris, post Conr. Lycosthenis vigilias … correcta […] Basileae 1592 Author: Tixier, Jean (Ravisius)
31 Historie del mondo Gio. Tarchagnota vlaská, parte 1 et 4 Delle historie del mondo di m. Gio. Tarchagnota, le quali contengono
38 Considerationi civili di M. Remigio Fiorentino Considerationi civili sopra l’historie di M. Francesco
quanto dal principio del mondo
Guicciardini e d’altri historici,
fino a tempi nostri è successo. Cauato da più degni, e più graui auttori, che habbiano o nella lin-
trattate per modo di discorso da M. Remigio Fiorentino […] Venetia 1582
gua Greca, o nella Latina scritto. Con la giunta del quinto volume,
Author: Nannini (Fiorentino), Remigio
nuouamente posto in luce Venetia 1562 Author: Tarcagnota, Giovanni 32 Il Decameron di Messer Il Decameron di Messer Giovanni Boccacci Cittadino Fiorentino Fiorenza 1573 Author: Boccaccio, Giovanni
39 Philosophia naturale di M. Alesandro Piccolomini Della Filosofia Naturale Di M. Alessandro Piccolomini […] Vinetia 1565 Author: Piccolomini, Alessandro 40 Bible svatá drobného tisku
33 I dieci libri dell architetura I Dieci Libri Dell Architettura Di M. Vitruvio Venezia 1567 Author: Vitruvius STUDIES 147
49 Frantz Renner Artzney Buch Ein köstlich und bewärtes Artzney
Author: Renner, Franz 50 Theses hraběte z Altanu Imago Principum Bohemiae LXI. Elogiis ducum, regum, interregum adumbrata. In novum patriae splendorem, & publicum Regni decus, spectatum proposita […] Pragae 1673 Author: z Althanu, František Ferdinand
Author: Corio, Bernardino 44 Iconologia del Ripa Novissima iconologia di Cesare Ripa Padova 1625 Author: Ripa, Cesare 45 Vokabulář sedmi řečí Dictionarium septem diversarum linguarum Pragae 1605 Author: Vrančič, Faustus The determination of the book would not be possible without the help of Tomáš Havelka and Vladimír Urbánek.
51 Janua linguarum reserata aurea Janua linguarum reserata aurea […] Amstelodamum 1638 Author: Komenský, Jan Ámos 52 Leimagini delle Done Auguste Le imagini delle Done Auguste intagliate in istampa di rame / con le vite, et ispositioni di Enea Vico, sopra i reuersi delle loro medaglie antice. Libro primo. Vinegia 1557 Author: Vico, Aenea
46 Le ministre d’estat Le Ministre d’Estat, avec le véritable usage de la politique moderne Paris 1631 Author: de Silhon, Jean
53 Del Governo di M. Francesco Sansovino Del governo de i regni e delle republice cosi antiche come moderne libri XVIII. […] Venetia 1561 Author: Sansovino, Francesco
47 Colerus teutsch Cristophori Coleri Ehrerbitliche Einladung zu einer Abgebildeten Teutsch-Poetischen Mayen-Lust
54 Relationi universali di Giovanni Botero Benese Le relationi vniversali di Giovanni Botero Benese
Welche den 22. Maymonats-Tag
Rome 1591
deß itzlauffenden 42sten Jahres in der Schule zu S. Elisabet […] Breszlaw 1642
Author: Botero, Giovanni
Author: Colerus, Christophorus 48 Discorsi del S. don Antonio Agostini geschriebenes altes Artzney Buch a. Discorsi del S. don Antonio Agostini sopra le medaglie et altre anticaglie divisi in XI dialoghi Roma 1592 Author: Agustín, Antonio b. unspecified medical manuscript
55 Historia d Italia di M. Francesco Guicciardini La historia di Italia divisa in venti libri. Riscontrata con tutti gli altri historici & auttori, che dell istesse cose habbiano scritto, per Tomaso Porcacchi […] Fiorenza 1561 Author: Guicciardini, Francesco
56 Kriegsmanual Johann Jacobi von Wallhaussen Manuale militare, oder KriegßManual : Darinnen I. Die Fürnembste heutiges Tages Edle HauptKriegßKünste zu Landt. II. Der Griechen Lacedaemonieren, und Romanern Kriegß Disciplinen … III. Ein KriegsNomenclatur / kürzest aus dem Frantzoischen, mit schönen Kupfferstücken […] Franckfurt 1616 Author: Jacobi von Wallhausen, Johann 57 Descriptiones Ptolemaicae Corneli Wytflie Descriptionis Prolemaicae Augmentum, Sive Occidentis Notitia.
148 KAREL ŠKRÉTA – PICTOR DOCTUS
Lovanii 1597 Author: Wytfliet, Cornelius 58 Nové kratochvíle Bartoloměje Paprockého Nowá Kratochvilje. Skterauž třj Bohyně totiž, Iuno, Pallas a Venus na Swět přissly […] Praha 1579–1600 Author: Paprocký z Hlohol a z Paprocké Vůle, Bartoloměj 59 Weiblicher Lustgarten Weiblicher Lustgarten Begreifft vier Theil. Der Erst handlet von aufferziehung der Junckfrawen: Im andern wird geredt von dem ampt un[d] schuldiger pflicht der Eheweiber: Im Dritten vom Standt der Wittiben: Im
Vierdten von guten und bösen eygenschafften […] München 1605 Author: de la Cerda, Juan Luis 60 Il primo volume delle cagioni delle guerre antiche
62 Apologiae der bohmischen Stände Die Andere Apologia der Stände deß Königreichs Böhaimb, so den Leib und Blut unsers Herrn und Heylands Jesu Christi unter beider Gestalt empfahen: Auß der Böhmischen Sprach
Il Primo Volume Delle Cagioni Delle Guerre Antiche Di Thomaso
in die Deutsche versetzt, und erheischender Notturfft nach,
Porcacchi Vinegia 1564 Author: Porcacchi, Tomasso
vermehret und verbessert […] Prag 1619
61 Le vite de Glihvomini Le vite de gli uomini illustri Vineggia 1527 Author: Petrarca, Francesco
The Role and Perception of Drawing in the Era of Karel Škréta and His Contemporaries¹ ALENA VOLRÁBOVÁ
1 The subject was discussed in detail from the viewpoint of Baroque art by Pavel Preiss in the introduction to the book: Pavel Preiss, Česká barokní kresba, Praha 2006, pp. 10–28. 2 Giorgio Vasari, Životy nejvýznamnějších malířů, sochařů a architektů (Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects), Praha 1983, Vol. 1, Chapter 1, p. 12.
An anonymous drawing (fig. 1) takes us to a large auditorium full of students absorbed in drawing a male nude who poses in front of them. The room is almost void of sunlight; the space is instead lit by a large chandelier and many lamps hanging above the sheets of paper on which the students work. The impressive scene probably originates from the early 18th century, but it can be perceived as an insight into the academic practice of both the previous and following periods because art education did not change dramatically over the years, as is proved by surviving drawings. The “Academia del Disegno a Norimberga”, as the inscription along the upper edge of the reproduced drawing proudly reads, clearly fostered drawing after live models in order to perfectly prepare students for their artistic practice. The founder of the Nuremberg academy, Joachim von Sandrart, viewed drawing as a significant part of art work, equally as did his predecessors and contemporaries as well as those who came after him. The approaches to drawing nonetheless saw long and, in the beginning, rather rapid development. When Giorgio Vasari defined drawing – disegno – as the father of all other artistic disciplines in the introduction to the second, 1568 edition of his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, he actually gave a true picture of its significance to his contemporaries in the framework of the ideological tendencies of that period.² The 15th century also perceived drawing as important, but nevertheless only an instrumental and preparatory
1. Anonymous artist, Drawing a Nude in the Nuremberg Academy, pen and black ink drawing and brush and grey colour, Wien, Albertina (photo: Albertina)
STUDIES 151
tool. However, Vasari’s (and not just his) interpretation of drawing from the point of its immediacy and thus also its ability to express the initial thought – i.e., idea – raised the discipline above other types of art work.³ For that matter, the establishment of the Academia del Disegno in Florence in 1563 confirmed the significance of drawing. The humanist environment of the Florentine court favoured intellectual speculations which, in this case, also arose from the famed animated disputes as to the hierarchy of the individual arts, called Paragone. Although the new standpoint resulted in the expansion of various literary discourses on the subject of disegno as well as in the development of the factual art of drawing, tangible written documents are solely available for the theoretical part. The authors of the rather vast literature on this subject addressed drawing – disegno – as a reflection of the Divine idea, but the particular formulas on “how to draw” must have been somewhat too earthbound to be preserved.⁴ We know almost no directly surviving published advice and instructions how to draw except Cenino Cennini’s vade-mecum Il Libro dell Arte from the 15th century whose printed version, however, came out only in 1821 and was mainly devoted to instructions on painting and book illustration instead of drawing.⁵ But this practical aspect of the issue also underwent a development as swift as the theory of disegno itself. We can observe striking differences between drawings from the early and the late 16th century. Italian drawing which called the tune and direction equally as other Italian disciplines, certainly did not lack esprit in the previous periods; but its expressions from the 16th century on are in very broad generalizations much more relaxed. This trend is even more apparent in Central-European art. No matter their brilliance and ease, Dürer’s phenomenal drawings are somewhat more “disciplined” than those by the late 16th-century foreign artists active in Germany whose style intentionally loosened. The inventories of significant collections moreover prove that drawings became sought-after collectors’ items during that period.⁶ Leaving aside certain aspects of Northern Mannerism, notably the “Kunstfederstuck”, Transalpine approaches not only to drawing but also to art work in general seems to be far more pragmatic. This is for example evident in the oeuvre of Karel van Mander who (contrary to the Italians) touched upon artistic methods in his famous poem in the introduction to his Het Schilder-boeck of 1604.⁷ Van Mander was closely familiar with Vasari and developed on his ideas, but his standpoint on drawing was already utterly practical. To him, it was an important stage – albeit merely a stage – of artistic process which climaxes in painting. Van Mander’s comparison between drawing and painting on one hand and the human body on the other hand shows this. Drawing is seen as a body having all its parts, but it is only painting with its colour that gives it life and soul.⁸ This approach was later adopted by Joachim von Sandrart who included it in his works in a similar way and, as we will see, took it even further.⁹ The Northern artists who journeyed through Italy – as actually many of them did – absorbed Italian style and mode of drawing readily. Central-European drawings from around 1600 are characterised by deliberate ease employing such techniques as combinations of brush and pen, or black and red chalk, i.e. methods characteristic of another great disegno theoretician and founder of the Roman Academia di san Lucca, Federico Zuccari. Florentine style arrived in South Germany with Vasari’s colleague Friedrich Sustris (1540–1599), who influenced an entire new generation of South-German draughtsmen. The circle of local drawing masters included, for instance, yet another Florentine disciple Peter de Witte, called Candid (1548–1628). Other artists active in leading Central-European cultural centres could also pride themselves on their brilliant drawing style: Hans von Aachen (1552–1615), Bartholomäus Spranger (1546–1611) and many others. Drawings characteristic of Munich, Augsburg, Prague and other pre-eminent artistic circles around 1600 are part of a style which was pursued by young artists born in the early 17th century – Karel Škréta (1610?–1674), Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677), Johann Heinrich Schönfeld (1609–1684) and many others. The early stages of their oeuvres were influenced by the strong stimuli of fading Mannerism which, however, remained the foundation of their work. Works from the beginning of their careers clearly employ the main principles of Mannerist art – especially its construction of figures, schemes of composition and techniques – which the artists gradually abandoned to benefit from the new experiences 152 THE ROLE AND PERCEPTION OF DRAWING IN THE ERA OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
3 The concept “idea”, used by Vasari, somewhat confused many scholars including Erwin Panofski who saw the reflection of spreading neo-Platonism in the theories of disegno. More recent studies, however, became inclined towards the influence of Aristotelianism, because Vasari works with the concept “universal judgement” while “idea” in his interpretation has a slightly different meaning. The disegno theories, after all, perhaps cannot be directly compared to any tendency in philosophy; they are rather a mixture of contemporary intellectual stimuli which were commonly combined at random during the 16th century. Literature on this subject: David Summers, The Judgement of Sense: Renaissance Naturalism and the Rise of Aesthetics, Cambridge 1990, pp. 114–116; Robert Williams, Art, Theory, and Culture in SixteenthCentury Italy: From Techne to Metatechne, Cambridge 1997, p. 41; Thomas Puttfarken, The Dispute about Disegno and Colorito in Venice: Paolo Pino, Lodovice Dolce and Titian, in: Peter Ganz – Martin Gosebruch – Nikolaus Meier – Martin Warnke (edd.), Kunst und Kunsttheorie 1400–1900, Wiesbaden 1991, pp. 75–95, esp. p. 78. 4 The theories of disegno chronologically: Dialogo di pittura by Paolo Pino was published in 1548, followed by Della nobilissima pittura by Michelangelo Biondo a year later, in 1549; Giorgio Vasari published his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects in 1550 at the earliest, while Lodovico Dolce’s Dialogo della pittura intitolato l Aretino came out in 1557. Ten years later – in 1567 – Vincenzo Danti published his Il primo libro del trattato delle perfette proportioni. Vasari then published the second edition of the Lives in which he, in 1568, defined the concept disegno. The next work – Ii riposo by Raffaello Borghini – is from 1584 and the same year saw the publication of Trattato dell arte Idella pittura, scoltura at architettura by Gian Paolo Lomazzo whose Idea del tempio della pittura came out in 1590. In the meantime, in 1587, Giova Battista Armenini came with De Veri precetti della pittura and the treatise Il Figimo by Gregorio Comanini was published in 1591. Federico Zuccari published his L’Idea de pittori, scultori e architetti as late as in 1607 in Turin where he also developed his hierarchic system of disegno. 5 Cennino d’Andrea Cennini: The Craftman’s Handbook Il Libro Dell Arte, translated by Daniel V. Thompson Jr., New York 1960, p. 8. Cennini advises how to proceed in drawing – first comes the outline and then the colour –, but his method is essentially identical with that of book illustration. 6 Rudolfine collections contained countless drawings which the emperor purchased through his agents or which were executed by the artists active at his court; the drawings were not only collector’s items but also means of enlightenment and lessons on art. Eliška Fučíková, Rudolfínská kresba, Praha 1986, p. 33. 7 Karel van Mander, Het schilder-boeck (facsimile van de eerste uitgave, Haarlem 1604), Utrecht 1969, Nos. 70–72. http://www. dbnl.org/tekst/mand001schi01_01/mand001schi01_01_0003.php, accessed on 27 January 2010. 8 Wolfgang Stechow, Northern Renaissance Art 1400–1600: Sources and Documents, Northwestern University Press 1989, p. 65. 9 Michèle-Caroline Heck, La Teutsche Academie de Joachim von Sandrarts: une compilation ou une relecture de Vasari et de van Mander?, in: Michele-Caroline Heck – Frédérique Lemerle – Yves Pauwels (edd.), Téorie des arts et création artistique dans l’Europe du Nord du XVIe au début du XVIIIe siecle. Akten des internationalen Kolloquiums Lille 2000, Lille 2002, pp. 241–253.
10 From the hitherto published works on Schönfeld’s drawings, exclusively focused on his drawings is the article by Rolf Biedermann: Rolf Biedermann, Die Zeichnungen des Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, in: Jahrbuch der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen in Baden-Würtemberg, Band 8, 1971, pp. 119–194. More recently: Hans Martin Kaulbach, Zeichnungen im Werk Johann Heinrich Schönfelds, in: Ursula Zeller – Maren Waike – Hans-Martin Kaulbach (edd.), Johann Heinrich Schönfeld: Welt der Götter, Heiligen und Heldenmythen, Köln 2009, pp. 212–265. 11 Vladimír Denkstein, Václav Hollar: Kresby, Praha 1977, esp. pp. 21–31; Gabriela Kesnerová – Anthony Griffiths, Václav Hollar: Kresby a grafické listy ze sbírek Britského muzea v Londýně a Národní galerie v Praze (exh. cat.), Praha 1983, passim; Alena Volrábová (ed.), Václav Hollar (1607–1677) a Evropa mezi životem a zmarem (exh. cat.), Praha 2007, passim. 12 On Škréta’s drawing skills, see esp. P. Preiss, Česká barokní kresba (see note 1), pp. 30–61; Alena Volrábová, Karel Škréta – kreslíř, in: Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674): His Work and His Era, (exh. cat.), Praha 2010, pp. 343–366. 13 Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Bau- , Bild- und Mahlerey Künste, Nürnberg 1675, 1679, 1680. 14 This interpretation was later developed by Zuccari. G. Vasari, Životy (see note 2), p. 12; Cristina Acidini Lucinat, Tadeo e Federico Zuccari: fratelli pittori del Cinquecento, Milan 1998, pp. 274–291. 15 J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie (see note 13), Part 1, Book 3, Chapter 1, p. 60. 16 Ibid.
gained on their journeying. The combination of brush and pen became especially rooted, lingering deep into the 17th century. It is rather typical of Karel Škréta, along with his embracing of the painting approach to drawing via anticipating shadow surfaces by brush instead of outlining them by pen. Škréta, who assimilated many aspects of Italian art, was an exceptionally brilliant draughtsman, similar to his contemporary and once perhaps also his companion, Johann Heinrich Schönfeld. The latter artist stayed in Italy, mainly Naples, for much longer than Škréta but he fostered a somewhat different and, needless to say, rather distinctive drawing style. He often expressed himself in brush and pen, but came to favour chalk.¹⁰ His specific canon of human figures of robust torsos and prolongated arms is almost unmistakable. And, after all, a Transalpine artist not visiting Italy during this period would actually be difficult to find. If we wanted to underline how significant Italian training was for these artists – no matter that they later returned to their Central-European roots – it would suffice to compare their oeuvres and the drawings of their contemporary, Wenceslaus Hollar. He never travelled to Italy, was indifferent to Italian art, and thus probably never desired to journey there. A paramount draughtsman, he was firmly rooted in the tradition of the 16th-century miniaturists with all their descriptiveness and thoroughness of detail, even though his hand was subtle and his expression often brisk. His first known drawings lack Škréta’s pursuit of elegance and easiness of line, but they are in principle comparable in quality.¹¹ Škréta later came to profess Baroque exaltation which must have been utterly foreign to Hollar, and the subsequent paths of the two artists diverged to such an extent as to turn them into antitheses: the humble Hollar, patiently and ceaselessly working on miniature formats and the construction of space, detail and articulation of forms, surfaces and materials within them, and his opposite – the unleashed temperamental Škréta, presenting figures of often sweeping gestures and deliberately unfinished forms, situated in only slightly suggested space and light.¹² Did Italy so strongly impress yet another outstanding representative of 17th-century German art and Škréta’s coeval, Joachim von Sandrart (1606–1688)? The two painters were in close relationship perhaps as early as from Sandrart’s studies with Sadeler in Prague during the 1620s. There is no need to emphasize Sandrart’s significance. But it we dare to overstate a little, it was he who allowed us to glance into the auditorium attended by the diligent students drawing the nude in the illustration, and it was also he who established the first German academy of arts (Deutsche Akademie) in Nuremberg in 1662. Sandrart was well-educated and excelled in organizational skills and was probably the most pragmatic of all the above-mentioned artists. His own drawings are, however, less important at this point than his theories voiced in the memorable Teutsche Academie, gradually published in 1675, 1679 and 1680.¹³ His treatise directly follows his great predecessors, Giorgio Vasari and Karel van Mander, and approximately adopts the structure of their writings, consisting of two parts: the first is theoretical while the second contains descriptions of the lives of artists from Classical Antiquity up to the author’s contemporaries. The comparison of these three works well illustrates the development of theoretical writings on art, from the intellectual Vasari and the didactic but poetic Van Mander to the more or less practical Sandrart. The two Northern artists were closely familiar with Vasari’s oeuvre and thus certainly knew how highly he valued drawing, but they reserved much less space to acknowledge it in their books. I have already mentioned Van Mander as he compared drawing and painting to the human body, which totally omitted the drawing as an expression of an inner concept contained in one’s mind or as a touch of a Divine idea.¹⁴ Both Van Mander and Sandrart view painting as the ultimate art and attribute to it the high status which Vasari gives to drawing. Sandrart does not deprive drawing of the gift of idea, but he – in the entirely rationalist tone of his period – incorporates it into the intellectual process of a particular oeuvre. He opines that a drawing is nothing but a visible sketch, a depiction or an outline of a concept “which we have let sprout in our soul and then submitted it as a form or an idea”.¹⁵ He also gives much significance to reason, opining that it “releases its well-elaborated ideas and if a hand, well-trained by long years of great diligence, transfers them to paper, we experience the flawless excellence of both an artist and art”.¹⁶ Emphasizing the well-trained hand not only reflects Sandrart’s own practice and rationality but also is an expression of his didactic inclinations. The latter can moreover be observed in his opinion, which is absent from Van Mander’s writing (let alone Vasari’s): STUDIES 153
that one of the roles of drawing is to rationally reveal one’s own mistakes. Sandrart nevertheless immensely favours natural talent, but thinks that it spontaneously appears only in painting alla prima instead of in drawing.¹⁷ We can see that drawing was deprived of its deification over time and on its way north from the Alps. Although it had to abandon its sovereign status, it retained its honorary position close to the most valued painting, and especially the above-mentioned painting alla prima. It is, however, questionable whether these theories were widely accepted by the artists themselves – whether Vasari’s (and later Zuccari’s) apprentices indeed could feel the touch of the Divine idea while drawing and whether the students captured in our illustration a century later indeed sufficiently employed their reason in order to reveal their own mistakes. We can assume that they discussed these issues heatedly but the only certain thing is that they drew a lot – from live models as well as from other works of art like workshop drawings, prints and so on. Thus let us ask one more question: How did the artists themselves perceive the role of their own drawings? Were they more or less merely a single stage on the scale of the entire artistic process to them, or did they value them as highly as their predecessors did a century ago? We can judge on the basis of the rather vast number of surviving drawings which never ceased to be favourite collector’s items. Our viewpoint, however, should focus on their role in artistic practice and on the resulting condition and form in which they survived. Preparatory drawings can be, with reservation, somewhat mechanically divided into free sketches or, eventually, preliminary designs, and final designs – models. If a sketch displays apparent signs of swift record, just outlining the initial idea, if it is vivid and unfinished, the final design is its direct opposite. The definite and then repeatedly used models are often worn and devalued to a certain extent, for example by the grid that served to enlarge the original design or by outlines cut through it in order to transfer the model onto the graphic plate in the case of prints. However, many fewer such examples survive than we would expect. Many drawings which are evidently linked with a certain painting, print or a realization in another medium bear no traces of use in a workshop. It is possible in those cases that there was also an drawing which the workshop members used for their realizations and destroyed by that use. The surviving clean cognate drawing might stay in the workshop, or find its way to the commissioner or, for example, a collector. The role of the commissioner in this case is especially interesting. The relationship between a drawing and a donor was recently well outlined by Martin Mádl in his article on the design of the fresco The Stigmatization of St Francis by Karel Škréta the Younger for which, very unusually, the text addressed to the commissioner also survived.¹⁸ The artist submitted the drawing for approval so that his “customer” knew in advance the future work in which he planned to invest. Yet another role of drawing was, so to say, to preserve the successful model. Several examples of this kind can be found in the oeuvre of Karel Škréta the Elder: it is obvious that Škréta often used some of his models repeatedly during his relatively long artistic career, and sometimes even after an interval of many years. This is, for example, evident in the case of his design for the representation of St Servatius which waited years to see its realization as both a painting and a print, or in the case of his compositions with The Assumption, realized with slight modifications first for the Zbraslav monastery and years later in Plasy.¹⁹ Many drawings remained in workshops in order to be at hand for every new possible commission. This pragmatic attitude is in no way surprising for Škréta and other artists competent in business; and it did not degrade the artistic qualities of the drawings, but it undoubtedly represented a commonplace and widespread practice. Every workshop had to keep the models which could eventually be used again. Eloquent proof of this “bank of drawings” is the surviving sketchbook of Wenceslaus Hollar. The volume – discovered relatively late, in 1963, in the John Rylands Library in Manchester – contains dozens of drawings from various places of his journeying, which the artist saved over many years.²⁰ It opens with sketches of views of Prague executed during his stay in the city, followed by numerous depictions from Germany and later the Netherlands. Hollar pasted the drawings into the book and did not sort them too systematically – just so that they could fit – but he basically maintained a certain chronology. The 154 THE ROLE AND PERCEPTION OF DRAWING IN THE ERA OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
17 M.-C. Heck, La Teutsche Academie (see note 9). 18 Martin Mádl, Kresba Stigmatizace sv. Františka z Assisi a Šternberská kaple v kostele pražských hybernů, in: Ars linearis, II, 2010, in print. 19 A. Volrábová, Karel Škréta – kreslíř (see note 12), p. 363, cat. no. VIII.18. 20 Wenceslaus Hollar: 1607–1677, Drawings, Paintings and Etchings (exh. cat.), Manchester City Art Gallery 1963; Richard Pennington, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Wenceslaus Hollar 1607–1677, Cambridge 1982, Appendix F, lxii; Gabriela Kesnerová, Nová Pragensia Václava Hollara, Umění XXXVIII, 1990, pp. 341–347; A. Volrábová (ed.), Václav Hollar (see note 11), cat. nos. II/6, II/7, II/33.
21 These drawings could frequently be found in significant court collections, e.g. at the court of Rudolf II. E. Fučíková, Rudolfínská kresba (see note 6). 22 Alena Volrábová, Německá kresba 1540–1650: Umění kresby v německy mluvících zemích mezi renesancí a barokem (exh. cat.), Praha 2008, pp. 80–119. 23 A. Volrábová (ed.), Václav Hollar (see note 11), cat. nos. II/10.–II/34, II/55. 24 Consultant: Andrew Robison.
drawings are also often dated in his characteristic way and variously described. These models later, sometimes even after many years, served Hollar to create his etchings. Considering the span and diversity of his graphic oeuvre, Hollar very probably owned more “reservoirs” of this kind. It is therefore apparent that he very carefully protected his sketches and thus followed regular workshop practice. There is one more type of drawing: drawing as an independent work of art. Many scholars have not yet been able to resist the unthinking presumption that “a drawing equals a design for realization in a different medium”. It is a well-known fact that countless drawings did not represent preparatory steps at all, but were created directly as realizations in their own right. Works on paper and parchment – drawings – which artists surely intended as final achievements originate from as early as the 15th century. Among diverse types, obvious examples are many finished portraits and topographical drawings. During the 16th century, drawing as finished work was naturally supported by the above-mentioned approach to drawing as the most valuable artistic expression inspired with the Divine idea, and this is one of the reasons why it became part of the collectors’ range of vision. Drawing production in the Mannerist centres bore many of these works, perceived as valuable collector’s items. We moreover know drawings which are variants or multiples, even executed on commission, like the intimate, minute cabinet paintings which satisfied a similar role as collectibles.²¹ Some draughtsmen worked as followers of a great master. Their illustrious example is the renowned Hans Hofmann (1550–1591) who drew in the spirit of Albrecht Dürer. Drawings also remained favourite items for early 17th-century collectors. That period saw many intimate works which did not fulfill the role of designs but represented a final form by themselves. Some less accessible sheets were replaced by copies (as was, for example, commonplace at the court of Rudolf II) or their – as we would say today – pastiches. The latter was the case of the Augsburg artist from a somewhat later period, Hans Friedrich Schorer, active in the first half of the 17th century, who specialized in landscapes executed in the spirit of the Netherlandish masters Hans Bol and Paul Bril.²² Let us therefore focus on the phenomenon of drawing as a finished work during the 17th century. It is without doubt that many drawings by Wenceslaus Hollar were conceived in this way from their inception, whether it was the cycle of small-sized views from the artist’s cruise on European rivers with Count Thomas Howard of Arundel on the way to Emperor Ferdinand II or, for example, Hollar’s late large-dimensional panoramas from the African fortress of Tangier.²³ Karel Škréta did not leave us such apparent examples because he was primarily a painter. We can, nevertheless, believe that some of his drawings which remained “unrealized” as paintings were executed as finished works. Many of Škréta’s contemporaries sometimes drew with the aim of keeping the result in this medium. Drawing may have lost its leading position among the arts, but it only slightly descended in the notional hierarchy – in order to stand firmly on earth from where it can be perceived as an equivalent artistic discipline.²⁴ Translated by Lucie Vidmar
STUDIES 155
The X-Ray Investigation of the Paintings of Karel Škréta The Painter’s Handwriting in the Light of the Invisible Rays TOMÁŠ BERGER
1 Alena Bergerová – Vlastimil Berger, Rentgenologický průzkum Škrétovy malby, in: Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (exh. cat.), Praha 1974, pp. 265–269; Věra Frömlová, Malířská technika Karla Škréty, in: ibid., pp. 270–276. 2 The article came into being with the strong support of Mgr. Marcela Vondráčková, Ph. D., whom I hereby thank sincerely.
The idea of investigating the paintings of Karel Škréta with the invisible rays is not a new one. Roughly since the fifties of last century, when x-ray machines were introduced to the field of restoration, important works have commonly been x-rayed during repairs. In connection with the collective Škréta exhibition in 1974 many key works by the Master came together for the first time in a single installation and were restored, compared and investigated by scientific methods. In the exhibition catalogue there was an article by my parents, Alena and Vlastimil Berger, which dealt directly with x-ray investigation. In the same place there was also a text by Věra Frömlová concerning the colour structure of Škréta’s paintings.¹ The present project continued the programme of these studies and supplemented them with further findings arising from new research possibilities. In the course of the investigations of these pictures I found that the results of the consideration of individual paintings are the more convincing the wider the basis for comparison and the more similar paintings I can compare. In the restoring of a picture two to four photographs are usually taken and for the actual work it is mainly the damage to the concrete work that is evaluated. X-ray investigation serves as an instrument for the better knowledge of the painting, its history, damage and also the quality of the interventions of restorers. As opposed to the usual restoration practice the present project is concentrating on consideration of the painting technique of the author. The aim is to find the common traits of his individual style and, if at all possible, also to evaluate the development (or eventually changes) in the artist’s hand over time. For this it was necessary to investigate the largest possible number of Škréta’s works.² The starting-point for the present investigation were x-ray photographs on the one hand from the family archive (around 90) and on the other hand from the archive of the restoration studio of the National Gallery in Prague (roughly 85), which were digitalised. From this large set it was necessary to remove a not inconsiderable number of x-rays of works by the followers and imitators of Karel Škréta. In the course of the present project a number of further works were x-rayed over the past year, which underwent treatment and investigation in connection with the preparation of the exhibition entitled Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Time and Work. In all a further 83 photos of 31 paintings were added. These were mainly the works of Karel Škréta, but they were also supplemented by the paintings of Jan Jiří Hering, Antonín Stevens of Steinfels and Jan Jiří Heinsch. If we compare the authentic (archive-substantiated) paintings of Karel Škréta with the painting of his contemporaries, followers and imitators, his hand is seen to be more original and unequivocal, with sharper contours. Through the combining and digitalisation of old x-ray photos and the making of new STUDIES 157
←← The Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Prague, Church of Our Lady before Týn, sample of the painting of the yellow robe of the angel – lead-tin yellow, lead white, ochres, verdigris; under-painting – lead white, ochres, carbon black, red ground of the bolus type (photo: National Gallery in Prague) ← Sample of the painting of the blue robe of the Apostle on the right – natural ultramarine, lead white; under-painting – lead white in two layers (photo: National Gallery in Prague) ← Sample of the painting of the blue robe of the Apostle on the right – natural ultramarine, lead white; under-painting – lead white in two layers (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
ones a database came into being with designation of the title and date of the work and also appropriate detail in the visible spectrum. This newly enabled the full-value comparison of individual details under equal conditions. It is thus possible to compare a concrete x-ay photograph with a colour photo of the painting or with the x-ray photo of a thematically related work, but also with x-ray photos of the paintings of Škréta’s contemporaries or imitators. Apart from the analysis of individual x-ray photographs (individual concept, concrete damage and also technological elements) it is possible, by comparison of a larger number of photos, to reach more general conclusions concerning the painting hand of Škréta, habits in the handling of colour or principles in the building of the composition. By extending the heuristic base the information is not only added together – in my opinion its value is multiplied. In the x-ray process a portable source of ionised radiation was used.³ Because these were mainly paintings on canvas bases from the 17th century, the investigation of which brings good results, new revelations were anticipated. The analysis of the painter’s hand by means of optical and scientific methods brings multi-layered information on the preparation and creation of the work. Thanks to their greater penetration the x-rays capture the structure of the painted work in all its complexity; materials are depicted depending on the amount of heavy metals contained in them. Usually the materials of the base, the ground layers and the actual painting are shown, and sometimes also of the varnish layer. Depicted are the exact form and all damage to all the layers of painting, and also repairs from past periods. I will not, however, deal with damage to the paintings in this article, although I may mention it in passing. Almost all painter’s pigments contain metals, which absorb the x-ray radiation and according to this they appear on the radiogram. With regard to its composition and the high proportion of lead in it, Krems white is of quite fundamental importance for the x-ray picture.⁴ Some researchers even declare that 70% of the x-ray photo of a painting is a record of the presence of lead white, but personally I feel that in the present case there is even more. The popularity and wide usage of lead white among artists appears to be of key importance for the investigation of painting technique using x-rays. White is traditionally the carrier of light in a painting; it has an exclusive role in the lightening of colours on a dark background and it plays the main part in the construction of the broad palette of bright tones of the painting. It also creates space in the picture format.⁵ 158 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
3 For the x-rays of the paintings an instrument originally intended for the health service was used. The ionised radiation rays were emitted at 55 kV, 10mA with exposure times in units of seconds. The distance of the instrument from the painting is such that the cone of emitted rays covers the area of the sensitive foil. The foil of dimensions 42 × 35 cm is applied directly to the painting so that the rays pass through the entire structure of the work of art. Today x-raying using portable sources of ionised radiation is strictly controlled. Permission for handling these machines is awarded by the Institute for Nuclear Security after annually repeated professional training. 4 The physical and chemical properties of the elements are given by the number of their relative atomic weight. This number indicates, among other things, the strength of the absorption of Roentgen radiation. The number of the relative atomic weight of lead white is 207 and further high absorption values are those of vermilion (it contains mercury 200), minium, lead-tin and Naples yellow (lead 207, tin 118, antimony 121). These other colours, however, usually play only a fringe role in the space of the picture. Both blue and green contain copper (63) and cobalt (59), reds contain other metals (iron 56, manganese 55, silicium 28, aluminium 27), which show up on x-ray photos to a considerably lesser extent. Lead white was known from ancient times and thanks to its properties – great covering ability, easily mixable with oil, quick drying and insolubility after it is dry – it became exceptionally popular with the development of oil painting. 5 For the function of whites in paintings there is more in Christian Wolters, Die Bedeutung der Gemäldedurchleuchtung mit Rőntgenstrahlen fűr die Kunstgeschichte: dargestellt an Beispielen aus der niederländischen und deutschen Malerei des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main 1938, pp. 19–35.
1. The Holy Trinity (probably 1649), Prague, Church of Our Lady before Týn (x-ray: Tomáš Berger) Drawn painting with fresh brush-strokes, expressive lighting and the body of the angel recorded in unusual movement.
It must be reiterated here that the light parts on a black-and-white x-ray photograph do not always correspond to the lightness of the actual painting, but tell of the amount of metals in the paints and their ability to absorb the x-rays. This also depends on the thickness of the paint layer, its application, the handling of the brush, etc. Often, however, the physical properties of the colours are similar to their brightness. The correct interpretation of the photograph therefore always corresponds directly to the experience of the interpreter. The canvas base and the ground layers usually do not contain metals. The picture of a canvas base on the x-ray photo is a shot of the ground between the rows of thread. The imprint of the ground may show whether the ground layer was applied with brush strokes of smaller or greater width or with a spatula with a smooth surface. The manner of application and the material of the ground are of fundamental importance in the creation of the painting. Its fundamental role is determining the time of the origin of a work, or in judging its originality, was already described by Věra Frőmlová in the catalogue for the Škréta exhibition in 1974.⁶ The blurriness or intensity of the pattern of the canvas base tells of the composition of the ground layers. For instance, the red ground in Škréta’s paintings of the Passion Cycle contains ferrous clay with aluminosilicate parts and an admixture of lead white.⁷ On the basis of optical observation of a sample under the microscope and also with regard to the pattern on the x-ray photograph the presence of lead white is more probably marginal. The clarity of the structure of the canvas stands out most through the height of the ground coat between the knots of the canvas. As emerged from further research, the construction of the ground of Škréta’s paintings varies in different cases. The x-ray photo of the painting of St Charles Borromeo Visiting the Plague-Stricken does not show any imprint of the canvas, which indicates the presence of 160 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
6 V. Frömlová, Malířská technika (see note 1), p. 273 refers to the many years of observation by Mojmír Hamsík and his experience in the study of grounds in the restoration studio of the National Gallery in Prague. 7 According to the investigations carried out in the technological laboratory of the National Gallery in Prague.
2. ↖ The Crucifixion with Our Lady of Sorrows and Souls in Purgatory, 1644, Prague, St Nicholas Church in the Lesser Town (x-ray: Tomáš Berger) The painter’s expressive use of the brush created plasticity of monumental style. 3. ↑ Birth of St Wenceslas, 1640, National Gallery in Prague (x-ray: Tomáš Berger) The plastic modelling in the lower layers is relatively high in Škréta’s painting.
8 J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 1), p. 228. 9 Among these are three Busts of St Wenceslas (Horšovský Týn, Rychnov nad Kněžnou and the Museum of the City of Prague), also St Wenceslas among the Angels from the Church of St Stephen and St Wenceslas as Defender of the New Town of Prague in the Church of St Procopius in Žižkov. See the latest Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Doba a dílo (exh. cat.), Praha 2010, pp. 198–199, cat. no. IV.26, p. 234, cat. no. V.17, p. 470, cat. no. XI.7 (authors of entries Marcela Vondráčková, Sylva Dobalová and Vít Vlnas).
only immaterial substances in the ground (chalk, plaster, clay). On the other hand, in the painting Portrait of the Mathematician and his Wife the ground layers portrayed the pattern of the canvas more intensively, which exactly documents the presence of heavy metals. A composition of the ground highly untypical for Škréta appeared in the paintings of the Birth of the Virgin and Portrait of the Painter of Miniatures, where the pattern of the ground completely blanks out the actual painting with its regular grid. The structure of the canvas and the cracking dominates to such an extent that the painted forms cannot be evaluated from the point of view of the painting. Within the framework of the x-ray investigation works from all stages of Škréta’s work were studied. It was demonstrated, however, that the painter’s handwriting did not alter markedly in the course of time and that its more evident changes were connected chiefly with the nature of the work ordered and are therefore dependent on the size of the work and its function and purpose. Paintings of smaller format, intended for picture rooms, or the lunettes from the St Wenceslas Cycle are characterised by more intensive and more expressive modelling. In contrast to this, in the case of portraits their gradually layered modelling reflects the slow searching for the final form. The large altar canvases are characterised by monumentality, virtuosity and simplicity of execution. The author utilised a quantity of alternating figures, gestures, stances and colour schemes. In places the drawing strokes in the lowest layers come very close to the artist’s drawings, which were useful material in the actual interpretation of the x-ray investigation. In Italy Škréta evidently learnt to approach orders responsibly and therefore he prepared the composition thoroughly with drawn sketches. The excellent drawings are often a record of the painter’s deliberations about the attitudes and movements of the figures for more complex groupings. The preparatory drawings were sufficient to such an extent that in the actual painting there were hardly any changes in the attitudes of the figures – the author’s changes, known as pentimenti, scarcely occur in the compositional plan or else have not been discovered. In the study of the author’s drawings it is fascinating that even in them there are no great changes; the sketched figures appear in various poses as if they were turning and posing in front of the artist himself. The whole picture is technologically constructed gradually: first of all the delicate under-drawing in lead, then the consolidation of the drawing in pen and finally the wash in a half-tone, applied by brush. The drawings are all the more admirable when we realise that Škréta later hardly altered these sketches and that in them, apart from the composition and the movement of the figures, he also resolved the light values when, using the washing of the drawing, he defined the volume of the figures and the direction of the lighting of the scene. “The readiness with which Škréta drew variations of compositions and also partial motifs is proof of his exceptional invention and certainty as a draughtsman.”⁸ It is my opinion that all the more attention should be devoted to Škréta’s drawings because the elements of drawing also appear in his painting, in the lower layers. The transition from paper and wash colour to the canvas and a wider brush is here effortless and extremely natural. The following text presents those of Škréta’s works that are of more fundamental significance from the viewpoint of x-ray investigation as the fulfil the role of representatives of basic groups of paintings. An important theme, elaborated several times by Škréta, was the figure of St Wenceslas. The investigation was carried out on six variants of this theme, within the framework of which the painter arrived at a stable portrait of the Czech Prince imbued with a high degree of spiritual gravity and strength.⁹ The saint is captured in compositional variants in whole figures and half-figures, on his own or accompanied by angels. Even though the size of the figure was altered, the face of the saint was repeated in an unaltered form. In three almost identical canvases with the half-figure of St Wenceslas we can trace on the x-rays how the artist constructed the form of the noble youth in delicate values, where the subtle modelling stands out from the dark background like sfumato. The stable likeness, no elements of searching or wasted strokes, all this goes to show that Škréta had soon created the prototype of the saint whose face he knew well. In their delicacy the x-ray photographs document that neither here nor in the first version did he use the portrait traits of a concrete person. “The concentrated serious expression of the large dark eyes, staring urgently out of the picture at the onlooker, the
STUDIES 161
slightly hooked nose over full lips with the noble expressive line where they close. The placing of the narrow moustache is already left in the bottom layer without any more substantial under-painting, as the author from the start considered this to be one of the basic characterising lines of the expression.”¹⁰ With the gravity of a statesman, concentrated gaze and severe colouring Škréta created a kind of modern vera effigies of St Wenceslas. Other faces, which we might place in the category of type-cast, well-known figures, would be the paintings of St Thomas Aquinas from the property of the Prague Archbishopric, St Augustine from the National Gallery in Prague or St Ludmila from Horšovský Týn.¹¹ The portrait painting of the medieval Dominican scholar was painted on a wooden base and slightly less than life-size. The concentrated gaze while writing and the slightly bent head give the impression of peace and concentration. The x-rays reveal the calm but skilful modelling, lacking in expressive elements, modelling, which mingles tonally on the photograph with the application of the ground. The skilled application of the paint in semi-liquid state is admirable and the stable image is already visible in the lower layers. A different type of person, but executed with similar lightness, is St Ludmila – the counterpart of the figure of St Wenceslas. The long face of the female saint emerges from the darkness, delicately modelled with a small round brush. The face with the hollow temples remains in the shadow, half covered by the wimple; only a quarter of the face is illuminated. On the x-ray photo we can see for ourselves the careful preparation of the shapes even in the bottom layers. Škréta returned to a very similar face – this time in the case of Our Lady of Sorrows – in his Passion Cycle for the Lesser Town Jesuits. There he built up the face with clearly defined strokes in colour and further enriched the more strongly closed face with an expression of human suffering. If the artist painted the faces of the above-mentioned saints with a clear vision and simple conviction, the half-figure of St Augustine required greater effort. The author caught the saint with a movement of the hand towards his forehead. Thus from the uniform matter of the background the shapes of the fluttering fingers could emerge in expressive lighting. Even though the artist partly suppressed the expressivity in the further painting with glazing, the x-ray photograph clearly confirmed the author’s outstanding skill, almost virtuosity in drawing. The face of the saint is again constructed with thin lead white and because the legibility of the spatial feeling is restricted here the photograph is not unequivocal in the sense of a single painting. Some kind of searching is evident, the building up of the ideal lighting effect. In keeping with this is the twofold placing of the ear, the situation of which in the proportions of the oval head always indicate the measure to which it is bent forward or thrown back. The gradual development of the composition is also shown by the mouth, which was closed in the original version. On closer, macroscopic inspection of the highlights of the painting tiny “granular” bits of damage stand out clearly. With the increasing quantity of white in the work tiny grains of paint can be seen to have dropped off. This is most probably due to the author’s technological imperfection as the damage is unequivocally linked with the actual painting. Similar defects were also observed on the whites of the pictures of the Relations of Christ from the chateau picture gallery in Vizovice and in some paintings of the Passion Cycle. The altar painting of St Martin was confirmed as exceptionally important in the work as a whole also from the x-ray point of view.¹² It contains some elements of early work and at the same time there already appear here painting procedures characteristic of Škréta’s mature individual style. In the painting we can admire the parts of the unequivocally constructed faces (the saint, the boy in the foreground), but also further positions of Škréta’s relatively quick, vigorous painting, using long strokes with covering paint and strokes of liquid paint in medium-light tonality. The bishop with the young girl brought back to life bears all the signs of Škréta’s outstanding drawing. On studying the x-ray photograph, which reduces the colour to values of grey, the brilliant paint drawing stands out. The brush strokes strongly recall the author’s washed drawings, in which the wash is only partly dependent on the linear plan, but of course the figures do not lack basic details. Everything is painted at once, without interruption, similarly to how the drawing was made – a line with the pen, then washing with the brush. Even in a large-format painting the artist began with a drawing and continued with strokes of liquid paint, modelling the figures with light. Škréta constructed the head of the rider, 162 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
10 Alena Bergerová – Vlastimil Berger, Příspěvek k svatováclavské tematice v díle Karla Škréty. Rentgenologický průzkum, Umění XXXVIII, 1990, pp. 228–230. 11 Cf. L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 9), pp. 184–193, cat. no. IV.16, IV.20, pp. 198–199, cat. no. IV.27 (authors of entries Sylva Dobalová and Marcela Vondráčková). 12 Tomáš Hladík – Vít Vlnas, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 9), pp. 219–220, cat. no. V.9. 13 Michal Šroněk, in: ibid., p. 214, cat. no. V.5.
4. ↑ St Thomas Aquinas, (after 1640), Prague Archbishopric (x-ray: National Gallery in Prague) By repeated layering of the mass of the lead white painting with the interest of a portrait was achieved. 5. ↗ Christ’s Relations, (probably around 1650), Vizovice State Chateau (x-ray: Tomáš Berger) Drawn painting with slight modelling, which is emphasised only on the highlights of the scene. The unpleasant cracking on the highlights is caused by the lead white used.
on the contrary, with the greatest care and executed the curves of the face at least twice. On the x-ray diagram this created a precise form, reminiscent of a theatrical mask with the eyes missing. If we compare the x-ray photo with the resultant painting, on which the soldier’s face is modelled by sharp light, it is evident that whereas the final shape was clearly laid down already in the base layer, the painter dealt with the lighting only in the final phase. The rider’s hands are drawn and modelled with light without a single correction, almost as though they were to be part of the instruction folios in a painting manual. Škréta painted the horse’s head easily, with lightness and many tiny corrections in the drawn form, done in the still wet white paint. The red cloak is most probably created with vermilion with intensive colour. The pigment, containing mercury, was depicted on the photograph in the clear drawing of a very restrained hand. In the form of technological construction the picture of St Charles Borromeo Visiting the Plague-Stricken comes close to the altar canvas with St Martin.¹³ Here, too, we find the naked bodies of the unfortunate painted only with dark glazes, strikingly similar to the washing in the drawing. The parts mentioned are executed with the use of pigments, which do not absorb x-ray radiation and their picture on the x-ray photos is therefore unclear. A strong light falling on the picture from the left and lighting up the scene in the second plane, where the treatment of the patients is being carried out, allowed Škréta to use light half-tones for the lively drawn painting. The basis for the light colour modifications is again Lead white. Later, when completing the work, the artist suppressed the expressive modelling with brown glazes. The main figure of the Saint, emphasised in both light and colour, stands out effectively from the background where the narratively conceived scene linked with the hospital environment is taking place. The appearance of the Milanese Archbishop Charles was known and it is therefore no surprise that in the x-ray photograph the repeated layering of light applications of flesh colour can be seen in STUDIES 163
164 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
14 Štěpán Vácha, in: ibid., p. 226, cat. no. V.13. 15 Natural ultramarine was dearer weight for weight than gold and was imported from what is now Afghanistan. 16 The analysis of pigments and binding agents was carried out by the technological laboratory of the National Gallery in Prague.
6. St Martin, (after 1650?), National Gallery in Prague (x-ray: Tomáš Berger) The painting of the horse’s head is shifted repeatedly by the painter; the saint’s robe is painted immediately with far clearer intent.
the tonal application. Škréta managed to capture the likeness of the saint convincingly, although he improved the contour of the nose several times. The same may perhaps be said of the figure of the curly-haired cavalier in the Cardinal’s entourage, who allegedly represents the author himself. For the expression of his own image here Škréta sufficed with less painter’s application and simple modelling with glazes. In the orders for large altar canvases Škréta obviously felt more secure. According to the testimony of the x-ray his handwork here is excellent. The painter allowed a multitude of angels of all sizes to fly across numerous paintings; their gestures consistently fill the necessary space and convincingly impart the appropriate messages. A characteristic trait of the modelling of the angels’ limbs is the application of toned white in cross hatches, repeatedly turned over the volume. We find this method of modelling, for instance, in the little angel figures on the paintings of the Jičín Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, The Stoning of St Stephen from Litoměřice, the Assumption from the Church of Our Lady before Týn or in the painting of Silvio and Dorinda from the National Gallery in Prague. In the last work mentioned with its theatrical theme we find a unique example of a change in composition in the shifting of the hand of the injured heroine by one half of its width. Pentimenti appear in the paintings of Karel Škréta only in rare cases, basically involving tiny shifts of the fingers of various figures, their lengthening or shortening. I have recorded a large intervention of the author linked with the painting of a figure, or rather the covering of a figure, only in the Assumption painting from the Church of Our Lady before Týn. In the course of restoration a total of eighteen x-ray photographs were taken of variously conceived details of the painting, which is considered fundamental from the technological viewpoint. The canvas is of key importance for understanding of Škréta’s painting technique, whether this concerns the striking and bright colouring, enabling the study of the layering of the paints, or the variety of the figural types.¹⁴ The painter’s hand shows virtuosity in the figure of Mary; in the lowest preparatory layers we see only insignificant changes. The photo which captures the blue and pink robe of the Virgin Mary provides an excellent opportunity to consider the modelling possibilities of lead white. Whereas the pink is almost pure white, supplemented by red ochres and today relatively faded organic dyes, the blue robe is thickly under-painted with white and then – for the greatest brilliance – glazed with natural ultramarine.¹⁵ This gave the blue robe, created with crushed semi-precious stone, the most brilliant tone. On the x-ray photograph the different method of modelling can clearly be seen, the aim of it not being to differentiate various types of material, but to create a base for a rare pigment with differently demanding workability. The layout of the picture enabled Škréta on the earthly level to create the figures of the Apostles both in the drawing form of painting (the figures on the horizon) and in the form of monumental figures painted in brown, immaterial colours. The painting was executed on the first plane alla prima, with a well-thought-out tonal concept, when only one of the figures of the Apostles is lit and painted with thick layers of paint. The light-accented figure of John is legible at first glance and its intensive, material rendering relates to the modelling of Caravaggio. In the whole of the work a painting process appears, which is not common among Škréta’s contemporaries: these are the emphatically separated colours – the contours of hands, feet and head. Here it was not a case of the painting through of mutually neighbouring colours – transitions, but of the omission of contours, not painting the ground, optical strengthening of the depicted figures, fabrics, hands and clouds. The outlines have the colour of the red bole ground. This cannot be a case of later damage because the contours are also in the x-ray photographs. The real reason for the use of these contour lines is not so far completely obvious; perhaps it was to increase the legibility of the work on a distant altar. Experience and virtuosity might be the main characteristics of the painting, made visible by the x-ray investigation of the masterly work for the main altar of the Church of Our Lady before Týn. We can admire the brilliant handwork in the tiny, apparently insignificant angelic beings, dressed in different-coloured robes and surrounding the Virgin Mary. The different colours provided different opportunities for expansion of the handwork – the application of expressive paint strokes. The angel on the left could have similar handwriting to that on Mary’s cloak, because the colour of its robe was created by a composition of lead-tin yellow glazed with verdigris.¹⁶ The colours of the draperies STUDIES 165
and flesh tones of further actors in the scene are applied in thick pastes and their mutual contingency creates the anticipated harmony. Each pigment was, however, mixed in a different ratio, with a different amount of oil and had a different consistency and fineness of grain. In accordance with this it was necessary to select also a different manner for the painter’s elaboration of the colouring material in restricted parts of the surface of the painting. According to the x-ray, however, it is evident that lead white always played an important role. All that is yet to be mentioned is the important change in composition. It is evident that Škréta approached the creation of an altar painting with great care – the drawing of the upper half of the composition tells a great deal about the preparations and about the ideas for the arrangement of the individual figures. The x-ray photograph revealed that the large angel flying in the central part with his back to the viewer was painted additionally onto an already finished group of other heavenly beings. Although it can be found on the preparatory drawing, the author decided on a change in composition. The filling of the space around Mary’s body with additively arranged angels, however, clearly oversimplified the composition of the picture and suppressed it, and therefore the painter dynamised the composition subsequently with the figure of an angel with a floating robe. Also admissible is the variant that the drawing came into being ex post, as a document or record of the already completed work. The importance of the order for the Church of Our Lady before Týn is obvious not only from the financial demands of the pigments, but also from the canvas, woven to the full width of the painting in twill weave. We do not know the precise costs of painting materials from the period around the middle of the 17th century, but Karel Škréta never painted on canvas of such quality, and especially of such width, at any time before or after this. This also applies to his contemporaries and the painting production of the entire region generally. In the investigation of this painting no completely satisfactory 166 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
7. ↖ The Assumption of the Virgin Mary, (probably 1649/1654), Prague, Church of Our Lady before Týn (x-ray: Tomáš Berger) The figure of St John is painted in a thick application and the lighting of the scene is reminiscent of Caravaggio. 8. ↗ The Assumption of the Virgin Mary, 1666, Plasy (x-ray: Vlastimil Berger) Very fluent drawn painting of the angels in the heavenly sphere demonstrates the great potency and ability of the painter’s expression.
17 V. Frömlová, Malířská technika (see note 1), p. 273. 18 Štěpán Vácha, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 9), p. 136, cat. no. III.21.
explanation was found for the origin of the long crack running down almost the whole of the picture by its left edge. The crack, caused by force, Is very old and might even come from the end of the 17th century when the roof of the church caught fire and the vaulting collapsed in part. Smooth painting with thin paint and the flexibility of the execution of the individual figures can also be admired in other altar paintings where Škréta’s skill and feeling for the arrangement of a figure in the space or in a certain gesture could appear and develop. The x-ray photographs of the altar paintings are similar to the artist’s wash drawings, but in reverse tonality. Through the evaluation of the x-ray photograph we reach a different conclusion to that aired in the article by Věra Frömlová, who states that “the painter worked with a technique of grey under-paintings, or more precisely grey preparatory modelling”.¹⁷ On the x-rays no preparatory modelling is present. The black-and-white x-ray photos of the paintings of numerous figures on extensive and common formats clearly show that Škréta had a clear vision already before the beginning of the actual painting and that he did not lack the skill to transfer this idea to the canvas. An outstanding x-ray photograph captures the heads of Christ and an angel from the painting of The Baptism of Christ, which belongs to the Order of the Knight of the Cross with Red Star.¹⁸ In the light strokes we can judge the simplicity of execution, where the dark parts of the face – eyes, the shadows beneath the eyebrows, the hair or the dark opening of the mouth – are left unpainted by white. In the course of one time phase, on the contrary, the light values of the rounded parts of the face developed. It must be assumed that the basic colour tone of the flesh colour was carried out already in the initial painting and that in the course of the final glazing there occurred simultaneously the combination with the darker parts of the area of the painting. The work took place in a similar way to the washed drawing, when the drawing with a pen was simultaneously supplemented by drawing with a brush STUDIES 167
and diluted paint. The head of Christ is constructed in a similar way to the head of the angel and its tonality is lighter – as opposed to the final painting – only because Škréta worked on it for a longer time as it was of greater significance with regard to the theme. Similar simplicity and virtuosity in the application of the paint is demonstrated by the x-ray photographs of the heads from the paintings of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity from the main altar of the monastery church in Plasy. This is also similar in the case of the Annunciation to the Virgin in Jičín, the Relatives of Christ from Vizovice or the Holy Family with Ss Catherine and Barbara from the National Gallery in Prague. A supreme example of drawn painting with the use of thin lead white paint is represented by the paintings of The Stoning of St Stephen from Litoměřice and the Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist from Chotíkov. Perhaps the larger scale of the figures in the space of the picture or perhaps the importance of the order made Škréta’s monumental string throb. On the large canvases with a mainly dark tone the eye of the beholder is drawn by the light-accentuated figures. In the case of the Chotíkov Crucifixion the faces of the Virgin Mary and St John in particular represent the masterly use of thick applications of white in the clear light conditions. The painter’s handwriting of long strokes of the brush, which model John’s golden curls or form Mary’s wimple in fluid modelling, gives the impression of ease and simplicity. With the application of highlights to the ends of the fingers and the noses of figures immersed in an uncertain, dark area, Škréta accentuated urgency of expression and personal experience. The face of Our Lady has, in addition, the traits of a concrete human being. This is 168 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
9. The Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist, (around 1670?), Chotíkov (x-ray: Tomáš Berger) Example of painting with a high degree of elaboration of the figures beneath the cross.
19 Cf. Štěpán Vácha, in: ibid., pp. 256–257, cat. no. V.30; Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas, in: ibid., pp. 262–264, cat. no. V.34. 20 Andrea Rousová – Vít Vlnas, in: ibid., pp. 150–152, cat. no. III.30. 21 The very different manner of the painting of Helen and Paris in the double portrait described might be explained according to the interpretation of Marcela Vondráčková, this being that Škréta portrayed the lady according to reality (and perhaps also with regard to the special requirements of the person ordering the work, who was Berka z Dubé), whereas in the case of the bridegroom he did not have this opportunity and therefore used the manner of painting used in the case of altar pictures. 22 Marcela Vondráčková, in: Stolárová – Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 9), p. 306, cat. no. VI.16. 23 A. Bergerová – V. Berger, Příspěvek k svatováclavské tematice (see note 10), p. 267, characterised the painting as follows: “the painting […] shows great mastery of painting and also the human enthusiasm and understanding of man and the ability to express the artist’s relationship to the person portrayed through the means of painting. From the painting there radiates a purposeful effort at the characterisation of a great personality.” 24 Marcela Vondráčková, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 9), pp. 290–291, cat. no. VI.8.
perhaps the most considered and most deeply felt of Škréta’s figures. The stoned Stephen in his powerless, questioning gesture is also painted with similar graciousness. The works arose after careful preparative drawing and therefore we only rarely find any shifting of shapes, contours or insignificant details of the composition.¹⁹ A further example of Škréta’s unique execution is the allegorical double portrait of Paris and Helen (František Antonín Berka, Count Hovora z Dubé a Lipého, and Aloisie Ludovica Anna de Montecuccoli).²⁰ Although in literature several variants appear of the identification of the persons depicted, the x-ray investigation clearly shifted the question of interpretation in a different direction. The young man in the antique helmet is painted in a similar relaxed hand to the one Škréta used for typical or idealised figures on the altar canvases. His face is in the background and captured in the half-light with light strokes and a round brush only very generally. Škréta executed the beaten relief design on the golden helmet in the same manner, but with more accurate strokes. If the lady (Helen) is sharply lit in the final painting, on the x-ray plate this trait stands out even more emphatically. The investigation showed clearly and exactly what exceptional attention the painter devoted to capturing a precise likeness of the person portrayed, how long he sought the final image, with what effort and repetition. Although the eyes sit firmly in place from the beginning, the modelling was layered to such an extent that in the x-ray photo the head loses its roundedness. The painter finally completed the rounded shape with the help of a darker glaze. We do not find such a precise manner of painting, reflecting the effort exerted, in the rest of Škréta’s work. The differences in the depiction of the two main figures are also evident in the resulting painting, in which a certain disproportion in the size of the figures appears through the different lighting. The investigation confirmed that the different approach of the painter to the two figures and perhaps also the painter’s unequal interest in the persons portrayed was present in the picture from the start. In my opinion this may be the portrait of a particular girl, whose wish it was to be portrayed with her dream. This could have been a hero, idol, warrior or a suitor.²¹ We can see a similar approach, in which the painting is built up more lengthily with layering, also in the Portrait of Ignác Jetřich Vitanovský of Vlčkovice.²² The likeness is perfect even in the bottom layers, where the incident light and the drawing of lips, nose and dark eyes are evident. The x-ray almost recalls a photograph in which the nobleman emerges from the darkness of an undefined space. As opposed to the painting of altar canvases, on which Škréta could implement his visions of dreamy female saints in richly flowing robes, his portrait work shows a calmer hand; the painter uses a smaller brush of rounded shape and the work is more concentrated, focusing on details. Among the outstanding works, which underwent investigation at present, one might include Portrait of a Painter (once identified with Nicholas Poussin), Portrait of a Young Huntsman from Častolovice, Portrait of Hesselius of Cetvinberk (formerly Bramberger of Bramberg), Portrait of a Man Writing, thought to be J. Schwanhart, and also Portrait of the Gem-Cutter Dionysius Miseroni and His Family. We might interpret Portrait of a Painter as homage to the painters’ guild, and although today it has not been fully clarified who was portrayed, from the drawing on the x-ray it is evident that it was a close person and that the work went forward rapidly under the impression of comradely assistance. The relaxed handwork, fluid even on the white collar, indicates quick painting without the officiality of orders for the nobility.²³ The portraits of Bernard de Witte and Jiří Schwanhart have in common a feeling for the seeking of a likeness. In them we find a concentrated and careful hand, short touches of the brush and the gradual construction of the lighted accents. Both paintings are significantly damaged in sensitive areas. Škréta carried out precise portrait work in the case of the Portrait of a Young Huntsman. He used liquid whites for certain and lively painting, applying the paint only with clear intent; no stroke was excessive. The hair on the x-ray photograph, shaded with a light background, completes the modelling of the regular oval shape of the crown of the head. The relaxed handwriting and the likeness captured already in the lowest layers may lead us to suspect that the painter and his model were close to one another. The group portrait of the family of Dionysius Miseroni is, on the contrary, a work on which Škréta spent many hours.²⁴ The x-rays captured seven details, which showed that capturing the likenesses of all those portrayed called for great effort from the artist. The rounded shapes of the facial parts are emphatically arched, the eye sockets and shadows STUDIES 169
170 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
25 Marcela Vondráčková, in: ibid., p. 276, cat. no. VI.1.
10. ← Portrait of a Young Hunter, (after 1660), Častolovice Chateau (x-ray: Vlastimil Berger) Excellent portrait painting where the resemblance is captures already in the under-layers. 11. ↑ Portrait of the Gem-Cutter Dionysius Miseroni and His Family, 1653, National Gallery in Prague (x-ray: Tomáš Berger) In the original draft the hand of Dionysius was loosely posed, later his daughter’s little head was laid in it.
beneath the eyebrows constantly omitted. The careful, lengthy work and the effort to capture the strong individual characters of the individual figures are witnessed by numerous details – the consistent outlining of the shape of the head and the protracted highlights on the shaded temples or the defined drawing of the eyes and the half-circles beneath the eyes. The dark lines, often defining rounded shapes, mean that the painting of the figures and the background took place separately in different periods of time. That the work came into being over a longer period of time is also demonstrated by the originally thinner face of Dionysius with projecting cheekbones and also the gesture of his right hand, which at first rested lightly on the arm of the chair. Only later, perhaps in order to enliven the whole scene, was the figure added of a small daughter, placing her head in her father’s hand. Her likeness was created in the liveliest way of all. Perhaps the painter wanted to portray the father’s fondness for his daughter or he wanted to indicate the versatility of the man, who is talking to his son and at the same time fondling a further child, a man who is presenting his workshop to the onlooker and is at the same time a support to his wife. All in a single moment in time, which the painter recorded and in addition enhanced with a valuable shot of the spacious and prospering workshop. The painting Portrait of a Man with Long Fair Hair does not fit into the overall picture of the handwork customs of the artist.²⁵ Although this work was traditionally included in the golden treasury of Škréta’s work, I find some characteristics of the author’s hand missing in it. During portrait painting Škréta laid a base for the shape of the whole head and the dimensions of the face in the lowest layers at least with a drawn stroke. He usually STUDIES 171
smoothed the fluid strokes in a rounded form with great respect for the details of the painting delivered later. The painting in question, however, leaves out the preparatory layout of the face with expressive handwriting. The short strokes with a pointed brush indicate an impulsive artist who builds up the anatomy of the important person’s figure very skilfully, with great erudition and a sense of effect in painting. The highlight edges of white indicate very thick painting. The locks of golden hair are also painted with half-dry brush-strokes and create a showy effect, which I find myself unable to relate to Škréta’s painting. The difference in handwriting is also shown in the painting of the hand with highlight effects, contrasting with the linear drawing of the shadows. There is also an expressive charge in the painting of the curtain in the background, and here too the painting is not quite in accordance with the work of Karel Škréta. The kind of painting for effect that we find in Portrait of a Man with Long Fair Hair is something I would seek in the work of Bernardo Strozzi or Frans Hals. The portraits ordered from Karel Škréta differ from his work for religious premises. The paintings are slower, with a degree of increased attention and carefulness. We find parallels with the relaxed hand painting the altar pictures in the drawings on paper. The alternation of figures, attitudes and light values were common both in the painting and the drawing. The drawings for portraits, however, are unique and were clearly created in a manner other than that described above. The series of canvases of the great Passion Cycle might close the technological look into the painter’s workshop of Karel Škréta.²⁶ In dimensions this is an exceptional series (ten canvases measuring roughly 236 × 176 cm), which in addition forms the main part of the artist’s surviving work. The technological construction of the Passion paintings, however, surpasses to a certain extent the framework of Škréta’s other work. A look at the work, which has gradually been restored over the course of 10 years, is opened by a rich photographic documentation, including 34 x-ray photographs. Their comparison confirmed the highly mature and economical technique of the painter’s execution. Dark tonality prevails in the paintings, only the figure of Christ often stands out from the area of the picture. In the majority of the dark parts the main part of the ground layer consists of red bole. The proportion of iron in these layers precisely depicted the structure of the canvas base whereas the black and brown glazes of the background and the dark parts of the painting were not recorded at all on the x-ray photos. In the areas of the flesh of the figures and their drapery, which the x-ray investigation was aimed at, the main role was played by lead white. The figure of Christ from the paintings Christ before Herod, Christ before Pilate, Ecce homo and the Flagellation stands out in a strongly built structure. In the scenes of Christ’s trials the dark tonality of the work enhances the dignified figure of the captive Jesus in his solitude and exclusion. Also the thick paint construction of the figure indicates the strength of Christ’s views and convictions. Although we can observe some partial corrections in the lower layers, the exalted faces of Jesus are proof of Škréta’s gift for capturing the most varied states of human thought and ability to present human emotions. Again we can witness the swift and simple manner of constructing human physiognomy, which we find in the case of the large altar paintings. Here this is not a matter of effective performance as a painter, but the perfect service of the painter to ideas. As masterly details I would emphasise the elaboration of the figure of Christ in the scene of The Crown of Thorns and of the soldier looking closely into the face of Christ. In the Ecce homo scene the head of Christ is strongly constructed, desolate and deserted, and also the head of Pilate, standing apart, at a distance, as though he did not know what to do with himself. Some researchers state that the original order concerned only two paintings, the Crucifixion and Our Lady of Sorrows.²⁷ In both cases the figures on the surface of the painting are indeed captured on a smaller scale. The format of the painting of the Crucifixion is the only one in the cycle where additional canvas has been added (by the upper edge, about 8 cm). The other canvases are always in one piece and it appears that they are all the same with normal density and regular weave. Škréta used similar canvases for the altar paintings; in the case of portraits the weave of the canvases was usually, strangely enough, coarser and less regular, as if it were cheaper material. From the results of the x-ray analysis, combined with the laboratory analysis of pigments, 172 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
26 Ibid., pp. 311–341. 27 According to a private consultation with Sylva Dobalová.
12. The Passion Cycle, Our Lady of Sorrows, 1670, Prague, St Nicholas Church in the Lesser Town (x-ray: Tomáš Berger) The figure of the Virgin Mary, a type that appears repeatedly in Škréta’s work, is constructed with a sharp-cut hand.
it emerged that the author of the Passion Cycle significantly accentuated the painted depiction of Christ’s physical suffering. During the removal of varnishes it was observed that the layering of the flesh colour on the body of Christ Crucified was in several colour tones. The suspicion aroused of possible later over-paintings was dispersed by the laboratory report. The original tone of Christ’s body was deserted by Škréta himself. From colder grey tones the colour of the crucified body moved in the direction of orange, The colouring, whether it was the emphasis on the red tone of Christ’s body after the flagellation and of the swollen bound hands, or Christ’s suffering orange body on the cross (still before death), was very well thought-out. It will not escape the attentive onlooker that in the severely coloured compositions the colour of the body of the martyred Christ brings a further level of understanding. For instance the corpse state of the body in the Lamentation is an example of masterly painting concept and represents the maximum that it is possible to achieve in painting. The darkened head of Christ Crucified already irrevocably recalls a skull in its shape and the conspicuous spots on the body make it known that the body is already in an advanced stage of decomposition. From the x-ray photograph it shines out that the spots are painted as under-painting and at the end the painter only amended them with a brown-green semi-transparent layer. The construction of the anatomy of the naked body beneath the cross with mere interrupted touches of thick colour seems to me to be a great innovation in their time, which was certainly supported by brilliant preparatory drawing. The painter achieved the rounded shape of the dead head with the usual openings of the eye sockets in a similar manner with the aid of final glazes. The opinions that the whole thing might have been based on graphic prints seem unfounded to me with regard to the painting performances just described.²⁸ The emphasis on experience is present on all the canvases of the cycle and plays an important iconographic role. Pentimenti do not appear on these works. The direct, and in its way simple painting technique of the Passion Cycle led Jaromír Neumann to the opinion that the pictures were painted at a time when Škréta no longer needed to win further orders through virtuosity and when he was rather recapitulating his life.²⁹ Later, however, Petra Nevímová found in the Vienna archive proof that the paintings of Christ’s trials were already hanging again – in the Easter period – on the altars of St Wenceslas Church.³⁰ The opinion may rather be closer to the truth that the Passion Cycle was painted as a temporary decoration of the Jesuit cathedral for liturgical needs during the Easter period. This is also why a simple form of painting was selected, sometimes reminiscent of backdrops in its darkness. In any case this unique painted work became Škréta’s unrepeatable personal testimony. The x-ray investigation, carried out conceptually within the framework of the Škréta research, contributed the first database in the Czech Republic devoted to a single author. It is thanks to this that we can discover today which painting procedures were most natural to Karel Škréta, how he dealt with orders for portraits and where he felt most free as a painter. Thanks to this work Škréta’s art is known today in all its details. Translated by Joanne P. C. Domin
174 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
28 More from Sylva Dobalová, Pašijový cyklus Karla Škréty, Praha 2004, pp. 67–74; idem, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 9), pp. 312–314. 29 J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 1), esp. pp. 140–142. 30 Petra Nevímová, Funkce obrazu v umění jezuitského řádu, in: Milena Bartlová (ed.), Dějiny umění v české společnosti: otázky, problémy, výzvy. Příspěvky přednesené na Prvním sjezdu českých historiků umění, Praha 2004, pp. 112–113.
X-ray Photographs of Selected Works
STUDIES 175
176 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
↖ Portrait of Gem-Cutter Dionysius Miseroni and His Family, 1653, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague, x-ray photo: Tomáš Berger) The portrait of the wife and one of the daughters is built with a solid structure of lead white, the likeness is already captured in the ground layers in anatomical forms; the action in the background is done with long brush-strokes in thin paint containing white. Dionysius Miseroni in his portrait is painted in the bottom layers in the form of a slender man with prominent cheekbones. ↑ St Wenceslas, 1671, Horšovský Týn, state castle and chateau (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán, x-ray photo: Tomáš Berger) Škréta constructed the representative face of the Count during the first orders and repeated it in many alternatives throughout his life. The fluid hand and delicate values show that the work was created quickly without unnecessary preparations.
STUDIES 177
178 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
Paris and Helen, (around 1672), National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague, x-ray photo: Tomáš Berger) In the lower layers this double portrait is relatively unbalanced. The girl is painted with great effort at portraiture, whereas the young man is captured at a fast tempo where the main role was played by the correct capturing of the figure on the beaten metal helmet. The lack of balance in the size of the heads and the perspective creates a certain disharmony.
STUDIES 179
↖ Portrait of a Man with Long Fair Hair, (1650/1660), National Gallery in Prague (photo and x-ray: Tomáš Berger) The expressive painting is not typical of Škréta. The high tonal contrast building up the rounding of the face leaves the dark part without under-painting. The shine on the hair is applied with untypically pompous effect. The likeness is certainly highly authentic. ↗ Portrait of a Miniature Painter, (before 1640), National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague, x-ray: Tomáš Berger) The light x-ray photo with the regular structure of the canvas base is due to the presence of a quantity of lead white in the ground. The actual painting is not expressively thick and is not distinct in the photo. ↗↗ Portrait of a Man Writing, so-called Georg Schwanhart, (after 1650), National Gallery in Prague (photo and x-ray: Tomáš Berger) An excellent portrait, constructed with delicate treatment of small brushes, where the likeness is captured with great astuteness. White in liquid form handles the white collar and also the lock of hair. Delicate modelling with the aid of long strokes is typical of Škréta.
180 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
STUDIES 181
↖ St Augustine, (after 1640), National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague, x-ray photo: Tomáš Berger) As opposed to the brilliantly drawn and modelled hand of the saint, the author did not manage the placing of the head at first. By moving the ear upwards he calmed the atmosphere of the saint’s vision. ↑ Crucifixion with Our Lady of Sorrows and Souls in Purgatory, (1644), Prague, St Nicholas Church in the Lesser Town of Prague (photo and x-ray: Tomáš Berger) The thrown-back head with the thick application of modelling is lit by strong incident light. The alternation of light and shadow is carried out practically in a single layer. The corrections of the silhouette of the Virgin Mary were carried out in wet paint only in insignificant areas.
182 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
184 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
↖ St Martin, (after 1650?), National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague, x-ray photo: Oto Palán) A very precisely painted and evidently also perfectly prepared scene with the saint on horseback. Whereas the main figure is constructed with firm contours and the light arched deeply over the area, the figures in the background are formed with long strokes in thin paint. In these the delicately coloured lead white does not give an effective light charge. The long strokes are reminiscent of the colour washes on preparatory drawings. ↗ St Charles Borromeo Visiting the Plague-Stricken, 1647, National Gallery in Prague (photo and x-ray: Tomáš Berger) The figures in the background of the scene are not built up in the strong impinging light, but also are more reminiscent of preparatory drawing in their brush treatment. The painting does not contain layering or returns to details and it also does not contain any corrections.
STUDIES 185
Assumption of the Virgin Mary, (1649/54), Prague, Church of Our Lady before Týn in the Old Town (photo and x-ray: Tomáš Berger) The Angel on the left represents the supreme art of modelling in wet oil paints. The application of the sharp folds of the drapery merges into more delicate brush treatment of the flesh parts. A long perpendicular crack goes through almost the whole picture. The figure of the Virgin Mary is painted in one moment with the appropriate physiognomy and a clear lighting plan. For the expressive painting of the pink robe stronger brushes were needed. On the further photo different ways of processing the paint appeared alongside one another. The difference is due on the one hand to the theme depicted – the head of a small angel – and on the other to the possibilities of the individual colours. The modelling of the pink and the blue differs fundamentally.
186 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
STUDIES 187
188 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
↖↖ Assumption of the Virgin Mary, (1649/54), Prague, Church of Our Lady before Týn in the Old Town (photo and x-ray: Tomáš Berger) The painting of the Apostle in the background is executed more in the manner of a drawing; on the right there is a strong modelling of the base for the painting in natural ultramarine. The little angel was painted in full in the original composition plan; later it was overlapped by the figure of the larger angel with richly floating drapery. ↖ Portrait of Bernard de Witte, (after 1650), National Gallery in Prague (photo and x-ray: Tomáš Berger) An example of careful and moderate portrait work where the likeness is achieved gradually with short, repeated brush-strokes. Thanks to their sensitivity the x-rays also captured the details drawn on the black robe. The damage to the painting of the mouth and the right cheek is substantial.
STUDIES 189
Passion Cycle, Crowning with Thorns, (1673/1674), Prague, PragueArchbishopric, St Nicholas Church (photo and x-ray: Tomáš Berger) Both heads on the opposite side are painted at a fast tempo with a clear idea formed in advance. Apart from the strongly applied light effects it can easily be seen that the paint is applied with a free hand in the manner of drawing or writing.
190 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
↖ Archangel Raphael with Infant Tobias, (around 1665), Kostelec u Křížků, St Martin’s Church (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán, x-ray photo: Tomáš Berger) The likeness of Tobias’s head is based on classicist form. The multitude of different draperies and their colours offers a glimpse of the author’s creation in the black-and-white version. It is not typical of Škréta that the position of the fingers was altered several times. ↗ Passion Cycle, The Lamentation, (1673/1674), Prague, Prague Archbishopric, St Nicholas church in the Lesser Town (photo and x-ray: Tomáš Berger) The coloured mass of Christ’s dead body was built up in the first layer with lead white. Whereas the shape of the head in the lower layers is whole, the body itself is “lacerated” and in a state of decomposition. With suitable glazes, which are not recorded by the x-ray photograph, Škréta created more dramatic sadness – the arching of the shape of the skull – in Christ’s face and strengthened his body with a layer of brownish-green.
192 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
STUDIES 193
194 THE X-RAY INVESTIGATION OF THE PAINTINGS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
↖↖ Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist, (1670?), Chotíkov, Church of the Raising of the Holy Cross (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán, x-ray photo: Tomáš Berger) Both figures beneath the cross are painted with profound experience. The painting of the head of the Virgin Mary is constructed rather with short strokes with unusually great attention and care. Due to the interest in the individual likeness the figure belongs more to portrait painting than to Škréta’s usual depiction of the Virgin Mary. ↖ The Stoning of St Stephen, (1669), Litoměřice, St Stephen’s Cathedral (photo: Tomáš Berger, x-ray photo: Jiří Bareš and Jiří Brodský) This dramatic moment of the saint is captured in liquid paint on a base of lead white. Although the dynamic position of the head was adjusted several times, the layered paint shows great erudition in the modelling. By comparison of the x-ray with reality we can see that the position of the dark shadows on the facial parts also shifted during the creative process. ↗ The Annunciation, (early 1660s), Jičín, St Ignatius’ Church (photo: Tomáš Berger, x-ray photo: Jiří Bareš and Jiří Brodský) A unique example of Škréta’s hand, presenting the integral nature of the application of colours on the surfaces of the flesh areas and the robe. The long fluid strokes merge mutually with neighbouring colours. We can observe a slight harmonising of shapes only in places of the positioning of fingers.
STUDIES 195
Karel Škréta the Younger A Case of Two Paintings ANDREA ROUSOVÁ
1 Andrea Rousová, Karel Škréta the Younger, in: Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674. His Work and His Era (exh. cat.), Praha 2010, pp. 422–425, and on, eadem, cat. no. X.6–X.11. 2 Gustav Edmund Pazaurek, Carl Screta (1610–1674). Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des XVII. Jahrhunderts, Prag 1889, pp. 42–49. 3 Anděla Horová (ed.), Nová encyklopedie českého výtvarného umění, I, Praha 1995. 4 Johann Gottfried Dlabacž, Allgemeines historisches Künstlerlexikon für Böhmen und zum Theil auch für Mähren, I–III, Prag 1815, II, p. 83. 5 Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (exh. cat.), Praha 1974, p. 258. 6 Ibid., pp. 259–264, cat. no. 206–215. 7 Jaromír Neumann, Škrétové. Karel Škréta a jeho syn, Praha 2000, pp. 130–151. 8 Joannes Florianus Hammerschmid, Prodromus Gloriae Pragenae. Continens Urbium Pragenarum Fundationes […], Pragae 1723, p. 69. 9 See note 7. 10 See G. E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (see note 2), p. 44 with references to sources. There were more lawyers in Škréta’s family – Veronika, sister of Karel the Younger married Aegidius Jelen, doctor of law and appellation counsel. 11 It is known about his trip that he stayed in the parishes of Lorenzo in Lucina and S. Andrea delle Frattere – see J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 5), p. 258 and idem, Škrétové (see note 7), p. 133. 12 Johana Bronková, Škréta a komunita záalpských umělců v Římě, in: Lenka Stolárová (ed.), Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a v Evropě, pp. 7–12; Jana Zapletalová, Karel Škréta: Notes from the archives from Italy, Umění LVIII, 2010, pp. 152–158.
At the beginning of this study, it should be emphasised that Karel Škréta’s firstborn son has always been a rather indecipherable figure in the Bohemian art scene of the second half of the 17th century. Although we have sufficient information about his life, we are limited to undocumented hypothesizing when it comes to his painting oeuvre. This study seeks to follow up a recently published paper that attempted more comprehensively to evaluate the state of the research about the artist and briefly characterised the nature of his work.¹ It was Gustav Pazaurek who first took notice of Škréta’s son as an artist in the late 19th century, assembling what is to date the most extensive archival data about his life.² Earlier lexicographical literature paid only cursory attention to Škréta the Younger or failed to mention him altogether, one example being the most recent encyclopaedia of Czech art.³ The earliest mention is in Dlabacž’s Dictionary, which does not accord him a separate entry, but presents him as an apprentice to his father whose image was constructed with the help of the elder Škréta’s oeuvre.⁴ To date, Jaromír Neumann has paid the greatest attention to him, albeit first insisting that “none of his paintings has been reliably identified, though we do not lack certain, though thus far unverified, hypotheses”.⁵ The catalogue for the 1974 Karel Škréta exhibition presents Škréta the Younger solely as a draughtsman and graphic artist.⁶ Later, however, Neumann published several paintings attributed to Škréta the Younger, which were believed to be easily verifiable.⁷ Neumann tended to attribute any lower-quality artworks produced within the (smaller or greater) circle of Škréta the father to his workshop or his son. An evaluation of Škréta the Younger’s painting oeuvre is also made somewhat more difficult by the fact that father and son shared the same name and were not mutually distinguished in the past – for example, Hammerschmid does so only once – “Senioris Scretae” – in reference to the painting with St Thomas in the St Nicholas Church in Prague’s Old Town attached to the now defunct Benedictine monastery.⁸ As there is no need to repeat all Škréta the Younger’s available biographical data, which have already been compiled by Neumann,⁹ we can concentrate on several major facts. Karel Škréta was Škréta’s firstborn son and the only child to pursue his father’s profession. His artistic persona was undoubtedly formed under the supervision of his experienced father. However, the son did not choose a painting career alone – he began to study law at Charles-Ferdinand University in 1664, later obtaining the post of Royal Burgrave Court Counsel.¹⁰ He was thus able to balance the career of an official with his painting. He improved his painting skills during a sojourn in Rome, where he is documented to have been in 1673 and registered as a painter, according to Neumann.¹¹ Johana Bronková and Jana Zapletalová most recently dealt with the sojourn of the two Škrétas in Rome.¹² The archival evidence tells us that Škréta the Younger was active in Rome in 1674–1675, STUDIES 197
1. ← Karel Škréta the Younger, Stigmatisation of St Francis, drawing, National Gallery in Prague – Collection of Prints and Drawings (photo: National Gallery in Prague) 2. → Karel Škréta the Younger, Drawing for K. M. Lažanský’s University Thesis, c. 1679 (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
but this information was not published until 1927.¹³ As Zapletalová also learned, Škréta stayed with other artists in Rome’s Isola Toscanella quarter. Based on a newly found archival source, she gave the year of his birth as 1650, instead of the heretofore used 1646.¹⁴ Nothing more specific, however, was found about Škréta’s sojourn in Rome, though it is certain that the son availed himself of his father’s contacts while in Italy. In 1679, Škréta was engaged to Alžběta Rosina, the daughter of a lawyer and appellate counsel, and the marriage brought him the house U Korandů in Prague’s Old Town, which was authorised to brew beer. He and Alžběta had five children: Anna Kateřina (b. 1680), Karel Rafael (b. 1681), Mikuláš František (b. 1682), Alžběta Dominika (b. 1685) and Václav Jan z Boha (b. 1688), this youngest becoming the only one to outlive his mother, becoming her universal heir. Škréta the Younger’s financial position was solid his entire life, owing not only to income from two sources, but also his father’s inheritance. Extant documents testify to his relations with the Prague Jews (such as Kalman Brendeys, Israel Brendeis, Löbl Wiener etc.).¹⁵ His dealing in paintings, revealed by surviving correspondence with Count Karel Eusebio of Liechtenstein, to whom Škréta offered to sell paintings predominantly by his father, has thus far gone unnoticed.¹⁶ An inheritance inventory giving a list of paintings, furnishings in his household and money left behind is another valuable source of information about his property.¹⁷ Škréta the Younger died at the relatively young age of 45 (or 41).¹⁸ He was buried next to his father in the St Gallus Church in Prague’s Old Town, whose register of deaths lists him as a “pictor” – painter.¹⁹ Despite his relatively short art career (contemporaneous with his civil service), Neumann attributed a considerable number of paintings to the younger Škréta in his last study.²⁰ As already mentioned above, we cannot be absolutely certain 198 KAREL ŠKRÉTA THE YOUNGER
13 Friedrich Noack, Das Deutschtum in Rom, I–II, Leipzig 1927, II, p. 549. Let me thank Johana Bronková for information. 14 J. Zapletalová, Karel Škréta: Notes (see note 12), p. 158, source quoted in note 35. 15 J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 7), pp. 130–131. 16 Herbert Haupt, Von der Leidenschaft zum Schönen. Fürst Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein 1611–1684, Wien – München – Weimar 1998 (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Fürstenhauses Liechtenstein Band, II/2), pp. 255, 281–284. 17 For details about the inventory, see Radka Tibitanzlová in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), pp. 610–611, cat. no. XVI. 30. 18 “The noble and brave gentleman Karel Škréta of Závořice JMC, Counsel of the High Court of the Supreme Burgrave Court and burgher of the Old Town, left the realm of the living on January 2, 1691..”, AMP, SR, Liber obligationum caeruleus 5, 1691–1696 /1709/, sign. 3601, f. 110v–113v. 19 “Die 3 Januari 1691 Gen. D. Carolus Screta Pictor 45 annor. sep. in cryptam apud altari B.M.V.Neapoli”, quoted from: Pavel Bergner – Jan Herain, Karel Škréta (1610–1674). Contribution to evaluation of his oeuvre, ČSPSČ XVIII, 1910, p. 8. 20 J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 7), pp. 130–151.
21 Drawing in pen and bistre, on graphite underpainting, washed and lightened in white, 293 × 204 mm, The National Gallery in Prague – Collection of Prints and Drawings, inv. No. K 357, recently about the drawing: Pavel Preiss, Česká barokní kresba / Baroque drawing in Bohemia, Praha 2006, pp. 68–69 and Martin Mádl, Stigmatizace sv. Františka: kresba Karla Škréty mladšího, Ars linearis, II, colloquium of the Collection of Prints and Drawings, the National Gallery in Prague dedicated to the art of parchment and paper, the National Gallery in Prague April 12, 2010; in print. 22 For its full text, see P. Preiss, Česká barokní kresba (see note 21). 23 See note 21. 24 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, more in: J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 5), p. 259, cat. no. 208; idem, Škrétové (see note 7), p. 149.
of his authorship of any of them. Where should we look for guidance? There are only two drawings that testify with certainty to Škréta the Younger’s hand. The first captures St Francis of Assisi’s reception of stigmata (fig. 1).²¹ The preparatory drawing made on a square grid is signed on the bottom right obverse as “C. Screta”, while the reverse bears a contract for the delivery of a painting to the Šternberk family Chapel of Immaculate Conception, which belonged to the Irish Franciscan Order in Prague’s New Town; the contract, fixed by means of four Šternberk seals,²² was signed on April 12, 1679. Unfortunately, the painting has been missing since the monastery’s closure in 1786. Pavel Preiss believes that the altarpiece canvas was commissioned by Jan Norbert of Šternberk, but as Martin Mádl rightly remarked, Jan Norbert of Šternberk died in late September 1678 in Vienna, so the artwork must have been commissioned by either Jan Ignác or Václav Vojtěch.²³ The contract also mentions a painting for the altarpiece extension with the theme of Sending of the Holy Spirit, which is also missing. The mentioned drawing from the collections of the National Gallery in Prague was preceded by another without a quadratic grid, which is most probably older than its Prague version.²⁴ The drawings are virtually identical in terms of their composition. The modellation of volume is more schematic than in the work of Škréta the Older, but his son’s drawings do not lack kineticism. Ultimately, it is obvious that the son’s drawing style was not much different than his father’s, though it failed to attain his temperamental flair and technical mastery. It is indeed unfortunate that the realised artwork has not survived, as it would provide us with conclusive evidence of Škréta the Younger’s painting activity to compare with material whose authorship has only hypothetically been attributed to him. The next two drawings were designed for a graphic publication of Norbert of Hoch’s STUDIES 199
university thesis celebrating Count Karel Maxmilián Lažanský and his family (fig. 2). The drawings were made just before, or during, 1679²⁵ when Melchior Küsel produced a copper engraving after them.²⁶ We will not elaborate the thesis content as it is dealt with in detail in the literature;²⁷ instead, let us focus on the style. The first drawing – the older of the two – from the Berlin collection is done in a loose style, while the Prague version was produced as a binding model for an engraver and its lines clearly define the forms. At first glance, it is obvious that the artist depended on the style of Škréta the Older who had a wealth of experience designing university theses.²⁸ We can still trace certain deviations from his father’s style, e.g. a generally more schematic treatment in the first line or larger form volumes. Some of the figures are almost unnaturally elongated; it is interesting to see how Küsel suppressed this “style” in the graphic form. The father’s firm drawing hand with a temperamental charge grew somewhat rigid in the son’s conception – Pavel Preiss describes this phenomenon as a “classicist accent” and general “academisation”.²⁹ We may see a style similar in nature in a painting of the theme Annunciation to the Virgin Mary in the SS Henry and Kunegunde Church in Prague’s New Town (fig. 3). Earlier literature attributed the painting on the southern side aisle altarpiece to Škréta the Older – Hammerschmid described it as an artwork by “the most famous painter Škréta”.³⁰ Neumann noticed a different painting style and was the first to ascribe it to the son.³¹ The painting is embedded in the altarpiece’s secondary architecture, which – like the sculptures – was done in 1755 when the altarpiece was installed by New Town Councillor Jan Antonín Kozák. It was preceded by an altarpiece set up by Kašpar Vojtěch Macarius, the church’s parish priest in 1664–1681; its corner stone was consecrated on March 20, 1684 by Prague’s Suffragan Bishop Jan Ignác Dlouhoveský from Dlouhá Ves.³² The painting was certainly completed and installed by then (1684). Chapels were gradually added to the church between 1672 and 1696 and most of the altarpiece paintings, such as those by Jan Jiří Heinsch or Matěj Zimprecht, were also done in this period. The fact that the church served for the New Town’s painters’ guild, which erected an altarpiece dedicated to their patron St Lucas, is also worthy of mention. The figure types and physiognomies in the Annunciation painting are closely related to figures in a painting with the same theme, which could be ascribed to Škréta the Older’s last period (fig. 4). It is evident that the composition – which is the property of the National Gallery in Prague – preceded the one in the Prague church.³³ The pentimenti testifying to the artist’s search for an ideal form, especially in the figure of the hovering archangel, are discernible. The looks of the archangel and Mary correspond with those traditionally employed by Škréta the Older in his work. An identical composition, but one that is wider and embellished with more motifs, can be found in the St Gallus Church in Prague’s Old Town as part of the Marian cycle hanging above the side aisle arcades (fig. 5).³⁴ However, this artwork is certainly newer and its as yet unidentified artist employed even more distinctly elongated figures. Unlike the Annunciation in the St Henry Church, this painting lacks the sensitive modellation of forms and the figures’ motion is less natural. If we are to decide who painted the artwork in the St Henry Church and attribute it to either Škréta the Older or Younger, we must agree that the different style – as Neumann aptly writes – in the areas around the draperies, as well as the distinctly elongated figures, indeed point to Škréta the Younger. The figures’ conception – their proportions and rendering – corresponds, for example, with the drawings for Count Hoch’s university thesis mentioned above. The painting clearly reflects a perfect grasp of the older Škréta’s style, which logically could be best emulated by his son. The artwork can be seen as a purposefully close follow-up of the father’s painting model, as the commission might have explicitly demanded. Another possibility is that it was Škréta the Older who was commissioned to do the painting, but having no time to do so, passed the task on to his son. Another example of difficulties with Škréta the Younger’s oeuvre is the painting St Lawrence Heals the Blind Roman Soldier in the St Lawrence Church in Mělník-Pšovka (formerly Šopka), which originally belonged to the Order of Calced Augustinians (fig. 6).³⁵ Before its restoration, the artwork went virtually unnoticed and was listed in the topographical literature as a painting by Josef Kramolín (1730–1801).³⁶ The monastery and church were in bad shape after the Thirty Years’ War and had to be renovated. A painting with the above mentioned theme was done by Karel Škréta the Older for a newly installed altarpiece in 200 KAREL ŠKRÉTA THE YOUNGER
25 Drawing in pen on a graphite underdrawing, 206 × 322 mm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. No. KdZ 26396; and drawing in graphite, washed, 485 × 682 mm, the National Gallery in Prgaue – Collection of Prints and Drawings, inv. No. K 4566. Recently about the two drawings: Petra Zelenková in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), p., cat. no. IX.23 A.B. 26 Copper engraving, 476 × 650 mm, signed on the bottom: “Carlo Screta delin.: Melchior Kussel scul. 1679”, the National Library of the Czech Republic, Collection of University Theses, recently with a bibliography: Petra Zelenková in: Vít Vlnas (ed.), The Glory of the baroque in Bohemia. Art, Culture and Society in the 17th and 18th centuries (exh. cat.), Prague 2001, p. 361, cat. no. II/3.38B; Pavel Preiss, Kořeny a letorosty výtvarné kultury baroka v Čechách, Praha 2008, pp. 153–175; and Petra Zelenková in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), pp. pp. 414–415, cat. no. IX.23 C. 27 Ibid. 28 On this subject recently: Petra Zelenková, Karel Škréta and His Contemporaries as Designers of Prints, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), pp. 369–371. Another thesis by Škréta the Younger, made as a copper engraving by Melchior Küsel, is extant: A Tribute to Emperor Archduke Josef – thesis of Balthasar Türchner of Müllenau, CharlesFerdinand University in Prague, 1682 – for more with bibliography, see: Vít Vlnas in: The Glory of the baroque in Bohemia (see note 26), p. 131, cat. no. I/3. 43. 29 P. Preiss, Česká barokní kresba (see note 21), pp. 70 and 17. 30 J. F. Hammerschmid (see note 8), p. 239, topically composed bibliography in: Jana Marešová – Martin Mádl, Jan Quirin Jahn na uměnovědné vycházce: Poznámky z osmi pražských kostelů, in. Jiří Kroupa – Michaela Šeferisová Loudová – Lubomír Konečný (edd.), Orbis Artium. K jubileu Lubomíra Slavíčka, Brno 2009 (Opera Universitatis Masarykianae Brunensis, Facultas Philosophica. Spisy Masarykovy univerzity v Brně, Filozofická fakulta 382), p. 97, note 41; Emanuel Poche, Prahou krok za krokem, Praha 1985, p. 211; Umělecké památky Prahy. Nové Město, Vyšehrad, Vinohrady (Praha 1), Růžena Baťková (ed.), Praha 1998, p. 110; Andrea Rousová in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), p. 31 J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 5), p. 133. 32 Karel Navrátil, Paměti hlavního kostela farního, fary a školy sv. Jindřicha a sv. Kunhuty v Novém Městě pražském, Praha 1869, pp. 30–31. Navrátil also writes that the painting was restored as an artwork of Škréta in 1824 by painter Kotrba, p. 41. It was also restored by J. Toroň in 1974. 33 Recently on the work: Andrea Rousová in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note. 1). 34 Recently on the cycle: ibid., pp.443–447, cat. no. X10, X.11. 35 Oil on canvas, 338 × 215 cm, Roman-Catholic Parish MělníkPšovka. 36 Jaroslaus Schaller, Topographie des Königreichs Böhmen, Fünfter Theil, Leutmeritzer Kreis, Prag – Wien 1787, V, p. 191; Johann Gottfired Sommer, Das Königreich Böhmen, II, Bunzlauer Kreis, Prag 1838, p. 117 (as Kramolín); Ottův slovník naučný, Praha 1906, p. 655; Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta, Praha 1956, p. 19; idem, Karel Škréta (see note 5), p. 202, cat. no. 118; Umělecké památky Čech 2 (K/O), ed. Emanuel Poche, Praha 1978, p. 371 (as Kramolín); J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 7), pp. 143–144; Petr Bareš – Jiří Brodský, Restoration of two paintings on the main altarpiece in the St Lawrence Church in Mělník-Pšovka, in: Renata Špačková (ed.), Mělník-Pšovka. Sborník vydaný při příležitosti znovuvysvěcení kostela sv. Vavřince v Mělníku-Pšovce obnoveného po povodni roku 2002, Mělník 2004, pp. 88–91; Sylva Dobalová, Poznámka k obrazu Karla Škréty z kostela sv. Vavřince v Pšovce, Občasník mělnický, 2005, May, pp. 16–18.
3. ↑ Karel Škréta the Younger, Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, 1680s, SS Henry and Kunegunde Church, Prague – New Town (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 4. ↗ Karel Škréta the Older, Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, c. 1670, National Gallery in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
1661 or earlier. The painting made its way – quite damaged – back to Škréta’s studio at an unknown date as the inheritance assets inventory of the property of Škréta’s son specifies: “A large painting of St Stephen painted by the late Mr. Škréta, which is however damaged and belonged to the monastery in Šopka pod Mělníkem (No. 153) and under number 154: ‚The same painting of the same size newly copied to replace the older painting in Šopka…’”³⁷ Another record comes from a Šopka monastery commemorative book (1712), which provides information about the church’s reconstruction in the early 1660s: “Also installed was the main altarpiece with the inscription: D. LaVrentIo saCrVm, item two side altarpieces, namely with Jesus Christ in the Desert and St Stephen, with the inscription: item the altarpiece with the Holy Trinity in the vestry and with the Virgin Mary Visiting Elisabeth in the Berkovská Chapel, item tabernacle and screen near the main altarpiece; everything amounting to 1,000 guldens […].”³⁸ The church’s current property does not include any altarpiece canvas with the theme of St Stephen and the entry in the inheritance assets mentioned above seems to refer to the main altarpiece with the painting of St Lawrence as the main patron saint of the Šopka church. The iconography was therefore incorrectly defined.³⁹ In the literature, the artwork was indirectly introduced by Joachim von Sandrart: “… zu S. Laurentii in Melnich..”; as his general list of Škréta’s artworks outside Prague was limited in number, it is surprising that he mentions the painting of St Lawrence at all.⁴⁰ Dlabacž mentions it as a painting by Škréta the Older.⁴¹ Jaroslav Schaller does not give the name of the artist, but points to the painting: “Das hohe Altarblatt in der hiesigen Klosterkirche, so den h. Laurentius vorstellet, verdient der hier angebrachten Kunst wegen unsere Aufmerksamheit.”⁴² Pazaurek logically based his opinion on the 1691 entry in the inheritance assets, which listed the painting of St Stephen as a copy made by Škréta the Younger after an older model by his father. He rejects Kramolín as its author and understands Sandrart’s note as referring to a non-existent (or lost) original.⁴³ Valuable information was acquired during the artworks’ restoration, which was completed in 2004.⁴⁴ The main altarpiece extension with St Augustine was also restored, but this painting dates from a later period, likely the 1740s when the church was repaired under Abbott Augustin Maffay.⁴⁵ The St Lawrence canvas was in very bad condition before its restoration – the original painting suffered under layers of non-original overpaintings and its upper part was completely altered with the addition of an angel carrying a gridiron as St Lawrence’s attribute. These interventions were noticed by Pazaurek, who mentions the canvas’ restoration by Jan (Johann) Zapletal in the 1870s.⁴⁶ 202 KAREL ŠKRÉTA THE YOUNGER
37 For more on this inventory, see R. Tibitanzlová (see note 17). 38 Quoted after: Petr Macek – Pavel Zahradník – Jan Beránek, Bývalý klášter bosých augustiniánů v Pšovce u Mělníka, Průzkumy památek VIII, 2001, Volume 2, p. 26. 39 The painting with St Stephen was probably not part of the property after Emperor Joseph’s reforms, as the 1789 inventory no longer records it – ibid., p. 33. 40 Joachim von Sandrart, L’Academia Todesca della Architettura, Scultura & Pittura: Oder Teutsche Academie der edlen Bau–, Bild- und Malerei-Künste, Teil I, Nürnberg 1675, II, Buch 3, p. 327. 41 G. J. Dlabacž, Allgemeines historisches Künstlerlexikon (see note 4), II, p., 93, No. 26. 42 J. Schaller, Topographie (see note 36), V, p. 191. 43 G. E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (see note 2), pp. 44, 79 and 84. 44 Restored by Petr Bareš and Jiří Brodský; for more about the restoration, see P. Bareš – J. Brodský, Restaurování dvou obrazů (see note 36). 45 For more, see Pavel Zahradník, Dějiny kláštera obutých augustininánů, in: Mělník-Pšovka. Sborník vydaný při příležitosti znovuvysvěcení kostela sv. Vavřince v Mělníku-Pšovce obnoveného po povodni roku 2002, Renata Špačková (ed.), Mělník 2004, p. 24. 46 G. E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (see note 2), p. 79.
5. ↖ Anonymous painter, Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, 1720s/1730s, St Gallus Church, Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 6. → Karel Škréta the Younger after Karel Škréta the Older, St Lawrence Heals the Blind Roman Soldier, before 1691, St Lawrence Church in Mělník-Pšovka (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán)
47 J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 5), p. 204, cat. no. 118; idem (see note 7), pp. 143–144; S. Dobalová, Poznámka k obrazu (see note 36).
We now come to a sensitive point – the painting’s authorship. Two art historians –Neumann and Dobalová – attributed the artwork to Škréta the Younger with reference to the inventory assets entry, even though it does not specify Škréta’s son as the painter.⁴⁷ The entry suggests that the original by Škréta the Older was in his son’s house and was damaged. That is why a copy was made, though this was still in Škréta the Younger’s studio in 1691, the year of his death. The copy is of very good quality and in line with Škréta the Older’s style. It is somewhat misleading to look for a specific artist’s brushwork in it as its main aim and purpose was the faithful emulation of the original painting. If we assume that the original artwork was done (or installed on the altarpiece) in 1661, we would place it in the classicist period according to Neumann’s period breakdown of Škréta’s oeuvre. Unfortunately, we still do not know any specific reason for the original canvas’ damage; though the reason had to be serious given the decision to replace it with a copy. The copy, of course, could also have been produced by an assistant painter STUDIES 203
in Škréta’s studio, which was headed by his son after the father’s death. It is very likely, though, that the canvas was painted by Škréta the Younger himself. The painting is executed by a firm hand without marked hesitation. The crowd scene is well rendered in terms of composition – with Škréta the Older’s Blind Saul Before Ananias (private collection) offering a closer analogy.⁴⁸ The artist chose a scene in the life of St Lawrence, a deacon and third-century martyr, which was less frequently depicted in art – the miraculous healing of a blind soldier (judging by his military garment). The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea) mentions the Roman soldier Romanus asking St Lawrence to baptise him.⁴⁹ It also describes a story about Lawrence who, while in gaol, miraculously cured a pagan named Lucillus who had lost his eyesight from too much weeping and had Lawrence baptise him.⁵⁰ In the darkened background is an unidentifiable architectural structure whose hanging ropes and chains might identify it as the gaol. The healing of the blind and baptism relate to Christ’s deed in Christian iconography – Lawrence’s Christ-like face may be intentional here. Škréta only employed as many different human types as in this composition in his painting St Thomas of Villanova Distributing the Alms (The St Thomas Church in Prague’s Lesser Town). Dressed in a white robe and red stole, Lawrence touches the face of the soldier whose clothes, though of different colours, correspond with the garment of the blind Saul kneeling before Ananias. The soldier’s feet are chained. A woman wearing a scarf and a bearded man react with excited gestures behind the soldier. A crowd of beggars and poor people is concentrated at the composition’s single level, rather blended in monochrome colours. Unfortunately, the background, even after restoration, is very difficult to make out – only the architecture on the far right can be distinguished. Also discernible are silhouettes of figures, such as one resembling a child (maybe an angel) or a standing figure of man with a sword. We cannot certainly rule out that the scene in the background presages Lawrence’s martyrdom on a hot gridiron. We can appreciate many things about the painting, e.g. the relatively demanding compositional arrangement of the crowd scene and the related distribution of light, skilfully mastered by the artist. Besides, the painting interestingly shows that the son assumed his father’s responsibilities after his death, which increases the probability that Škréta the Younger was involved in the painting. As the presented paper shows, Karel Škréta’s son is still a little-known artistic figure, though extensive archival research was done and certain artworks underwent technological analysis on the occasion of the exhibition Karel Škréta 1610–1674: His Work and His Era (the National Gallery in Prague, 2010/2011). Nevertheless, the analysis makes attribution difficult, as the technology used is basically identical. The paintings under study in this paper can be attributed to Škréta the Younger on the basis of the presented arguments. In the case of other works of art, however, it will be necessary to continue on with art history and archival research to either confirm or refute the authorship of artworks ascribed to Škréta. Translated by Gita Zbavitelová
204 KAREL ŠKRÉTA THE YOUNGER
48 Tomáš Hladík in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (see note 1), p.132, cat. no. III.19. 49 Jakub de Voragine, Legenda Aurea, Praha 1998, p. 218. 50 Ibid.
Sculpture at the Time of Karel Škréta TOMÁŠ HLADÍK
1 Cf. Frits Scholten (ed.), Adriaen de Vries (1556–1626), imperial sculptor (exh. cat.), Zwolle 1998; Dorothea Diemer, Adriaen de Vries: Neue Forschungen und eine bedeutende Ausstellung (review), Kunstchronik 52, 1999, pp. 242–259; Sigmund Graf Adelmann – Dorothea Diemer (edd.), Neue Beiträge zu Adriaen de Vries. Vorträge des Adriaen de Vries Symposiums vom 16. bis 18. April 2008 in Stadthagen und Bückeburg (Kulturlandschaft Schaumburg, Bd. 14), Bielefeld 2008; Eliška Fučíková, Adriaen de Vries, die Prager Burg und das Waldstein-Palais, in: München–Prag um 1600, Praha 2009 (Studia Rudolphina 9, Sonderheft), pp. 26–35; Dorothea Diemer, Die Bildhauerei an den Höfen von Prag und Wien, in: B. Bukovinská – L. Konečný (edd.), München – Prag um 1600, pp. 131–142. 2 Lars Olof Larsson, Adriaen de Vries, Wien – München, 1967, pp. 94–95, cat. nos. 19, 20, 22; idem, Adriaen de Vries v Praze (Adriaen de Vries in Prague), Umění XVI, 1968, pp. 283–288, 293, notes 79–91; idem, European bronzes 1450–1700 (Swedish National Art Museums), Stockholm 1992, p. 98; idem, Ein neues Rom an der Moldau? Der Skulpturengarten Albrecht von Waldsteins in Prag, in: Klaus Bussmann – Heinz Schilling (edd.), 1648: Krieg und Frieden in Europa (exh. cat.), Münster–Osnabrück 1998, Bd. II, pp. 201–208; Frits Scholten, in: Adriaen de Vries, imperial sculptor (see note 1); idem, in: Björn R. Kommer (ed.), Adriaen de Vries 1556–1626, Augsburgs Glanz–Europas Ruhm (exh. cat.), Augsburg 2000, pp. 297–302, cat. nos. 33, 34; Jiří Kropáček – Eliška Fučíková, in: Mojmír Horyna – Zdeněk Hojda – Pavel Zahradník et al. (edd.), Valdštejnský palác v Praze (Wallenstein Palace in Prague, Praha 2002, pp. 204, 234, 236–242, 252–254; Sergiusz Michalski, Der Laokoon und die Ringer des Adriaen de Vries im Garten des Prager Waldsteinpalastes: Symbole der Überwindung des böhmischen Aufstandes?, Studia Rudolphina 4, 2004, pp. 28–31; Lubomír Konečný, Nochmals zu Laokoon des Adriaen de Vries für Albrecht von Waldstein, Studia Rudolphina 5, 2005, pp. 77–79; Eliška Fučíková, Sochy pro Valdštejnskou zahradu (Sculptures for the Wallenstein Garden), in: Eliška Fučíková – Ladislav Čepička (edd.), Valdštejn. Albrecht z Valdštejna, pp. 442–443, cat. no. 3.19; eadem, Adriaen de Vries (see note 1), pp. 32, 35, note 31. 3 Cf. Görel Cavalli-Björkman, Der Raub der Prager Skulpturen des Adriaen de Vries durch die Schweden, in: B. R. Kommer (ed.), Adriaen de Vries, Augsburgs Glanz (see note 2), pp. 46–51; Wurzelbauer’s Venus with Cupid, the top group of the smaller fountain, was brought back to Prague in the late 19th century and it is now exhibited in the collection of the National Gallery in Prague in Schwarzenberg Palace. Cf. Karel Chytil, Pražská Venušina fontána od B. Wurzelbauera (Prague Venus fountain by B. Wurzelbauer), Praha 1902. 4 One of the historical methods of metal casting (“cire perdue”), which made it possible to cast even complicated shapes. It was necessary to prepare a wax model, which was covered with heatresistent material (clay, brick dust), and a mould was thus formed. When it was dry, the mould was put in the furnace, where the
In the early 17th century Prague was renowned as one of the most important centres of Mannerist sculpture, thanks to Adriaen de Vries (1556–1626), a native from the Hague, trained in the Florentine studio of Giovanni da Bologna. In May 1601 De Vries was appointed court sculptor to Emperor Rudolf II, but during his lifetime he also worked for many other patrons from the highest circles.¹ Towards the end of his life he created a large series of bronze sculptures and sculptural groups for the garden of the Lesser Town palace in Prague of Albrecht of Wallenstein. It was characteristic in its soft modelling and conspicuous movement of the robust figures, in which the arrival of a new sculptural style was already heralded. The preserved correspondence between the patron and the artist makes it clear that the sculptures came into being gradually between 1623 and 1625 and they included both the decoration of the central fountain, and freestanding groups. The same source informs us that De Vries was very well paid for those works: the artist’s specification of July 12, 1624 reveals that the artist asked 900 thaler for the sculpture of Apollo, while the groups of the Fighters and Bacchus and a Small Satyr were to fetch him 1100, and the group of Venus and Adonis 1400 thaler,² all of those sums many times higher than the usual reward for the carvers of the Late Renaissance and Early Baroque. The confiscation inventory compiled immediately after Wallenstein’s death (1634) discloses that the groups entitled Fighters, Bacchus and a Small Satyr, Venus and Adonis, and Laocoon and His Sons (fig. 1) were situated on a white marble pedestal surrouding the main fountain, crowned with the figure of the god of seas, Neptune, finished as the last one (1627), by De Vries’s assistants after his death. The garden included a smaller fountain with the top group of Venus and Cupid Standing on a Dolphin (1599) by Benedict Wurzelbauer; however, both the fountains were ruined by Swedish soldiers as early as 1648, and their sculptural decoration was transferred to Stockholm.³ Following De Vries’s demise and the subsequent departure of his assistants from Prague, the awareness of the very specific modelling principle, the spatial development and exquisite elegance of Mannerist sculpture disappeared and as quickly, the demanding lost-wax technology of casting bronze sculptures ceased to be known, and in fact due to the war events, even the necessary material for it was missing.⁴ Those were thus also the reasons why the beginnings of Early Baroque sculpture in Bohemia were not directly related to the mentioned brilliant achievements of Prague Mannerist sculpture, but to the much deeper tradition of Central European carving trade. It was particularly thanks to art centres in Upper Austria, the Tirol and Southern Germany that a new modelling practice got to be known in this country in the early decades of the 17th century: the V-shaped cuts enlivening the simple draperies of the rather stiff saint figures, albeit often provided with a lavish superficial finish. The improving quality of the local production was conditioned by many commissions from Catholic hierarchy and the ruling STUDIES 207
1. ← ← Adriaen de Vries, Laocoon and His Sons, 1623, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum (reproduced after: Adriaen de Vries [1556–1626], imperial sculptor [exh. cat.], Frits Scholten, [ed.], Zwolle 1998, p. 238) 2. ← Archangel Michael Defeating the Devil, first half of the 17th century, Prague, St Vitus Cathedral (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 3. ↗ Caspar Bechteler, Flight of the Winter King, Elector Palatine Frederick, after the Battle of the White Mountain on November 8, 1620, before 1630, Prague, St Vitus Cathedral (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán)
house: in their works, carpenters, cabinet makers, carvers, and sculptors were also to contribute to the efficient support of the Counter-Reformation. The representatives of the laic clergy and of old orders and newly arrived monastic denominations (in Prague itself more than ten of the latter ones settled between 1620 and 1650) “were faced with an urgent challenge to restore the furnishings of churches in such a way that divine service could be carried out there. It often first meant the construction of the altar” – as the main point of the Catholic church or chapel.⁵ At the initiative of Emperor Ferdinand II, a quick replacement of the furnishings of St Vitus Cathedral in Prague, practically ruined during the Calvinist “purge” of the church, was carried out immediately after the defeat of the Estates’ uprising.⁶ However, out of the sculptural decoration of the Cathedral in the first half of the 17th century only one representative work has been preserved, a monumental and richly polychromed sculptural group Archangel Michael Defeating the Devil (fig. 2), situated on a bracket outside the entrance to St Michael’s Chapel, in its iconography perfectly representing the aspirations of the militant Catholicism. The artist of this luxuriously polychrome carving of full volumes and articulated outlines obviously sought inspiration in the South-German sculptures of the same theme by Hubert Gerhard in Munich (1588) and Hans Reichle in Augsburg (before 1607), whose type of compositions had survived in Central Europe deep down into the 18th century.⁸ In the first third of the 17th century the artist to be most closely related to Prague Cathedral was Caspar Bechteler,⁹ the court cabinet maker, whose Hradčany workshop saw the birth of not only new pews and doors for St Vitus Cathedral (and probably joiner’s work on the pulpit),¹⁰ but also the famous horizontal reliefs placed in the arcades of the high choir of the Cathedral (fig. 3). In them, Bechteler interestingly captured the dramatic events of December 1619: “The Plundering of the Cathedral by the Calvinists on December 21, 1619”, “The Ruin of St John of Nepomuk’s Tomb”, and the “Flight of the Winter King, Elector Palatine Frederick after the Battle of the White Mountain on November 8, 1620”.¹¹ 208 SCULPTURE AT THE TIME OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
wax melted and was burnt. After that procedure molten metal was poured into the hollow of the mould. When it cooled down, the mould was broken and the acquired cast was chiselled and polished. 5 Michal Šroněk, Pražské oltáře v době třicetileté války (Prague Altars at the Time of the Thirty Years War), Documenta Pragensia IX/II, 1991, pp. 439–445, here p. 439. Cf. also Jaroslav Mathon, Pražské oltáře v ranním baroku (Prague Altars in the Early Baroque), Umění (Štenc) XI, 1938, pp. 561–571; Ivan Šperling, Die Prager Altararchitektur, Sborník prací Filosofické fakulty brněnské university, F 14–15, 1971, pp. 282–284; Lubomír Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba hlavního oltáře v kostele P. Marie Sněžné v Praze (Sculptural Decoration of the High Altar in Our Lady of the Snows Church in Prague), (dipl. thesis), Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Praha 1973. 6 An extensive and costly replacement of interior furnishings of St Vitus Cathedral started with its re-consecration by the Archbishop of Prague, Johann Lohel on February 28, 1621. The progress of work is thoroughly recorded in the diary of the capitular dean Caspar Arsenius of Radbuza. Cf. Viktor Kotrba, Georg neb Cajetan Bendl či Caspar Bechteler (Georg or Cajetan Bendl or Caspar Bechteler), Umění XXII, 1974, pp. 308–323; Lubomír Konečný, Esilio publico–Fridrich Falcký a Kašpar Bechteler (Esilio publico–Frederick, Count Palatine and Caspar Bechteler), Umění XXXI, 1983, pp. 451–456, here p. 451; Ivo Kořán, Umění baroka. Sochařství (The Art of the Baroque. Sculpture), in: Emanuel Poche (ed.), Praha na úsvitu nových dějin (Čtvero knih o Praze), Praha 1988, pp. 436–437; Ivan Muchka, Baroko. Katedrála v 17. století (The Baroque. The Cathedral in the 17th Century), in: Anežka Merhautová (ed.), Katedrála sv. Víta v Praze (K 650. výročí založení) Praha 1994, pp. 171, 176–184; Michal Šroněk, Sochařství a malířství v Praze 1550–1650 (Sculpture and Painting in Prague 1550–1650), in: Eliška Fučíková – James M. Bradburne – Beket Bukovinská et al. (edd.), Rudolf II. a Praha, (exh. cat.), Praha – London – Milano 1997, p. 357; Michal Šroněk – Jaroslava Hausenblasová, Gloria & Miseria. Praha v době třicetileté války (Gloria & Miseria. Prague at the Times of the Thirty Years War),
7
8
9
10
Praha 1998, pp. 138, 143. Vincenc Kramář, Zpustošení chrámu sv. Víta (The Plundering of St Vitus Cathedral), Michal Šroněk (ed.), Prague 1998; Michal Šroněk, Jan Jiří Heinsch. Malíř barokní zbožnosti (1647 – 1712) (Johann Georg Heinsch. The Painter of Baroque Piety [1647–1712] (exh. cat.), Praha 2006, pp. 11 – 12. The composition of that sculptural group was also used in the statue of the same theme at the top of the altar in Our Lady of the Snows Church, but the figure of the devil was replaced by a cloud. Cf. Oldřich J. Blažíček, Sochařství baroku v Čechách. Plastika 17. a 18. věku (Baroque Sculpture in Bohemia. 17th- and 18th-century Sculpture), Praha 1958, p. 64; L. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 91–95, 99, 117, 195–196, notes 140–149, figs. 39, 40 (before 1650); I. Muchka, Baroko. Katedrála v 17. století (see note 6), p. 176 (first half of the 17th century); L. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 117, 135–136, considered St Michael in the Cathedral to be work of Ernst Johann Heidelberger. Unlike that, Oldřich J. Blažíček, Barokní sochařství 17. století v Čechách (17th-century Baroque Sculpture in Bohemia), in: Dějiny českého výtvarného umění. Od počátků renesance do závěru baroka, II/1, Praha 1989, pp. 296, 312, note 19, attributed this Cathedral carving to “the main artist of the Franciscan altar” (in Our Lady of the Snows Church), dating it after 1660. Its anonymous master, who in his view also made the saint sculptures and the figure of the Madonna in the parish church in Jankov, seemed to him “an initiator and foremost figure of Baroque carving in Prague.” The monumental bronze group by Hubert Gerhard still adorns the front of the originally Jesuit church of St Michael in Munich. Cf. most recently Reinhold Baumstark (ed.), Rom in Bayern. Kunst und Spiritualität der ersten Jesuiten (exh. cat.), , München 1997, col. fig. pp. 114–115, plates II, III. For the iconography of the saint in the 17th century and the surviving south German monuments cf. “Michaelsikonographie”, ibid, pp. 413–429, cat. nos. 111–123; On the bronze group of Archangel Michael on the front of the Augsburg Zeughaus, most recently, Dorothea Diemer, Hans Reichle: Ein Modello für die Augsburger Zeughausgruppe und Werkstattfragen, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, Dritte Folge, Bd. LVII, 2006, pp. 31–56. V. Kotrba, Georg neb Cajetan Bendl či Caspar Bechteler (see note 6), pp. 310, 321, note 21: “In 1616 the council of the town of Hradčany granted the right of burgher to the court cabinet maker Caspar Bechteler “from Ober-Sonthofen”. Jaroslava Lencová, Na okraj prací Kašpara Bechtelera pro Pražský hrad (On the Margin of Caspar Bechteler’s Works for Prague Castle), Umění XXII, 1974, pp. 548–553; eadem, Řezané dveře pozdní renesance a raného baroka v Praze (Carved Doors of the Late Renaissance and Early Baroque in Prague), Umění XXVI, 1978, pp. 464–472; I. Muchka, Baroko. Katedrála v 17. století (see note 6), pp. 180–182; M. Šroněk – J. Hausenblasová, Gloria & Miseria (see note 6), p. 138, subtitle under fig. 109: “The pulpit […] comes from the time before the Battle of the White Mountain, probably dating from 1618. During the Calvinist iconoclastic period […] both its figural and
The work in the Cathedral went on to the late 1630s, and apart from Caspar Bechteler mentioned earlier, other local sculptors took part in it: for example, Ernst Heidelberger decorated the lost altar of Corpus Dei¹², and financially supported by Emperor Ferdinand II, a sculptural group of the Calvary by Daniel Altmann of Eydenburg (d. 1625) was made, still situated in the triumphal arch of the so-called Imperial Chapel in the chevet of the Cathedral.¹³ Likewise, in 1618, Altmann built the high altar in the monastic church at Strahov for the energetic Abbot Caspar Questenberk – receiving a royal pay of 1000 imperials for it, “which was then until 1633 decorated by his brother David for the same reward”.¹⁴ Period reports provide fairly good information about other commissions for a number of new altars, provided both for the traditional, and newly established monastic centres. Apart from the Premonstratensian monastery at Strahov, and the Jesuit church at the Clementinum,¹⁵ new retables were commissioned for the Minorites and Cyriacs in the Old Town of Prague,¹⁶ at St Stephen’s, and for the Spanish Benedictines in the Emmaus monastery in the New Town of Prague,¹⁷ for the Hermits of St Augustine at St Thomas’s or the Discalced Carmelites at the Church of Our Lady of the Victory in the Lesser Town.¹⁸ In the mid–17th century, two magnificent “monuments of the triumphing Counter-Reformation effort” were added to those: the monumental portal altars with aedicule additions, which still decorate the churches of Our Lady before Týn and Our Lady of the Snows.¹⁹ The elevated architecture of the former (fig. 4), built before 1649 to commemorate the averted Swedish attack on the Old and New Towns in 1648, was set with the sculptures of the land patron saints – Wenceslas, Vitus, Ludmila, Sigismund, Adalbert, and Procopius, which were to be accompanied by monumental canvases by Karel Škréta, the Assumption of the Virgin and the Holy Trinity in the extension. The carefully conceived programme of the altar logically includes the sculptures of the “supports of the Church”, the apostles SS. Peter and Paul, same as the figure of the main fighter against heresy, Archangel Michael situated in the highest point of the altar structure.²⁰ The interior of the Franciscan church of Our Lady of the Snows (1649–1651) included the large altar built in Prague (fig. 5), at the costs of Johann the Elder of Talmberg. It was provided with more than twenty figural carvings, in which the traditionally oriented carving reached its first peak in this country.²¹ Within its frame, the figure of Ernst Johann Heidelberger (c. 1590– c. 1660) stands out. He came to Prague from the “Mansfeld” region in Upper Saxony, but was closer to Southern Germany in style. Judging by period reports, Heidelberger was very good at stucco-work, collaborating with Italian masters even before 1618, on the decoration of the New (Spanish) Hall at Prague Castle.²² Approved by Emperor Matthias, he took over the post after Giovanni Battista Quadri, who died 1618/19;²³ however, he was officially appointed court artist as late as STUDIES 209
4. ← High altar in the church of Our Lady before Týn, 1642–1649 (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 5. → High altar in the Franciscan church of Our Lady of the Snows, 1649–1651 (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
1628. Apart from that prestigious post, he “inherited” from his predecessor the duty to take part in the adornment of the newly-built Empress’s apartments at Prague Castle. The preserved building accounts reveal that in 1642 the decoration of the corridors and chambers with relief mascarons and large lion heads (Maskaragesichter und Löwenköpf) was shared by the sculptors Hans Georg Bendl, Ernst Heydelberger, Abraham Melber, and Elias Gutbier.²⁴ The work of a kind of art supervisor was carried out by the imperial “schatzmeister” and owner of a renowned cutter’s workshop, Dionysius Miseroni, whose face is known from a beautiful portrait by Škréta. Whereas Bendl was paid 89 florins for a fortnight’s work,²⁵ Heidelberger, Melber and Gutbier worked all through the autumn on the large lion heads, for each of which they received 20 florins.²⁶ The name of the last-named Lesser Town burgher Elias Gutbier is linked to the origin of Early Baroque altars at St Thomas’s in the Lesser Town (1644), or Holy Rood the Greater Church in the Old Town (1647);²⁷ whereas Abraham Melber supplied (1638) four altars for the Premonstratensian seminary (the Norbertinum) in the Old Town.²⁸ An authentic proof of Heildeberger’s brilliant, albeit rather stiff carving, at first still reflecting Mannerism, can be seen in the altar of the chapel of Wallenstein Palace (fig. 6), mentioned earlier, which he also supplied with a richly carved frame and figures of angels and the land 210 SCULPTURE AT THE TIME OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
pictorial decoration was damaged, but the structure remained. During the renovation of the Cathedral […] small figures of angels carrying the arma Christi were supplied again, as were the painted panels with the figures of the Evangelists, Fathers of the Church and Christ, executed by the painters Matthias Mayer and Ulrich Musch before 1631.” 11 The relief panels were probably executed still in the 1620s, for in 1630 Bechteler asked to be paid for the pews and “panels.” Cf. V. Kotrba, Georg neb Cajetan Bendl či Caspar Bechteler (see note 6), pp. 310, 321, note 21, pp. 318–320, 322–323, notes 53–70; L. Konečný, Esilio publico (see note 6), p. 451; I. Kořán, Umění baroka. Sochařství (see note 6), pp. 435–437; I. Muchka, Baroko. Katedrála v 17. století (see note 6), pp. 176–179, 184, notes 4, 5; Emanuel Poche, Barokní umělecké řemeslo 17. století v Čechách (Baroque Crafts in 17th-century Bohemia), in: Dějiny českého výtvarného umění. Od počátků renesance do závěru baroka, II/1, Praha 1989, pp. 374, 388, note 18, also mentioned Bechteler’s works for Strahov, dated 1625, specifically the doors and windows for the library “and perhaps also a receptacle for the relics of St Norbert.” 12 It might be possible that it was the same altar, for whose execution for Corpus Christi holiday on June 12, 1636 Caspar Bechteler received 15 florins. Cf. J. Lencová, Na okraj prací Kašpara Bechtelera (see note 10), pp. 550, 552, note 26. 13 The Calvary group was installed on June 15, 1621, and the monarch likewise commissioned the outside door of the Cathedral.
14
15
16
17
Cf. I. Kořán, Umění baroka. Sochařství (see note 6), pp. 436–437; M. Šroněk – J. Hausenblasová, Gloria & Miseria (see note 6), p. 143. I. Kořán, Umění baroka. Sochařství (see note 6), p. 438: “Daniel had just the time to carve the altar of St Catherine and a magnificent pontifical chair (for Strahov), but then he was probably called to work for the Jesuits in the Old Town […]”. M. Šroněk, Pražské oltáře (see note 5), p. 441, mentioned that in 1629 Ferdinand II had paid Abbot Caspar of Questenberk sixty thousand Meissen groschen for the construction of altars in St Roch’s at Strahov. A new altar for St Saviour’s Church was provided in 1640, be it that the previous one had been damaged, or for the 100th anniversary of the Jesuit order. Cf. Jan Schmidl, Historia Societatis Jesu provinciae Bohemiae, IV, Pragae 1759, p. 448; in: M. Šroněk, Pražské oltáře (see note 5), pp. 440, 445, note 8; František Ekert, Posvátná místa král. hl. města Prahy (Sacred Places of the Royal City of Prague), I, Praha 1883, p. 377, mentioned that apart from the existing (late Baroque) sculptures of St Wenceslas and St Adalbert, flanking the chancel, and the figures of St Barhtolomew and St Clement, standing in front of them, “similar sculptures of St Vitus, St Sigismund, St Procopius and St Ludmila used to stand here in Jesuit times”. However, we have no precise idea of the appearance of the original altar architecture from the 17th century. Ivo Kořán, Cyriacký klášter a chrám sv. Kříže Většího v baroku (The Cyriac monastery and the Church of the Holy Cross in the Baroque), Umění XVI, 1968, pp. 173–195, particularly pp. 174–176. In the course of four years three altars came into being in the Emmaus monastery. We have a more definite idea of the high altar dated 1640 that remained in the place until 1726. The chronicle of the monastery describes it as a three-tier architectural piece with abundant sculptural decoration. The first level used to hold (probably in a niche) the sculpture of the Madonna of Montserrat, flanked by the carved figures of St Benedict and St Scholastica, while the arch of the niche was adorned with an imperial eagle with the insignia. The second part contained the canvas Christ on His Way to Emmaus, accompanied by two lateral sculptures. The third tier was taken up by three figures: the central one represented St Jerome. The top of the altar was dominated by the carved Resurrection between two angels. The author of the entry mentions that the altar was similar to that in the church of Our Lady of the Snows (“erat ad modum majoris altaris B. Mariae ad Nives Neo Pragae”). Cf. L. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 189–190, note 98 (reprinted after Ivo Kořán, České řezbářství 1620–1650 a jeho společenské a historické předpoklady (Bohemian Carving 1620–1650 and its Social and Historical Preconditions), diploma thesis, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Praha 1957, note 126); also M. Šroněk, Pražské oltáře (see note 5), pp. 442–443; Consecration of early Baroque altars is also mentioned in the liber memorabilium of St Stephen’s parsonage: the predecessor of the existing (High Baroque) altar of St John the Baptist, still displaying the original canvas by Karel Škréta, was consecrated on October 12, 1649, whereas the high altar was probably built in 1669. Cf. Joannes Florianus Hammerschmid, Prodromus Gloriae Pragenae. Continens Urbium Pragenarum Fundationes […], Pragae 1723, p. 245; J. Mathon, Pražské oltáře (see note 5), pp. 565, 568, fig. p. 567; I. Šperling, Die Prager Altararchitektur (see note 5), p. 282; I. Kořán, Umění baroka. Sochařství (see note 6), p. 440; Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (exh. cat.), Praha 1974, pp. 94–96, cat. no. 14; Štěpán
Vácha in: Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Doba a dílo (exh. cat.), Praha 2010, p. 134, cat. no. III. 20. 18 However, most of those Early Baroque altars had in the course of the 18th century been replaced by High or Late Baroque structures: that was the case, for example, in the churches of Our Lady of the Victory, St Saviour and St Thomas in the Lesser Town. Cf. most recently, I. Kořán, Umění baroka. Sochařství (see note 6), pp. 438–440; M. Šroněk, Pražské oltáře (see note 5), pp. 439–445; M. Šroněk – J. Hausenblasová, Gloria & Miseria (see note 6), pp. 188–190, 193–194. 19 Recently, Josef Petráň pointed out – in “Kultura a společnost v Čechách doby baroka” (Culture and Society in Baroque Bohemia), in: Vít Vlnas (ed.), Sláva barokní Čechie. Stati o umění, kultuře a společnosti 17. a 18. století (exh. cat.), p. 74 – that “from the start of the Counter-Reformation effort after the Battle of the White Mountain, sacral buildings and their furnishings were mainly commissioned by monasteries, rather than aristocracy and cities and towns, but a great part of the means invested came from donorship, which from the 1620s became a visible demonstration of Catholic confession both with the aristocrats, and burghers”. 20 After a fire of the Tyne church in 1679, the last mentioned carving of St Michael had to be replaced by a new one, and a seriously
patron saint Wenceslas with refined superficial finish – ivory-white polychromy and gilded details.²⁹ The stylistic anachronism of the decoration of this altar can best be explained by the demand of the patron, who found inspiration in exclusive sculptural monuments of Prague Castle, carried out in the spirit of the waning late Mannerism.³⁰ According to another period report, from 1630, Heidelberger and an anonymous painter worked for the same extraordinary patron in case of the altars for the church and castle in Jičín. The altars for the castle chapel were finished in April 1631 and in the summer of the following year, they were decorated with sculptures (heraussen geführte Bilder). For all the work executed in Jičín, the sculptor was paid 925 florins by the prince’s exchequer.³¹ The post of the court artist also involved the duty to share in the mourning decoration of the STUDIES 211
6. ← Ernst Johann Heidelberger – Baccio del Bianco, Altar of St Wenceslas, c. 1630, Prague, Lesser Town, chapel of Wallenstein Palace (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 7. → Castrum doloris of King Ferdinand IV of Habsburg, 1654, Museum of the Capital City of Prague (photo: Museum of the Capital City of Prague)
212 SCULPTURE AT THE TIME OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
21
22
23
24
25
26 27 28 29
30 31
damaged figure of St Ludmila had to be repaired, as well. The obviously gravely damaged vaulting of the chancel was newly vaulted by 1682. My thanks go to P. Vladimír Kelnar for providing me with the information from the Tyne parish annals. However, as early as 1638 sources mention unpaid bills for the altar, commissioned for the Tyne church by a famous warrior Martin Huerta, one of the donors of lateral altars of the Assumption and St James in the Emmaus. We do not know, though, if that earliest retable (?) was also completed, or it was, in its unfinished form, used for the construction of the altar dated 1649. Cf. I. Kořán, Umění baroka. Sochařství (see note 6), pp. 441–444; M. Šroněk, Pražské oltáře (see note 5), p. 442; O. J. Blažíček, Barokní sochařství 17. století v Čechách (see note 7), p. 296; M. Šroněk, Sochařství a malířství v Praze (see note 6), p. 359; L. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 52–53, figs. 7–9, and again I. Kořán, Umění Baroka. Sochařství (see note 6), pp. 441–442 – all of them considered Abraham Melber or Stanislaus Goldschenk possible co-authors of the sculptural features of the altar, but this was refuted by O. J. Blažíček, Barokní sochařství (see note 7), p. 312, note 16: “[…] proposed a division of this decoration among two groups, one of which is linked to Heidelberger, the other hypothetically to Abraham Melber, who seems to have trained in Prague, though, and could thus hardly have been capable of a completely new concept”. The precise time of the origin and name of the generous donor are recorded in three Latin entries in the monastic chronicle, published by L. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 27–28, 182–183, notes 42, 43. The same donor apparently had the seven saint figures and an unusual form of the Madonna of the Rose Garlands made for the parish church of St John the Baptist in Jankov in Sedlčany region. Cf. O. J. Blažíček, Barokní sochařství (see note 7), pp. 62–64, figs. 12, 13, 15; L. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 36–37, 186, notes 73–75, pp. 109–116, 197, notes 162–175; I. Kořán, Umění baroka. Sochařství (see note 6), pp. 442–444; The monumental figures of St John the Baptist, SS Peter and Paul, situated in the lower tier of the Franciscan high altar, were pointed out by specialist scholars as the first oustanding Baroque figures in Prague. Cf. most recently, O. J. Blažíček, Barokní sochařství (see note 7), pp. 296, 312, notes 16, 17; Růžena Baťková (ed.), Umělecké památky Prahy (Art Monuments of Prague). Nové Město, Vyšehrad, Vinohrady (Praha 1), Praha 1998, p. 148. J. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 135–159; I. Kořán, Umění baroka. Sochařství (see note 6), pp. 439–440; O. J. Blažíček, Barokní sochařství 17. století v Čechách (see note 7), pp. 295, 312, note 11; most recently, Tomáš Hladík, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (ed.), Karel Škréta (see note 17), pp. 538, 542–545, cat. nos. XIV.1–XIV.5. Oldřich J. Blažíček – Václav Husa, Materiálie k dějinám barokního výtvarnictví v Čechách I (Material for the History of Baroque Art in Bohemia), Ročenka Kruhu pro pěstování dějin umění za rok 1935, Praha 1936, pp. 60–62. The court cabinet maker Vít Göbel made wooden plinths for the sculptures. Cf. O. J. Blažíček – V. Husa, Materiálie k dějinám barokního výtvarnictví (see note 23), pp. 60–65; Jan Morávek, Giuseppe Mattei a “Nové stavení” Pražského hradu 1638–44 (Giuseppe Mattei and the “New Construction” at Prague Castle 1638–44), Umění V, 1957, pp. 346–347; V. Kotrba, Georg neb Cajetan či Caspar Bechteler (see note 6), pp. 317, 322, note 51; J. Lencová, Na okraj prací Kašpara Bechtelera (see note 10), pp. 550–551; L. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 160–169, asked a question whether Heidelberger’s assistants might not have included (apart from his collaboration with Johann Georg Bendl on the Marian column in the Old Town Square, which has not been confirmed in the sources), in the case of the sculptural decoration of the high altar in Our Lady of the Snows church, Abraham Melber or Stanislaus Goldschneck, possibly both of them. NÚA Praha, SM, sign. SM–S–21/4, file 2093/III. Mentioned by V. Kotrba, Georg neb Cajetan či Caspar Bechteler (see note 6), pp. 317, 322, note 51. J. Morávek, Giuseppe Mattei (see note 24), p. 346; L. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 151–152, 203, note 234. V. Kotrba, Georg neb Cajetan či Caspar Bechteler (see note 6), pp. 317–318. I. Kořán, Umění baroka. Sochařství (see note 6), p. 439. L. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 82–87, 194–195, notes 131–135; most recently, Eliška Fučíková, in: E. Fučíková – L. Čepička (edd.), Valdštejn (see note 2), p. 438, cat. no. 3.8, fig. p. 439. Fučíková, in: E. Fučíková – L. Čepička (edd.), Valdštejn (see note 2), p. 438, cat. no. 3. 9. Jan Morávek – Zdeněk Wirth, Valdštejnův Jičín (Wallenstein’s Jičín), Prague 1934, pp. 454, 460, note 40. Also p. 464: “[…] after Wallenstein’s death […] the group of creditors included, besides Giov.
Cathedral in case of a Habsburg death. In early spring of 1637 Heidelberger, collaborating with other Prague artists, thus created a mourning memorial (Castrum doloris) for Emperor Ferdinand II: while Caspar Bechteler made the wooden structure of the monument and put it together,³² Karl Kreger turned the columns on his lathe, whereas Dionisius Miseroni covered the structure with canvas and cloth, and finally, the Lesser Town court painter Matthias Mayer decorated all the monument, at which on April 8 exequies were served.³³ A period engraving shows us the appearance of another castrum doloris, built in St Vitus choir after the sudden death of the young King Ferdinand IV (fig. 7). That monumental commemorative structure was both designed and supervised by Karel Škréta in the brief time between July and September 1654, and it was set with the sculptures of the cardinal Virtues, angels, and the seated skeleton, which as the “Mors imperator” topped the whole structure.³⁴ Heidelberger’s workshop also produced some saint figures for Our Lady of the Snows church,³⁵ and likewise, one of the most remarkable achievements of Early Baroque in Bohemia – the carving of St Francis of Paola (fig. 8), apparently STUDIES 213
designed for the high altar of the Minims in the Old Town of Prague.³⁶ Ivo Kořán was thus right in saying that “Heildeberger must have been an exceptional personality, if he was able to overcome the limitations of Mannerist carving and approach the expression of the Baroque”.³⁷ The summary of Early Baroque works in Bohemia would not be complete without at least a brief mention of the significance of Italian masters who in the 17th century practically dominated the field of stucco-work. The massive ornamental and figural décor of the Italians can be found in a number of local sacral and profane monuments.³⁸ Whereas in Wallenstein Palace stuccoing was supervised by Domenico Canevalle da Moneto (recorded c. 1629–1631) and Santin Galli (d. after 1670), ³⁹ Michna Palace in the Lesser Town and Lobkowicz Palace at Prague Castle saw the activity of Santin Galli’s son Domenico (first recorded in 1644, d. 1675).⁴⁰ The most important stuccoer of our Early Baroque, working for over thirty years for both ecclesiastical and aristocratic patrons, was a native of Devoggio near Lugano, Giovanni Bartolomeo Cometa (1620–1687). Cometa’s application to the emperor for a post of the court stuccoer (1680) reveals a surprisingly extensive activity: not only did he work on the fronts of the Clementinum in Prague and St Saviour’s Church, but he also carried out work at St Gall’s in the Old Town, for the Hibernians in the New Town, in the church of the Assumption in Stará Boleslav, same as in Svatá Hora near Příbram, or at the Loreto church in Prague. The gardens of Prague Castle display Cometa’s decoration of the niche with a fountain and sculpture of Hercules by Johann Georg Bendl.⁴¹ 214 SCULPTURE AT THE TIME OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
32
33
34
35
Pieroni and the brothers Antonio and Pietro Spezza, the sculptor E. Heidelberger (underpayment 300 florins).” Cf. also L. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 149, 202, note 226; most recently, Tomáš Hladík, in: E. Fučíková – L. Čepička (edd.), Valdštejn (see note 2), p. 439, cat. no. 3.11; idem, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 17), p. 543, cat. nos. XIV.2, XIV.3. According to an entry in payment records, Bechteler was paid 80 florins for the job. Cf. J. Lencová, Na okraj prací Kašpara Bechtelera (see note 10), pp. 550, 552, note 28. Antonín Novotný, Jak život Prahou šel (The Course of Life in Praha), Prague 1946, p. 74; L. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 150, 202, note 229. Castrum doloris of King Ferdinand IV, copper engraving, paper, 570 × 736 mm, signed: Frater Henricus sculpsit, Museum of the Capital City of Prague, inv. no. 24430; It was probably Škréta himself who invited Heidelberger to collaborate, and out of his own pay of 428 florins, the painter also paid for the carpenter’s work, the timber and its transport. Cf. A. Novotný, Jak život Prahou šel (see note 33), p. 74; L. Sršeň, Sochařská výzdoba (see note 5), pp. 137, 200, notes 200, 201, fig. 93 (all engraving), 94 (allegory of Hope), 95 (allegory of Love); Jitka Helfertová, Castra doloris doby barokní v Čechách (Castra doloris of the Baroque Era in Bohemia), Umění XXII, 1974, pp. 294–295, 297, 306, notes 21–23, fig. 3, p. 294. Apart from the figural decoration of the high altar, in which Heidelberger apparently shared with his sculptures of angels above the titular painting and the figure of St Wenceslas in its upper part, his workshop supplied free-standing saint figures (1625–1650) now on the nookshafts in the nave. These recently restored carvings repre-
8. ← ← ← Ernst Johann Heidelberger, St Francis of Paola, perhaps 1625, Prague, Church of Our Lady before Týn in the Old Town of Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 9. ← ← Holy Bishop (St Adalbert?), c. 1650, Hussite Museum in Tábor, collection of Blatské Museum in Veselí nad Lužnicí (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 10. ← Johann Georg Bendl, Archangel Raphael, after 1650 or after 1673?, Museum of the Capital City of Prague (reproduced after: Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas [edd.], Karel Škréta [1610–1674]. Doba a dílo [exh. cat.], Praha 2010, p. 550) 11. → Cristoforo Stati, St Mary Magdalene, 1609–1612, Rome, Sant’Andrea della Valle (photo: the author’s archive)
36
37
38
39
40
sent SS Barbara, Adalbert, Vitus, John the Baptist, Christ the Saviour, the Dolorosa, St Bernardino of Siena, St Francis Seraphim, St Didacus and St Antony of Padua. Some time ago, the carvings of St Adalbert and St John the Baptist were attributed to the workshop of Johann Georg Bendl (1655–65), while the sculptures of SS Francis and Antony of Padua were thought to have been executed by the successor of the master, active in the mid–17th century. Cf. R. Baťková (ed.), Umělecké památky Prahy. Nové Město (see note 21), p. 149. Cf. F. Ekert, Posvátná místa (see note 15), p. 374; I. Kořán, Umění baroka. Sochařství (see note 6), p. 440; most recently, Eliška Fučíková, in: E. Fučíková – L. Čepička (edd.), Valdštejn (see note 2), p. 438, cat. no. 3.9 (Ernst Heidelberger, probably 1627); Tomáš Hladík, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 17), p. 542, cat. no. XIV.1, fig. I. Kořán, Umění baroka. Sochařství (see note 6), p. 444; In Michal Šroněk’s view, in: M. Šroněk – J. Hausenblasová, Gloria & Miseria (see note 6), p. 200, Heidelberger represented an important link of local sculpture on the way from the Late Mannerism to the Early Baroque. Pavel Preiss, Italští umělci v Praze. Renesance, Manýrismus, Baroko (Italian Artists in Prague. Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque), Praha 1986, pp. 250–262. Ibid., p. 252; most recently, Ivan Muchka – Květa Křížová, Valdštejnský palác (Wallenstein Palace), Praha 1996, pp. 38, 40, 70; Jiří Kropáček, in: M. Horyna – Z. Hojda – P. Zahradník et al. (edd.), Valdštejnský palác (see note 2), pp. 208–209, 241, note 18. P. Preiss, Italští umělci v Praze (see note 38), pp. 255–256; Věra Naňková – Jaroslava Lencová, Barokní přestavba
Johann Georg Bendl (c. 1620–1680) was in fact the greatest figure of Early Baroque sculpture in Bohemia. As early as 1723 the topographer of Baroque Prague Florian Hammerschmid called him “praestans statuarius” and as late as the end of the 18th century, Johann Quirin Jahn mentioned Bendl as a renowned and skilful sculptor. The appreciation of the past centuries remained valid even for modern literature, in which Bendl represents a founding figure of local Baroque sculpture, comparable to the best achievements of 17th-century Central European sculptors, and fulfilling a similar role as Karel Škréta in the field of Baroque painting.⁴² If we compare the carvings of St Francis of Assisi from the National Gallery in Prague, and St Adalbert (?) from the Blatské Museum in Veselí nad Lužnicí (fig. 9), both presented at the recent Prague exhibition of Karel Škréta,⁴³ with Bendl’s saint figures, all the merits of his carving stand out, representing the main stream of that artist’s oeuvre (fig. 10). The main features included careful superficial modelling, conspicuous plasticity of the volumes, extraordinary richness of forms, and a rare logic of the composition of volumes.⁴⁴ Same as Škréta, Bendl also had personal experience of Italian art. But whereas Škréta noticed all the topical tendencies within the frame of a wide range of Italian painting, Bendl returned from the early works of François Duquesnoy to the Roman marble sculpture of the last Mannerist and first Baroque generations of sculptors, represented by the names of Ambrogio Buonvicino, Cristoforo Stati (fig. 11), Ippolito Buzzio, Nicolas Cordier and Stefano Maderno.⁴⁵ Even his stucco figures of angels below the cupola of St Saviour at the Clementinum (1648–1649), Bendl’s STUDIES 215
12. ← Johann Georg Bendl, St James the Greater, 1673–1675, Prague, Church of the Holy Saviour in the Old Town (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 13. ↑ François Duquesnoy, St Andrew, 1635–1641, Rome, St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican (reproduced after: Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas [edd.], Karel Škréta [1610–1674]. Doba a dílo [exh. cat.], Praha 2010, p. 552)
early work, are reminiscent of the stucco decoration in the Cappella Paolina (1611) of the Roman basilica S. Maria Maggiore, and the same equally applies to the stone sculpture of St Jerome on the front of the same Jesuit church, inspired by the figure of that saint from the Roman church S. Bernardo alle Terme by Camillo Mariani (1611).⁴⁶ Likewise, the brilliant series of the twelve apostles, set on the confessionals of the Jesuit St Saviour’s church between 1673 and 1675, had found a direct inspiration in Roman sculpture, whose profound knowledge was apparently also provided by Bendl’s trip to Loreto, which is mentioned in his testament dated 1657.⁴⁷ Years ago Oldřich Blažíček noticed that the carving of St James the Greater (fig. 12) at the Clementinum is based on a composition of the marble sculpture of the same saint (c.1615) by Ippolito Buzzio in S. Giacomo degli Incurabili, while the Prague sculpture of St Andrew is an interesting variation on the renowned marble sculpture by Duquesnoy from the Vatican basilica (fig. 13).⁴⁸ The knowledge of the wide range of Roman sculpture around 1600 was also the basis of the rotary movement used in the composition of most of Bendl’s figures, their types and folds of draperies. Moreover, Bendl was able to transfer the creative achievements of the mentioned generation to local conditions so convincingly that he attracted some masters of the subsequent generations, particularly Matthäus Wenzel Jäckel, and the young Ferdinand Maximilian Brokof (1688–1731). The other source of Bendl’s sculpture is in fact genetically older than the mentioned Italian inspiration. It was the traditional craft of South-German carvers’ workshops, which the young apprentice of sculptural art probably got to know thanks to his father, Georg 216 SCULPTURE AT THE TIME OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
Lobkovického paláce (The Baroque Reconstruction of Lobkowicz Palace), Umění XLIII, 1995, p. 428. 41 Oldřich J. Blažíček – Václav Husa, Materiálie k dějinám barokního výtvarnictví v Čechách, II (Material for the History of Baroque Art in Bohemia), Ročenka Kruhu pro pěstování dějin umění za rok 1936, Praha 1937, pp. 5–9; Oldřich J. Blažíček, Italské podněty a ohlasy v barokovém sochařství Čech (Italian Impulses and Echoes in the Baroque Sculpture of Bohemia), Umění XXVIII, 1980, pp. 493–503, here p. 495; P. Preiss, Italští umělci v Praze (see note 38), pp. 256–257, 260; O. J. Blažíček, Barokní sochařství (see note 7), pp. 298–299; Věra Naňková, Cometta /Cometa/ Giovanni Bartolomeo, in: Sauer Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon. Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Bd. 20, München – Leipzig, 1998, pp. 371–372, p. 443 (“Colombo Giovanni Battista”); Jiří Kropáček, in: M. Horyna – Z. Hojda – P. Zahradník et al. (edd.), Valdštejnský palác (see note 2), pp. 208–209. 42 Oldřich. J. Blažíček, Jan Jiří Bendl, pražský sochař časného baroka (Johann Georg Bendl, a Prague Sculptor of the Early Baroque), Památky archeologické, XL, 1937, pp. 88–90; Ivo Kořán, Reprezentativní obraz baroka v Čechách (A Representative Picture of the Baroque in Bohemia) (review), Umění XXIX, 1981, p. 466; Oldřich J. Blažíček, Jan Jiří Bendl. Výběr řezeb pražského sochaře raného baroku (Johann Georg Bendl. Selected Carvings of a Prague Sculptor of the Early Baroque) (exh. cat.), Praha 1982, p. 5; idem, Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let od smrti zakladatele české barokové plastiky (Johann Georg Bendl. Three Hundred Years’ Anniversary of the Death of the Founder of Bohemian Baroque Sculpture), Umění XXX, 1982, pp. 97, 110; idem, Barokní sochařství (see note 7), p. 299. 43 T. Hladík, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see
14., 15. → Johann Georg Bendl, Head of the Immaculata and the Group of the Angel Fighting the Devil (modern-age copies after partially preserved sandstone sculptures from the Marian column in the Old Town Square in Prague), originals dating from 1650 (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 16. → → Melchior Küssel after Karel Škréta, The Old Town Marian Column as a Geographical and Spiritual Centre of Europe (University thesis by Johann Friedrich of Waldstein, defended at Charles–Ferdinand University in Prague), 1661, National Library of the Czech Republic (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán)
44 45 46
47
note 17), p. 544, cat. no. XIV.4, fig., p. 546, cat. no. XIV.6, fig; The carving St Adalbert (?) from the museum in Veselí nad Lužnicí in fact comes from the church of St Mark in Soběslav, which has recently been researched by Michaela Zronková, Paměť o městě. Soběslav v měšťanských pamětech 1632–1752 (Memory of a Town. Soběslav in Burghers’ Memoirs 1632–1752), diploma thesis, SouthBohemian University in České Budějovice 2007, p. 143 (entry of March 19, 1650): “The carver, Mr. Volfkang Eckt, artist and burgher of the town of Jindřichův Hradec, for making the high altar and erecting it in the church, was paid 150 florins; for two smaller altars, executed in the town of Čáslav, paid 112 florins; for the pulpit in the church, 40 florins paid in cash. The overall sum for the carvers – 302 florins.” Jaromír Neumann, Český barok (Baroque in Bohemia), Praha 19742, p. 51. O. J. Blažíček, Italské podněty (see note 41), p. 494; idem, Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let (see note 42), pp. 103–104. Vladimír Novotný, Účast Jana Jiřího Bendla na výzdobě kostela sv. Salvátora v Praze (Johann Georg Bendl’s Share in the Decoration of St Saviour’s Church in Prague), Památky archeologické XL, 1937, p. 44; Oldřich J. Blažíček, K Bendlovu realismu (On Bendl’s Realism), in: Jaroslav Pešina (ed.), Sborník k sedmdesátinám Jana Květa, Praha 1965 (Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Philosophica et Historica 1), pp. 176–182, here pp. 179–180; idem, Italské podněty (see note 41), pp. 494–495; idem, Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let (see note 42), pp. 103–104, 111, no. 4, 114, note 31. “[…] wegen der meines in Wallischlandt zu Unsser Lieben Frawen Loreto gethanen Voti halber vorhabendes Raiss […] “. Archives of the Capital City of Prague, documents IV–12848 (the original document of August 2, 1657) and IV–11407 (a copy, probably from 1688).
Bendel (before 1570–before 1652), who was related to the widely branching sculptors’ families of the Bendels and Zürns, who from the 16th century at the latest lived in the wooded regions around Waldburg and Waldsee south of the upper Danube.⁴⁹ The first authentic work of Bendl, his son, cannot thus be traced down to stylistic precursors in Rome, but to this blessed region of carvers and cabinet makers. According to a chronicle of the Discalced Augustinians, an “important sculptor Johann Georg” carried out the decoration in their monastic church of St Wenceslas at Zderaz, which was admired there by Emperor Ferdinand III in 1647. The gilded architecture of the pulpit was supported by two life-size angels, while carvings of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin, the Evangelists and Fathers of the Church, the apostles SS Peter and Paul and other angels decorated the rostrum and the roof. Jahn was the first to understand the artist in question to have been Johann Georg Bendl, who by that time must have been a mere youth of 16 to 18 years, for the work was completed in August of 1637.⁵⁰ Even though it had come to ruin probably soon after the monastery was abolished in 1785,⁵¹ it resulted in a high renown for its young creator, who was to get excellent commissions in the future, in which he repeatedly worked alongside the painter Karel Škréta. The most important sculptural commission in early Baroque Prague, in whose execution Bendl largely shared, was the construction of the earliest Marian column in Bohemia, erected in the Old Town Square at the impulse from Emperor Ferdinand III.⁵² That sculptural monument represented a materialised expression of thanks to the Immaculata for a successful defence of Prague against the Swedes in 1648, consisting of the sculpture of the Immaculata at the top, and four groups of angels defeating the devil at its foot (figs. 14 STUDIES 217
17., 18. ← Johann Georg Bendl, Sts Peter and Paul, 1648, Prague, Church of Our Lady before Týn, St Adalbert’s Altar (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán) 19. → Johann Georg Bendl, Equestrian Statue of St Wenceslas from the Horse Market in Prague, 1680, Prague, Gallery of the Capital City of Prague, exhibited in the Lapidarium of the National Museum in Prague (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
and 15). As we can learn from the artist’s own application for the post of the court artist (1655) and a literal confirmation of the rector of the Old Town Jesuit college at the Clementinum, the whole monument was built in 1650 (fig. 16).⁵³ As all its decoration was executed in the short period from May to September of that year, assistants must have shared in the work: in the 19th century, the names of the sculptors Ernst Heidelberger, Stanislaus Goldschneck (Goldschenk), and Abraham Melber appeared, but they had certainly played auxiliary roles only, for the firm art supervision of this prestigious venture was in the hands of Johann Georg Bendl (Blažíček). This art historian sought for Bendl’s possible inspiration in the votive Marian monument in Munich, provided by Elector Palatine Maximilian I in gratitude for the rescue of the cities of Munich and Landshut from possible ruin by the Swedes in September 1635.⁵⁴ After the Prague monument was pulled down in November 1918, some of its damaged parts were deposited in the Lapidarium of the National Museum in Prague.⁵⁵ Johann Georg Bendl probably met Škréta first after 1645, when he worked on the high altar of St Martin in the Wall’s Church in the Old Town of Prague – “Majus altare cum imagine S. Martini a famose pictore Screta et statuis a statuario Pendl pariter aestimato exornatum est” (“high altar with the painting of St Martin by the renowned artist Škréta, and with sculptures by the sculptor Bendl, equally appreciated”);⁵⁶ unfortunately, out of the whole altar, only the brilliant canvas by Škréta has survived.⁵⁷ Likewise, Bendl supplied his carvings of the apostles Peter and Paul (figs. 17 and 18) to Škréta’s titular canvas on the altar of St Adalbert in the Tyne Church,⁵⁸ where he also later executed the sculptural decoration of the altars of St Wenceslas (1664) and of the Annunciation (c. 1665), also complementing the central paintings by Karel Škréta and Anton Stevens respectively.⁵⁹ A similar situation occurred during the renovation of the furnishings in the churches of Our Lady under the Chain in the Lesser Town, and of St Stephen in the New Town of Prague. In the second half of the 18th century, Johann Quirin Jahn mentioned the collaboration of the two artists in the decoration of St Benedict’s Church at the Barnabite monastery in Hradčany. In his view, 218 SCULPTURE AT THE TIME OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
48
49
50
51
52
In his summary, Jan Herain, Staroměstský rynk (The Old Town Square), Praha 1908, p. 244, published Bendl’s testament. Cf. Also O. J. Blažíček, Jan Jiří Bendl, pražský sochař (see note 42), p. 64 and note 37; idem, Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let (see note 42), pp. 104, 115, note 32. V. Novotný, Účast Jana Jiřího Bendla (see note 46), pp. 49–55, figs. 39–41 (all the group); O. J. Blažíček, Jan Jiří Bendl, pražský sochař (see note 42), pp. 64, 82–84, figs. 58–60 (all the group); idem, K Bendlovu realismu (see note 46), pp. 176–182, here, pp. 179–180, 181, note 17; idem, Jan Jiří Bendl. Výběr řezeb (see note 42), pp. 21–22, cat. no. 20, 21, fig. 16 (St James the Greater); idem, Italské podněty (see note 41), p. 494; idem, Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let (see note 42), pp. 97–98, 114, note 7, p. 113, no. 27; idem, Barokní sochařství (see note 7), pp. 300–301, 312, notes 45, 46; Pavel Vlček (ed.), Umělecké památky Prahy. Staré Město (see note 20), p. 113; Tomáš Hladík, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 17), p. 552, cat. nos. XIV.15 and XIV.16, fig. Karl Feuchtmayr, Der Fall Bendl, Das Münster 9/10, Jhr. 10, 1957, pp. 329–330; V. Kotrba, Georg neb Cajetan Bendl či Caspar Bechteler (see note 6), p. 314. Vilém Lorenc, Příspěvek k místopisu starého Zderazu (A Contribution on the Topography of the Old Zderaz), Pražský sborník historický, 3, 1966–1967, p. 93; O. J. Blažíček, Jan Jiří Bendl. Výběr řezeb (see note 42), p. 8; idem, Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let (see note 42), pp. 100–101, p. 110, cat. no.1. The possible form of the lost pulpit can be conjectured on the basis of the stylistically related and as to the execution brilliant carved work by Bartholomäus Steinle, Bendl’s South-German colleague, one generation his elder. The work in question is a Baroque pulpit in the Marian pilgrimage church in Maria Rain near Nesselwang in Allgäu, whose rostrum is supported by the shoulders of an oustanding carved life-size angel. Cf. Wilhelm Zohner, Bartholomäus Steinle. Um 1580–1628/29. Bildhauer und “Director über den Kirchen zu Weilheim,” Weissenhorn 1993, pp. 341–343, no. 11, fig. 138, col. fig. 887 (detail). O. J. Blažíček, Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let (see note 42), p. 97, p. 114, note 3, p. 111, cat. no. 6; Jiří Fajt – Lubomír Sršeň, Lapidárium
Národního muzea v Praze. Průvodce stálou expozicí českého kamenosochařství 11. až 19. století v pavilónu Lapidária na Výstavišti v Praze (The Lapidarium of the National Museum in Prague. Guide to the collection of Bohemian stone sculpture of the 11th to 19th centuries in the pavilion of the Lapidarium at Trade Fair Area in Prague), Praha 1993, pp. 77–78, cat. nos. 276–288; M. Šroněk, Sochařství a malířství (see note 6), pp. 359–360, 373, note 27; Lubomír Sršeň, Je proveditelná rekonstrukce mariánského sloupu na Staroměstském náměstí v Praze? (Is the Reconstruction of the Marian Column on the Old Town Square Feasible?), Zprávy památkové péče 59, 1999, no. 7, pp. 233–240; most recently, Tomáš Hladík, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 17), p. 549, cat. no. XIV.10, XIV.11, fig. 53 ”[…] ein Memorialseil…der Jungfrauen Mariae, die Statuen oder 5 Bilder, welche […] ich verfertiget.” Cf. V. Novotný, Účast Jana Jiřího Bendla (see note 42), p. 42; O. J. Blažíček, Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let (see note 42), pp. 97, 114, note 3; idem, Barokní sochařství (see note 7), pp. 299–300, 312, notes 38, 39. 54 It was probably thanks to prints that Bendl knew the bronze sculptures “Heldenputten”, the four pairs of Angels Fighting the Devil on the corners of the Munich monument, whose models have recently been attributed by Alfred Schädler to Ferdinand Murmann, possibly the most important pupil of Georg Petel. The construction of the votive column in Munich started on December 14, 1637 and the monument was consecrated on November 7 of the following year. Cf. Alfred Schädler, Eine unbekannte Kleinbronze von Georg Petel, in: Lech-Isar-Land 1994, pp. 182–187, figs. 1–13. 55 The Immaculata, likewise three groups preserved in fragments of figthing angels and the head of the devil from the fourth pair, replaced after they were ruined by the Prussian gunfire in 1757, all sandstone, life-size and monumental, Lapidarium of the National Museum in Prague. Cf. O. J. Blažíček, Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let (see note 42), pp. 97, 114, note 3, p. 111, no. 6; J. Fajt – L. Sršeň, Lapidárium Národního muzea v Praze (see note 51), pp. 77–78, cat. nos. 276–288; After the Prague monument was pulled down, the Marian Column, erected on October 31, 1661 in the pilgrimage grounds of Svatá Hora near Příbram, decorated with a gilded stone replica of the
the altarpiece of St Barbara must have been “one of the most beautiful Škréta works”, similar to his painting of the Family of Christ. Bendl is mentioned as the author of the sculptural works in the altars.⁶⁰ A rather dramatic aspect can be seen in the coexistence of the two masters within a shared Old Town guild of painters, with which Bendl repeatedly and sharply disagreed, for example in the matter of the “lerbrif” (certificate of completed apprenticeship) or unrealised masterly work.⁶¹ That was to be Bendl’s carving share in the decoration of the guild altar of St Luke’s in the Tyne Church, for whose adornment he was to collaborate with Abraham Melber (1600 – after 1657), Ernst Heidelberger, and Karel Škréta, too: “Hans Jirg Pundl, bildhauer, made peace with other bildhauers in the presence of painters, and other members, […] all of them promising Hons Girg to receive him in the guild, but he should carve a frame for St Luke’s painting for the altar of St Luke, and STUDIES 219
20. Johann Georg Bendl, Model of the Equestrian Statue of St Wenceslas for the Horse Market in Prague, 1678, France, private collection (photo: National Gallery in Prague)
two standing angels, which he promised to do in the same year.”⁶² However, not even this compromising proposal, whose final result would be immensely interesting for us, was realised in the agreed deadline.⁶³ The whole course of the quickly escalating conflict, during which Bendl was supported by other master carvers, testifies to the increased confidence of our artist, who was doubtless aware of his privileged position within his field. It was thus only a question of time when the two dominant figures appeared on the opposite sides of the “fight between painters and carvers”, which culminated in 1653 at the latest, when Škréta was confirmed as the first elder of the guild. The mutual animosity of the two art fields had gradually to be judged by the mayor and councillors of the Old Town, the court of appeal, and eventually the emperor himself, to whom Bendl addressed his impressive request for “protection”. As the sculptors continued in their unwillingness to fulfill their pledges,⁶⁴ the elders of the guild prepared a complaint addressed to the mayor and council of the Old Town. Their grievance was in that there had always been troubles with sculptors, who avoided their guild duties (Ernst Heidelberger was specified as a culprit), and their representative Bendl only supported them. Moreover, as the main inciter of “disorder and misunderstandings”, he, “in his own home and elsewhere, in various pubs, as well, with the others against the order plotted.”⁶⁵ In the end, Bendl himself did not achieve the required “freedom of the court”, but “the result of the obstinate fight against the painters that he waged for his fellow carvers, 220 SCULPTURE AT THE TIME OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
56
57 58 59 60
61
gracious figure of Our Lady of Svatá Hora, likewise from Johann Georg Bendl’s workshop, became the oldest preserved monument of this type. Cf. Josef Kopeček, Jan Jiří Bendl na Svaté Hoře (Johann Georg Bendl in Svatá Hora), Podbrdsko XI, 2004, pp. 185–187. J. F. Hammerschmid, Prodromus (see note 17), p. 55; O. J. Blažíček, Jan Jiří Bendl, pražský sochař (see note 42), pp. 66–67; idem, Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let (see note 42), p. 99, p. 114, note 8, p. 111, no. 3. Cf. most recently, Tomáš Hladík – Vít Vlnas, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 17), pp. 219 – 220, cat. no. V.9, fig. Ibid, p. 548, cat. nos. XIV.8, XIV.9, fig. (author of the entry, Tomáš Hladík) Ibid, p. 472, cat. no. XI.8, fig., p. 146, cat. no. III.28, fig. (author of the entries, Štěpán Vácha). Archives of the National Gallery in Prague, file J. Q. Jahn, no. AA 1222/3–8, Jan Jakub Quirin Jahn, Uměleckohistorický popis Prahy, Malé Strany a Hradčan (Art Historical Description of Prague, the Lesser Town and Hradčany), s. d. [between 1767/69–1773], p. 17. My warmest thanks for this piece of information go to Lubomír Slavíček. O. J. Blažíček, Jan Jiří Bendl, pražský sochař (see note 42), pp. 63–64 and note 31; idem, Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let (see note 42), pp. 104–109; Martin Halata, Kniha protokolů pražského malířského cechu z let 1600–1656 (The Book of Proceedings of the Prague Painters’ Guild from 1600–1656), Praha 1996, pp. 150, 152, 153; Pavel Preiss, O malířství českého baroka (Bohemian Baroque Painting), in: V. Vlnas (ed.), Sláva barokní Čechie (see note 19), p. 184; The elders of the guild also represented great troubles to Ernst
62
63
64
65 66
67
68
69
70
71
72
Heidelberger, who was repeatedly criticised for practicing carving trade, even his property was seized in distrainment. Cf. M. Halata, Kniha protokolů, p. 177 (entry of the proceedings of March 11, 1655). M. Halata, Kniha protokolů (see note 61), pp. 154–155 and notes 306, 307 (entry of August 13, 1652). According to the entry of the same day (f. 138v): “Dito. Hans Heidlberger promised to make two infants for the same altar in St Luke’s. Dito. Abraham Melber promised to make two seated angels for St Luke’s.” Idem, p. 155 and notes 308, 309. P. Preiss, O malířství českého baroka (see note 61), p. 184, note 7: “The construction of the guild altar was decided on as early as 1651, but in 1654 not only the carvers (J. G. Bendl, J. E. Heidelberger and A. Melber), but also Škréta himself, artist of the titular altarpiece – all of them were reminded for works still not supplied. After all those delays the altar was consecrated in 1661.” M. Halata, Kniha protokolů (see note 61), p. 177, and note 391, entry of the guild proceedings of March 11, 1655 (fol. 154r): “The said Mr. Hons Girg Pentl, the one that last time was made to tow the line quite severely by the elder and some other carvers, and with the help of the judge, was consequently appointed elder to those carvers. He should observe good order and rules in the first place, but he seems to oversee everything, he will not even attend the meetings and neglects his duties. It has thus been decided that he should be indicted by the councillor and be made to work more dilligently.” P. Preiss, O malířství českého baroka (see note 61), p. 184. O. J. Blažíček, Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let (see note 42), p. 108; P. Preiss, O malířství českého baroka (see note 61), p. 184: “No specific details are however known of their independent guild association, which the sculptors reportedly achieved in 1680.” Archives of the Capital City of Prague, Collection of Manuscripts, Records of Burgers’ Rights 2, New Town of Prague, 1657–1684, sign. 560, f. 119v–120r: Document confirming his wedlock birth and honest livelihood, and his eviction from the Old Town of Prague is dated May 15, 1661, Elias Pistorius and Mates Štefan of the New Town of Prague are mentioned as guarantors; For this piece of information, and the subsequent ones about the carvers’ guild, my warmest thanks go to Radka Tibitanzlová from the Archives of the National Gallery in Prague. Archives of the Capital City of Prague, Collection of Manuscripts, Records of Guarantors and Renewal, New Town of Prague, 1636–1678, sign. 97, f. 330r, 342v, 352r, 361r; This archival find refutes an earlier sceptical judgement pronounced by Pavel Preiss (see note 66). Archives of the Capital City of Prague, Collection of Manuscripts, Liber conventionum I, Old Town of Prague, 1661–1769, sign. 4596, fol. 3 (My thanks for the transcription go to Radka Tibitanzlová); Julius Max Schottky, Prag, wie es war und wie es ist, Bd. I, Prag 1831, p. 396, mentioned a rather different transcription of J. G. Bendl’s contract, from which we learn that the upper part of the fountain bore the emblem of the New Town of Prague and a gable area with an inscription, and the overall costs (including the setting of Bendl’s equestrian statue) were to reach 1150 florins. Cf. also O. J. Blažíček, K Bendlovu realismu (see note 46), p. 176, probably cited after Schottky: “stone sculpture or portrait of St Wenceslas on horseback, lifesize, with the usual banner in his hand.” The contract with the stonecutter for the execution of the fountain burned in the fire of the Old Town Hall in May 1945; it had probably been included in Liber contractum ruber I, SMP, 1675–1684, sign. 4109, fol. 245 (I would also like to thank Radka Tibitanzlová for this detail). A small model of St Wenceslas As a Rider (polychrome limewood, h. 38.5 cm, w. 11.5 cm, l. 29 cm) eventually arrived in a private collection in France. The large equestrian statue (sandstone, h. 238 cm) was transferred to Vyšehrad in 1879 (now replaced with a copy), in 1959 it was taken to the depository of the Museum of the Capital City of Prague, and later on, to the depository of the Gallery of the Capital City of Prague; since 1990 the sculptural group has been installed in the Lapidarium of the National Museum in Prague. The Baroque stone fountain was restored relatively recently and situated (1986) outside the castle in Hořovice. Cf. O. J. Blažíček, K Bendlovu realismu (see note 46), pp. 176, 177, 181, notes 2, 3; idem, Barokní sochařství (see note 7), p. 301, 312, note 49; J. Fajt – L. Sršeň, Lapidárium Národního muzea v Praze (see note 52), p. 81, cat. no. 295, fig. p. 79; most recently, Anna Sochorová, Jezdecký pomník sv. Václava od Jana Jiřího Bendla v Praze (Equestrian Monument of St Wenceslas by Johann Georg Bendl in Prague), bachelor’s diploma thesis, Masaryk University in Brno, 2007. Karel Škréta, Radslav Zlický se koří sv. Václavovi (Prince Radslav of Zlice Surrendering to St Wenceslas), c. 1641, oil, canvas, 137.5 × 276.3 cm, National Gallery in Prague, inv. no. O 18981. Cf., most recently, Sylva Dobalová, in: L. Stolárová – V. Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta (see note 17), p. 170, cat. no. IV.6, fig.
was far-reaching: he achieved free practice and existence for his craft, no longer bound by the guild rules”.⁶⁶ The court of appeal in fact first inclined to the side of the painters, but later supported their opponents and decided that painters had no right to force carvers into their joint organisational representation. Quite recent findings reveal that the carvers did eventually achieve an independent guild organisation. It was not in the Old Town, which Bendl himself left for good in 1661, but in the New Town of Prague, where he was granted citizenship on February 21, 1669.⁶⁷ The records of the renewed council of the New Town show Johann Georg Bendl as the only representative of the carvers’ guild: he was first mentioned in that capacity in 1670, and then in 1671, 1674, and 1678.⁶⁸ In this context it comes as no surprise that the last large sculptural commission of Bendl’s workshop is related to the New Town of Prague. It was to be a monumental Equestrian Statue of St Wenceslas, representing the very first local sculptural equestrian monument in modern times. According to a surviving contract of November 16, 1678, the New Town council commissioned from Bendl “eine steinerne Statua oder Bildnus des heyl. Venceslai … in königlichen Geschmukh auf einem Pferd Lebensgross sitzend und einen Fahn in der Handt haltend” (a stone sculpture or portrait of St Wenceslas on horseback, lifesize, in royal garments and with a banner in his hand).⁶⁹ The stone monument of the princely rider (fig. 19), who the artist provided with the features of Ferdinand III, was to have been lifted on a stone base in the form of a large fountain (auf dem Postament des neüen steinernen Röhrkostens), set in the Horse Market (today’s Wenceslas Square).⁷⁰ For all the executed work, at the beginning of which Bendl made a demonstration model of polychrome wood (fig. 20), he was awarded 200 florins and about 95 kilos of rye flour.⁷¹ In the case of this final work we realise again how inspirational some of the painted compositions by Karel Škréta had been – some of them even several decades old – in the artistic milieu of Prague of the second half of the 17th century. Johann Georg Bendl in fact treated the robust horse of the “duke of Bohemia” in a manner that approaches, down to the details of the harness, an earlier composition of one of the lunettes of St Wenceslas cycle, in which his painter colleague and art competitor represented the Zlice prince Radslav in the moment of his unconditional surrender to Wenceslas – a Prince, army leader and saint.⁷² Translated by Kateřina Hilská
STUDIES 221
Stylistic Profile of Prague Early Baroque Architecture MOJMÍR HORYNA
1 Of the numerous publications of Jarmila Krčálová the most significant studies concerning Mannerist Rudolfine architecture are the following: Il Palladianesimo in Cecoslovacchia e l’influenza del Veneto sull’architettura ceca, Bolletino del Centro internazionale di studi di architektura “A.Palladio” 6–2, 1964, pp. 89–110; eadem, Pietro Ferabosco und sein Schaffen im Königreich Böhmen, Ostbairische Grenzmarken 11, 1969, pp. 183–196; eadem,Byl v našich zemích vůbec manýrismus, Výtvarné umění 19, 1969, pp. 68–79; eadem,Italští mistři Malé Strany na počátku 17. století, Umění XVIII, 1970, pp. 545–581; eadem, Das Oval in der Architektur des böhmischen Manierismus, Umění XXI, 1973, pp. 303–331; eadem,Centrální stavby české renesance, Praha 1974; idem,Poznámky k rudolfínské architektuře, Umění XXIII, 1975, pp. 499–526; eadem,Die rudolfinische Architektur, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 1, 1982, pp. 271–302; eadem,Die Garten Rudolf II., Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 1, 1982, pp. 149–160; eadem,La Toscana e l’architettura die Rodolfo II: iovanni Gargiolli a Praga, in: Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell’Europa del ‚500.Atti del Convegno Internazionala di Studi III., Firenze 1983, pp. 1029–1051; idem, Architektura doby Rudolfa II., in: Dějiny českého výtvarného umění II, 1, Praha 1989, pp. 160–181; eadem,Of the work of Pavel Vlček let us mention at least: Pražská architektura 1550–1650, in: Eliška Fučíková (ed.), Rudolf II. a Praha, Praha – London – Milano 1997, pp. 345–352; idem,Praha 1610–1700. Kapitoly o architektuře raného baroka, Praha 1998, for Rudolfine architecture see in particular pp. 14–39. 2 Lars Olof Larsson, Zur Einführung: Die Kunst am Hofe Rudolfs II. – eine rudolfinische Kunst? in: Prag um 1600. Kunst und Kultur am Hofe Rudolfs II., Kulturstiftung Ruhr Essen, Luca Verlag Freren 1988, p. 42. 3 Alois Kroess P. J., Geschichte der böhmischen Provinz der Gesellschaft Jesu, in: Geschichte der ersten Kollegien in Böhmen, Mähren und Blaty, Wien 1910, p. 565; Klaus Merten, St Salvator in Clementinum – ehemals böhmischen Jesuitenkirche – und Wälsche Kapelle in Altstadt in Prag, Jahrbuch des Collegiunm Karolinum 8, München – Lerche 1967 p. 150; J. Krčálová, Centrální stavby (see note 1), pp. 69–77; J. Krčálová, Das Oval in der Architektur (see note 1), pp. 330–333; Pavel Preiss, Italští umělci v Praze, Praha 1986, pp. 88–91; J. Krčálová, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), pp. 169–171; Petra Oulíková, Klementinum, Praha 2006, pp. 65–66; Mojmír Horyna, Die römischen Inspirationen der Barockarchitektur in Prag im 17. Jahrhundert, in: Barbora Balážová (ed.), Generationen – Interpretationen – Konfrontationen, Bratislava 2007, pp. 141–142; Ivan P. Muchka, Hlava IV. 1526–1620, Sakrální architektura, in: Petr Kratochvíl (ed.), Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české – Architektura, Praha 2009, pp. 380–385. 4 P. Oulíková, Klementinum (see note 3), p. 65. 5 Some literature mistakenly places the construction in the period following 1594 (e.g. I. P. Muchka, Sakrální architektura, see note 3, p. 380), but the sources are quite unequivocal (A. Kroess
At the time of Škréta’s birth and early childhood, which means at the very end of the Rudolfine era, Prague architecture displayed an amazing variety of form. The main contribution to knowledge of this work came from the work of Jarmila Krčálová and more lately from some contributions by Pavel Vlček.¹ In this field of art, too, the truth can be seen of Larsson’s characterisation of the Rudolfine epoch as a period of stylistic promiscuity and vacillation between late Mannerism and the beginnings of Baroque. “In der stilistischen Vielfalt der rudolfinischen Kunst kommen die Hauptrichtungen der europäischen Kunst um 1600 […] Es wäre allerdings verkehrt der Grund dafür in der Herkunft der Künstler zu suchen. Der Stilpluralismus, oder besser gesagt Stildualismus, entspricht viel mehr eine damals allgemein verbreiteten Auffassung, daß die verschiedene Themen verschiedene Stile verlangten.”² In architecture the origin and place of education of the creators played a far more fundamental role and the relationship between the building task and the style character of the realisation was, on the contrary, far looser. In the last decade of the 16th century the first significant and stylistically contemporary influence from Rome made its appearance, surprisingly not in connection with court circles. Its result is the noteworthy building of the Chapel of the Assumption of Virgin Mary, constructed behind the presbytery of the Jesuit Church of St Salvator in the Old Town of Prague.³ The Marian congregation of Italian artists and artisans working in Prague naturally inclined towards the Jesuit Order. The Prague Jesuits began preaching f or them in Italian in 1560 and only nine years later the first Marian Chapel of the Italian company came into being. “Homage to the Virgin Mary was an exclusively Catholic form of worship. By cultivating this, the Italians of Prague wished to emphasise their orthodoxy in a mainly Protestant environment.”⁴ The first chapel of this congregation was no longer sufficient already in 1589 and it was therefore pulled down and immediately replaced by a new building the following year, the rough construction of which was completed in a single building season.⁵ The fact that the foundation stone – laid in the building during construction according to the usual custom of the period – was laid by the Papal Nuncio Alfonsus Visconti on 23 July 1590 was certainly an openly religious manifestation. The completed shell of the chapel was soon admired and sources state that “it was so charming that it would be difficult to find its equal even in Italy”.⁶ Alongside the religious manifestation it was thus also the representation of Italian architecture, the exclusivity and superiority of which was openly advocated by the Italian artists. The decoration and furnishing of the chapel lasted many more years, seeing that the altar was acquired in 1594⁷, the vaulting was decorated with stucco and frescoes in 1597 and the chapel was finally consecrated, again by the Papal Nuncio – this time Filipo Spinelli – on 9 August 1600.⁸ In 1607 the arches of the ambit were further decorated with frescoes and stucco.⁹ The exceptional architecture of the Italian Chapel was rightly declared in literature when it underlined in particular the fact that this was the first structure built on an oval STUDIES 223
ground-plan to the north of the Alps.¹⁰ The derivation of this ground-plan design from the constructions of an oval in the treatises of Sebastino Serlio is quite understandable.¹¹ “The Italian Chapel is, then, one of the few church buildings with foundations in the form so highly valued by the Mannerists; and it is even one of the earliest constructions realised. […] In addition the Italian Chapel is the only elliptical structure of the 16th century, as far as we know, and furthermore it has an ambit gallery running round it at first-floor level.”¹² By studying the genesis of the oval ground-plan form in Italian work, in Peruzzi, Vignola, Francesco da Voltera and Carlo Maderna,¹³ and also the design of the ambit compositions in the 16th century – where the closest to the Prague example was evidently Peruzzi’s unrealised design for an unknown church, archived in Uffizi (arch. no. 4131) ¹⁴ – Jarmila Krčálová arrives at the well-founded ascription of the project for Prague to Ottavio Mascarino.¹⁵ This Papal architect dealt repeatedly with oval compositions around the year 1590, as shown by the unrealised projects for the Spirito Santo dei Napolitani church in Rome, where the central oval area is surrounded by a regularly designed ambit with an external wreath in an alternating rhythm of larger and smaller chapels (1584), and also a design for a courtyard, a sunken oval, in front of the facade of St Peter’s Cathedral from the period after 1598.¹⁶ “In literature the Italian Chapel is usually described as a work of Early Baroque, the first and very early example of this in Bohemia. The concept of the construction and its details and also, last but not least, its dynamic and dramatic lighting, however, belong entirely to Italian Mannerism, in particular that of Rome. Typical of Peruzzi and Mascarino is the disposition of a dynamic central area with an ambit on a ground-plan which, according to the classical measures, is irregular and asymmetrical, the capricious shape so beloved of Mannerism with tendencies towards escape and puzzlement, a ground-plan which, despite all its centrality, does not rotate around a single centre. Vignola can be seen both in the basic form of the oval and also in the almost crystalline simplification, and this is despite the fact that the interior is divided up both vertically and horizontally into a number of components, but all the parts are, as opposed to the sometimes overcomplicated and spatially dispersed designs of Peruzzi and other Roman architects of the cinquecento, erected on the most simple ground-plan, mutually fully open to and connected with one another and therefore clear. This chapel also has similar designs of the arcades and chapels coordinating with the manner of Vignola’s designs […] and the flat structuring, especially that of the exterior with smooth lisena frames, owes a lot to Mascarino.”¹⁷ From the viewpoint of the architectural forms used the chapel was also the first to use typically Roman windows of the thermal type in Czech architecture and technologically there is also the characteristic absence of roof beams and the placing of the covering of the copula roof on a thick layer of mortar directly on the reverse side of the vaulting.¹⁸ The acquisition of the project from an important Roman architect and the creation of a construction unparalleled in contemporary Prague, or even in the whole of Central Europe, was undoubtedly the work of the religious and artistic representatives of the colony of Italian artists and artisans settled in Prague. The deliberate nature of this act is all the more striking when we consider that of the Italian builders working in Prague at that time not one was of Roman origin or education. Only in 1594 did the nephew of Ulrico Aostalli, Rocco Soldata, arrive from Rome, but he did not enter the history of Czech architecture in any significant way. Giovanni Maria Filippi, on the other hand, active in Prague from 1602, was a person of fundamental importance. A native of the little town of Dassindo, not far from Tridento, he allegedly trained in Innsbruck, which in the second half of the 16th century was an important centre of the arts. Filippi’s artistic character was fundamentally determined, however, by his subsequent lengthy stay in Rome, whence he was summoned in 1601 to the service of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. His main task here was to be in charge of building work and the preparation of projects for Prague Castle. The conglomeration of buildings in the southern and western parts of the castle district, brought about by the gradual increase in individual buildings and fortifications in the course of the Middle Ages, was already being rebuilt from the end of the eighth decade of the 16th century with the aim of connecting things up and creating, as far as possible, a regular whole in the spirit of the aesthetic ideas of the time and the representational demands of an imperial seat.¹⁹ Filippi continued here in the activity of several architects in the service of Rudolf II. These were exclusively Italian artists fully in the spirit of the enthusiasm of the period for Italian architecture and the conviction of the supremacy of its creators. Alongside Ulrico Aostalli (up to 1597) these were, in particular, Giovanni Gargiolli (in the years 1585–1594), with whom Antonio Valenti also cooperated, and at the turn of the century the famous Vincenzo Scamozzi was 224 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
S.J., Geschichte der böhmischen Provinz, see note 3, p. 565, and further pages). Cit. P. Oulíková, Klementinum (see note 3), p. 65. J. Krčálová, Centrální stavby (see note 1), p. 69 (with reference to older literature). Ibidem, p. 70. Ibidem, p. 70. Renate Wagner-Rieger, Die Baukunst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts in Österreich, Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 20, 1965, p. 218. Wolfgang Lotz, Die ovalen Kirchenräume des Cinquecento, Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 7, 1955, p. 11. J. Krčálová, Centrální stavby (see note 1), pp. 70–71. W. Lotz, Die ovalen Kirchenräume (see note 11), pp. 20–27, 42–48, 50–52, 58–64. Ibidem, p. 29 J. Krčálová, Centrální stavby (see note 1), p. 76. W. Lotz, Die ovalen Kirchenräume (see note 11), pp. 69–74. J. Krčálová, Centrální stavby (see note 1), pp. 73–74. M. Horyna, Die römischen Inspirationen (see note 3), p. 142. Ivan Muchka, Rudolf II. als Bauherr, in: Jiří Dvorský (ed.), Die Kunst am Hofe Rudolfs II., Dausien-Hanau 1988, p. 181.
20 J. Krčálová, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), p. 160. 21 Petra Sophia Zimmermann, Die Architektur von Hans Vredemann de Vriep. Entwicklung der Renaissancearchitektur in Mitteleuropa, Deutsche Kunstverlag München – Berlin 2002, pp. 48–50. 22 Ibidem, p. 51 23 For atribution to Gargiolli see J. Krčálová, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), p. 162, to the contrary Ivan Muchka, Architektur unter Rudolf II., gezeigt am Beispiel der Prager Burg, in: Prag um 1600, Kunst und Kultur am Hofe Rudolfs II., Essen 1988, p. 87; also I. Muchka, Rudolf II. als Bauherr (see note 19) assumes the influence of the models of Vredeman de Vries, which is strikingly less probable. 24 Hypothetically the wings of the “stables” and of the “New Building” east and west of the north gate were originally planned as a ground floor with terraced gardens on the flat roofs (Milada Vilímková – František Kašička, Křídlo Španělského sálu ve stavebním vývoji Pražského hradu, Památky a příroda 1976, pp. 385–391) and the building of the large halls was perhaps the work of a project change already with the participation of Filippi. 25 J. Krčálová, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), p. 164. 26 I. Muchka, Rudolf II. als Bauherr (see note 19), pp. 197–199; I. Muchka, Architektur unter Rudolf II. (see note 23), pp. 91–92.
1. ↑ Prague, Old Town, Italian Chapel, facade, oblique view (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 2. ↗ Prague, Castle, Matthias Gate (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
also in Prague for some time.²⁰ Orazio Fontana, Martino Gambarino and Rocco Soldata then evidently worked as executive building forces. In this Italian architectural concert there was one single northerner, the important theorist and decorator Jan Vredemann de Vries, who worked here with his son Paul only in the years 1596–1599.²¹ Preserved accounts from the year 1598²² show that Vries prepared the projects for two buildings within the framework of Prague Castle, including the designs for their stucco decoration, and he also designed several fountains for the castle garden. Whether the buildings mentioned were ever executed is not clear, and the lack of further orders evidently led him to leave Prague the very next year. The summoning of Filippi can then be interpreted as an evident inclination towards Roman architecture, which was already then developing fully in the spirit of Early Baroque. He was to have realised the extensive reconstruction of the imperial seat, conceived and started already in earlier decades. Filippi’s first big task was the construction of the socalled New Building, lying to the west of the North Gate of the Castle, the expressively strong architecture of which, utilising mighty bossage, was evidently designed by Giovanni Gargiolli, who probably conceived the original intention of resolving the entire north wing of the Castle.²³ The New Building was designed as a cross-wise double wing, on the ground floor of which were the beautiful areas of the stables and on the first floor the tremendous double-naved New Hall, the largest temporal area in the Castle. ²⁴ The large hall was framed by two entrance areas: the antechamber of the picture gallery on the east and the double staircase on the west side. The flat ceiling of the hall was raised above the wing wall of the ground floor by monumental full pillars and its walls were composed of a complex relief formed by half-pillars, pilasters, recessed surfaces, niches and portals. The interior was decorated with copies of classical statues and bronze statues.²⁵ Great attention was paid to the reconstruction of the original form of the rooms of the New Hall and of the picture gallery by Ivan Muchka, who described both areas as the peak of the interior art of the Rudolfine era.²⁶ The lacunar vaulting of the entrance area of the ground floor STUDIES 225
3. ↖ Prague, Bubeneč, Imperial Mill, gate (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 4. ↑ Prague, Lesser Town, Church of Our Lady Victorious, interior, view from the presbytery towards the choir (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 5. ← Prague, Lesser Town, Church of Our Lady Victorious, north side facade (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 6. → Rome, Church of S. Maria ai Monti, exterior, oblique view across the corner of the main and side facades (repro after: http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/File:Eglise_Santa_Maria_ai_ Monti2.JPG)
stables and the monumental form of the portals, constructed by Giovanni Antonio Brocco, demonstrate Roman inspirations. Evidently in 1604 Filippi further added, even before the courtyard facade of the New Building, an arcade wing with nine axes on a conical ground plan, which was apparently intended also to serve as a communication link with the planned frontal wing of the Castle facing onto Hradčany Square.²⁷ The design of the arcades here again combines pillars and semi-pillars and is strongly structured. The arcades were removed during the Terezian reconstruction of the Castle. In parallel with the construction of the New Building Filippi also intervened in the appearance of the recently rebuilt central wing when in 1602 he proposed a new composition of the facades of the originally Romanesque Bishop’s Tower, the flat roof of which was provided with a terrace and balustrade. The interior of the tower was filled with a staircase above an oval ground plan, leading round a central light well and combining the popular Vignola theme with an attractive ground plan design.²⁸ 226 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
27 J. Krčálová, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), pp. 163. 28 Milada Vilímková – František Kašička, Stavební proměny Středního křídla Pražského hradu, Památky a příroda 1977, pp. 385– 391; J. Krčálová, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), p. 169.
29 Pablo Jimenez, Vztahy Španělska a Čech, jejich doklady v rudolfinské kultuře a umění (dissertation thesis FFUK), Praha 1996, p. 132.
The alterations to the facades of the north and centre wings of the Second Castle Courtyard were intended to establish a monumentally composed space with strong connections in design to the main axes of communication, these being the North Gate and the passage through the centre wing, to which there was further to be added a main entrance gate on the west side in the wing opposite Hradčany Square, which was, however, only realised in part. The influence of a childhood spent in the Spanish Court of his uncle, Philip II, was formative in many respects for Rudolf II. This also applied to his ideas of a ruler’s representative seat. In connection with his building activities in Prague Castle one can also understand his repeated request in the years 1588 and 1589 that the Imperial Ambassador in Madrid, Johann Khevenhüller von Aichelberg, should send to Prague the plans of the Spanish royal castles of the Escorial and in Aranjuez, Segovia and some further summer palaces.²⁹ The theme of the monumental backdrop of the gate, cutting through the full height of the STUDIES 227
entrance wing of the Castle, does not originate from Italian architecture, but from the Spanish realisations mentioned above. Both the facade of the Escorial and also that of the castle in Aranjuez are characterised by a monumental multi-axial portal coulisse cutting through the full height of the facade and looking almost like an original facade of the church type. The obvious influence of Spanish realisations on the basic idea of the composition of the Matyáš Gate of Prague Castle has already been stated.³⁰ The characteristic differences between the two compositions have also been recorded, the Prague one being more dynamic and strikingly verticalised.³¹ In spite of this strong height dimension and some morphological mannerisms the overall composition of a two-storey coulisse, based on the superposing of a rustic Doric order and an Ionic order in the extension, is nevertheless basically a Classical and monumental concept already in the spirit of Early Baroque anti-Mannerism.³² Also a fragment of the design of the west wing was the construction of an entrance staircase to the Imperial South Wing on the site of the existing representative area of the Terezian staircase of the hall.³³ Although even after three decades of building during the reign of Rudolf II the composition of the royal castle was still actually unfinished, nevertheless it was at this time that the greatest continuous non-religious building activity took place in Prague Castle from the beginning of its existence up to the present.³⁴ In the final phase of this Rudolfine construction it was Filippi who strongly updated the whole work in style and applied the formal apparatus of Roman Early Baroque. Its manifestation is characterised by a certain simplification compared with the Mannerist structuring and formal complexity – the tectonisation of compositional relationships, plasticisation of form and the inclination towards monumentality. Apart from the constant work for the royal castle itself Filippi was employed also on other imperial constructions, whether the alterations to the “Lion Courtyard” on the north forefront of the Castle or small completions in the Imperial Mill in Bubeneč and others. For the Emperor’s beloved Bubeneč hunting ground he proposed a large chateau building with eighty rooms and two large halls, but the realisation of this did not even begin.³⁵ Numerous orders also took Filippi to the imperial chateaux, especially the large estates along the Elbe (Labe).³⁶ Perhaps even more important than his activity in the imperial services was Filippi’s activity in the field of church architecture. The Lutheran Church in the Lesser Town, consecrated to the Holy Trinity, was one of the protestant churches whose existence was enabled by Rudolf’s Imperial Charter. It was built for the community of Hradčany and the Lesser Town, mainly German Lutherans, among them also leading feudalists. The most important of these was perhaps Jindřich Julius, Prince of Brunschwik-Luneburg, who lived permanently in Prague from 1607.³⁷ Somewhat younger sources state that the author of the project was an imperial architect and Catholic, which at the time of construction pointly relatively unequivocally at Giovanni Maria Filippi, as Jürgen Zimmer was the first to point out, and his attribution was adopted also by other literature.³⁸ The foundation stone was laid – clearly in the already started construction³⁹ – on 20 July 1611 and the still not completed, but usable building was consecrated on 26 July 1613. The furnishing of the interior took several years longer and the main altar was not installed until 1618, designed by the court architect of Saxony, Giovanni Marie Nosseni.⁴⁰ The planned towers of the main facade were not realised at all. The intended original appearance of the church was shown in the project drawings, identified and published by Vojtěch Birnbaum.⁴¹ With a reference to the frontage of the Roman church Sta Trinità dei Monti as the direct pattern for the project of the Prague facade Birnbaum very accurately indicated the stylistic starting-point for Filippi’s work and its link with the work of Giacomo della Porta. A further della Porta church – also from the period around 1580 – Sta Maria ai Monti was the starting-point for the composition of the nave of the Lesser Town building, including the shallow chapels between the stretched pillars and the design of the side facades. Characteristic of Roman inspiration are both the motif of the thermal windows and the mighty cylindrical vaults divided only by small sectors. Already Oldřich Stefan drew attention to the supremely progressive motif in the composition of the walls of the nave, this being the restriction of the course of the complete entablature only above the Ionic pilasters of the structuring of the walls, whereas above the archivolts of the niche chapels the architrave and cresting are inset and only the sill 228 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
30 Ivan Muchka, Styl architektury za Rudolfa II. Italianismy a hispanismy v Čechách na rozhraní renesance a baroku, in: Eliška Fučíková (ed.), Rudolf II. a Praha, Praha – London – Milano 1997, pp. 93–94. 31 Ibidem, p. 94. 32 On the stylistic character of the gate see: Pavel Preiss, Italští umělci (see note 3), p. 80. 33 I. Muchka, Architektur unter Rudolf II. (see note 23), p. 93. 34 M. Vilímková – F. Kašička, Křídlo Španělského sálu (see note 24), p. 388. 35 Jarmila Krčálová, Italští mistři Malé Strany na počátku 17. století, Umění XVIII, 1970, pp. 561–562; idem, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), p. 160 (Idem older literature). 36 P. Preiss, Italští umělci (see note 3), p. 64; Pavel Vlček (ed.), Encyklopedie architektů, stavitelů, kameníků a zedníků v Čechách, Praha 2004, p. 174 37 Josef Forbelský – Mojmír Horyna – Jan Royt, Pražské Jezulátko, Praha 1992, pp. 73–74. 38 Jürgen Zimmer, Josephus Heinzius – architectus cum antiquis comparandup. Contribution to knowledge of Rudolfine architecture between the years 1590–1612, Umění XVII, 1969, p. 233; Hilde Lietzmann, Die Deutsch-Lutherische Dreifaltigkeits, die spätere Ordenskirche Sta. Maria Victoria auf der Kleinen Seite zu Prag, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 40, 1977, p. 211; Jarmila Krčálová, Kostely české a moravské renesance. Příspěvek k typologii, Umění XXIX, 1981, p. 16 and 32. 39 The ceremony of the laying and consecration of the foundation stone was commonly only carried out after the construction had begun, when the foundations had been walled and the main construction had reached a certain height. With regard to the July date of the laying of the foundation stone in this case one may hypothetically assume that the beginning of the construction work was already at the beginning of the building season of 1610, in other words just under a year after the issue of Rudolf ’s Imperial Charter on 9 July 1609. In this case the measuring, digging and walling of the foundations of the church and the establishing of the main constructions took place at the beginning of the building season of 1610, which means after Filippi returned from a stay of several months in Italy and before he left once again for Italy on 1 October 1610, returning to Prague at the end of 1611. 40 J. Forbelský – M. Horyna – J. Royt, Pražské Jezulátko (see note 37), p. 74. 41 Vojtěch Birnbaum, Původní průčelí kostela P. Marie Vítězné na Malé Straně, Památky archeologické 34, 1924–1925, pp. 219–220; Pavel Vlček – Ester Havlová, Praha 1610–1700, Praha 1998, pp. 19–22; Mojmír Horyna, Bývalý luteránský kostel Nejsvětější Trojice na Malé Straně, Půdorys, příčný řez, hloubkový řez, hlavní průčelí, boční průčelí, axonometrie, in: Vít Vlnas (ed.), Sláva barokní Čechie (exh. cat.), Praha 2001, pp. 505–506, catalogue no. II, 6. 2.
42 Oldřich Stefan, Barokní princip v české architektuře 17. a 18. století, Umění VII, 1959, p. 306. 43 M. Horyna, Die römischen Inspirationen (see note 3), pp. 142–143; an analogical form was used after 1605 in the framing of passages between the fields of the side naves of St Peter’s Cathedral in Rome also by Carlo Maderno (see Howard Hibbard, Maderno and Roman Architecture 1580–1630, London 1971, p. 155 and following) 44 J. Krčálová, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), p. 175; P. Vlček, Encyklopedie architektů (see note 36), p. 174. 45 This type of facade also has its origin in Italian architectural tradition. In Rome at the end of the 16th century it is represented, for example, by the facade of the Church of S. Maria in Vallicella, completed by Carlo Maderno (according to an older project of Martino Longhi the elder) in 1604. The type was then used relatively frequently in various modifications right up to the 18th century. 46 This hypothesis must, however, be taken very carefully. The connection of the composition to the facade of the Il Gesù Church in Rome is quite evident, but it may equally well be the result of Filippi’s artistic inclination towards the work of Giacomo della Porta. As far as Jesuit building practice is concerned, the latest literature quite rightly points out that the term Jesuit Style – introduced by researchers in the 19th century – has no historical foundation, and that even with the strongly centralised organisation of the Jesuit order and the centrally discussed building plans and enterprises nevertheless Jesuit building practice did not lead to typological unity or stylistic uniformity (see Richard Bösel, Jesuitenarchitektur in Italia 1540–1772, I. Teil, Wien 1986, p. 12). 47 Eric Forsmann, Dorisch, ionisch, korintisch, Stockholm 1961, pp. 74–76. 48 Ibidem, pp. 96–97. 49 Jiří Kroupa, Umělecká úloha, objednavatelé a styl na Moravě doby barokní, in: Jiří Kroupa (ed.), V zrcadle stínů, Brno – Rennes 2003, pp. 38–39. 50 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 14. 51 J. Krčálová, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), p. 167. 52 Josef Mayer, Architektonické dílo Jana Domenica de Barifis, in: Staletá Praha 5, 1971, pp. 199–209; Dobroslav Líbal – Milada Vilímková, Architektura renesanční, in: Emanuel Poche, Praha na úsvitu nových dějin, Praha 1988, pp. 126–128. 53 Dobroslav Líbal, Dvě dávno zaniklá architektonická díla pražské renesance, in: Staletá Praha 8, 1977, pp. 267–273; D. Líbal – M. Vilímková, Architektura renesanční (see note 52), p. 81.
runs through.⁴² In any case also founded on a similar principle of duality of the tectonic system and filling walling – although segmented by massive rustic work – is the surprisingly strong compositional effect of Filippi’s gate to the imperial court in Bubeneč, dating from 1606. The relationship of the two components of the gate still gives a manneristically unstable and fragmenting impression. The main portal of the Lesser Town Lutheran church was, then, a direct quotation of the frame of the axial window on the first floor of the Roman Palace of the Conservatori on the Capitol, with which Giacomo del Duca supplemented Michelangelo’s facade in 1603.⁴³ This composition, too, works with duality and the intersection of the framing aedicule and the actual opening of the portal, handled here, however, in the sense of dynamic unification. Filippi’s project of the Church of the Holy Trinity in the Lesser Town of Prague is an expressive missive of Roman Early Baroque and represents, both from the viewpoint of structural type and of architectural forms, a supremely contemporary style. Filippi’s project for the construction of the pilgrims’ Church of the Assumption of the Virgin in Stará Boleslav clearly dates from the year 1612 0r 1613.⁴⁴ It is a relatively close variation of the Lesser Town Lutheran church, but with several characteristic changes. The type of layout with the wide single nave with side niche chapels and a presbytery with a ground plan of one square field and an apse above a half-oval is just like the church in the Lesser Town, as is the ratio of depth to width of the nave of 2:1, its mighty cylindrical vaulting intersected only by narrow sectors and the use of thermal windows lighting the side chapels. As opposed to the Prague building there is on the side walls of the nave area a continuous entablature, interrupted above the pilasters of the pillars separating the individual chapels. A characteristic motif is the helicoidal staircase up to the choir, based on an oval ground plan. As far as the exterior of the building is concerned, here too there is a striking resemblance to the side facades of the Church of Sta Maria ai Monti in Rome. The main facade is composed in a more complex manner than in the project of the Prague building; it does not have towers, but it is designed in two compositional storeys and a total of five fields, of which the central three jut forwards in a shallow “risalto”, continuing up to the top gable level.⁴⁵ The outer fields of the lower level are relatively narrow, on the upper level there are curtail wings above them. It is highly probable that the general design of the facade was inspired by the composition of the frontage of Il Gesù in Rome and it is not impossible that this was the direct wish of the clients.⁴⁶ The use of the Ionic order of pilasters on the main level is clearly linked with the Marian consecration of the building.⁴⁷ In the interior the dominating compositional order corresponds to the celebratory area of the Virgin Mary “taken up to Heaven”.⁴⁸ The new building of an important Marian place of pilgrimage in Stará Boleslav later had great influence in the subsequent Early Baroque period on the typology of the interiors of church buildings in Bohemia. This type does not, of course, have anything in common with the spatial design of the Il Gesù Church and it would be a gross mistake to refer to it. Filippi created with the church in Stará Boleslav an almost ideal realisation of the church building of Early Baroque and thus entered importantly into the history of our Early Baroque architecture. Further church buildings by Filippi – the collegiate church in Arco (from 1613) and the Paulian monastery church in Vranov near Brno (from 1617) ⁴⁹ – are variants of both Czech buildings. Also hypothetically linked with Filippi’s work is a group of non-religious buildings whose authorship is doubtful. Pavel Vlček stated accurately that “[…] if he really did create all the buildings ascribed to him, he would be a personality who was able to change his architectural style with every new order”.⁵⁰ Variations on the theme of the triumphal gate, morphological analogies and links to Rudolfine architecture, which the builder knew from his stays in the court, led in the case of the splendidly composed forecourt of the chateau in Moravská Třebová, built around 1610, to its being ascribed to Giovanni Mario Filippi.⁵¹ An echo of his work was also seen in the case of the courtyard arcades of Teufelův dům in the Old Town of Prague, the construction of which was evidently carried out by Giovanni Domenico de Barifis.⁵² The beginning of the 17th century was also a period of exceptionally intensive building activity in all the towns of Prague, the house architecture of which demonstrates a wide range of different Italian inspiration. The no longer existing house of Lazar Henkel of Donnersmark was evidently the first case of the use of a monumental scheme on the facade in the spirit of Palladianism.⁵³ The project, clearly realised with a delay of several years from STUDIES 229
230 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
7. ← Stará Boleslav, Church of Our Lady, interior, general view into the church towards the presbytery (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 8. ↙↙ Prague, Old Town, house known as “U pěti korun” (No. 465–I), main facade (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 9.↙ Prague, Strahov – Church of St Roche, facade, whole (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 10. → Prague, Old Town, Lutheran Church of St Salvator (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
54 Pavel Vlček, Pražská architektura 1550–1650, in: Eliška Fučíková (ed.) Rudolf II. a Praha, Praha – London – Milano 1997, p. 350. 55 D. Líbal – M. Vilímková, Architektura renesanční (see note 52), p. 141; J. Krčálová, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), p. 176; P. Vlček, Pražská architektura (see note 54), p. 349. 56 Jarmila Krčálová, Italští mistři Malé Strany na počátku 17. století, Umění XVIII, 1970, pp. 545–581. 57 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 34. 58 The phenomenon of the survival of Gothic style in Central European architecture of the 16th and 17th centuries was dealt with by Viktor Kotrba (Česká barokní gotika, Praha 1976, pp. 19–23) who observed that the survival of Gothic style was “a style phenomenon appearing in the church architecture of the whole of Europe regardless of differences in language, culture or religion […]” (p. 23).
1609, was perhaps created by Vincenzo Scamozzi.⁵⁴ Already proto-Baroque monumentality characterises several Prague houses in the second decade of the 17th century. The houses renovated at this time, U pěti korun (No. 465–I) in Melantrichova Street or house No. 551–I on Old Town Square, have relatively austere facades, crowned by strongly tabular scrolled gables. ⁵⁵ A highly representative enterprise was the reconstruction of the Lesser Town Town-hall in the years 1617–1619, completed with the construction of the gables after 1628. Taking part in its realisation were Giovanni Battista Bussi de Campione and Domenico de Bossi and then Pietro Picsina in the construction of the gables. The ascribing of this project to Mario Filippi⁵⁶ was rightly rejected by Pavel Vlček when he observed that “This is a thoroughly late-Renaissance building […], which is clearly the most typical example of the slowly disappearing layer system […] As opposed to Filippi’s work it is also influenced by the transalpine tradition […]”⁵⁷. In both secular and church architecture Filippi’s work represented the stylistically most progressive position of contemporary architecture. Its counterpart was posthumous Gothic⁵⁸, combined with some Renaissance compositional motifs and morphology, still controlling a significant part of sacred creativity. The Church of the Most Holy Salvator, extended up to 1601, beside the Jesuit College of the Clementinum, is a typical example of such confusion of styles. The triple nave with a depth of five vault fields – which linked up with a smaller church, built in the years 1578–1582 by Marco STUDIES 231
11. ← Prague, Lesser Town, Italian Hospital – Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and St Charles Borromeo, interior (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 12. ↗ Prague, Lesser Town, Waldstein Palace, main facade (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
232 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
59 D. Líbal – M. Vilímková, Architektura renesanční (see note 52), p. 112. 60 As of 1606 the facade was captured by the very accurate Sadeler’s prospect of Prague, engraved by Jan Wechter on the basis of a drawing by Filip van den Bosch. 61 P. Vlček, Pražská architektura (see note 54), p. 348. 62 Mojmír Horyna – Petra Oulíková, Kostel Nejsvětějšího Salvátora a Vlašská kaple, Kostelní Vydří 2006, p. 9. 63 J. Krčálová, Centrální stavby (see note 1), pp. 77–83. 64 Ibidem, p. 79. 65 J. Mayer, Architektonické dílo Jana Domenica de Barifis (see note 52), p. 208.
Fontana di Brusata on the site of the presbytery of the Gothic Dominican Church of St Clement⁵⁹ – utilised the material of the pillars between the naves of the medieval church destroyed in 1420, on the site of which smaller houses were built in subsequent decades. These were bought up by the Jesuits after 1593 when they were planning the construction of the triple nave church. The main nave of the church is vaulted with an ogivally profiled vault with strong triangular sectors. A marked Gothic element in the composition of the walls is the omission of the entablature above the heads of the pilasters and the direct seating of the supporting parts of the vault. At the intersection even then a dome without tambour was built. The facade opposite this – as we are informed by contemporary depictions⁶⁰ – was conceived as a typically Italian church facade with the main level divided by monumental pilasters, a tabular gable framed by scrolling and three beautiful Renaissance portals, which were preserved in the facade even after the Early Baroque reconstruction.⁶¹ The actual author of the building of the church has not been determined, but necessary repairs in 1609 were designed by Giovanni Maria Filippi and stonemason Antonio Brocco.⁶² The Emperor Rudolf II undertook to build the votive church of St Roche at the gate of the Strahov Monastery as thanks for the ending of the plague in 1599. It was built in the years 1603–1612, still being completed in subsequent years and further repaired after damage in the third decade of the 17th century. The ground plan is conceived as a dynamic central area⁶³, the main space above the depth-extended octagon is open on the axis and on the eastern side of the nave into three side areas on the ground plan of five sides of the octagon. The octagonal central area is thus combined with the dispositional type of the Latin cross.⁶⁴ The external volume created by the composition of polygons is reminiscent of Gothic buildings. The facades combine Gothic forms of windows, window tracery and supporting pillars and characteristic Mannerist forms – rustic pilaster frames, running architraves, recessed and prominent rectangular fields, niches and oval unpaired windows, portals not realised until 1617. In the interior the walls are divided up by slender pilasters, disproportional from the viewpoint of classical architectural principles, with Ionic reduced capitals on which the supports of the trough vaulting are set directly and divided by triangular sectors. The authorship of the building has been resolved in literature in various ways. Josef Meyer assumed this was a project of Giovanni Domenico de Barifis⁶⁵; Jarmila Krčálová argues against this and considers the possibility of a design by Giovanni Maria STUDIES 233
Filippi or Giovanni Battista Bussi.⁶⁶ Pavel Vlček also considers the last-named to be the most probable architect of the building.⁶⁷ The building of the Church of St Salvator, which the Old Town Lutheran congregation built after the issue of Rudolf’s Imperial Charter in the years 1611–1614, can be characterised in a similar manner. The facades combine Gothic forms of windows with tracery in the presbytery and main facade with forms of the classical type and characteristic Mannerist decorative forms: extended gables of smaller windows with tiny obelisks on the axis, scrolled crowns of support pillars, decoration of the frieze with rosettes, festoons and mascarons, Vredemann-type decorative frames on small oval windows. The interior of the church consists of a triple nave four fields deep, with emporas above the side naves and a presbytery two crossways rectangular fields deep with the apse on the ground-plan of five sides of a decagon. Here, too, the barrel vaulting of the main nave, divided by three-sided sectors, sits directly on the heads of the pilasters attaching the pillars between the naves. This non-classical compositional state was preserved even after the Baroque reconstructions. The hypothesis of Filippi’s authorship⁶⁸ was rightly rejected.⁶⁹ The authorship of Giovanni Domenico de Barifis⁷⁰ is generally accepted even by the latest literature. The little church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and St Charles Borromeus by the Italian Hospital in the Lesser Town was built almost simultaneously with the preceding buildings. An orphanage, hospital and school were built by the Prague Italians in the part of the city which was regulated in 1588 by Ulrico Aostalli⁷¹ and which was almost entirely inhabited by artists and craftsmen of Italian origin. The consecration to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and to one of the most important saints of the Catholic Reformation, the Milanese Archbishop and Cardinal canonised in 1610, undoubtedly had religious representative significance in the same way as the consecration of the Italian Chapel of the Old Town Jesuit College. On the site of the gardens and house of the builder Domenico de Bossi, purchased before 1602, the hospital was evidently built by 1608 and the little church between 1611 and 1617. The importance of the event was also underlined by the consecration carried out by Prague Archbishop Jan Loheli in July 1617. At present the building consists of a nave with a depth of four fields and a presbytery of two fields, of which the first, square field is covered by a cupola without vault spandrels and the second, slightly rectangular cross-wise, is the apse itself. The nave, executed along the sides with opposing rows of wide chapels between the pillars of the perimeter walls, represents the most common type of depth space of the Italian Late Renaissance and the beginning of Baroque. Quite uncommon in our country, however, is the shape of the strongly compressed barrel vaulting borne by massive corbels between which are rightangled sectors. Opinions on the history of the construction of the little church vary. Older literature⁷² assumed that by 1617 there was only the central part of the building and the nave with the chapels was not added until the fifth decade of the 17th century, when the hospital was also extended. Jarmila Krčálová⁷³, on the other hand, considers the building to have originated in a single stage and also with references to a possible Italian model, the chapel of the chateau of Buonconsiglio in Tridento. Her conclusions have also been accepted by younger literature.⁷⁴ The authors of the project are assumed to be the rectors of the Italian congregation, Domenico de Bossi and Pietro della Pasquina. From the quick overview given of Prague architecture at the beginning of the 17th century it is evident that Prague, where Karel Škréta was born in 1610, was an important centre of the arts. Mannerist and “post-Gothic” tendencies were confronted with the already Baroque creative ideas inspired first and foremost by contemporary Roman work. It was this orientation that prepared the ground for the acceptance of further Italian inspiration in subsequent decades. The defeat of the uprising of the Czech Estates and the subsequent sanctions considerably affected the composition of the Czech nobility and burgher society and thus influenced the social composition of the builders. The intensive building activity of the first two decades of the 17th century slowed after 1620, but soon new and demanding builders appeared, especially in the ranks of the top nobility and the Catholic Church. The progressive style orientation towards Italian proto-Baroque and Early Baroque creativity was further strengthened both thanks to the cultural orientation of those placing orders and 234 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
66 J. Krčálová, Centrální stavby (see note 1), p. 81; J. Krčálová, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), p. 171. 67 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 24. 68 J. Krčálová, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), p. 173. 69 P. Vlček, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 1), p. 24. 70 J. Mayer, Architektonické dílo Jana Domenica de Barifis (see note 52), pp. 202–204. 71 D. Líbal – M. Vilímková, Architektura renesanční (see note 52), p. 82. 72 P. Preiss, Italští umělci (see note 3), p. 92 (Idem references to older literature). 73 J. Krčálová, Architektura doby Rudolfa II. (see note 1), pp. 173–175. 74 P. Vlček, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 1), pp. 38–39.
13. ↗ Prague, Lesser Town, garden, view across the parterre and path with alley of statues towards the loggia (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 14. ↗↗ Prague, Lesser Town, Waldstein Palace, view from the reception salon to the mythological corridor (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 15. → Prague, Lesser Town, Waldstein Palace, chapel, interior (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
to the influence of the ever stronger influx of Italian builders and building craftsmen, who prevailed in the Early Baroque period, especially in Prague. Immediately in the first years following the Battle of the White Mountain undoubtedly the most important builder in Bohemia was Albrecht of Valdštejn. A heedless adventurer, an outstanding and courageous soldier and a splendid organiser and husbandman with undoubted traits of genius, ⁷⁵ he also decided to create a representative framework for his breathtaking career through architectural and artistic enterprises. His ambitions as a builder were certainly influenced by life in the court and by direct knowledge of Italy on his chivalrous travels in the years 1599–1602 and again on his pilgrimage to Loreto in 1612. As a provincial commander of the army in Bohemia, guardian of the conciliation heritage and owner of many further estates acquired from confiscations, he was already preparing the construction of a Prague palace⁷⁶ from 1621, and soon after that he began to improve the town of Jičín, the centre of his entailment dominions.⁷⁷ For the realisation of his enterprises Valdštejn employed a relatively large group of Italian builders whose participation in the individual buildings has not yet been quite precisely defined. Undoubtedly the greatest personality among them was Giovanni Battista Pieroni da Cagliano, a Florentine, son of the architect Alessandro Pieroni, who after training with his father further improved his knowledge in the studio of the leading Florentine architect Bernardo Buontalenti.⁷⁸ Pieroni was an architect intellectual who completed his studies with the study of law at the University of Pisa and also devoted his attention to a number of natural and technical fields. There is evidence of his close relations with Galileo Galilei and later also with Johann Kepler.⁷⁹ From his youth he showed interest in mathematics and in this connection also in fortification architecture, to which he even devoted a theoretical treatise.⁸⁰ He evidently travelled to Central Europe in the spring of 1622 as a fortifications engineer in the services of the Emperor. In the autumn of this year there is evidence he was in Bohemia, where he entered into contact with Valdštejn within the framework of his engineering duties when he elaborated proposals for improving the fortifications of Prague.⁸¹ In 1622 Valdštejn began to buy up further properties in the area of the future palace once he had acquired the large Trčkovský Palace with its extensive garden a year earlier.⁸² With the single and insignificant exception of the Feldovský dům Valdštejn had acquired all twenty-six buildings on the site of the palace area by 1624. He had, of course, already begun the work of pulling down some of the buildings even earlier and also the preparatory work on the reconstruction of the Trčkovský dům. This work was supervised by Giovanni Battista Marini from Milan.⁸³ According to old data from Balbín there was undoubtedly work going on already in 1623 and this work was led by Marini, ⁸⁴ who was evidently working, however, according to a project by Giovanni Battista Pieroni. 236 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
75 Zdeněk Hojda, Albrecht Václav Eusebius z Valdštejna. Mezníky života, in: Mojmír Horyna (ed.), Valdštejnský palác v Praze, Praha 2002, pp. 29–46. In this brief, but excellently structured and comprehensive study see also the reference to the most important older literature. 76 Pavel Zahradník, Dějiny Valdštejnského paláce, in: M. Horyna (ed.), Valdštejnský palác v Praze, Praha 2002, pp. 50–51; Mojmír Horyna, Stavební vývoj Valdštejnského paláce, in: M. Horyna (ed.), ibid., 2002, p. 91. 77 J. Morávek – Zdeněk Wirth, Valdštejnův Jičín, Praha 1946. 78 Jarmila Krčálová, Giovanni Pieroni – architekt ?, Umění XXXVI, 1988, p. 511. 79 Ibidem, p. 511. 80 Ibidem, p. 511. 81 Ibidem, p. 512. 82 M. Horyna, Stavební vývoj Valdštejnského paláce (see note 76), p. 92. 83 P. Zahradník, Dějiny Valdštejnského paláce (see note 76), p. 50. 84 Ibidem, p. 51.
16. ↖ Prague, Lesser Town, Michnovský Palace, garden facade, whole (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 17. → Prague, Lesser Town, Church of Our Lady Victorious, facade (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
The autographs of Pieroni found on the ground-plan of the first level of the palace, ⁸⁵ capturing the actually executed building with only a few characteristic deviations in detail,⁸⁶ testify to his authorship of the entire concept of the building. From 1625 we then have evidence of Andrea Spezza in Valdštejn’s service when he, as an outstanding practician and architect, took over the execution of the Prague palace⁸⁷ and especially the Jičín tasks: the extension of the chateau and the building of the Valdice Carthusian Monastery.⁸⁸ Nicollo Sebregondi, ⁸⁹ who entered the service of Valdštejn only in 1630, was employed in particular on the Jičín⁹⁰ work as the Prague palace was at that time almost finished.⁹¹ To Sebregondi there may perhaps be ascribed the composition of some of the portals (such as the portal of the chapel on ground level), the building of the large blind portal in the centre of the main facade, which creates a strong axial and vertical accent in the extensive horizontal area, and also perhaps the supplementing of the composition of the east and west facades of the first courtyard with half-pillars separating the individual fields. At the time of its construction the Valdštejn Palace was a quite exceptional realisation in the Prague environment, introducing us to all the particulars of the most demanding residential architecture of Italy at that time.⁹² A notable trait from the urbanistic viewpoint was the creation of a new square in front of its main facade. The immense main hall and the highly effective gradation of rooms with rich and iconographically uniformly conceived decor, celebrating the builder in a polyphony of themes, were important innovations in Prague residential architecture. “The Valdštejn Palace […] became a model for other seats of the nobility. With its monumental appearance and connection with a garden […] it was absolutely predestined to do so. The palace forms a kind of intermediary stage in the transition from Late Renaissance 238 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
85 J. Krčálová, Giovanni Pieroni – architekt? (see note 78), p. 528 (with reference to the lecture of Luigi Zangheri). 86 These deviations are precisely calculated by J. Krčálová (Giovanni Pieroni – architekt? see note 78, p. 528) and she correctly observes that they show that the two drawings are not the documentation of the completed building, but were made during the course of building or rather at its beginning. It appears that the plan from the Bologna University Library is older than the drawing from the Florentine Uffizi, because on it the Feldovský dům, which was only purchased in 1627, is not shown. The ground plan of this house is, however, already on the Florentine plan, which perhaps indicates that it originated in the given year or later. It further shows that changes – the blinding of the external window axis of the great hall on the south side in connection with the secondary establishment of the blind central portal of the main facade and the dividing of the west and east walls of the first courtyard with half-pillars – was only carried out after 1627. J. Krčálová assumes that the plans referred to demonstrate Pieroni’s authorship of the garden loggia of the palace, but not of the entire building, which she considers to be the work of Andrea Spezza. The design of the entire ground-plan, however, shows that the concept of the loggia undoubtedly came into being simultaneously with the resolution of the other parts of the main building of the palace. It seems, then, that the overall concept of the building is indeed the work of Pieroni, supplemented and altered during realisation evidently by Andrea Spezza and lastly also in details by Nicollo Sebregondi. The last to pay detailed attention to the drawings was Petr Fidler in the article Valdštejnský palác v rámci evropské architektury, in: M. Horyna (ed.), Valdštejnský palác v Praze, Praha 2002, pp. 140–144.
18. ← ← Rome, Church of S. Maria Vittoria, main facade (repro from: http:// commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Santa_Maria_della_Vittoria_-_ facciata_-_Gaspa.jpg) 19. ← Prague, Chapel of St Mary Magdalene below Letná (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 20. → Prague, Hradčany, Loreta, Santa Casa (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
87 J. Krčálová, Giovanni Pieroni – architekt? (see note 78, p. 528), ascribes to him the motif of the row of large dormer windows, which is not of Italian origin, but Transalpine. In the original state the attics of the palace were used for the servants’ accommodation. 88 The Carthusian Monastery Valdice (Valdická kartouza) was built from 1627 according to the project of Andrea Spezza, who also prepared a wooden model of the complex. There are not the slightest grounds here for the conjectured share of Pieroni (J. Krčálová, Giovanni Pieroni – architekt? see note 78, p. 523). Spezza proved his ability to conceive a monumental sacred building already with the building of the church of the Kamadul Benedictines in Bielany near Cracow (from 1617). The building, which was not completed until 1642, was conceived as a monumental single nave with side chapels of the characteristic Italian type. The overall concept of the building and also the use of thermal windows and other Roman motifs indicate perhaps the influence of the Czech churches of Giovanni Maria Filippi, which Spezza was acquainted with when he stayed in Prague in 1616. In contemporary Polish architecture the building had strong potential for the creation of a style. (Mariusz Karpowicz, Sztuka polska XVII. wieku, Warszawa 1975, p. 18). 89 Michaela Líčeníková, Úloha architekta Nicola Sebregondiho ve službách vévody Albtrechta z Valdštejna, Zprávy památkové péče, 58, 1998, p. 16 and following 90 Sebregondi is clearly the author of the project for the noteworthy central part of the St James Church. In the years 1624–1626 Giovanni Battista Pieroni elaborated five proposals for the Jičín church. Three of them handled the building as a deep single nave, but one of the variants clearly envisaged a main facade with two towers. The fourth designed the church as a central area with a circular nave interwoven with a Greek cross and the fifth was close to the executed state. (Petr Fidler, Valdštejnovi “pomocníci”. Stavitelé a architekti, in: Eliška Fučíková – Ladislav Čepička (edd.), Albrecht z Valdštejna. Inter arma silent musae? (exh. cat.), Praha 2007, pp. 96–97 and 488). The central constructed over a Greek cross recalls the older Roman building of Sebregondi, the church of S. Maria del Pianto, built from 1612. The Jičín church shows the characteristic Roman barrel vaults with rectangular sectors and coffered partition. The interior is also characterised by the perfect feeling of the classical order forms. Pavel Vlček expressed the hypothesis that the central of the St James Church in Jičín is only part of the intended large cathedral, the nave of which with the side chapels was not executed. (See: Pavel Vlček,
architecture to the Baroque. In its size and programme of content it is already Baroque, although the individual architectural details did not exceed the framework of the Renaissance.”⁹³ In the complex of the Valdštejn Palace the greatest interest of historians has always been aroused by the immense garden loggia. The authorship of Pieroni is directly proved by the preserved drawing stored in the Uffizi in Florence.⁹⁴ Oldřich Stefan⁹⁵ sought the source of inspiration of the composition in the portico of a house in Livorno, which was realised according to a project of Pieroni’s teacher, Bernardo Buontalenti, by his father Alessandro Pieroni in 1594. The motif had, however, a fundamentally longer tradition in Italian architecture of the 16th century. A great hall linked with a garden was already proposed by Rafael for the Villa Madama in Rome and then shortly after that, in 1525, also by Giulio Romano for the casino of the Lante villa at Laniculo in Rome and subsequently also in the Palace del Té in Mantua.⁹⁶ In the second half of the 16th century it is possible to find in Italian architecture a whole range of similar rooms and they also appear in Transalpine building, especially in Austria and Bavaria.⁹⁷ In spite of the evident link to older examples, however, the striking independence of the motif dominating the extensive garden of the palace gives the Prague version of the theme a palpably Baroque feeling. Just for this reason its reflection in the Czech architectural work of the following decades is also evident.⁹⁸ The second important palace construction in Prague in the second quarter of the 17th century was the only partly realised Palace of the Michnas of Vacínov at Újezd. A substantial contribution to knowledge of the original project for this building was made by the work of Pavel Vlček.⁹⁹ An older Renaissance house with a garden, ascribed to Ulrico Aostalli, ¹⁰⁰ was purchased in 1624 from Zuzana z Thurnu by Pavel Michna of Vacínov, shortly before this Albrecht of Valdštejn also expressed interest in this building.¹⁰¹ The reconstruction of the Renaissance house evidently did not begin until after the death of Pavel Michna and by 1644 only a smaller part of it was completed. The building work was allegedly carried out by master stonemason Zachariáš Campion de Bussi and builder Jakub Colombo.¹⁰² The author of the project is not known, but his artistic qualities are demonstrated by the perfectly balanced, effectively graduated and exceptionally pure architecture of the garden facade. Of the splendid symmetrical composition, distributed around two courtyards and with an external front courtyard separated from the street by a wall and a gate, only a small part was realised. The front courtyard, two courtyards and the garden were to have been linked by admirably rhythmic triple-naved passages, the like of STUDIES 239
which was unparalleled in Central European architecture at this time. These passages, as well as the admirable graduation of the individual rooms and the horizontal and vertical communications, are documented by the Baroque copy of the ground-plan of the ground floor in the set of plans in the Dientzenhofer Sketchbook, kept in the library of the Bavarian National Museum in Munich.¹⁰³ The artistic standard of the enterprise is demonstrated by the outstanding stucco decoration both of the risaltos of the garden facade and of the rooms on the ground floor of the garden wing, carried out by Domenico Galli, evidently a relation of Santino Galli, who participated two decades earlier in the decoration of the great hall of the Valdštejn Palace.¹⁰⁴ “In the Michna Palace there was undoubtedly the most extraordinary architecture of the 17th century in Prague. Architecture that was too real, too classical and too Italian […] and in addition standing very close to Roman architecture, which can be compared in particular with Algardi’s Villa Doria Pamphili.”¹⁰⁵ All this permits us to assume that the building arose on the basis of a plan imported direct from Italy. The economic collapse of the family unfortunately did not allow the entire building to be completed and already in the 17th century it was deformed by several unsuitable interventions.¹⁰⁶ In comparison with the Valdštejn and Michna residences the imperial building enterprises in Prague Castle, carried out from 1635 by the Prague Italian builders Santino Bossi, Antonio Quadri, Antonio Robero¹⁰⁷ and the stonemason Zachariáš Bussi de Campione, and later from 1638 under the guidance of architect Giuseppe Mattei, were relatively modest.¹⁰⁸ Here, too, artistic invention was hindered by orders to save money, so that Mattei’s most important work in Prague was the construction of the communications ramp linking the top part of Ostruhova Street (today’s Nerudova Street) with the square in front of the Castle, completed in 1643.¹⁰⁹ After the striking and daring performance of the General of the Barefoot Carmelites Domenica a Jesu Maria in the drama at the White Mountain¹¹⁰, the Emperor Ferdinand II decided to found new monasteries of the order in Prague and in Vienna. In Prague the Carmelites selected for themselves the recently completed Lutheran Church in the Lesser Town, consecrated to the Holy Trinity. By a gift from the Emperor and General Martin Huerta they also obtained the neighbouring buildings for the establishment of a monastery. General Vicar Kašpar Arsenius of Radbuza introduced the Carmelites to the new church on 7 September 1624 and the church was consecrated the following day by the apostolic visitator of the Minorite Order, Jan Savonanti, to the honour of Our Lady Victorious and St Anthony of Padua.¹¹¹ In subsequent years the buildings acquired were adapted for the purposes of the monastery and the church had to be provided with a monks’ chancel, which in the case of the Barefoot Carmelites was always behind the main altar. On the east side, however, the addition of the chancel would have encroached on the public area of what is today Karmelitská Street, one of the main streets of the Lesser Town. For this reason it was decided to change the orientation of the church, to establish the sacristy to the west of the nave and build the area of the monks’ chancel behind it with an apse on a semi-oval ground-plan. This reconstruction was completed in 1634 as the building work was interrupted in 1631–32 by the occupation of Prague by Saxony.¹¹² Architecturally this enterprise was quite undemanding. Only afterwards, up to 1642, was the striking main facade realised with the means from many donors, most prominent among them being don Balthasar de Marradas.¹¹³ Between the facade and the line of the street a terrace was raised with a broad entrance stairway. The monumental facade thus acquired a suitably composed forecourt and, like the new square in front of the main facade of the Valdštejn Palace, this area, too, is an early example of Early Baroque urbanist correction of an originally medieval situation. The triaxial facade with a large tabular gable, accompanied by scrolled gables above the side axes, is a frequently used type of Roman facade. The nearest pattern for the Prague facade was evidently the facade with which Giovanni Maria Soria decorated the church in Rome newly adapted and consecrated to Our Lady Victorious to the order of Cardinal Scipion Borghese in the years 1624–1626.¹¹⁴ A comparison of the Prague and Rome buildings shows striking resemblances both in design and in the general outline of the facade, in other words the very design traits that can be identified by even a normally perceptive viewer. The quotation of the Rome model has religious argumentative significance here, indicating the equal status of the two church buildings linked to the “Marian miracle” at the Battle of White Mountain.¹¹⁵ Alongside the Carmelites and Jesuits great activity in re-catholicisation was also 240 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
91
92 93 94 95 96
97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107
108 109 110 111 112 113 114
115
“Dientzenhoferův skicář” a česká architektura 1640–1670, Umění XXXVII, 1989, p. 485) This hypothesis is not substantiated in any way and it is overturned by the known older plan of Pieroni and the overall urbanistic situation of the building, which with the attached nave and chapels would have collided with the track of the street leading from the city gate. The activity of Pieroni for other builders has already been elaborated by Jarmila Krčálová (Giovanni Pieroni – architekt, see note 78, pp. 511–542) and more lately by Petr Fidler (Valdštejnovi “pomocníci”, see this note above, pp. 88–101). The lists of the so-called Frýdlant confiscation commission from 1634 document the completion of the palace with the exception of the external east wing towards the stables, which was only roughly completed and the interiors were unfinished (M. Horyna, Stavební vývoj Valdštejnského paláce, see note 76, p. 111). P. Fidler, Valdštejnský palác (see note 86), pp. 176–177. P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 53. P. Fidler, Valdštejnský palác (see note 86), pp. 143, 145. Oldřich Stefan, O architektonickém útvaru Valdštejnské Loggie v Praze, Umění XI, 1938, pp. 319–325. On the typology of the loggia see: Petr Fidler, Loggia mit Aussicht. Prolegomena zu einer Typologie, Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 40, 1987, p. 88. J. Krčálová, Giovanni Pieroni – architekt? (cit v pozn. 78, p. 529) ; P. Fidler, Valdštejnský palác (see note 86), pp. 176–177. P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 52. P. Vlček, “Dientzenhoferův skicář” (see note 90), pp. 473–496; P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), pp. 53–60. Emanuel Poche – Pavel Preiss, Pražské paláce, Praha 1973, p. 34. Z. Hojda, Albrecht Václav Eusebius z Valdštejna (see note 75), p. 33. Cyril Merhaut, O Malé Straně, Praha 1956, p. 40. P. Vlček, “Dientzenhoferův skicář” (see note 90), pp. 492–493. P. Preiss, Italští umělci (see note 3), p. 255. P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 58. P. Vlček, “Dientzenhoferův skicář” (see note 90), p. 493; P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 55. Concealed under this name is the grandfather of Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel, the mason Antonio Akel, whose name in the written form varied considerably at that time – see V. Kotrba, Česká barokní gotika (see note 58), pp. 126–129. P. Preiss, Italští umělci (see note 3), pp. 159–160; P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), pp. 67–68. P. Preiss, Italští umělci (see note 3), p. 160. J. Forbelský – M. Horyna – J. Royt, Pražské Jezulátko (see note 37), pp. 34–36. Ibidem, p. 40. Ibidem, pp. 86–87. Ibidem, p. 88. The enthusiasm over the Marian victory at White Mountain was very strong in the Catholic camp. In Rome the Carmelite Chapel of St Paul was dedicated to it and after its reconstruction it was newly consecrated to the honour of Our Lady Victorious and the Strakonice picture was permanently placed on its main altar when the afore-mentioned copy was sent to Prague. See J. Forbelský – M. Horyna – J. Royt, Pražské Jezulátko (see note 37), pp. 36–38. As mentioned above, the Roman church kept the original of the “miraculous” picture and the Prague church its afore-mentioned copy, equally authentic. These pictures were centres for Marian homage in both places. The resemblance of the facades was intended to express – in accordance with the understanding of the time – this relationship of both buildings to the highly valued shrine. See J. Forbelský – M. Horyna – J. Royt, Pražské Jezulátko (see note 37), p. 88.
21. ↑ Prague, Old Town, former Jesuit Church of St Salvator, facade (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 22. ↗↗ Prague, Old Town, Clementinum, main facade, view from the corner of Křižovnická and Platnéřská streets (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 23. → Prague, Old Town, Clementinum, former refectory, general view (photo: National Library of the Czech Republic – Ivan Král)
developed by the Capuchins, summoned to Prague by Archbishop Zbyněk Berka z Dubé in 1599 and settled in Hradčany from the following year. Within the framework of the Order of St Francis – of which the Capuchins are also a reformed branch – homage to the Virgin Mary was cultivated, including the cult of Our Lady of Loreto.¹¹⁶ Already in the 16th century Loreto was a frequent destination for pious pilgrims from Bohemia and the cult of Our Lady of Loreto is documented here from the eighties of the 16th century in Horšovský Týn. Its rapid blossoming occurred, of course, after the Battle of White Mountain.¹¹⁷ The Prague Loreta was one of the first realisations of this time. The iniciator and founder was Benigna Kateřina z Lobkovic,¹¹⁸ who purchased houses and land and from the start intended to entrust the place of pilgrimage built to the administration of the Capuchins from the neighbouring monastery.¹¹⁹ For the construction of the Santa Casa Giovanni Battista Orsi was summoned from Vienna, one of the architects who had participated shortly beforehand in the construction of the Santa Casa in the Viennese church of St Augustine on the basis of accurate measurements carried out in Loreto itself.¹²⁰ The Prague Santa Casa, built in the years 1626–1627, is therefore a very precise copy of the house of Mary in Loreto in Italy. On 25 March 1631 the chapel was consecrated by Cardinal Harrach. The extent of the land acquired by Countess Lobkovic even before the commencement of building is proof that already the original intention was the construction of ambits with a facade tower, the ground-plan of which was measured out in 1631, although its realisation began in 1634.¹²¹ The construction of the ambits and the clock tower was also carried out by Giovanni Battista Orsi and after his death by Andrea Allio and lastly by Silvestro Carlone. The building of the ambits took several decades¹²² and gradually saw a series of improvements and alterations, only achieving its definitive form in the 18th century. Nevertheless, already in the form intended at the start of the enterprise in the third decade the Prague Loreta represents an early example of the type of place of pilgrimage with ambits so characteristic of Baroque architecture in Bohemia.¹²³ Apart from their Hradčany monastery the Capuchins acquired in 1630, with the permission of Emperor Ferdinand II, an abandoned hospital in the New Town of Prague. The construction of the monastery with the Church of St Joseph took place in the years 1636–1641 and listed for this is the builder Melchior Meer with supervisor Giono Decapaoli, evidently on the recommendation of the Strahov Abbot Kašpar Questenberg, brother of the chief benefactor of the building, court military counsellor Gerhard Questenberg.¹²⁴ They perhaps only carried out technical supervision, as both the church and the monastery represent typical examples of the extremely simple Capuchin architecture mandatory throughout the order. An exceptionally interesting building of which the author has not yet been determined is the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene in the vineyard below Letná, which the Provost of the Old Town Cyriac Church of the Greater Holy Cross had built in 1635.¹²⁵ The chapel, which appears on Škréta’s painting St Wenceslas presses wine for the mass, bakes the host and hoes the vineyard from 1641,¹²⁶ is based on an oval ground-plan. Its circumference wall is divided into six fields both inside and outside. The internal area opens into six embrasures, separated by pillars and further divided up by niches. The low bell dome has a slender skylight turret set on top of it. The attempt to ascribe this building to Jan Dominik de Barifis¹²⁷ is based on a certain formal resemblance to the structuring of the facades of the church of the Old Town Lutherans. This is, however, a use of forms quite common at the period, which are not characteristic of individual authors. In the middle of the fourth decade of the 17th century we meet in Prague for the first time Carlo Lurago, a master who play a directly style-forming role in the following decades not only within the framework of Prague architecture, but in the whole of Czech architecture. He appears in Prague at the age of twenty in 1635, ¹²⁸ perhaps in the course of his journeyman’s travels. In 1638 he is documented in his native town of Pelio in Val d’Intelvi, but soon after this he again appears in Prague, where he commences his activity with the Prague Jesuits, at first evidently as a stuccoer.¹²⁹ The contract for the decoration of the Jesuit Church of St Salvator, dating from 1640, gives Lurago as a sculptor and architect.¹³⁰ Right at the start of his activity Carlo Lurago came into contact with the Jesuits, who were his most important clients. This order, which played a dominant role in the renewal of 242 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
116 A cult object, documented since the 4th century, is the house of the Virgin Mary in Nazareth, where the Annunciation took place. A temple was built over it in the 4th century, renovated several times and finally completely overthrown in 1263. The Marian Casa Santa was miraculously transferred in 1291 to Tersatto and three years later to Loreto near Ancona in Italy. This transfer was accompanied by Marian visions. The Santa Casa in the Loreto, in the form given to it by Italian Renaissance artists at the beginning of the 16th century, is still honoured today. 117 In 1621 a Minorite monastery was established in Jílové near Prague with the church consecrated to Our Lady of Loreto, and the Loreta in Hájek near Kladno began to be built in 1623. 118 She allegedly adopted this intention after visiting Cardinal Franz Dietrichstein in Mikulov, where the Loreta had just been completed. 119 On the talks of Countess Lobkovicová with P. Valerian Magni and Archbishop Arnošt Vojtěch, Cardinal Harrach, see Jan Diviš, Pražská Loreta, Praha 1972, pp. 18–20. 120 Franz Matsche, Gegenreformatorische Architekturpolitik. CasaSanta-Kopien und Habsburger Loreto-Kult nach 1620, Jahrbuch für Volkskunde NF Bd. 1, 1978, pp. 80–118; Markéta Baštová – Terezie Cvachová, Loreta. Průvodce poutním místem, Praha 2001, p. 10. 121 The reason for the delay was undoubtedly the martial events during the Saxon occupation of Prague in the years 1631–1632. J. Diviš, Pražská Loreta (see note 119), p. 21. 122 The date 1643, when the dome of the clock tower was covered with metal sheeting, clearly represents the completion of only part of the building. (J. Diviš, Pražská Loreta, see note 119, p. 22) 123 Franz Matsche, Wallfahrtsarchitektur- die Ambitenanlagen böhmischer Wallfahrtsstätten im Barock, in: Lenz KrissRettenberg (ed.), Wallfahrt kennt keine Grenzen, München 1984, pp. 267–352; Jana Niedermaier, Barocke Ambitenanlagen in Böhmen und Mähren, München 2009, pp. 77–79 and 262–265. 124 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), pp. 68–70. 125 Ibidem, pp. 80–81. 126 Jaromír Neumann, Škrétové, Praha 2000, p. 46. 127 J. Mayer, Architektonické dílo Jana Domenica de Barifis (see note 52), p. 206. 128 Viktor Kotrba, Původ a život architekta Jana Blažeje SantinihoAichela, Umění XVI, 1968, p. 535; V. Kotrba, Česká barokní gotika (see note 58), p. 126. 129 Věra Naňková, Architektura 17. století, in: Emanuel Poche, Praha na úsvitu nových dějin, Praha 1988, p. 295; Věra Naňková, Architektura 17. století v Čechách, in: Jiří Dvorský (ed.), Dějiny českého výtvarného umění II, 1, Praha 1989, p. 249; P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 110. 130 Amalie Duras, Die Architektenfamilie Lurago, Praha s.d., p. 14.
131 Mojmír Horyna, Hl. Niklas-Kirche in Prag Kleinseite und ihre Bedeutung für die mitteleuropäische Kirchenarchitektur des ersten Drittels des 18. Jahrhunderts, in: Petra Čemus (ed.), Bohemie Jesuitica 1556–2006, Praha 2010, p. 1311. 132 An example here might be the history of the establishment and gradual construction of the Jesuit college and church in Hradec Králové, see Ivo Kořán, Umění a umělci baroka v Hradci králové, Umění XIX, 1971, pp. 39–40. 133 Věra Naňková, K typologii české sakrální architektury 17. století, Umění XXXIV, 1986, p. 138. 134 A. Duras, Die Architektenfamilie Lurago (see note 130), pp. 21–23. 135 Richard Bösel, Jesuitenarchitektur in Italien 1540–1773, Teil I. Die Baudenkmäler der Römischen und Neapolitanischen Ordensprovinz – Textband, Wien 1986, p. 166. 136 P. Vlček, “Dientzenhoferův skicář” (see note 90), p. 486. 137 The facade was realised with a certain degree of delay. Whether it was lack of finances that caused its formally conservative and austere appearance or perhaps its execution by local building workers, there is no proof either way. Nevertheless the difference between style of the interior and the facade is disturbingly evident. 138 Miroslav ZÍka, Soldattiové a štukatérská družina Carlo Luraga, (MA thesis, Philosophical Faculty of Charles University), Praha 2002; P. Vlček, Encyklopedie architektů (see note 36), p. 381. 139 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 112. 140 The existing domed vaulting in this field is the work of later building reconstruction of the church after it was damaged by a great fire in 1762. The repairs were carried out by architect František Kermer. See I. Kořán, Umění a umělci (see note 132), p. 144. 141 Heinrich Gerhard Franz, Barocke Architektur sehen – barocke Architektur verstehen, in: Die Dientzenhofer. Barocke Baukunst in Bayern und Böhmen, Rosenheim 1991, pp. 34–36; Werner Müller, Von Guarini bis Balthasar Neumann, Petersberg 2002, p. 43 and following.; Mojmír Horyna, Kryštof Dientzenhofer (1655–1722), Praha 2005, pp. 48–53. 142 The present appearance of the facade is influenced by the extensive reconstruction, which was carried out after the fire in 1762 by architect František Kermer. See I. Kořán, Umění a umělci (see note 132), p. 40 and 144. 143 Konstanty Kalinowski, Architektura doby baroku na Slasku, Warszawa 1977, pp. 36–38. 144 Idem, p. 57. 145 Marcela Mrázová-Schusterová, K otázce projektanta jezuitského kostela v Klatovech, Umění XII, 1964, p. 81 and following.; Pavel Vlček, Giovanni Domenico Orsi a bývalý kostel sv. Norberta v Praze, Umění XXXIV, 1986, pp. 423–424. 146 Věra Naňková, Kostel sv. Ignáce v Chomutově, Památky, příroda a život 3, 1971, p. 26.
Catholic orthodoxy in Bohemia, developed mightily after the Battle of White Mountain. Whereas in 1618 there were only five Jesuit colleges in Bohemia and two in Moravia, after 1620 and up to the middle of the 17th century 17 new colleges and residences of the order were established in Bohemia.¹³¹ The older buildings that the Jesuits acquired for their use were, however, merely provisional¹³² and were replaced in subsequent decades by new buildings. If we also count the partial reconstruction of the Church of the Most Holy Salvator in the Old Town Clementinum in Prague, then Carlo Lurago worked for the Jesuits on nine religious buildings, six of which were completely new buildings. In the new buildings he elaborated in particular the dispositional theme of a single-nave church with side chapels and emporas, which became, also thanks to him, a very frequent type of our Early Baroque.¹³³ The oldest of these was the Church of St Ignatius and St Francis Xavier in Březnice, constructed from 1642 beside the college already constructed earlier, from 1638.¹³⁴ The rough building of the church, completed around 1650 and completely furnished only in 1673, represents the usual type of single nave, four fields in depth, with side chapels and coretti above them, which had a concrete purpose for the Jesuits.¹³⁵ There was rightly observed to be a certain proportional uncertainty of the ground-plan design, ¹³⁶ which does not, of course, relate either to the Stará Boleslav Jesuit church or to the Il Gesù type of disposition. A single nave with relatively deep and unconnected chapels is the most common type of middle-sized Italian church, which had already become at home also in Central Europe in the middle of the 17th century. The division of the nave into four fields – with the same number of pairs of facing chapels – and a relatively deep chancel with a polygonal apse give the impression of more marked intention of depth than would correspond to the actual dimensions of the ground-plan. Whereas the interior is characterised by the highquality stucco decoration with classical decorative shapes, the twin-towered facade is reduced by more than a bearable amount with regard to formal design.¹³⁷ Further buildings for the Jesuits in subsequent decades show that the Jesuits were satisfied already with the first work of Carlo Lurago and clearly also appreciated the fact that he soon headed an efficient building firm in which artisans of a number of building professions worked.¹³⁸ For this reason he was already employed around 1650 in further building enterprises of the order and his activity in the sixth decade of the 17th century reached its quantitative peak. At latest in 1653 Lurago completed the plans for the Jesuit church in Hradec Králové, which was highly valued by the Provincial.¹³⁹ In the plan of a single nave, three extensive fields deep and with side chapels and emporas above them, opening into the presbytery where the square field vaulted with an eight-part vault with a skylight turret¹⁴⁰ was linked with a rectangular apse field, Lurago elaborated a dispositional scheme, which was applied still at the beginning of the 18th century in Dientzenhofer’s project for the St Nicholas Church in the Lesser Town.¹⁴¹ The composition of the two-towered facade was designed with far greater balance than in Březnice.¹⁴² Already in 1654 Carlo Lurago concluded a contract for the construction of a Jesuit college and seminar in Kladsko. The ground-plan has a simple rectangular arrangement with clear and generous dimensioning of rooms. The facades are a simplified version of the composition of the facades of the Prague Clementinum.¹⁴³ After 1660 the originally Gothic Jesuit church was reconstructed according to Lurago’s project; emporas were installed in the interior and the walls covered with rich stucco decoration.¹⁴⁴ The construction of the college and church of the Jesuits in Klatovy was delayed for a long time by the slow acquisition of buildings and land. The contract was concluded with Carlo Lurago only in 1654. Working on the construction as a building supervisor was the young Giovanni Domenico Orsi. The construction of the church, begun in 1656, soon ground to a halt due to lack of means and was only realised ten years later according to the altered project of Giovanni Domenico Orsi.¹⁴⁵ The Church of St Ignatius and St Francis Xavier in Chomutov, built from 1663, is one of the supreme works of Carlo Lurago.¹⁴⁶ The single nave with side chapels and emporas and a shallow rectangular chancel is conceived with perfect proportional balance, almost identical to the ground-plan of the Prague Church of St Ignatius. Worthy of notice is the striking relief of the structuring of the walls of the main nave, where the individual chapels are separated by linked semi-pillars, building up the sections of the complete architrave, when only the platband runs above the archivolts of the emporas. The plasticity of the composition of the wall of the main nave recalls the design of the nave of the Roman church of S. Salvatore in STUDIES 243
Lauro and thus supports the suspicion that Lurago’s development in the sixth decade and later was evidently linked with the knowledge of some Italian pattern sheets.¹⁴⁷ The barrel vaults with three-sided sectors have the original stucco decoration. The main facade has five axes with a central triaxial risalto set with a large gable and with side towers with octagonal upper levels. Set in front of the risalto is a triaxial portico, with a striking segmented fronton arching over it. Especially with his sacred buildings Carlo Lurago had a strong impact on the appearance of the towns of Prague in the period of Škréta’s lifetime. After the stucco work from the period around 1640 he returned twice more to the Church of the Most Holy Salvator in the Clementinum. In the reconstruction in the years 1648–49, financed by Count Karel Alexander Michna of Vacínov, an octagonal tambour with a false dome was built above the crossing, the side naves were raised and emporas built in.¹⁴⁸ Lastly, from 1654, Lurago realised the new main facade of the church, facing Charles Bridge and the Bridge tower, according to his own design. Compared with its older appearance from the period after 1601 the floors of the front facade were fundamentally changed when the lower floor was lowered and a striking triaxial portico set in front of it and the upper tabular gable, set with a three-sided fronton, was higher and executed on each side by wings cut away in segments.¹⁴⁹ Its super-elevation calculated precisely with the moving of the portico forward in front of the basic plane of the facade. This solution fundamentally activated the relationship of the church facade and the space in front of it so that the 244 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
147 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 114. 148 Václav Richter, Stavební vývoj kostela sv. Salvatora v Klementinu, Památky archeologické 34, 1925, p. 345; Milada Vilímková, Kostel sv. Salvatora v Klementinu. Stavebně-historický průzkum Prahy, Praha SÚRPMO 1979, manuscr., pages not numbered. 149 V. Naňková, Architektura 17. století (see note 129), pp. 296–298.
24. ↖ Prague, New Town, Church of St Ignatius, facade (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 25. ↑ Prague, New Town, Church of St Ignatius, interior, general view from the choir (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
150 Ivo Kořán, Sochařství, in: Emanuel Poche (ed.), Praha na úsvitu nových dějin, Praha 1988, p. 448. 151 Petra Nevímová, Výstavba a výzdoba Klementina v letech 1556–1773. (Diss, Philosophical Faculty of Charles University), Praha 2001, p. 35. 152 Ibidem, pp. 37–41. 153 Ibidem, p. 36. 154 Miroslav ZÍka, Soldattiové a štukatérská družina Carlo Luraga, (see note 138), p. 23. 155 Ibidem, pp. 14, 20–21. 156 P. Nevímová, Výstavba a výzdoba Klementina (see note 151), p. 37; P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 128. 157 Milada Vilímková, Ke stavebnímu vývoji komplexu jezuitských budov na Malostranském náměstí, Umění XIX, 1971, p. 317 and following 158 Mojmír Horyna, Barokizace pasovského dómu – Luragovo dílo na rozhraní raného a vrcholného baroka a česká architektura kolem roku 1700, Umění LII, 2004, p. 227.
portico – applying the composition of a triumphal arch – opens up the facade to the space of the small square and towards the viewer coming from the direction of the bridge. At that time the bridge was a main highway of the city and the new composition of the facade thus directly represented the important position of the Jesuits in its life. An important compositional component of the facade is the sculptural decoration of Jan Jiří Bendl, ¹⁵⁰ which through the selection of saintly figures and their positioning on the facade expresses the celebration of Salvator, the Virgin Mary as the personification of the church, the testimonies of the evangelists and the teaching status of the church and finally local Christian tradition and the Jesuit Order as the continuer of this. Simultaneously with the construction of the church facade the north-west part of the Clementinum College was also built according to Lurago’s projects. A total of 36 agreements were concluded with him and with further builders and craftsmen between 1654 and 1682, only eight of which have been preserved; we know about the others only from the Old Inventories of the archive of the Society of Jesus.¹⁵¹ Up to 1668 the contracts are concluded with Carlo Lurago, in 1669 the contract was concluded with Carlo and Francesco Lurago and later only with Francesco.¹⁵² Agreements are also preserved with the stonemasons Francesco della Torre and Giovanni Battista Passerino and with sculptor Jan Jiří Bendl.¹⁵³ The stucco work was carried out by “Lurago’s stucco team”; contracts were signed by the architect himself.¹⁵⁴ Leading personalities here were Giovanni Domenico Galli, Giovanni Battista Cometa and later also Antonio Soldati.¹⁵⁵ The wording of the contracts shows that – although the overall idea of the area was obviously formulated right at the beginning of the building work – the executive projects were elaborated progressively and sometimes even with considerable changes, always before the start of each separate stage of building. The contract of 1656 shows changes in the design of the west wing, precisely the raising of the construction by one ell, a different solution to the ceilings on the third floor and in the attics and the use of rustic work on the shafts of the monumental pilasters of the main facade.¹⁵⁶ After the completion of the west wing and the north wing up to the Chapel of St Eligio, up to 1668 the internal wing was constructed with a clock tower and to this was linked to the east by a cross wing with a large refectory. After Carlo Lurago moved to Passau the construction of the Clementinum was led by Francesco Lurago and after him in 1679 by Giovanni Domenico Orsi. Soon after that the building work was interrupted for a lengthy period. On the not quite regular building site Carlo Lurago managed to propose a very clear ground-plan with well dimensioned and arranged communications and spaces. The large corridors and the refectory and its vestibule are decorated with valuable stucco, frescoes and quality stonework. The refectory itself is a highly effective room, vaulted with a flat barrel vault supported by mighty curtail corbels. The external facade of the west wing – composed as the main facade of the college – is divided by a high row of rustic-work pilasters with the heads decorated with festoons and rich decorations in the sections of frieze above them. The facade with a total of 21 axes is rhythmised by the insertion of risaltos with gemel windows and the placement of striking dormers above every second axis of the facade in the roof part. This complex design weakened, although it did not completely exclude, the danger of monotony in the exceptionally long frontage. Nevertheless, the formally rich composition of the facade was the subject of criticism in subsequent years directly from the General of the Jesuit Order, Giano Paolo Oliva.¹⁵⁷ The north facade, with the exception of the four-axis risalto for the extent of the St Eligio Chapel, and the courtyard facades are merely horizontally layered and very simply executed. In the design of the Clementinum Lurago demonstrated his ability to produce a generous, logically combined and balanced composition for a monumental whole. The supreme architectural activity of Carlo Lurago for the Jesuits was then the building of the Church of St Ignatius by the Order’s college in the New Town of Prague. The type of layout with an extensive single nave with a monumental main area, opposing chapels with emporas above them and a broad, shallow chancel is formulated here perfectly as regards dimensions and highly effectively. The areas of the side chapels are vaulted with flat vaults, a very progressive form in their time. An interesting motif, anti-classical in its effect and dynamising the height composition of the space, is the interruption of the architrave strip and the raised sections of frieze at the level of the emporas. The composition of the side walls of the nave inspired two decades later the design of the side walls of the nave of a church in Waldsassen.¹⁵⁸ A fundamental component of the effect of the interior STUDIES 245
is also the rich stucco decoration, again carried out by the “Lurago team”.¹⁵⁹ The exterior of the church is characterised by the monumental and calm composition of the facade with the emphasising of the central axis projecting in the risalto, the corners of which are convexly rounded.¹⁶⁰ The triaxial portico in front of this risalto was added later according to the plan of Pavel Ignác Bayer.¹⁶¹ The construction of the church, begun in 1665, was roughly finished in 1670; the vaulting carried out the following year and completely finished in 1678. From 1671, however, the construction was supervised by Martin Reiner, as by this time Carlo Lurago was already living in Passau.¹⁶² Even before the building of the church the construction started of the neighbouring building of the New Town Jesuit College, which was carried out by Martin Reiner – it is not clear whether according to his own project or that of Lurago.¹⁶³ The construction of the college dragged on for decades and it was not completed until the middle of the 18th century. An original part of it was the very interesting Chapel of St Francis Xavier, belonging to the novitiate of the Order, composed as a small longitudinal, originally with alcove chapels and an empora ambit.¹⁶⁴ Also of exceptional importance for the religious life of Bohemia was a further building by Lurago, the place of pilgrimage at Svatá Hora near Příbram.¹⁶⁵ The Jesuits, who had religious administration here from 1647, decided to extend and reconstruct the little chapel, visited by pilgrimages from the thirties of the 17th century, in accordance with a plan provided by Carlo Lurago in 1659.¹⁶⁶ The original little chapel was extended to include what was formerly an arcaded open space for believers and supplemented by a row of external chapels consecrated to persons related to Mary and the chief saints of the Jesuit Order. The strongly atypical religious building, set on a terraced base and opened up by arcades, counted on the considerable participation of pilgrims who took part in the mass in the open air. Ambits with large corner chapels and smaller alcove chapels were also planned at the same time as the central chapel. This building, started in 1660, was completed after several interruptions in 1673 and further furnished and decorated in the following decades.¹⁶⁷ Of the buildings for other church clients in Prague the most significant was undoubtedly the Church of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady beside the monastery of the Irish Franciscans in the New Town. This order came to Prague on the basis of a decision of Emperor Ferdinand II and Archbishop Arnošt Vojtěch Cardinal Harrach in 1629 and was introduced to the former Franciscan monastery by the Church of St Ambrose. ¹⁶⁸ After the Hybernians built their own monastery in 1637 they realised in 1652–1669 the building of a new church, undoubtedly according to the project of Carlo Lurago.¹⁶⁹ The layout of the church – also documented by a copy of the plans in the Dientzenhofer Sketchbook¹⁷⁰ – was also a very precise formulation of the single-nave type with side chapels and emporas. To the nave, three vaulting fields deep, was connected a deeper field, forming the indication of some kind of intersection, which was not carried out, of the transept. The shallow chancel with rectilinear apse has a depth of two crosswise rectangular fields. At the beginning of the 19th century the church was adapted for use as a customs house.¹⁷¹ The new reconstruction last decade for the purposes of a theatre considerably damaged this monument. In the field of profane architecture Lurago’s work was not so well defined. His buildings are generally characterised by high-quality technical execution, a clear and welldimensioned layout and a tendency towards block-enclosed formation of the exterior of the building. This applies both to the building of the Generalate of the Bohemian Order of the Knights of the Cross by Charles Bridge (from 1661), where the structuring of the facade is enriched by monumental rustic-work pilasters, ¹⁷² and also to the convent of the Carmelite Nuns in the Lesser Town (from 1662) ¹⁷³ and the Old Town monastery of the Dominicans by the Church of St Giles (from 1663).¹⁷⁴ Lurago entered palace architecture in Prague chiefly with the demanding construction of the New Town Palace of the Losy of Losinthal family in the years 1651–1657.¹⁷⁵ The Early Baroque form was altered by considerable younger reconstructions. The Lobkovic Palace in Prague Castle¹⁷⁶ came into being in the years 1651–1668 through the reconstruction of the beautiful Pernštejn Palace. Lurago changed the relatively structured architecture of the Renaissance building into a balanced block and raised it by one floor. In the interiors of the palace he constructed a generous three-armed staircase running round a central light well, to which was connected on the first floor a series of richly decorated reception rooms, the main 246 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
159 M. ZÍka, Luragova štukatérská dílna (see note 138), pp. 25–28. 160 V. Naňková, Architektura 17. století (see note 129), p. 301. 161 Věra Naňková, Architekt a stavitel Pavel Ignác Bayer – představy v literatuře a skutečnost, Umění XXII, 1974, p. 224. 162 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), pp. 124–125; Mojmír Horyna – Petra Oulíková, Kostel sv. Ignáce z Loyoly. Praha – Nové Město, Kostelní Vydří 2006, pp. 7–8. 163 V. Naňková, Architektura 17. století (see note 129), p. 301; P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 144. 164 At present the space has an additional floor. The original stucco decoration is preserved in the vaulting. The documentation of the original situation is preserved in the Dientzenhofer sketchbook, see P. Vlček, “Dientzenhoferův skicář” (see note 90), pp. 488–489. 165 At Svatá Hora the Marian homage also begins with a miracle connected with the slightly rustic medieval statue of Our Lady, according to legend the actual work of the first Archbishop of Prague, Arnošt of Pardubice. The place of pilgrimage was visited in 1634 by Emperor Ferdinand II with his son and soon became popular with neighbouring nobility and people. After a further visit from the Emperor it was entrusted to the spiritual care of the Jesuits from Březnice. (Josef Kopeček, Svatá Hora, Kostelní Vydří 2003, pp. 12–13) 166 V. Naňková, Architektura 17. století v Čechách (see note 129), p. 257; J. Kopeček, Svatá Hora (see note 165), pp. 13–14. 167 J. Kopeček, Svatá Hora (see note 165), pp. 15–16 168 The order played a significant part in the education of adepts to the priesthood in the Archbishop’s Seminary in Prague and also acquired great popularity among the Czech nobility. Stanislav Sousedík, Filosofie v českých zemích mezi středověkem a osvícenstvím, Praha 1997, pp. 216–218. 169 P. Preiss, Italští umělci (see note 3), p. 184; P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), pp. 122–123. 170 P. Vlček, “Dientzenhoferův skicář” (see note 90), p. 486 171 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), pp. 123–124. 172 Ibidem, pp. 137–139. 173 Ibidem, pp. 139–141. 174 Ibidem, pp. 141–143. 175 Ibidem, pp. 146–148. 176 Ibidem, pp. 139–140.
177 Augustin Wolf, Fürst Wenzel Lobkowitz, Wien 1869; Max Dvořák, Briefe Kaiser Leopold I. an Wenzel Euseb Herzog in Schlesien, Archiv der Österreichischen Geschichte 80, 1893, pp. 463–508; Robert J. W. Evans, Vznik habsburské monarchie 1550–1700, Praha 2003, p. 164 and 166. 178 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 149. 179 Pavel Vlček, K účasti kameníků a sochařů na stavbě pražského opevnění v 17. století, Umění XXXVIII, 1985, pp. 359–378; P. Vlček, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 1), pp. 92–109. 180 V. Naňková, Architektura 17. století (see note 129), p. 296; P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 104. 181 Pavel Vlček, Ilustrovaná encyklopedie českých zámků, Praha 1999, pp. 378–379. 182 I. I. Kořán, Umění a umělci (see note 132), p. 40. 183 K. Kalinowski, Architektura (see note 143), pp. 38–41. 184 P. Vlček, Ilustrovaná encyklopedie českých zámků (see note 181), pp. 266–267. 185 V. Naňková, Architektura 17. století v Čechách (see note 129), p. 257; M. Horyna, Barokizace pasovského dómu (see note 158), pp. 226–229 186 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 150
26. ↑ Chomutov, Church of St Ignatius, interior, view towards the choir (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 27. ↗ Rome, Church of S. Salvator in Lauro, interior, view of the main nave towards the presbytery (reproduced after: http://www. piosodaliziodeipiceni.it/galleria_ chiesa.php?page=gallerie)
room extending to two floors. The representative layout and demanding decoration were in keeping with the fact that the client was at that time the most important Bohemian nobleman, in 1665–1674 Hofmeister and a member of the Imperial Secret Council, Václav Eusebius z Lobkovic.¹⁷⁷ Lurago’s building company carried out exceptionally high-quality work here also in the sphere of the stonemasons’ work and stucco decoration, mainly executed by Domenico Galli.¹⁷⁸ Lurago’s large and efficient building enterprise also won considerable recognition in the construction of the New Town fortifications, begun immediately after the end of the Swedish siege in 1648. The new fortifications were in front of the old Gothic battlements and were also protected by large five-sided bastions. The event of the construction of the Prague Baroque fortifications has been recently elaborated in detail.¹⁷⁹ Apart from the New Town fortifications Lurago also acquitted himself well in the building of the new fortifications of the Vyšehrad Citadel. An architecturally more significant work in this connection is the composition of the monumental coulisse of the Leopold Gate.¹⁸⁰ In Lurago’s work outside Prague for non-religious clients the most important were: the partial reconstruction of the chateau in Náchod with the building of the chateau chapel as a small, richly decorated central space,¹⁸¹ the reconstruction of the chateau in Nové Město nad Metují or the building of the hospital and St Wenceslas Chapel in Častolovice.¹⁸² In Silesia the building of the chateau in Gorzanov is ascribed to him, where in the sixties of the 17th century Lurago’s building supervisor Andrea Carove is mentioned.¹⁸³ Finally Lurago was the first architect of the curious summer palace of Humprecht near Sobotka, based on an oval ground-plan with a considerably raised central hall, built in the years 1666–1670.¹⁸⁴ From 1668 Lurago also worked for Bishop Václav Thun in Passau, to which he moved permanently in 1671. His late work in Passau and in other locations on the borders of Bavaria and the Salzburg region surprises with the many new and stylistically advanced themes through which he also influenced the work of younger masters in the following period.¹⁸⁵ In 1670 he ceded his house in the Lesser Town of Prague – for 4,000 guilders, although this was undoubtedly below its value¹⁸⁶ – to his son Francesco, who also took over the management of the Prague enterprise. The extensive house in the neighbourhood of the small Church of St Procopius is evidence of exceptional financial security, built up, of course, by the long years of serious and at some times quite hectic building activity of the master. The outstandingly extensive activity of Carlo Lurago was an important component of STUDIES 247
28. ← Humprecht, Chateau – general view (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 29. → Náchod, chateau chapel, interior, general view (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
Prague and Czech architecture of the second third of the 17th century. In the field of sacred architecture he formulated a very popular type of Early Baroque church and his buildings are distinguished by the rationality of the layout and good technical execution – in the case of demanding commissions also by the ability to find inventive and progressively styled solutions. Nevertheless, soon after his death his name was almost forgotten and still in the middle of the 20th century he was considered to be chiefly a building entrepreneur without greater artistic abilities.¹⁸⁷ He was only rehabilitated through in-depth study in the past few decades.¹⁸⁸ A contemporary of Carlo Lurago, Francesco Caratti was born in Bissone in the canton of Ticino¹⁸⁹ in what is today Switzerland sometime between the years 1615–1620.¹⁹⁰ Many significant artists active in the 16th and 17th centuries, both in Rome and in other Italian centres and also in transalpine Europe, came from this area.¹⁹¹ In his native town he was apprenticed as a stonemason with Pietro Maderno and married his master’s daughter in 1642. We have no concrete reports of his assumed travels as a journeyman. In literature 248 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
187 Oldřich Stefan still repeatedly characterised Carlo Lurago as a mere building entrepreneur and not an architect (see O. Stefan, Pražské kostely, Praha 1930, pp. 109 and 111; Idem, Architektura, in: Pražské baroko 1600–1800, Umění v Čechách XVII. a XVIII. století, Praha 1938, p. 45) and attributes his buildings either to Francesco Caratti or Giovanni Domenico Orsi. The design of the portica and dome of the Church of St Salvator in the Clementinum is still given as Caratti’s work by Miroslav Korecký, Praha v barevném reliéfu, Praha 1975, p. 195. 188 The summary of this rehabilitation appeared in the synthetic studies of Pavel Preiss (Italští umělci, see note 3, pp. 169–184), Věra Naňková (Architektura 17. století, see note 129, pp. 295–302, Architektura 17. století v Čechách, see note 129, pp. 255–257) and Pavel Vlček (Praha 1610–1700, see note 1, pp. 110–150). 189 Věra Naňková, Caratti (Carata, Carate) Francesco, in: Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 13, 1971, pp. 661–662. 190 Pavel Vlček, Francesco Caratti, Umění XXXII, 1984, p. 1. 191 Natives of Bissone and neighbouring places were, for instance, the architects Domenico Fontana, Carlo Maderno or the famous Francesco Borromini, who basically determined the appearance of Early and Supreme Baroque Rome.
192 P. Vlček, Francesco Caratti (see note 190), p. 16. 193 Věra Naňková, Nové poznatky o původu a rodině architekta Francesca Carattiho, Kulturní měsíčník litoměřického okresu 14, Roudnice nad Labem 1978, n. 6, pp. 92–93. 194 Ivo krsek – Zdeněk Kudělka – Miloš Stehlík – Josef Válka, Umění baroka na Moravě a ve Slezsku, Praha 1996, p. 185. Maderno worked under Tencallo’s leadership even earlier for the Lichtenštejns in Lednice (clearly from 1633), see ibidem, pp. 330–333. 195 P. Vlček, Francesco Caratti (see note 190), pp. 3–4.
it is assumed that he knew the Lombardy work of his time and also the Palladian architecture in Verona, Vicenza and elsewhere.¹⁹² From 1642, however, we can trace his life and work quite continuously. At the end of this year he arrived in Vienna in the team of his father-in-law.¹⁹³ In 1645 he is, together with Pietro Maderno, documented in Valtice, where they were working for Karel Eusebius, Count of Lichtenstein, evidently according to the designs of Giovanni Giacomo Tencalla, on two fountains and a pond in the chateau park.¹⁹⁴ On 15 June 1652 Caratti entered the service of Duke Václav Eusebius Lobkovic, who was at that time one of the most important personages of the Imperial Court and Habsburg politics. For this patron he already worked exclusively as an architect. It seems that he left his original profession of stonemason for health reasons – at least in later years we have numerous reports of his frequent illnesses.¹⁹⁵ In December 1652 Caratti moved from Vienna to Roudnice, where he took over the preparations for the reconstruction of the old chateau from Pietro Colombo. The project for the new residence as a monumental four-wing building, sent to the count on 7 April 1653, was also highly praised by the famous Giovanni Pieroni da Cagliano. Subsequently Caratti designed the admirable urbanistic regulation STUDIES 249
of the town of Roudnice and the buildings of the summer palace and several agricultural buildings.¹⁹⁶ He then further prepared a proposal for the reconstruction of the chateau in Zaháni in Silesia.¹⁹⁷ Although Caratti showed readiness as a designer and undoubted invention and his proposals were evaluated favourably, their realisation was hampered by the insufficient finances of the client. This was evidently the reason for the end of Caratti’s work for Lobkovic after the final accounting on 16 March 1656.¹⁹⁸ In the years 1657–1667 Caratti was working for Václav Count Michna of Vacínov. Whereas the work directly for the Count was only smaller matters and relatively unimportant,¹⁹⁹ the main task was the design and construction of the Church of St Mary Magdalene by the Lesser Town Monastery of the Dominicans, which Karel Alexander Michna of Vacínov undertook to build for the Order in 1637 in connection with a promise made by his father.²⁰⁰ The written agreement of 1654 states the Marian church in Stará Boleslav and the Carmelite church in Vienna²⁰¹ as possible models for the future building. From the building executed it is evident that Caratti (clearly in agreement with the builder) selected the Viennese model. The church, constructed from 1656, was roughly completed by 1667, including the roofing and partly also the vaulting. After the death of Václav Count Michna there were conflicts between his heirs and the Dominicans, which hindered further construction work and architect Caratti also left the Michna service at this time.²⁰² Only in 1677 was the church fit for religious services and it was definitively completed only in 1709 with certain partial changes compared with Caratti’s original project. The Lesser Town Dominican church represents a significant achievement in 17th century Prague. The extensive and relatively short nave, only two crosswise rectangular fields deep, is accompanied by side chapels connected by passageways and opens into the monumental square space of the crossing, linked to the arms of the transept on a rectangular ground-plan. Also linked to the crossing is the rectangular area of the sacristy, one vaulting field deep, behind which – in the spirit of the customs of the Order – was the monks’ chancel, separated by a crosswise passage opened by arcades, which in the definitive realisation was changed into a mere partition.²⁰³ Above the crossing is an octagonal tambour, vaulted over with eight-part composite vaulting with three-sided sectors.²⁰⁴ The original appearance is documented by a copy of the project in the Dientzenhofer Sketchbook.²⁰⁵ In comparison with the accented and unequivocal longitudinality of the majority of Lurago’s church buildings the spatial composition of Caratti’s Lesser Town building was more refined. The dominant area of the crossing and the mirroring of the neighbouring fields of the space in the depth and crosswise axis brought a strong moment of centrality to the depth layout.²⁰⁶ It is in this connection that a certain layout similarity of Caratti’s project was observed to the layout of the crossing and apse of the Il Gesù Church in Rome.²⁰⁷ The facade of the building is also innovative in a certain respect in the Prague environment. Corresponding to the size of the building is the rhythmised five-axis layout of the A-B-C-B-A pattern, in which the three central fields are set forwards in a shallow risalto and the tabular gable, set with a broad three-sided fronton, is also composed in their extent. Scrolled gables are attached above the corner axes. The central axis of the facade was the widest and the two axes framing it were the narrowest. If one can believe Werner’s drawing showing the Baroque appearance of the facade,²⁰⁸ on the main level of the facade there were pilasters of the Ionic order and on the extension they were[Richard B12][Joanne D13] of a composite order. Both floors were enclosed by a continuous complete entablature, rounded above the pilasters.²⁰⁹ Behind the side axes of the facade were built at some little distance the bell towers, which – as was rightly observed²¹⁰ – represents the synthesis of the Italian and Transalpine type of facade. The facade of the convent church of the Benedictine nuns at Prague Castle was ascribed to Caratti, clearly correctly, by Heinrich Gerhard Franz and Miroslav Korecký and they dated it to around 1670.²¹¹ The attribution is supported by the general composition pattern of the facade with its central triaxial risalto, the significant motif of the reduction of the architrave above the surfaces of the fields and characteristic details. In the block neighbouring the Lesser Town Dominican Monastery on the east side the monumental building of the Nostic Palace was built at roughly the same time as the Church of St Mary Magdalene. The individual buildings of the complexly historically accrued block²¹² were acquired gradually from 1622 onwards by Kryštof and Otta Nostic.²¹³ 250 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
196 Max Dvořák st., Geschichte des Raudnitzer Schlossbaues 1652–1684, Roudnice nad Labem 1873, p. 96 and following; For plans of the urbanistic regulation of the town see Petr Macek, Roudnice, Plán města, in: Vít Vlnas (ed.), Sláva barokní Čechie (exh. cat.), Praha 2001, cat. no. II, 4.16, p. 414. For plan of garden pavilion and wine distillery see P. Vlček, Francesco Caratti (see note 190), pp. 4, 5. 197 P. Vlček, Francesco Caratti (see note 190), pp. 1 and 3. 198 Věra Naňková, Ke stavební činnosti Fr. Carattiho v Roudnici, Kulturní měsíčník litoměřického okresu, 13, 1976, pp. 74–75. 199 P. Vlček drew attention to the building of the casino and Rotta in the garden of the Michnovský Palace (P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700, see note 41, p. 155). Hypothetically he then mentions the possibility of work for Václav Michna in Radičí and his brother Vilém Bedřich in Chyše (ibidem, p. 152). 200 Luboš Lancinger – Milan Pavlík, Kostel sv. Maří Magdaleny na Malé Straně v Praze a Francesco Caratti, Umění XIV , 1966, pp. 109–121; This study clearly demonstrated Caratti’s authorship, previously assumed only on the basis of style analysis and proposed by Oldřich Stefan (see Mluva pražské architektury, Praha 1958, p. 70). 201 L. Lancinger – M. Pavlík, Kostel sv. Maří Magdaleny (see note 200), p. 110. The Viennese Carmelite church of St Joseph is, of course, mentioned in the state after construction in the third decade of the 17th century. After 1683 it was renovated after war damage and partly altered, and then the interior was considerably renovated in the second half of the 18th century. 202 Ibidem, pp. 110–111 – Management of the construction was taken over by Gion Decapaoli and he undoubtedly carried it out according to the project of Caratti, under whose leadership he also worked in the construction of the Černín Palace. 203 P. Vlček, “Dientzenhoferův skicář” (see note 90), p. 490. 204 It has already been stated that the type of vaulting used, an eightpart cloister vault with sectors, was a common type of vaulting for polygonal church apses, which was mirror-supplemented on a complete central pattern. Whether this was due to the inexperience of the designer, or his consideration for the abilities of the building workers carrying out the work is not known. One can fully agree with the statement that this was a “truly elegant” solution, which – thanks to the intensive lighting of the “cupola” – also produced a spiritual effect (see P. Vlček, 1989, p. 491) 205 P. Vlček, “Dientzenhoferův skicář” (see note 90), pp. 490–491. 206 P. Vlček (“Dientzenhoferův skicář”, see note 90, p. 158) also mentioned the centralisation of the whole disposition, when towards the accented area of the intersection the nave and the presbytery should allegedly be equally deep. He also refers here to the indication of Supreme Baroque biaxial composition. Nevertheless, already in the original project the presbytery had only the extent of one vaulting field and the separated monks’ chancel (evidently with a sacristy on ground level) was demanded right from the beginning by the Dominicans from the point of view of the regulations of their order concerning choral church services. The fact that the area of the chancel was not intended even as an optical part of the main area of the church is documented by the clearly lesser clear width of this space. 207 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), pp. 157–158. 208 This sheet is not kept in any of the Prague collections. Its photographic reproduction can be found in the archive of the central workplace of the NPÚ (National Heritage Institute). It is published, for instance, in: Pavel Vlček (ed.), Umělecké památky Prahy. Malá Strana, Praha 1999, p. 491. 209 The same drawing indicates that there were certain changes in the facade dating from the period of the completion of the church before 1709, for instance in the execution of the side portals on the outer axes of the facade. 210 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 157. 211 Heinrich Gerhard Franz, Bauten und Baumeister der Barockzeit in Böhmen, Leipzig 1962, p. 34; M. Korecký, Praha v barevném reliéfu (see note 187), p. 32. 212 Milada Vilímková,Urbanistický vývoj území maltézské jurisdikce, in: Pražský sborník historický, 1966, p. 72. 213 František Kašička, Nostický palác ve stavebním a historickém vývoji, 1999, manuscr., p. 2.
214 Jaroslaus Schaller, Beschreibung der königl Haupt- und Residenzstadt Prag, II., Prag 1794, s .21. 215 F. Kašička, Nostický palác (see note 213), p. 2. 216 P. Vlček, “Dientzenhoferův skicář” (see note 90), p. 494. 217 F. Kašička, Nostický palác (see note 213), p. 4. 218 Mojmír Horyna – Pavel Zahradník – Pavel Preiss, Černínský palác v Praze, Praha-Zblov 2001, pp. 16–17 and following 219 With regard to the fact that single-axis windows are used on the side facades, the gemel windows on the main facade are undoubtedly an intention. They react to the strikingly widely dimensioned fields of the facade and it cannot be ruled out that their use is conditioned by the effort to acquire sufficient light in the areas facing north. The same applies for the level of the first floor of the internal courtyard wing, where the dimensioning of the axes corresponds to the dimensions of the axes of the main facade. 220 Friedrich Bernhard Werner del., Ignaz Ringle fecit, Martin Engelbrecht esc., Palace of Count Nostitz in Prague, etching, 405×248 mm, National Gallery in Prague, Print Collection, DR 4850. 221 M. Horyna – P. Zahradník – P. Preiss, Černínský palác (see note 218), pp. 92–93, plan from the fund of Černínská ústřední správa č. III, 26 in SOA Třeboň, Jindřichův Hradec workplace. 222 P. Vlček, Francesco Caratti (see note 190), p. 15. 223 The very refined and subtly considered spatial composition of the courtyard was recently barbarically distorted by placing in a smaller courtyard. This intervention is a quite typical example of the primitive brutality of modern architecture in relation to the historical context. 224 In the inventory of 1736 there was a total of 14 rooms in the west wing beyond the great hall on the first floor, of which only the large refectory and the billiard room are functionally specified, others are given as closets and rooms. In the east wing the chapel is specifically mentioned and also the rooms of His Excellence, in the inner courtyard wing there was a picture gallery on the first floor. A total of 12 rooms are listed. On the first floor there were thus 26 rooms including the great hall. For this information I thank Dr. Vratislav Ryšavý, who carried out the archive research in RA Nostic-Rieneck, the Falknov branch in SOA Plzeň, workplace Žlutice. 225 See, for instance, V. Naňková, Architektura 17. století (see note 129), p. 303; eadem, Architektura 17. století v Čechách (see note 129), pp. 257–258. 226 P. Vlček, “Dientzenhoferův skicář” (see note 90), pp. 493–494; P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), pp. 161–165. 227 Zdeněk Kalista, Humprecht Jan Černín jako mecenáš a podporovatel umění v době své benátské ambasády (1660– 1663), Památky archeologické 36, 1928–1930, pp. 53–78. 228 M. Horyna – P. Zahradník – P. Preiss, Černínský palác (see note 218), p. 14; in this last great monography there is an exhaustive list of all older literature, from which let us mention at least the monography by Johann Joseph Morper (Das Czernin Palais in Prag, Praha 1940), then the monography of Vilém Lorenc and Karel Tříska (Černínský palác v Praze, Praha 1980) and the study by Pavel Vlček (see P. Vlček, Francesco Caratti, see note 190; P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700, see note 41). 229 M. Horyna – P. Zahradník – P. Preiss, Černínský palác (see note 218), p. 16, 78.
The heir, Jan Hartvík Nostic, was the Supreme Chancellor of the Kingdom of Bohemia from 1652. This understandably meant that he was bound to a certain degree of representation, the manifestation of which was the construction of the palace in Prague. According to an old document mentioned by Jaroslav Schaller²¹⁴ it was to have been realised in 1660. With regard to the fact that only in 1662 did Count Nostic acquire permission to extend the location by moving forward into the square and into both side streets, the year 1660 may be considered rather as only the start of the building activity.²¹⁵ In the course of the realisation several changes were made in the project, which is also indicated by the comparison of the ground-plan in the Dientzenhofer Sketchbook and the realised building.²¹⁶ The palace was already completed at latest in 1675.²¹⁷ The architecture of the exterior of the palace is conceived on the entrance and side facades as a balanced and enclosed block, opened in outline only on the south side by the lower mass of the stable wing facing onto what is now Pelcova Street. The main facade was – compared with the other facades – strikingly richer. The eleven-axis two-storey surface is divided up by monumental pilasters set on a rounded base reaching the height of the parapets of the ground-floor windows. The heads of the pilasters are of the Ionic type, supplemented by festoons and strangely formed mascarons. Their creator was evidently the outstanding stonemason Giovanni Battista Pozzi, who also worked with Caratti on the building of the Černín Palace.²¹⁸ The seven central axes of the facade are drawn out in a shallow risalto framed by graduated one and a half pilasters. The conservative gemel windows used throughout the main facade are surprising.²¹⁹ In the original state, depicted by Friedrich Bernard Werner, the gemel windows of the piano nobile were set alternately with segmented and triangular frontons and above the principal moulding above the odd axes were set a total of five walled dormer windows, also with gemel windows and triangular gables.²²⁰ The axial window above the main portal at the level of the piano nobile is resolved in the same way as the portal of the balcony of the piano nobile on the unrealised proposal for the north facade of the Černín Palace,²²¹ or the architraves of the window on the central axis of the piano nobile of the unrealised proposal for the facade of the Dietrichstein Palace.²²² As is already mentioned above, the composition of the courtyard was linked with the design of the main facade. The slightly sunken rectangular space is organised along the deep axis emerging from the main portal. The facade of the inner wing of the palace is opened on the ground floor by five broad pillared arcades, the surface of the first floor is divided up by rectangular pilaster frames surrounding the gemel windows and on the second floor was an open arcade. In this way the composition of the courtyard was oriented towards the south, because of the light, which penetrated the slanted inner wing through the arcades of the ground floor and second floor also thanks to the lowering of the mass of the outer wing to the south.²²³ This compositional theme recalls the central idea of the composition of the courtyard facade of the north wing of the Černín Palace. In the interior of the palace a considerable stylistic innovation was the design of the main staircase in the hall, the first of its type in our country. On the first floor the main hall, evidently extending over two floors, was accessible from the landing of this staircase. Connected with this was the double wing of rooms in the west wing, whereas in the east wing – due to the uneven location – the double wing of rooms and corridor changes in the southern outer part into a single wing.²²⁴ Caratti’s authorship of the project is generally assumed in literature.²²⁵ In his analyses Pavel Vlček pointed out several similar traits of the main facade of the Nostic Palace and the facades of the west wing of the Clementinum.²²⁶ Nevertheless in the design as a whole the palace is undoubtedly closer to the architecture of Francesco Caratti. Shortly after he left Michna’s service Caratti was employed by Humprecht Jan Černín z Chudenic. The Count evidently had the idea of building a large Prague palace already during his embassy in Venice.²²⁷ After his definitive return to the Czech Lands in 1664 he renewed negotiations with the Italian agents Marquis Durazzo and Giovanni Andrea Carpeneto with regard to the matter of finding a suitable architect.²²⁸ At the same time as acquiring three houses and a large garden on Pohořelec opposite the Loreta in 1666 and the extension of the land the Count’s secretary Hruška also talked to Carlo Lurago and his nephew Francesco. In November 1667 Caratti announced himself to the Count’s secretary and in January of the following year Gion Decapaoli announced himself as the builder.²²⁹ In August 1668 a contract was concluded with the builders Gion Decapaoli and STUDIES 251
30. ↑ ↑ Prague, Hradčany, Černín Palace, main facade (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 31. ↑ Prague, Hradčany, Černín Palace, garden facade (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 32. ↗ Prague, Hradčany, Černín Palace, entrance vestibule (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
252 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
230 Ibidem, pp. 19, 139–146 and following 231 Ibidem, pp. 18–23 (with a complete list of the building workers taking part in the construction). 232 Ibidem, pp. 23, 24, 27–30, 44 and following – Interesting in this connection is the strong criticism of the palace by Nikodemus Tessin in 1688. The architect, trained in the academic environment of Rome in the last quarter of the 17th century, considered the building from the viewpoint of abstract academic principles and criticised a great deal of what a historian nowadays might evaluate as proof of the author’s inventiveness. 233 M. Horyna – P. Zahradník – P. Preiss, Černínský palác (see note 218), p. 23.
Abraham Leuthner for the construction of a palace according to the plans and instructions of Francesco Caratti. In the exemplarily kept Černín archive the building is documented in detail with the original proposals for whole parts and details, the majority of which come from the hand of Caratti. Count Černín monitored the building carefully and personally approved every definitive proposal and detail.²³⁰ Even the unrealised variants are kept in the archive. Building work began at the start of the building season of 1669 and took place at an almost feverish pace, for already in 1671 a contract was concluded with carpenters and roofers for the roofs and in 1673 the main construction work was complete.²³¹ In September of the same year Emperor Leopold I also visited the building site when staying in Prague. The building was still being completed several decades after the death of architect Caratti (1677) and the man who ordered the building, Humprecht Jan Černín (1682); the interior furnishings were never completely finished. Even unfinished the palace was the object of the curiosity and admiration of numerous visitors.²³² From the correspondence between Count Černín and his secretary Hruška before the Prague visit of Emperor Leopold I in 1673²³³ it emerges that the Count placed great emphasis on the monumental and representative appearance of the main facade of the palace. The immense four-storey facade with 29 axes consists of two compositional stages: the mightily bossed base on the ground floor and the main stage with three storeys, with a monumental row of three-quarter pillars, set with quasi-Ionic heads with bizarre mascarons and shawls, bearing up sectors of the complete architrave at the level of the upper half-floor. It was undoubtedly correct that it was repeatedly stated that the source of inspiration was the work of Andrea Palladio, with which Count Černín was acquainted STUDIES 253
33. ← Prague, Prague Castle, St George’s Church, facade (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 34. → Klatovy, Jesuit Church, exterior, general view (reproduced after: http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Soubor:Barokn%C3%AD_kostel_ na_n%C3%A1m%C4%9Bst%C3%AD_-_ Klatovy.JPG)
during his stay in Venice.²³⁴ Inspiration by the effective fragment of the never completed palace of Porto in Vicenza is, of course, only partial. Palladio’s design is a typical Mannerist composition, structurally double, full of almost disturbing tension. The Prague facade shows balance of the verticals and horizontals and its monumentality is accompanied by an expression of massive stability. The differences between Palladio’s and Caratti’s designs are the differences between the Mannerist and Baroque concept of architectural composition and it has rightly been observed that, alongside the Palladian inspiration, it is necessary to take into account the stylistically more contemporary influences of the Lombardy and Venetian architecture of the first half of the 17th century, such as Francesco Maria Ricchini or Baldassare Longhena.²³⁵ Also admirably resolved is the north facade of the palace, facing the garden, the terrain of which is roughly seven metres lower than the square faced by the main facade. Because of the contact of the two facades in the northeast corner the lower storey is considerably higher on the garden facade as it also includes two floors that are actually basement floors. The facade is divided into three parts, triaxial corner risaltos, higher by the upper half-storey, and a seven-axis centre. On the bottom level the corner “towers” are divided by rustic-work, the central part opened by two large serlianas of symmetrical sala terrenas,²³⁶ between which is the axis of the entrance staircase from the courtyard. The preserved variants of the plans show that originally Caratti proposed a more simple design for the garden facade and he evidently designed the whole rich apparatus of pilasters and half-pillars of the odd arcades at the direct wish of the Count. The courtyard facades are composed in horizontal strips of floors with rhythmisation of the surface by variation of the dividing figures. The disposition of the palace is determined by the placing of an axial cross in a slightly irregular building site.²³⁷ The building is distributed around two courtyards, separated by a sunken inner wing. The smaller dimensions of the south courtyard are given by the irregularity of the border on the south side of the plot of land. The depth axis of the disposition – east-west – emerges from the main portal, passes through the triple-naved vestibule and is then connected with the three-armed “royal” staircase. The transverse axis passes through the vestibule in front of the foot of the royal staircase, then through both courtyards²³⁸ and culminates on the south side in a passageway to a small work yard, on the north side in the visual axis and a single-arm staircase into the palace garden. The enchainment of the entrance areas from the main portal up to the immense main hall 254 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
234 V. Lorenc – K. Tříska, Černínský palác (see note 228), p. 76 and following; V. Naňková, Architektura 17. století (see note 129), p. 305; V. Naňková, Architektura 17. století v Čechách (see note 129), p. 258; P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 175 and following; M. Horyna – P. Zahradník – P. Preiss, Černínský palác (see note 218), p. 104. 235 P. Vlček, Francesco Caratti (see note 190), pp. 16, 21; P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 176; Aurora Scotti, Opus italicum, unpublished manuscr. 2000. 236 The motif of two large serlianas on the facade was derived from the composition of the garden facade of the Medici villa in Rome. Acquaintance with this building may be assumed in the case of an educated builder and architect, nevertheless the motif of a serliana in a similar function of accented opening-up of the surface of a facade was far more common in the architecture of the cinquecento, not only then in Bartolomeo Ammannatio, but already earlier in Giulio Romano, Vignola, Andrea Palladio and others. 237 V. Lorenc – K. Tříska, Černínský palác (see note 228), p. 52. 238 In parallel with this axis exits were led from the central field of the vestibule into the courtyard, which were dimensioned not only for horses, but also for carriages.
35. Tuchoměřice, St Vitus Church, facade (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
extending over seven axes of the facade and a height of three floors was already composed by Caratti with almost dramatic effect, further emphasised by Supreme Baroque alterations. The design of further reception rooms (the enfilades of salons southwards of the main hall, the chapel in the northeast corner, the gallery, picture galleries in the north and west wings and the splendid stables on the ground floor of the west wing) was a unique achievement in its time, both as regards architectural composition and with regard to the expensive nature of the decoration. The proportional relationships determining the disposition of the rooms have already been analysed in literature and it has been proved that the architect worked with knowledge of the Palladian architectural theory.²³⁹ With all these qualities the Černín Palace represented a real event in the history of Czech and Central European architecture, even though it was in no way progressive from the viewpoint of stylistic development.
256 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
239 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), pp. 168–174.
240 P. Vlček, Francesco Caratti (see note 190), p. 2. 241 The projects for these builders generally remained unrealised, with the exception of the adaptations to the Slavata chateau of Červená Lhota. For analyses of the interesting project for the Dietrichstein Palace in Hradčany see P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), pp. 177–178. 242 For overall evaluation of his work see Pavel Vlček, Giovanni Domenico Orsi a bývalý kostel sv. Norberta v Praze, Umění XXXIV, 1986, pp. 416–434. 243 Ibidem, p. 422. 244 M. Mrázová-Schusterová, K otázce projektanta (see note 145), p. 81 and following 245 Věra Naňková, Barokní architektura v západních Čechách, Umění XXVIII, 1980, p. 22 246 Eva Šmilauerová, Ze stavebních dějin zámku Tuchoměřice, Středočeský sborník historický 5, 1970, pp. 93–97. 247 Jan Morávek, Stavba jezuitské rezidence ve Staré Boleslavi, Umění VI, 1958, pp. 376–401. 248 Věra Naňková, Kostel sv. Voršily v Praze. K problematice české barokní architektury kolem roku 1700, in: Sborník prací Filozofické fakulty Brněnské univerzity, F 30–31, 1986–87, p. 36. 249 P. Vlček, Giovanni Domenico Orsi (see note 242), pp. 424, 426. 250 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), pp. 187–189. 251 Věra Naňková, Giovanni Domenico Orsi de Orsini a Stará Boleslav, Umění XXX, 1982, p. 182. 252 P. Vlček, Giovanni Domenico Orsi (see note 242), pp. 423–424.
Caratti also completed further tasks for Count Černín when he prepared projects also for some of Černín’s estates. This is documented in Nejdek, Stružná, Vinoř, Petrohrad and elsewhere.²⁴⁰ The most important was clearly the project for the Church of the Holy Rood in Kosmonosy, built in the years 1669–1673 by builder Domenico Augustoni. The broad and shallow single nave with intercommunicating side chapels is perfectly balanced in disposition and provided with a triaxial facade with a tabular gable fitted with a large three-sided fronton with a widened base. Apart from his services to Černín Caratti is also recorded as having worked for other important builders such as Gundakar of Dietrichstein or Ferdinand Vilém Slavata.²⁴¹ The work of Francesco Caratti represents an original manifestation in Czech Early Baroque, the starting points of which were undoubtedly Viennese architecture and good knowledge of North Italian architecture and architectural theory. In church and palace architecture he created works with a well-prepared layout and convincing appearance. The decoratively accented and formally perfect register of his architectural forms was clearly also influenced by his original training as a stonemason. Also undoubtedly a strong creative personality of Czech architecture of the third quarter of the 17th century was Giovanni Domenico Orsi,²⁴² an artist a generation younger than Lurago and Caratti. The son of an architect working in Vienna and in Prague he evidently trained, after his father’s early death, under Carlo Lurago and appears as his building supervisor and journeyman at the beginning of the sixth decade of the 17th century. We have no reports of any journeyman’s travels undertaken by the young artist, but it can certainly be assumed that there were some. From the middle of the sixth decade he is documented as a building supervisor, mainly working for Carlo Lurago, ²⁴³ and from the beginning of the next decade he was already working independently. From 1665 he took over the execution of the New Town fortifications from Lurago and in 1666 the construction of the Jesuit church in Klatovy, started according to Lurago’s plan a decade earlier, but soon halted. After taking over the construction Orsi clearly submitted his own project,²⁴⁴ according to which the building was then realised and completed in 1679. The single nave with side chapels and emporas has a basilica cross-section, a transverse nave with a large flat vault over the crossing and a shallow, directly enclosed chancel. It was rightly observed that “its spatial disposition is the closest to the Il Gesù Church in Rome of all the Jesuit buildings in Bohemia”.²⁴⁵ In connection with this building Orsi was repeatedly employed by the Jesuits, especially for their rural realisations. The new building of the St Vitus Church by the residence in Tuchoměřice near Prague from the years 1665–1672²⁴⁶ is a simple single nave with a depth of two vaulting fields, arched over with barrel vaults with three-sided sectors set on indrawn pillars. The unrealised project of the Jesuit residence with the little Church of St Leopold in Stará Boleslav, which was elaborated by Orsi in 1672, envisaged the creation of a single-nave building of the bicentral type, anticipating the layout pattern of Supreme Baroque.²⁴⁷ “There is evidence here both of rhythmisation and also centralisation of the longitudinal space. This impression is further emphasised by the dividing apparatus and the different vaulting […]”²⁴⁸. The strong alternating rhythm also prevails in the wide and high single nave of the Church of the Holy Trinity by the Monastery of the Paulian Order near Nová Bystřice from the years 1667–1679. The space, which has no separate chancel, is centralised allusively by the rhythmic structuring of the walls and vaulting.²⁴⁹ The no long existing Church of Ss Norbert and Benedict by the former Archbishop’s Seminary in Prague had the field of the main nave in alternating rhythm with side chapels and a connected transept with a dome above the crossing. Here too the depth construction is strongly imbued with a centralising tendency.²⁵⁰ From 1676 comes Orsi’s signed project for the construction of an unspecified Jesuit college with a large church, mistakenly interpreted as proposals for the reconstruction of the Marian church in Stará Boleslav.²⁵¹ The extensive single-nave church with side chapels, a transept with a dome and lantern over the crossing and a shallow chancel is a variant of the layout of the Jesuit church in Klatovy as its ground-plan was captured by a drawing in the Dientzenhofer sketchbook.²⁵² The twin-tower facade was to have had a portal, framed by a marked aedicule with gemel pillars. The design of the college with two courtyards alongside the church shows Orsi’s capacity for generous, well-functioning ground-plan compilations and the overcoming of the irregularity of the building site in the sense of a balanced and regular-looking composition. All three variants of Orsi’s projects for the STUDIES 257
36. ← Tuchoměřice, St Vitus Church, interior (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David) 37. → Prague, Old Town, Kolowrat Palace, main facade (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
new church beside the Old Town Generalate of the Bohemian Order of the Knights of the Cross with Red Star remained unrealised.²⁵³ Two of these proposals are conceived as longitudinal buildings. The first of them is a variant of the bi-central composition, known from the project for the Church of St Leopold in Stará Boleslav. The second is a single-nave hall with richly rhythmicised side walls and revetment of the corners with trios of free pillars. Above the chancel of both these proposals there was to have been a dome. Relatively exceptional for this time is also the frequency of church centrals in Orsi’s work. The Church of the Fourteen Holy Helpers by the Paulian Monastery in Světce near Tachov, built after 1668, was built on the ground-plan of a Greek cross, set in a square with an adjoining chancel of two longitudinal rectangular fields.²⁵⁴ This church, abandoned after the abolition of the monastery in 1787, was demolished by the secular authorities. In 1673 the completion of the building of St Vitus Cathedral began with the laying of the foundation stone on 3 September in the presence of Emperor Leopold I. The building work soon ground to a halt due to lack of finances. The project for completion of the building was conceived by Orsi as a slightly longitudinalised central area with a dome on a tambour in the central of the three fields of the main nave. On the basis of an anonymous engraving of the exterior of the cathedral from the 17th century and a depiction of the interior of the cathedral by Ludvík Kohl, Academy Architect Michal Brix hypothetically reconstructed the appearance of both the exterior and the interior.²⁵⁵ In the reconstruction of the Church of the Holy Trinity of the Franciscan Monastery in Slaný in 1665–1668 Orsi altered the original longitudinal building into an allusive central by adjoining two large chapels on the transverse axis and adding a dome over the centre field of the nave.²⁵⁶ As the last similarly formed central Orsi conceived the third version of a project for the new building of the Church of the Knights of the Cross beside the Old Town Generalate of the Order.²⁵⁷ From the above overview of the sacred buildings of Giovanni Domenico Orsi it is evident that this architect contributed a number of new motifs to Czech architecture. The alternating rhythmisation of the fields of depth naves was elaborated in the architecture of Italy and especially of Lombardy already from the beginning of the 17th century. Already in the years 1603–1620 the Jesuit Church of Ss Marcelino and Pietro in Cremona²⁵⁸ was built, representing the alternating rhythmisation in the same form as used sixty years later by Orsi. Before the middle of the 17th century a similar layout was used in the interior of the Jesuit Church of St James in Nice.²⁵⁹ Then just a little later it was used in the building of the Jesuit church in Pavia, which has unfortunately already been pulled down. Whereas the church in Nice has a very shallow chancel, the church in Pavia had a chancel on a square ground-plan, vaulted over with a dome without tambour.²⁶⁰ In the Rome province of the 258 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
253 Vojtěch Sádlo, Kostel sv. Františka u křižovníků na Starém Městě pražském, in: Ročenka Kruhu pro pěstování dějin umění za rok 1934, Praha 1935, p. 44. 254 Mojmír Horyna – Josef Hýzler – Luboš Lancinger, Světce u Tachova, bývalý pavlánský kostel. Stavebně-historický průzkum, SÚRPMO Praha 1975, manuscr., not paginated; P. Vlček, Giovanni Domenico Orsi (see note 242), p. 426. 255 P. Preiss, Italští umělci (see note 3), pp. 207–208. 256 Vladimír Přibyl, Baroko ve Slaném – Bývalý františkánský klášter s kostelem Nejsvětější Trojice, Slaný 1988. 257 V. Sádlo, Kostel sv. Františka (see note 253), pp. 44–46. 258 Richard Bösel – Herbert Karner, Jesuitenarchitektur in Italien (1540–1773) II., Die Baudenkmäler der mailandischen Ordensprovinz, Wien 2007, pp. 109–111. 259 Ibidem, pp. 273–275. 260 Ibidem, pp. 295–296.
261 Richard Bösel, Jesuitenarchitektur in Italien 1540–1773. Die Baudeknmäler der römischen und der neapolitanischen Ordensprovinz,Wien 1986, pp. 73–76. 262 Ibidem, pp. 94–97. 263 Vittorio de Feo – Valentino Martinelli, Andrea Pozzo, Milano 1996, p. 58 and following, 117, 246. 264 Alfredo Marchione, Gesu e Maria, in: Roma sacra I., Roma 1995, p. 38. 265 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 200. 266 R. Bösel – H. Karner, Jesuitenarchitektur in Italien (see note 258), pp. 208–210. 267 Ibidem, pp. 146–150.
Jesuit Order this rhythmicised type of layout is rarer. The Church of St Ignatius in Fermo was constructed between the years 1646–1660.²⁶¹ A later example of this type is the composition of the nave of the church in Frascati where the Jesuit architect Gregorio Castrichini used in the transformation a slightly older project of Carlo Fontana in the last decade of the 17th century.²⁶² The concept did, however, already take into account the illusionistic completion of the church with the paintings of Andrea Pozzo.²⁶³ In Rome itself the earliest example of this type of rhythmicised space is the Gesù e Maria Church on the Corso, which was designed by the Milanese architect Carlo Buzio in 1636, completed with alterations by Carlo Rainaldo only after 1675.²⁶⁴ The type of central space used by Orsi in the building of the church in Světce near Tachov and clearly also in the proposal for the completion of St Vitus Cathedral is also of purely Italian origin. The link with the layout of the Church of S. Carlo ai Catinari in Rome has already been rightly pointed out.²⁶⁵ In what is referred to as the second proposal for the construction of the Church of the Knights of the Cross in Prague the area of the nave is rhythmicised by the complicated relief design of the walls. The side walls are designed in three fields, separated by pilasters, of which the central “altar” field is wider than those on either side. The corners of the nave area are then “panelled” with trios of free-standing pillars. The above motif of the free-standing pillars dividing an interior was not usual in our architecture before this time. Here, too, one must seek models in Italian works. The oldest example may be the interior of the nave of the S. Fedele Church by the professional building in Milan, realised by Pelegrino Tibaldi in the years 1569–1579.²⁶⁶ The free-standing pillars in the corners of the nave and between the fields of the wall accentuate the rhythmic composition of the space. The project of Bartolomeo Bianco, elaborated in 1634 and finally not realised, for the church by the Genoan college of the order and, linked with this, a further one of the plans elaborated in 1650 by Giovanni Francesco Falcone, has a richly rhythmicised centralised nave, the central field of which, with a dome arching over it, has side walls of three fields with the central “altar” field considerably wider.²⁶⁷ Finally, the free-standing pillars and half-pillars also used in STUDIES 259
the interior of the Church of St Francis Xavier in Mondo, which was realised by Giovanni Domenico Ricchini after 1667, have a similar function.²⁶⁸ The mentioned analogies with Italian buildings of the 17th century show that Orsi continued from the stylistically more advanced patterns of his older contemporaries. Whether he was acquainted with Italian and especially with Lombardy architecture during his supposed travels as a journeyman, which he might have undertaken sometime after 1650, or whether these inspirations came to him through builders cannot be determined without further documentation. Orsi also realised high-quality monastery buildings for religious orders. The Jesuit College in Kutná Hora was constructed from 1667²⁶⁹ and conceived as a monumental dominant feature of the west side of the town in the vicinity of the St Barbora Church. The facade above the Vrchlice valley, with a total extent of 33 axes, was crowned with a higher centre spire and two corner spires arising from risaltos. In the accented axes there are gemel windows. The area of the facade above the socle-style ground floor level is divided up by a high row of pilasters. The generously dimensioned areas compose a well-arranged double-nave layout. The building work took place very slowly and was only completed in the fourth decade of the 18th century with certain alterations in the project.²⁷⁰ The construction of the Jesuit professional building in the Lesser Town of Prague was already prepared from the fifties of the 17th century. Only in the years 1672–1673 did the definitive measurement of the building site and preparation of the plans take place. One of them was also prepared by Francesco Caratti, but the building was realised according to the proposal of Giovanni Domenico Orsi himself and after his death in 1679 it was completed according to the altered project of Francesco Lurago.²⁷¹ The immense block, in scale almost crushing the surrounding buildings, has an almost unstructured facade, layered in horizontal floors. It is thus a striking example of what was termed the “severe style”, which prevailed in the realisation of Jesuit residential buildings in the third quarter of the 17th century.²⁷² Parts of the block were two new churches, replacing older places of worship – the Church of St Wenceslas on the northwest corner and the St Nicholas Church on the south side. Their facades were to frame the west front of the professional building, which was designed as the entrance. Whereas the St Wenceslas Church was conceived as a simple single nave vaulted on indrawn pillars, St Nicholas Church was intended to be the traditional type with a wide nave, opposing side chapels, emporas and a chancel on an almost square ground-plan.²⁷³ The Convent of the Carmelites by the Church of St Havel in Prague’s Old Town was originally to have been built by Carlo Lurago, but after his departure from Prague this task was taken over by Giovanni Domenico Orsi, who realised it from 1671. The structuring of the facades varied the pattern already used for the Jesuit college in Kutná Hora.²⁷⁴ The simpler version of the same facade design is represented by the facade of the Old Town convent of the Dominican nuns by the Church of St Anne, which came into being when the humble older premises were extended after 1676.²⁷⁵ Orsi is listed also in the creation and reconstructions of important monastery interiors with characteristic Early Baroque decoration, both in the case of the Augustinian Canons in the New Town of Prague²⁷⁶ and in that of the beautiful library hall in the Strahov Premonstratensian Monte Sion Monastery, established in 1671.²⁷⁷ The architect was in contact with its Abbot and important contemporary philosopher Jeroným Hiernheim already during the construction of the church of the Archbishop’s Seminary. An important palace built by Giovanni Domenico Orsi is the Kolowrat Palace in the Old Town, constructed after 1673. A building of four wings, set around a regular rectangular courtyard, it is today only partly preserved. In its original state the two-storey main facade had an eleven-axis symmetrical design. The three distanced axes on the right side came into being subsequently when Count Kolowrat had a further purchased house rebuilt.²⁷⁸ The facade is horizontally designed with alternating segmented and three-sided frontons above the windows of the first storey and an alternating row of larger and smaller dormer windows above the principal moulding. The interiors have already lost the major part of their original superficial furnishing, but the well-dimensioned two-nave design has been preserved. With regard to buildings outside Prague Orsi’s work in Litoměřice was exceptionally important. In 1663–1670 he carried out the construction of the Bishop’s Cathedral of 260 STYLISTIC PROFILE OF PRAGUE EARLY BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
268 Idem, pp. 242–243. 269 Pavel Vlček, Jezuitská kolej v Kutné Hoře, in: Kutná Hora v době baroka. Antuiqua Cuthna 1, Praha 2005, p. 214. 270 Ibidem, pp. 216–217. 271 Milada Vilímková, Ke stavebnímu vývoji komplexu jezuitských budov na Malostranském náměstí, Umění XIX, 1971, pp. 304–313; eadem, Stavitelé paláců a chrámů, Praha 1986, pp. 30–31. 272 M. Vilímková, Stavitelé paláců a chrámů (see note 271), p. 49 273 This ground-plan pattern was also continued by Kryštof Dientzenhofer, when thirty decades later he was preparing a new project for St Nicholas Church. The scale disproportion of the mass of the professional building in the space of the lower part of Lesser Town Square was only mastered after 1737 by Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer, who adopted this scale and dominated it with the effective vertical of the dome and bell-tower of St Nicholas Church. (See Mojmír Horyna, Novostavby K. I. Dientzenhofera v kontextu okolní zástavby, Architektura ČSR 48, 1989, p. 36). 274 V. Naňková, Architektura 17. století (see note 129), pp. 306–307. 275 Milada Vilímková, Bývalý klášter dominikánek při kostele sv. Anny, čp. 211–I, Stavebně-historický průzkum Prahy, SÚRPMO 1962, pp. 12–12. 276 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), pp. 195–197. 277 V. Naňková, Architektura 17. století (see note 129), p. 306. 278 P. Vlček – E. Havlová, Praha 1610–1700 (see note 41), p. 199.
279 Jaroslav Macek – Petr Macek – Mojmír Horyna – Pavel Preiss, Oktavián Broggio 1670–1742, Litoměřice 1992, p. 25. 280 Petr Macek, Barokní architektura a stavitelství v severních Čechách, in: Petr Hrubý – Michaela Hrubá (edd.), Barokní umění v severozápadních Čechách, Ústí nad Labem 2003, pp. 38–39. 281 Petr Macek – Pavel Zahradník, Zámecký areál v Zákupech, Průzkumy památek 3, 1996, pp. 3–34. 282 Mojmír Horyna, Die römischen Inspirationen der Barockarchitektur in Prag im 17. Jahrhundert, in: Barbora Balážová (ed.), Generationen – Interpretationen – Konfrontationen, Bratislava 2007, pp. 144–146. 283 Oldřich Stefan, Skupina římského směru – G. B. Matthaei, Památky archeologické 35, 1926–1927, p. 115; idem, Barokní princip v české architektuře (see note 42), pp. 306, 315–320. 284 In this sense the knowledge of early baroque architecture was fundamentally deepened in particular by the numerous studies of Věra Naňková, some of which are listed above in the notes, and the synthetic work of Pavel Vlček on Prague architecture of the 17th century, published 1998. 285 Also interesting for the Baroque iconography of towns and buildings is the fact that, for instance, the church of the Knights of the Cross in the vicinity of the Clementinum is depicted in the never realised form of one of Orsi’s projects, and the New Town Jesuit college is captured in its planned state, which at this time had not, of course, been completely realised . 286 Josef Forbelský, Španělé, Říše a Čechy v 16. a 17. století, Praha 2006, p. 353.
St Stephen together with building supervisor Angelo Canevallo.²⁷⁹ A further work in Litoměřice is St Michael’s Church by the former Dominican Monastery. This building, already demolished in the 19th century, was realised by Orsi at the wish of the Dominicans according to the design of the Lesser Town Dominican church by Francesco Caratti.²⁸⁰ Orsi also began the reconstruction and completion of the chateau in Zákupy for Julius František Count Sachsen-Lauenburg in 1671. Just three years later the management of the construction work was taken over by Julius Broggio of Litoměřice and after him by Abraham Leuthner of Prague.²⁸¹ When Giovanni Domenico Orsi died in 1679 his contemporary, Jean Baptiste Mathey, an artist formed by Bernini and post-Bernini Roman architecture, had been working in Prague for five years. With his arrival the impulses of Roman Supreme Baroque, even its highly contemporary academic phase, reached our environment. Shortly after the death of Škréta, then, there was a significant change of view in Prague architecture, for the influence of Mathey was almost style-creating in the last quarter of the 17th century.²⁸² The older concept of the history of Baroque architecture, based on the concept of stylistic teleology, interpreted Early Baroque architecture as a kind of prelude to the supreme style, which in its dynamic line was the actual fulfilment of the artistic desire of the period.²⁸³ The more detailed historical view, however, which is presented by some newer works,²⁸⁴ makes it possible to capture the inherent and time-specific problems of Early Baroque architecture. In this way not only do the more outstanding architects of the period – Filippi, Pieroni, Sebregondi, Lurago, Caratti and Orsi – appear as unique personalities with individual culminations of their own concept of architecture, but one can also see the ideologically fundamental significance of corresponding projects and inspirational influences, especially from the Italian environment. At the same time the personalities are also profiled of the most important secular and church builders and orderers of works of art, who had a significant influence on artistic creativity. If we compare two of the most beautiful views of Prague, the so-called Sadeler prospect of 1606 and the prospect of Folpert van Ouden-Allen of 1685, then we realise that the overall plan of the city was preserved, but its individual spaces, streets and squares acquired new and strong dominant features, the most striking of which are: the Černín Palace on Hradčany, the Church of Our Lady Victorious, St Mary Magdalene and the Professional Building of the Jesuits in the Lesser Town, the Clementinum or the Church of the Immaculate Conception by the Hibernian Monastery in the Old Town and the Church of St Ignatius with the Jesuit College in the New Town.²⁸⁵ On Ouden-Allen’s prospect the city of Prague gives the impression of a rich-in-form and varied organism oriented towards its dominant features. The attractive picture fully justifies the catch phrase of the period, which claimed that a true cavalier and educated person with experience of the world must “videre Praga et audire Arriaga”.²⁸⁶ Translated by Joanne P. C. Domin
STUDIES 261
Edition of Historical Sources
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 263
264 NAZEV KAPITOLY
Archival Documents on the Life and Ouevre of Karel Škréta TOMÁŠ SEKYRKA – RADKA TIBITANZLOVÁ – ŠTĚPÁN VÁCHA ET AL.
Notes on the text The documents made available by the present edition – the regesta – were selected in the framework of the archive and historical research, carried out simultaneously with the exhibition project “Karel Škréta 1610–1674. His Work and His Era”. Our aim was to provide the most complete view of the personality of the painter, his life story and the documents related to his oeuvre. In the selection of archive records, priority was mainly given to manuscripts and, to a lesser extent, printed documents of Škréta’s contemporaries (B. Balbín) which, one way or another, reflect the artist’s life and work. The materials originate from the period between the early 17th century (documents significant for the later events
material, the edition omits documents that
related to the Škréta family’s property) and the time shortly after the death of Karel Škréta the Younger, with only short overlaps into the early 18th century. The exception from this rule is one of the first Škréta biographies written
as in the original versions. Square brackets contain editor’s interventions and specifi-
by Johann Quirin Jahn. We decided to include this treatise due to the high importance it
wrong spellings – [!] or illegible text – [?]. Angle brackets contain crossed-out texts. Illegible
has had for research on Škréta up to the present time. The inventories of churches or, eventually, aristocratic and bourgeois picture
deletions are followed by a question mark in angle brackets. Marginal and interlinear notes (parentheses) are defined by slashes / /. If the
collections mentioning Škréta’s works were rather irrelevant for our purposes; they were
original text was underlined, the underlined section is preserved in the edition as well.
exploited in connection with the preparation of the catalogue to the exhibition and used as bases for the individual catalogue entries.
The transcription of proper names employs the principles of their emendation according to contemporary grammatical rules (e.g.
Considering the given time span, the present edition thus contains inventories of inherit-
Sskreta – Škréta). These cases especially follow the phonetic form of words as is reflected
ance which are directly linked with members of Škréta’s family or his friends (e.g., Miseroni and Dirix of Bruk). Also, mainly due to
by the text. For the sake of better orientation in the texts, we unified the names, particularly in the heading regests, adhering to
the determined period of time of the published
the variants most often stated in literature
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 265
follow the later fate of Škréta’s works, with the exception of the essential and often quoted sale of his paintings from the Zderaz monastery library. The vast majority of the edited documents are written in German and Czech “Kurrentschrift” (Old German script) and they sometimes also include humanistic cursive. Most texts in Latin and Italian employ humanistic cursive and semi-cursive. The quality of the particular documents is considerably varied from the points of legibility of writing, use of seals and the like. The text of the edition employs several types of parentheses. Round brackets are the same
cation and itemizing of less known or easily interchangeable abbreviations, and they also give notice of either ambiguous words or
(e.g. Pälling – Palinka). The names of less wellknown or unknown persons were unified after
(Dochter – Tochter), g – k (gleinere – kleinere), p – b (Purger – Burger), f – v (hiefon – hievon) was also pre-
their most frequented form. The frequently used abbreviations (JM – Jeho
served according to the original, as was also the use of ű instead of i and vice versa (bütten – bitten, eügen – eigen). Also the insertion of the letters
Milost [His Majesty], JMC – Jeho Milost císařská [His Imperial Majesty], VM – Vaše Milost [Your Majesty], VAM – Vaše Arciknížecí Milost [His Archducal Highness], datt. – date, act. – actum, LP – Léta Páně [anno Domini], cís. – císařské [imperial], král. – královské [royal], May. – Majestät [Majesty], s., sv. – svatý, svatého, sancti [saint, St], p. – pán, páni, paní [Mr, Messers, Mrs], H. – Herr [Mr]) are itemized in the entire edition without any detailed note or square brackets. Abbreviations of frequently repeated monetary units are equally itemized (groše, zlaté, krejcary, kopy míšeňské [groschen, guilders, kreuzers, Meissen three-scores]). The abbreviations mp – manu propria, L. S. – locus sigilli, NB – nota bene are, on the contrary, left in the original form. Since the submitted edition does not represent a literary source and it should neither serve any linguistic purposes nor be a basis for palaeographic teaching, the editors have agreed to transcribe the texts while observing the rules stated below. The documents included are written in German, Czech, Latin and Italian, and we thus find it necessary to point out their different transcription in the individual languages in some detail.¹ German language Our effort to maintain the original form of the texts resulted in the unified emendation of the documents. Taking into consideration that the vast majority of the edited documents originate from the period prior to 1750, the transcription rules were unified and, with only a few exceptions, it strictly followed the regulations for the transcription of early modern German documents until 1750. This was done in such a way as to keep the extent of interventions in the text to a minimum. Capital and small letters as well as punctuation marks were used rather variously by the authors of the original texts. In order to avoid incomprehensibility of the texts and to retain their meaning, it was necessary to change the punctuation according to modern orthographic norms. The same principle was employed for separate or linked writing of the individual words, and in the case of capital letters whose use also follows mod-
observes contemporary grammatical rules and is added only where it helps clearly differentiate between phrases and idioms freely arranged one after another.
h and b in the edition follows the original text (angenohmen, nemblich, komben, Ambt). The tran-
The documents are published as follows: the heading states the place, day of week, month
scription of the letter y was maintained in the original form, too; only the redundant diaresis (especially in beÿ) was removed. Moreover, the
and year of issue. Below is the regesta abstract and, under it, the reference to the place of the document’s deposition, while the latter speci-
editors retained the fluctuation of the phones
fies the particular archive or another institution and fund and gives other more detailed
i and j (ie, ieman – je, jeman). Czech language The text is divided into paragraphs according to its logical context and sentential construction and, to a certain extent, is supplemented by punctuation according to contemporary orthography. Non-vocalized phones were adapted to modern orthography as well (radda – rada, dattum – datum). The orthotic v at the beginning of words (vosumdesát, vostatní) and the orthotic j (jmít, jminulý) was kept in the original form, so too the frequent oscillation in conjugating the noun být [to be]: jsme – sme, jste – ste. The insertion of the letters t and l (nětco, vzáctný, učedlník) and the alternating use of š and č (větčí – větší) and d and t (otevřený – odevřený) were also preserved. The oscillating use of the forms vzláště and zvláště was also maintained according to the original text. The writing of the prepositions s and z and the prefixes s- and z- was adapted according to the meaning of the text and the contemporary orthographic norm. Latin language The transcription of documents written in Latin follows the rules for transcribing these texts from the period after 1600 whence they are transcribed in order to maintain the authentic character of the edited source. There were thus almost no interventions in the text and the form of phones. The phone y in the genitive case is transcribed as ii (juny – junii, Ignaty – Ignatii). Capital letters are used for names of persons, places, holidays, official titles of institutions, orders, ranks, degrees and offices (ordo Premonstratensis). The long and rounded s is not graphically differentiated in the edition.
information. The yet unpublished documents or documents which are newly edited according to contemporary grammatical rules and now published in extenso are followed by an abbreviated abstract and then the authentic, edited document itself. In the case of documents which were edited earlier but meet the modern concept of a professional edition, a more detailed regesta is given under the heading. As to the lost and today non-existent documents (especially records from the city books which burned during the fire of the Old Town Hall in 1945) as well as unfound documents, the source is quoted from relevant literature. Each document entry closes with literature where the text has been mentioned, and a note about the edition is included in the case of previously edited texts. Calendar dates in the text are, in the heading, transformed into numerical form, as dates according to the Christian Church year. The documents are divided into four sections for the sake of better lucidity – the first section contains archive documents relating to the life and personality of Karel Škréta; the second includes documents linked with his oeuvre and mentions of him; the third presents texts on the life and oeuvre of Karel Škréta the Younger, and the last, fourth section consists of documents that record the lives and oeuvres of Škréta’s students or, eventually, his workshop collaborators, assistants and employees. The documents within the individual sections are arranged in chronological order. Authors of the individual transcriptions: Petra Oulíková (PO) Tomáš Sekyrka (TS) Lenka Stolárová (LS) Radka Tibitanzlová (RT)
Italian language Italian texts were transcribed with regard to
Štěpán Vácha (ŠV)
was simplified (for example, wirdt is transcribed as wird and unndt as und). The letter w is tran-
maintaining the authenticity of the edited source. The individual letters of the original documents are, in principle, transcribed with-
1 The transcription of all texts observes the rules stated in: Ivan Šťovíček et al., Zásady vydávání novověkých historických pramenů z období od počátku 16. století do současnosti, Praha 2002.
scribed according to the original text with the exception of those cases where it appears in
out any changes, although accent marks and apostrophes are written and supplemented
the meaning u (newen – neuen, Fraw – Frau). The words containing sß were simplified to just ß while the use of s and ß was preserved accord-
according to valid contemporary grammatical rules. The writing of capital and small letters also follows the rules of modern spelling, while
ing to the original form of the text. The frequent fluctuation in writing phones t – d
words used in personified meaning (for example, la Verità) begin with capitals. Punctuation
ern orthography for the sake of better legibility. The non-functional gemination of consonants
266 ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OUEVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
I. Documents on the Life and Person of Karel Škréta
1
Prague, 10 July 1605 Emperor Rudolf II donates to Konrad Škréta Šotnovský of Závořice, the accountant of the Bohemian Chamber, the debenture bond of 1300 Meissen three-scores with 5% interest due until repayment as a reward for his thirteen years of service. The amount shall be paid from the rights, escheats, contrabands, fines and confiscations in Bohemia and the Lands of Bohemia devolved upon the king, which Škréta or his heirs will request as the first ones to pay off this claim. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), sign. S 162/24, Inv. No. 3280, box 2251, f. 18. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, pp. 46–47. My Rudolf etc. oznamujeme tímto listem všem, jakož za slušné a spravedlivé bejti uznávati ráčíme, abychom těm, kteříž nám věrně a platně slouží, zase milostí naší císařskou odměnu učinili. Protož z dobrým rozmyslem, naším jistým vědomím, mocí královskou v Čechách a radou věrných našich milých dali sme a tímto listem dávati ráčíme poctivému Kundratovi Škrétovi Šotnovskému z Závořic, puchhalterovi
našemu komory české, jakožto dobře, věrně a v mnohých letech zasloužilou milost, jmenovitě třinácte set kop míšeňských, náležejících, buďto nápadních, odoumrtních, kontrabandních pokut neb konfiskací, kteréž by se v tomto království, neb zemích k němu náležejících, přitrefily, a on, Kundrát Škréta, jeho dědicové neb budoucí o nich nejprvé oznámili, ježto by spravedlivě a pořádně na nás k rukám našim
přišly, a žádnému ještě od nás povoleny a dány nebyly, ty jemu Kundratovi Škrétovi, jeho dědicům a budoucím, až do těch třináctiset kop míšeňských vydány býti mají bez odpornosti. Zatím pak, nežli by jemu, dědicům neb budoucím jeho taková suma zouplna dána a zaplacena byla, chceme tomu, aby se od datum tohoto listu dotud a tak dlouho, dokudž by takové sumy, tak jakž napřed dotčeno, ze všelijakých
pokut, nápadů, odoumrtí, kontrabandů nebo konfiskací, aneb jinak nedosáhly a nedostaly, ze sta pět tolarův neboližto kop míšenských ouročily. Jakož jsme pak o tom Eliášovi Šmídgrabnerovi radě a rentmistru našemu, též budoucém rentmistrům v Království českém, aby jemu neb jim takovej ourok vydávali poručiti ráčili. TS
2
Prague, 10 July 1607 Emperor Rudolf II donates to Konrad Škréta Šotnovský of Závořice, the accountant of the Bohemian Chamber, the debenture bond of 1300 Meissen three-scores with 5% interest due until repayment as a reward for his thirteen years of service. The amount shall be paid from the rights, escheats, contrabands, fines and confiscations in Bohemia and the Lands of Bohemia devolved upon the king, which Škréta or his heirs will request as the first ones to pay off this claim. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. S 212/1, box 870. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, pp. 46–47.
Wir Rudolf der Ander, von Gottes Gnaden erwehlter Römischer Kayser,
dieses Briefs, gleichwie wir vor billich und gerecht erkennen, dass wir die-
tuen auch hiemit geben dem Ehrbaren Conrad Skreta Schottnoffsky
zue allen Zeiten Mehrer des Reichs, auch zue Hungarn, Böhmen, Dal-
selbe, so uns treue und erspriessliche Diensten geleistet, mit Kayserlichen
von Zaworschitz, unserer Königlichen Böhmischen Cammer Buchhal-
matien, Croatien König, Erzherzog zue Österreich, Marggraf in Mähren, Hertzog zu Lutzemburg und
Gnaden wiederumb recompensiren. Als haben wir mit unseren guten Bedacht, Wissen und Willen aus
tern, lieben Getreuen zue Treu und auch in vielen Jahren wohlverdienten Gnaden recompens, benantlich
Schlesien und Marggraf zu Laußitz thuen kund jedermänniglichen Kraft
königlichen Gewalt in Böhmen, und mit Rat unserer Getreuen gegeben,
dreizehenhundert Schock meissnisch aus allen und jeden uns als Königen
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 267
von Böhmen zugehörigen Rechten, Caduciteten, Contrabanten, Strafen oder Confiscationen, so in diesem Königreich und demselben einverleibten Ländern vorfallen möchten, und er Conrad Skreta, seine Erben oder Nachkömling, dieselben erstens ahngebeten, denselbe gerecht und ordentlich uns zugefallen und von
uns noch niemands andern vergeben weren, die sollen ihme Conraden
wurde, von 100 Reichsthaler fünf
und jedes, so sie empfangen wer-
Thaller Interesse sollen erlegt werden. Wie wir dann desswegen dem ehrbaren Eliae Schmidgrabner von
den, auf diesem Brief soll verzeichnet werden, als sollen sie unseren Brief wiederumb uns oder unserer
Lustenekh auf Bruss, unserem Rat und Rentmeistern, auch zuekünf-
Böhmischen Cammer zurückstellen. Und so, wer diesen Brief von oftge-
und Nachkömlingen solche Summa wurde bezahlet und abgeführt,
tigen Rentmeistern im Königreich Böhemb, dass die ihnen solches Interesse bezeiten abführen sollen,
dachtes Conraden Skreta Erben oder Nachkömlingen ihme durch guten Willen abgetreten hette, wollen wir,
wollen und gnädigist, dass von dato dieses unseren Briefs, solang bis sol-
durch unsern ofenen Brief besonders anbefohlen haben. Und wann er
dass ihmejeden eben solches Recht und Macht zu obbesagten Sachen
[attached is the financial statement
che
gleich wie vorgemeldet von allerhand Strafen, Caduciteten, Contrabanten, Confiscationen oder
gedachter Skreta oder seinen Erben und Nachkömling besagte Summa aus bemelten zugefallenen Rechten
gebühren solle als ihnen selbsten. Zue Urkund dessen haben wir unser kleinernes Kayserliches Insigl hierzu-
of the claim, issued by the Bohemian Chamber on 27 April 1653] TS
sonsten anderwerts ihnen abgefihrt
völlig erheben teten, wie dann alles
drucken lassen.
Skreta, seinen Erben oder Nachkömlingen bis auf die 1300 Schock meissnisch ohne Widerspruch herausgegeben werden. Entzwischen aber, ehe dass ihme, seinen Erben
3
The Old Town in Prague, 1607 Members of the family of Škréta Šotnovský of Závořice are stated in the list of members of the Czech Brethren, which was held in the personal archives of the Unity’s doyen, Matouš Konečný. Muzeum Mladoboleslavska (Museum of the Mladá Boleslav Region), Archiv Matouše Konečného (Archives of Matouš Konečný), sign. A3254/Praha/O–1607, f. 2v, 3r. Literature: Apparently unpublished. (We thank Markéta Růčková for finding and providing the text.)
V Starém Městě pan Daniel Škréta V rynku
pan Kundrat Škréta Kateřina m[anželka] – Jan, Kundrat, synové RT
pan Jiřík Škréta Johanna sestra jeho …
4
The Old Town in Prague, 16 February 1613 The bell was tolled for the daughter of Kundrat Škréta in the church of Our Lady before Týn. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Příjem záduší t. a sv. Benedikta (Receipt of church funds at Týn and St Benedict), 1506–1614, sign. 1645, f. 134r. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
V sobotu po svatém Valentinu zvoněno dcerce pana Kundrata Škréty z osady této, dáno 20 krejcarů. RT
268 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
Geben in unseren Prager Schloss, Dienstags nach St. Procopi anno 1607 etc., unserer Reiche des Römischen im 32., des Ungarischen im 35. und des Böhmischen auch im 32. Jahr etc. Rudolf mp., L. S., ad mandatum domini electi Imperatoris proprium Caspr Kapler Johann Peldrschimousky
5
The Old Town in Prague, 11 September 1613 The bell was tolled for Kundrat Škréta in the church of Our Lady before Týn. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Příjem záduší t. a sv. Benedikta (Receipt of church funds at Týn and St Benedict), 1506–1614, sign. 1645, f. 136r. Literature: BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 7. V středu po Narození Panny Marie zvoněno Kundratovi Škrétovi z osady této, dáno 20 krejcarů. RT
6
The Old Town in Prague, 13 September 1613 Testament of Karel’s father Kundrat Škréta, issued in 1612. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber testamentorum II, 1619–1658, sign. 2206, f. 34r–36r. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 18–19; NEUMANN 1974, pp. 15, 44; Radka Tibitanzlová, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.2, p. 582.
List kšaftovní a poslední vuole Kundrata Škréty Šotnovskýho z Závořic My purkmistr a rada Starého Města pražského známo činíme tímto listem přede všemi, kdež čten nebo
když vuobec otevřín a čten byl v radě f[eria] sexta post Nativitatis Beatae Mariae Virginis, 13. septemb[ri] 1613, toto jest v sobě držel a zavíral, drží a zavírá, slovo od slova jakž následuje takto:
tomu chtíce, aby o stateček muoj, kteréhož mně milostivý Pán Buoh z své pouhé milosti a božské štědrosti pro obživení mé propůjčiti ráčil, po mé smrti mezi Kateřinu z Morchendorfu, manželku mou milou a dítka-
s zahrádkou na dláždění v Novém Městě pražském U Kameníků řečený, též zaplacenej, též vinice dvě [v] Mezihoří na Špitálsku ležící, zaplacené, it[em] vinice s lisem pod zámkem mělnickým, na díle na grun-
čtoucí slyšán bude, a zvláště tu, kdež náleží, že pan Pavel Škréta Šotnovský z Závořic, obeslán jsa do rady před pana purkmistra a pány od paní Kateřiny z Morchendorfu, po-
Ve jméno Svaté a Nerozdílné Trojice, jediného Pána Buoha mého, na věky věkův požehnaného amen. Já Kundrat Škréta Šotnovský z Závořic, měštěnín Starého Města praž-
mi mejmi budoucně jaké nedorozumění povstati a vzniknouti měly, maje statček svuoj svobodný a nezávadný, s dobrým mým rozmyslem, bedlivým uvážením, paměti z daru
tech zámeckých a na díle na gruntech města Mělníka ležící, též zaplacenou. Duom na předměstí mělnickém s přikoupeným kouskem zahrádky a vinicí ve dvou kusích
zůstalé vdovy po ne[božtíku] panu Kundratovi Škrétovi Šotnovskýmu z Závořic, měštěnínu tohoto Starého
ského, vyznávám tímto listem kšaftovním přede všemi vuobec a zvláště tu, kdež náleží. Znamenaje a pře-
božího dobré i rozumu zdravého užívaje. Především a nejprve duši mou, drahou krví Pána a Spasitele
k němu náležející, kteráž slove Šoktovská na Podolákovským, mimo to milost Jeho Milosti císařské mně za
Města pražského, vysvědčil a ozná-
mejšleje, kterak v této k smrtedlnos-
mého Ježíše Krista vykoupenou,
mý věrný tehdáž přes dvanácti líto
mil. Kterak jmenovaný pan Kundrat Škréta bratr jeho rok před svatým Duchem, jedouc do Moravy, na Horách Kutnách se zastavil a k němu
ti všecky věci proměnu berou a lidem nic jistšího není jako smrt a nic nejistšího jako hodina smrti. Jakkoliv z milostivé vuole Pána Boha všemo-
v ruce jeho svaté, odkudž jsem ji vzal, zase poroučím, dokonale, silně a pevně bez omylu věříc, že Buoh Otec pro nesmírné a nevypravitedlné
Jeho Milosti císařské činěný služby na expektanci 1300 kop míšeňských, pod ourok 5 kop míšeňských ze sta, od berně zemské vycházející (jako
do domu jeho přijda, poslední vuo-
houcího při sepsání tohoto listu
své božské milosrdenství a pro jedi-
i duom a mlejn na Šerlinku v Novém
li svou a kšaft v spis uvedený a pečetí vlastní nebožtíka zapečetěný jemu k opatrování a schování odevzdal, s tím přitom oznámením, že coko-
kšaftovního zdravého života požívám, avšak vím, že v nežití musím. Nechtíce tomu, kdyby mě Pán Buoh nemocí navštíviti a prostředkem
nou oběť syna svého milého, Pána a Spasitele Ježíše Krista, ji v počet volených svých přijíti, v hodinu smrti i v den soudný k ní se přiznati
Městě pražském ležící a dskami se řídící, o němž ne způsobem kšaftovním, nežli pro vědomost, že mně vlastně náleží, toliko zmínku činím,
liv v něm psáno, jeho jistá, dokona-
smrti z tohoto světa povolati ráčil,
a mezi zvolenými svatými k věčné
poněvadž ten bez mocného listu
lá a poslední vuole jest, žádajíc dále, pokudž by ho Pán Bůh prostředkem smrti časné zde v Čechách z tohoto světa povolati ráčil, aby takový
abych se jakejmi světskými a pomíjejícími věcmi zaneprazdňovati měl, ale raději o žádostivější s světem tímto hříšným a zlým rozloučení
neskonalé slávě postaviti ráčí. O mém pak statečku z milosti Pána Boha mně propůjčeném tuto poslední a konečnou vuoli mou sepsati
královského kšaftován listovně býti nemuože). K tomu všelijakej jinej statek, na čem by ten koliv buďto na jistotách, zápisích, šuldprýfích,
kšaft na právo toto ku přečtení složil
pečujíc, Pánu Bohu Stvořiteli, Vyku-
davše, takto řídím. Kdež mám duom
klenotech, hotových penězích a na
a podal, což tak učinil a jej na právo složil. Kterýž k žádosti nadepsaný paní Kateřiny z Morchendorfu,
piteli a Posvětiteli mému zkroušeným srdcem se pokořiti a v jeho svaté božské ruce sebe poručiti mohl, ani
U Černého jelena řečený, proti kostelu Matky Boží před Tejnem ležící, zaplacený, it[em] druhý dům
čemkoliv jiným vyhledán a uptán býti mohl, nic ovšem nevymiňujíc, poroučím Kateřině z Morchendorfu,
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 269
manželce mé milé, Janovi, Kundratovi, Jindřichovi a Karlovi, synům,
známosti buoží, umění a věcem chvalitebným, v dospělých letech svejch
odvedeného, pokudž by ho sama svévolně neztenčila, 1500 kop míšeň-
a k tomu aby do kněh městských mohl vložen býti, povolili. F[eria]
též Anýžce, Esteře a Kateřině, dcerám mejm vlastním s touž manžel-
sami sobě bez obtížnosti chléb dobývati a se živiti mohli. Přišel-li by který
ských buď na gruntech, bez nichž by sirotci bejti mohli, nebo na jistejch
kvinta postridie sancti Martini, 12. novembris 1615. Consule domino
kou mou zplozených, v živě zůstávajícím, na nížepsaný způsob. Předně: aby po otevření tohoto kšaftu všecko
syn můj k letům dospělým a že by s radou a vuolí matky své a pánův poručníkův poctivě a řádně v stav
dluzích vykázali. A pakli by toho ničeho jí přičiněním nebylo, tehdy při odstoupení od ní pánům poručníkům
Andrea Blowsky á Palatino, vices ejus gerente, domino Joanne Kyrchmajero
mé jmění, na čem by to koliv záleželo, pořádně skrze osoby ode mě
manželský vstoupiti a se živiti chtěl, tehdy jemu do živnosti podle uznání
statku mého na hotově 500 kop míšeňských, v roce pořád zběhlém
manželce mé za poručníky dožádaný a přidaný, tehdáž v Praze přítomný, zinventováno bylo a pro vědomost
dáno a postoupeno bejti má, tak aby týž statček pospolu až do let nejmladšího mého syna, kterejž tak do let
500 kop míšeňských a ostatních 500 kop ve dvou letech od datum téhož postoupení odvedli a vydali
mejm dětem do zrostu jich týž inventář se dochoval. Nad čímž nade vším
svých dospělých opatření potřebovati bude, zůstával. Ku pomoci pak man-
a pánům poručníkům má z mého statečku jednomu každému každo-
i nad dítkami mými manželku mou milou za otcovskou mocnou poručnici s vejminkou dál položenou nařizu-
želce mé, ano i pro lepší opatření jak jí, tak dětí mejch i statečku mého, dožádal sem se za poručníky urozené
ročně, když by mírná ouroda byla, po jednom vědru vína z vinic mejch pražskejch za práci jich vydáváno
ji: a synové moji mají před manželkou mou a dcerami mejmi napřed jmíti
pana Pavla a Daniele, bratří Škréty Šotnovský z Závořic, bratří mí vlastní
bylo. Naposledy vysoce sobě vymiňuji a v moci své pozuostavuji, abych ten-
privilegia, spisy, paměti, všeckny knihy (kromě který manželce mý ode mě daný jsou), šaty mý chodicí, zbra-
a pana Jana Sroubeného, spoluměštěnína Starého Města pražského, jim toho jakožto poctivým lidem se duo-
to kšaft a poslední vuoli mou zouplna všecken, neb na díle proměniti, v nic obrátiti, jiný učiniti, tolikrát kolikrát
ně a zbroje truhlářský, stroje a jiný
věřujíc, že oni manželky mé a dětí
by se mně vidělo a zdálo, mohl. Neu-
hospodářský svršky. Manželce mý obzvláštně odkazuji černej šrejbtiš, řetěz zlatej, armpanty a dva nejpěknější prsteny, též největší stříbrnou konvičku, její pak ženská okrasa bez překážky jí zuostati má. A z toho ze všeho statku, když by která z dcer mých v dospělých letech poctivě a pobožně se chovajíc k vdání poctivému s radou a vuolí matky svý a pánův poručníkův přišla, tehdy aby na vejpravu jedné každé 200 kop míšeňských vynaloženo a dáleji za otcovský podíl 500 kop míšeňských, polovici po vdáním jejím, v šesti nedělích 200 kop míšeňských a ostatek v roce pořád zběhlém vydáno bylo. A tím aby jedna každá z týchž dcer mých
mých radou a pomocí ani v nitčemž jiném slušném neopustí a lege skutečně fedrovati a zastávati budou. A jestliže by který z dožádaných a vejš položených poručníkův z tohoto světa sešel, bude moci manželka má s radou pozůstávajících jiného sobě zvoliti a se dožádati. Toť pak znamenitě dokládám, kdež Kateřinu manželku mou nade vším a všelijakým statkem mým, ano i nad dítkami mejmi za mocnou otcovskou poručnici ustanovuji, že ona bez vědomí a povolení oznámených dožádaných poručníkův jak strany synův a dcer mých, tak z strany statku mého pozůstalého držení a spravování nic činiti a před sebe bráti moci míti nemá, nýbrž
činil-li bych pak mimo tento kšaft žádného jiného pořízení a toho abych namnoze ani namále neproměnil, tehdy tento ať v své moci a celosti zůstane. Slovutné a mnohovzáctné poctivosti pánův, purkmistra a radu Starého Města pražského nynějších i budoucích, jakožto mně vždyckny laskavých pánův prosebně a snažně žádám, že prohlídajíce k mnohejm pracem mejm v čas pokoje i nepokoje pro dobro té obce upřímně vedle možnosti mé vynaloženým, nad touto poslední vuolí a kšaftem mejm, nicméně i nad manželkou, tak i dítkami mejmi, v čem by se s pány poručníky, jakožto po Jeho Milosti královské k vrchním a předním sirotkův
z mého ze všeho statku vybyta a na nic dále se nepotahujíc vypravena byla a pod tím však dříve vdaný vychování své i s náležitým opatřeným
učinila-li by co toho sama o své újmě, to žádné platnosti a moci aby nemělo. Nebo takové poručenství její moc a platnost potud a dotud tak dlouho
a vdov povinným ochráncím utekli, pro hojnější boží odplatu ochrannou ruku držeti a pomocí fedrovati a opatrovati laskavě ráčí. Tomu na svědomí
oděvem vedle jinejch mejch dětí z té-
ponese, nésti a jmíti má, pokudž by
a dokonalou bezpečnost já zpočátku
hož statečku jmíti mají a jinej všecken statek mimo oznámené podělení dcer mých, ten má manželce mé
ona stavu svého nezměnila a na vdovské stolici sedíc, tak až do let v živě zůstávajícícho nejmladšího syna
psaný Kundrat Škréta tuto mou poslední vuoli sem sepsati dal, v něm se svou vlastní rukou podepsal a jej pe-
(pokudžby do zrostu a let nejmladšího syna na vdovské stolici zuostala)
mého v tom trvala. Pakli by stav svůj dříve let nejmladšího syna, jak již
četí mou zabezpečil. Čehož jest datum v Praze, v domě mém U Černého
a synům mejm výš jmenovaným na rovný díl jíti a příslušeti, nápad aby z umrlého na živého šel. Jestli by pak
dotčeno, proměníc, jiného manžela pojala, již poručenství toto k ní sjíti má a sňato aby bylo a ona svým vdá-
jelena vosmnáctého dne měsíce máje, léta Páně tisícého šestistého dvanáctého.
kterej z dětí mejch matky své a dožádaných pánův poručníkův níže
ním, jak poručenství podle tohoto mého nařízení, tak i mého statečku
Kterýžto kšaft my svrchupsaní z bedlivého snešení radního k žádosti
jmenovaných poslouchati a nimi se říditi a spravovati nechtěli, tehdy aby mu jen deset kop grošuov českých ze
prázdná učiněna, zbavená bejti a všeho pánům poručníkům bez meškání ihned zouplna vykázati, jeho postou-
paní Kateřiny Škrétový z Morchendorfu, po dobré paměti panu Kundratovi Škrétovi Šotnovskýmu z Závořic
všeho statku mého daný byly. Však [aby] při tom tato vlastní matka děti
piti, v moc jich vnésti a jim jej odvésti povinna bude. A nahořepsaný páni
pozuostalé vdovy, poněvadž jest čas svůj právní bez naříkání vyležel, ve
mý a svý k bázni boží a liternímu umění pilně vedla tak, aby naučíc se
páni poručníci k tomu se ode mě zavazují, aby z takového statku jim
všech punktích, klauzulích, artykulích zcela a zouplna jsme stvrdili
270 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
a Reychwicz, urbis primate. RT
7
The Old Town in Prague, 1627 Karel Škréta acquires the certificate of apprenticeship and goes abroad for training – from the testimony of Karel Škréta during the lawsuit with Ondřej Leynhoz from Břevnov, held in 1640. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Manuale dictorum, 1638–1641, sign. 1169, f. 166v–186r. Literature: TIBITANZLOVÁ 2011, pp. 153–160.
…já žádným emigrantem a … exulantem nikdy nebyl, nýbrž se v svém umění, kterémuž sem se vyučil a je sobě oblíbil, z Království českého podle příležité atestací od lehrmaj-
julio do cizích zemí se odebral … ježto sem já se pro dosažení většího umění a experiencí ven z země, nejsouce od žádného puzen, odebral… RT
stra mýho mně dané, v létu 1627 in
8
The Old Town in Prague, 8 August 1628 Kateřina Škrétová appoints plenipotentiaries for her and her family’s property before emigrating. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Protocollum consilii, 1628, sign. 1296, f. 188r. Literature: BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 8; NEUMANN 1974, p. 45.
Co[n]s[ule] domino Casparo Loselio 1628 Kateřina Škrétová odbíraje se z Král[ovství] č[eského] pro náboženství, zplnomocnila jest nad statkem
jejím náležející, pana Jakuba Kozla, Jakuba Dobřanského a paní Anýžku, dceru svou vdanou, kderá však z toho statku ji, mateř svou, vykvitovala. RT
o spravedlnosti vší jak jí, tak i dětem
9
The Old Town in Prague, 8 August 1628 Anežka Reymundová, born Škrétová, assumes her part of her inheritance from her father via her mother Kateřina of Morchendorf. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber quietantiarum 2, 1579–1650, sign. 2179, f. 224v. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 21; BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 8.
Anýžka Reymundová stoje osobně v radě přiznala se, že jest přijala od paní Kateřiny Škrétový, matky svý,
budoucí a věčný. Actum in cons[ilio] f[eria] tertia post Transfigurationis Christi, 8. aug[usti] anno 1628.
vedle kšaftu Kundrata Škréty, otce svýho, všecku spravedlnost otcov-
RT
skou a dědickou, z té spravedlnosti otcovské zcela a zouplna přijala. Paní Kateřinu Škrétovou, matku svou, kvituje, svobodná a prázdná činí na časy EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 271
10
The Old Town in Prague, 30 July 1629 The plenipotentiaries of Kateřina Škrétová and Anežka Reymundová, born Škrétová, sold the house At the Black Deer for 2500 Meissen three-scores to Ondřej Leynhoz from Břevnov. They received 1000 three-scores in ready money while the rest was supposed to be paid in instalments of 500 three-scores annually. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber contractuum caeruleus III, sign. 2114, f. 413v (the volume burned in 1945). Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 21; BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 8; NEUMANN 1974, p. 23.
RT
11
Leszno (Poland), 10 August 1629 Kateřina Škrétová of Morchendorf, widow of Kundrat Škréta of Závořice, declares that she, as the guardian of her own children, awards the power of attorney to the burgher of the Old Town in Prague, Judyta Bylinová, to leave the vineyard in Oujezd near Litoměřice, recorded in the Litoměřice books, for the use of her daughter Anežka Reymundová. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), Inv. No. 1986, sign. L 32/33, box 1291. Literature: BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 8; NEUMANN 1974, p. 44.
Já Kateřina Škrétová z Morchendorfu, manželka někdy urozeného pana Kundrata Škréty z Závořic, Jeho Milosti císařské puchaltera v Království českém a měštěnína Starého
Města pražského, aby ona, dadouce se k knihám purkmistrským města Litoměřic najíti vinici tu při městě Litoměřicích v Oujezdě slove ležící, kterouž jest týž někdy pan manžel
vinici nikdy žádnému prodávati, zapisovati, postupovati, ani na ni dlužiti se nemohli, nižádným vymyšleným způsobem a právem, nyní i na časy budoucí a věčné. Jestliže by
způsob a vejminku vykonati mohl, zříditi a jej k tomu listem mocným zmocniti, nejinač než jako bych já to sama všecko činiti a vykonati mohla. Na potvrzení toho pečeť svou vlastní
Města pražského, jakožto mocná otcovská poručnice kšaftem od téhož pana manžela mého učiněným nad dětmi s ním zplozenými a statkem vším a všelijakým jemu náležejí-
můj od někdy pana Jana Wagnera koupil, se čtvrt lisem a jiným k též vinici příslušenstvím, týmiž knihami mohla a moc měla slovutné paní Anýžce Reymundové z Závořic,
pak táž paní Anýžka Reymundová z Závořic tak, jakž jsem ji v tom se důvěřila a důvěřuji, sama bezelstně k postoupení též vinice ku právu města Litoměřic se vypraviti a toho
k tomuto listu mocnému jsem přitiskla a v něm se svou vlastní rukou podepsala. Jehož jest datum v Lešně 10. dne měsíce srpna léta Páně tisícího šestistého dvadcátého devátého.
cím nařízená, přiznávám se k tomu tímto listem mým mocným vůbec
dceři mé milé, s týmž někdy panem Kundratem Škrétou zplozené, dědi-
osobně vykonati nemohla, tehdy k tomu povoluji a ji tímto listem
přede všemi a zvláště tu, kdež náleží, že jsem dala a tímto listem mocným dávám plnou moc slovutné paní Juditě Bylinové, měštěnínce Starého
cům a budoucím jejím, k samému toliko užívání na místě mém postoupiti a odevzdati. Na ten způsob: aby ona, dědicové a budoucí její túž
mocným plnou moc a právo dávám, aby ona mohla na místě mém a svém jiného plnomocníka, kterýž by takové postoupení na výšepsaný
L. S. Kateřina Škrétová z Morchendorfu RT, TS
12
The Old Town in Prague, 6 October 1629 Kateřina Škrétová sells the vineyard from abroad through plenipotentiaries for 4000 Meissen three-scores. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), Kniha trhová (The Book of Markets) 20, 1624–1648, sign. 2021, f. 221v–222r. Literature: BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 8; NEUMANN 1974, pp. 17, 44, 45.
Paní Judit Bílynová, měšťka Starého Města pražského, koupila sobě,
5 str[ychů] míry držící [v] Mezihořím špitálským, jdouc k Hlou-
z Proseče z jedné a Daniele Ditrycha, měštěnína Nového Města
se vším a všelijakým k té vinici od starodávna příslušenstvím od Hen-
dědicům a budoucím svým vinici
pětínu, vedle vinice Vojtěcha
pražského, z strany druhé ležící,
drycha Škréty z Závořic, jakožto dle
272 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
jiných od Kateřiny Škrétové z Morchendorfu k prodaji gruntův jejích
odtad z Závořic daných a odvedených, z kterýchžto tak přijatých
dědice a budoucí její přenášejíc k jmění, držení, dědičnému poží-
vynajíti mohly právem města a hor viničných pražských. Z kteréžto
plnomocníkův přidaného plnomocníka dle plnomocenství do knih
400 kop míšeňských on Hendrych Škréta od sebe, paní mateře, bra-
vání a vládnutí tím vším právem, jakž jest tu vinici Kateřina Škré-
vinice Jeho Milosti císařské perkrecht obyčejný z pěti strychův
ouřadu Jeho Milosti císařské perkmistrského vloženého, jehož jest actum v městě Lešni 21. julii léta
trův i sester paní Judit Bílynovou, dědice a budoucí její tímto zápisem kvituje, prázdná a svobodná činí
tová po smrti manžela svého Kundrata Škréty z Závořic spolu s dětmi svejmi jakožto nařízená mocná
a k svatému Havlu 58 grošů každoročně míšeňských vycházeti má. K tomuto zápisu mimo Hendrycha
1629, za sumu 400 kop míšeňských peněz hotových, zcela a zouplna
nyní i na časy budoucí a věčné, žádného dalšího práva a spravedlnosti
otcovská poručnice jměla, držela, užívala a vládla a jakž Kundratovi
Škréty pan Jakub Kozel z Peclinovce a pan Jakub Dobřanský z Nigro-
zaplacených a jemu Hendrychovi Škrétovi z Závořic na místě a k ruce svrchupsané Kateřině Škrétové,
na témž gruntu viničném sobě, paní mateři, bratrům a sestrám, ani žádnému jinému pod jakýmkoli vymy-
Škrétovi zápis v knihách perkmistrských lib[er] cont[ractuum] 18, fol. 252 svědčil, zpraviti má prodá-
pontu, nařízení plnomocníci od Kateřiny Škrétové přiznali se, jehož actum 6. octobris anno 1629.
Janovi, Kundrátovi, Karlovi, Anýžce, Esteře a Kateřině, synům a dcerám
šleným způsobem nepozůstavujíc, nýbrž to vše na paní Judit Bílynovou,
vající kupující přede všemi závadami, které by se nyní neb budoucně
RT
13
s. l., (c. 1629) Anežka Reymundová of Závořice informs the Bohemian Governor’s Office that her mother Kateřina Škrétová bequeathed her, among other property, a vineyard near Litoměřice and thus pleads for support in acquiring this inheritance. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), sign. L 32/33, Inv. No. 1981, box 1291, f. 3. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Milostiví páni páni, k Vašim Milostem se utíkaje, poníženě oznamuji, že urozená paní Kateřina Škrétová z Morchendorfu, paní mateř má milá, jesti mně vinici
Vašim Milostem k milostivé ochraně a dopomožení poníženě poručena činím. Vašim Milostem na modlitbách trvající Anýžka Reymundová
při městě Litoměřic v Oujezdě řečené listem mocným, aby mně taková, když se v tom ohlašovati a toho při pánův vyhledati budu, do kněh městských tu, kdež náleží, vepsána
z Závořic TS
a uložena byla, jakožto dceři své postoupila, jakž Vaší Milosti z přiležícího vejpisu obšírněji milostivě vyrozuměti ráčí. Ale však na uctivé a šetrné vyhledávání mé nic toho užíti nemohu. A poněvadž nadjmenovaná paní mateř má, jsouce měšťkou v Starém Městě pražském, netoliko tu vinici, ale i jiný statek v městě Mělníce a jinde koliv ode 24 let beze vší překážky jako své vlastní volně užívala a v držení toho byla, z jakých pak příčin bych i já toho též mimo jiné užíti nemohla. Protož k Vašim Milostem se utíkaje, ve vší poníženosti prosím, že se tou milostí ke mně nakloniti a pánům pánům města Litoměřic, aby mně takovou vinici listem mocným pořádně odevzdanou a postoupenou do kněh tu, kdež náleží, beze vší odpornosti vepsati a vtěliti dali, dostatečně poručiti ráčíte. V čemž se
DOCUMENT No. 13 Anežka Reymundová of Závořice informs the Bohemian Governor’s Office that her mother Kateřina Škrétová bequeathed her, among other property, a vineyard near Litoměřice and thus pleads for support in acquiring this inheritance. Prague, National Archives, file Old Manipulation (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 273
14
Litoměřice, 16 September 1630 The burgomaster and the city councillors of Litoměřice inform the Bohemian Office about the plea of Anežka Reymundová who seeks the rendition of the vineyard donated to her as a gift by her mother Kateřina Škrétová. The Litoměřice authorities, referring to the fact that Kateřina Škrétová emigrated and also to the privilege awarded to the city by the ruler, dismiss the plea of Anežka Reymundová. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), sign. L 32/33, Inv. No. 1981, box 1291, f. 12–16. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 46.
Vaše Milostích vysoce urozená Svaté
v radě přečísti dali. Takové vinice za
ji domácí osobě zaprodá, toho že jí
osobám s městem netrpícím, čehož
římské říše hrabata, urození páni páni, urození a stateční páni z rytíř-
vepsání do knih našich městských nás žádajíce, to jí od nás oznámeno bylo:
rádi přijíti chceme. Jinak i to jí navrhujíce, pokud by
kdyby se jednomu zlý příklad dostati mělo, mnozí jiní na škodu obce naší
stva, páni milostiví, milostivé Vašich Milostí poručení
že podle znění téhož listu paní mateře její mocného, kterýž tyto dvě klausule
paní mateři její také vinice v času od Jeho Milosti císařské k prodání stat-
a protržení privilegium toho by častěji žádostivi byli, gruntův našich
v příčině Anýžky Rejmundové z Závořic a vinice některé při právě našem v Aujezdě položené, jí od Kateřiny
proti našemu od Jeho Milosti císařské nám v nově daném privilegium v sobě obsahuje. K samému toliko
kův všem emigrantům do čtyř měsícův již vycházejících uděleném buď člověku katolickému domácímu pro-
městských knihami nezapisovali, nad námi a Jeho Milosti císařské milostivém nadjmenovaném privilegium
Škrétové z Morchendorfu, mateře její, listem mocným otevřeným postoupené, též suplikaci dotčené Anýžky Rejmundové s příležícím téhož listu mocného vejpisem, poslušně přijavše, po přečtení nač by se vše vztahovalo, šetrně jsme vyrozuměli: kdež Vašim Milostem tuto pravdivou zprávu svou o též věci činíce, nemůže nám než do též Anýžky Rejmundové, kteráž v té příčině sama proti sobě jest, podivné býti. Nebo ona před některým týhodnem, byvši před námi v radě, a dle téhož paní mateře její z Království tohoto pro náboženství emigrované, předneseného jalového nadepsané vinice postoupení, kteréž jsme sobě v přítomnosti její pro vyrozumění
užívání a ne mocnému a dokonalému odevzdání a jakž dále následuje, na ten způsob aby ona Anýžka Rejmundová, dědicové a budoucí její túž vinici nikdy žádnému prodávati, zapisovati, postupovati ani na ni dlužiti se nemohli, nižádným vymyšleným způsobem a právem nyní i na časy budoucí a věčné. Této své žádosti pod týmiž vejminkami, jako také osoba s městem netrpící, užíti nemůže. Nýbrž když paní mateř její mimo nadepsané klausule, jakožto osoba pro náboženství z Království tohoto emigrovaná, jí Anýžce Rejmundové túž vinici bez nadepsaných vejminek mocně postoupí a odevzdá. Ona pak jakožto přespolní a s městem netrpící
dati, anebo této Anýžce Rejmundové, dceři své, jak se nadpisuje, mocně bez vejminky postoupiti zameškala, že by za odběžnou položená a snad i propadená a marně svývolným obmeškáním zmrhaná byla. Z kteréžto příčiny Vaší Milosti milostiví páni páni milostivě uznávati ráčíte, že žádosti spředjmenované Anýžky Rejmundové ne tak jsme docela odepřeli, jako z nedokonalého jí té vinice od častopsané paní mateře její, dání jí vyvésti a k dokonalé possessi té vinice přivésti chtěli. V čemž Vašich Milostí poníženě žádáme, že nám to na dobrou stránku milostivě obrátiti. A abychom proti novému od Jeho Milosti císařské nám milostivě danému privilegium
ochrannou ruku milostivě zdržovati ráčíte. S tím se Pánu Bohu a Našim Milostem k milostivé ochraně poníženě poručené činíme. Datum v městě Litoměřicích v pondělí den památný svaté Lidmily 16. septembris léta 1630. Vašim Milostem poníženě poslušní purkmistr a konšelé města Litoměřic nad Labem [on the tergo:] Communicat Anyžce Reymundové, aby se podle těchto podstatných obran zachovala a sobě sama k dobrému v cestě nebyla TS
15
Pistoia (Italy), 8 June 1636 Karel Škréta writes Ludwig Lucius from the Tuscan city of Pistoia, informing him about his previous letters. He asks about the addressee’s family and also begs to speed up the correspondence between his mother and brother. He reports the death of his sister Anežka and the possibility of getting a passport and arranging all necessary things in this matter. He summarizes his sojourn to Italy and his activities in that country. Staatsbiliothek Schaffhausen, sign. Msc Scaph 8. Literature: Lenka Stolárová, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, pp. 17–23, 64–65; Petr Přibyl – Lenka Stolárová, see the relevant chapter in this volume, pp. 73–79; the most recent, 2010 discovery of archive sources remains the matter of further research of author; for more on the subject, see the forthcoming study by L. Stolárová.
Edler Ehrenkoster Großgüstiger Herr Schwager deme seyen neben Winschung von Gott dem Allmächtigen
meine willige Dienste über Zeit bevor. Wie wohl ich auch zu forn dem
Herren Bruder Doctori auß Rohm geschrieben gewaldig begirig von ihren Zustand zu wißen (die weil
verendert hat), darauf ich kein Antwort nie nicht gehabt. Allein von einem mihr gesagt (der den Zeit
Herrn Schwager so auch meinem
der Zeiten sich aldorsten gewaltig
beim Herren Schwager in der Kost
274 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
gewesen), nemlich daß meiner Herr Bruder Doctor sich in Krieg begeben und von dem Feind gefangen worden, von ihm sich aber wie derumb loß gemacht hat, wie es aber weiters mit ihm forfahren kein Wort mehr hab ich verstehen können und mihr von Herzen lieb wers, daß dem Herren Schwager und meinem Herrn Bruder Doctori sampt seiner Frauen und Kindern wohl güngs und ich gegen ihnen der Affection nach mich würklich erzeigen könte. Mit diesem aber thue ich dem Herren Schwager zu wißen, daß ich den ersten dieses Monats Schreiben von meiner Frauen Mutter und auch dem Herren Bruder Henrichen gehabt, sich gewaltig uber dem Doctor lamentierende, daß er ihnen nicht antwortet auf ihre filseltige gethame Briefe, darumb sie nicht wißen, ob er lebendig oder
Zustand etwas zu erfahren. Als bitte
und Schulden, die dernach verbot-
Ravenna von große Ungestimmes
ich dem Herrn Schwager aufs höhste, wo er beim leben, oder irgents sich aufhaltet, ihm ermahnen umb nicht
ten worden, danen zu geben denens zugehören, sollicitieren zu haben. Und die weil ich ohne daß die Strafe
des Meers mit Sand bedeckt und uberlofen und wie wohl es 40 Stund gewart, doch bei 1200 Persohnen
so nachläßich zu werden, und die weil ich nach Polen verweißen will
thuen muß, so will ich Sachen aufs müglüchste etwas nutzlichs außzu-
ertruncken und umbkommen. Mit diesem sich dem Herren Schwager
auf ihre begeren, so sol mihr der Herr Brud[er] Doctor befehlen, wie und mit unser Manier ich seine Sachen
richten, dar zu der Herr Bruder Doctor auch seinen Rath thuen soll. Anbelangt aber meines Zustands,
sampt seinem ganzen Hauße in Gottes Allmöchtige Hände befehlen thue.
aufrichten soll. Ius für main Person anderst nichts suche allein einmahl
Gott lobe, ich befinde mich wohl und nach dem ich von Venetien verreiß
der Sachen ledig und loß zuwerden, darvon sie mihr auch schreiben und der Herrn Bruder Henrich zu Gott
hab ich zwey Jahr zu Rohm gewohnt in der Zeit auch zu Neapoli geweßen. Und dan ersten dieses
hofft, daß wier mit ihm zu frieden worden, Gott gebe.
Jahrs mich von Rohm begeben und nach Florenz kommen von dannen
Weiter berichten auch wie daß unsere Schwester Agnes Todts
ich necher Pistoia berufen und mich hierimes aufhalten der Herr Schwager aber werdt unbeshwert nach
abgangen und ohne Erben und ihr Wesonder Mann sich anerbieten thuet, ein Paß Zettel von Ihr Keyserli-
todt ist, bittende, daß ich müglichs-
chen Mayestät zu erlangen, umb daß unser einen sich in Böhmen bege-
ten Fleiß anwenden soll von seinem
ben kan, die hinderlaßene Sachen
Venetien schreiben und den Brief dem S. Marco Sadeler a S. Giovanni Chrisostomo recomandieren, der werdt mihr ihm zu shicken. Neues nichts, alß daß die Statt
Datum in Pistoia 8. Junii anno 1636. D[em] Herrn Schwagers willig allezeit Carl Screta mp. [address] Edlen Ehrenkosten und Hochgelehrten Herrn Ludovico Lucio zu Handen, Basel in des Herren Lucii Abwesen dem Herren Teodoro Zuingero und dem Herren Bueksdorfen umb auf zu thuen und dem Herr Samueli Grüner LS
16
Srzoda (today Środa, Poland), 11 February 1638 Kateřina Škrétová and Jindřich Škréta appoint their son or, respectively, brother Karel, the plenipotentiary to withdraw their shares of the family property left behind in Bohemia and to all further dealings with them. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber quietantiarum 2, 1579–1650, sign. 2179, f. 251v–252v. Literature: BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 9; NEUMANN 1974, pp. 17, 23, 46.
Actum in civitate Srzoda, feria quinta
et consensu, habens quoque penes
ac mandatarium nobilem Carolum
causae huius exigentiam determi-
ante festum sancti Valentini confessoris proxima anno Domini millesimo sexcentesimo trigesimo octavo.
se famatum Stanislaum Piekawsky, civem et consulem Srzodensem, tutorem ad actum praesentem de consensu praefati Henrici recognos-
Screta Ssotnowskii, filium ac fratrem germanum, ad omnia et singula ad se bona quocumq[ue] iuris titulo in Regno Boemiae pertinentia et sibi
nandi et exequendi in forma mandati plenissima ac perfectissima promittentes ac se praesentibus inscribentes ac obligantes, quidquid per
Coram officio et archivis, praesen-
centis sibi assumptum et authoritate
servientia cuicumq[ue] personarum
praedictum mandatarium suum
tibus spectabilis consulatus civitatis Sacrae Serenissimae Majestatis Regiae Srzodae personalitae com-
officii confirmatum et aprobatum ad omnia infrascripta per eam facienda et recognoscenda libere consen-
vendenda, archivis inscribenda et debito iuris ordine resignanda cum sufficienti mandato plenariae omni
actum, gestum conclusumq[ue] fuerit, pro rato et grato se suscepturos ac perpetuo habituros. Ob firmius robur
parverunt nobilis Catharina de Morchendorf Scretova, nobilis olim
tientem, mentibus corporibusq[ue] sani existentes ultro manifeste pure
modq[ue] facultate summas pecuniarias pro bonis venditis levare ius
Conradi Screta Ssotnowski de Zavorzicz conjunx legitima vidua relicta, nec non nobilis Henricus Screta
verbisq[ue] expressis recognoverunt actuq[ue] praesenti recognoscant, se omni incliori modo, via forma
percipiendas de legatis et perceptis quietandi debita quaevis a quibuscumq[ue] personis exigenda et
actio praesentibus inscripta, super quo memoriale officio solutum. L. S. Stanislaus Kamenicky, proconsul S[acrae] R[egiae] M[ajestatis] civitatis
Ssotnowski de Zavorzicz, praenominati Conradi filius, mater cum filio,
ac stilo, quibus de jure convenit, ac prout melius potuerunt ac debue-
alia omnia de iure ac consuetudine in omnibus negotiis fieri solitae,
Henricus filius per se ac suo nomine Catharina vero mater cum personali eiusdem Henrici filii sui assistentia
runt, constituisse ac solemniter ordinasse, in suum verum indubitatumq[ue] legitimum plenipotentem
etiam hic inexpressa (quaenim et robur expressorum habere debent) peragendi et debito iuris ordine iuxta
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 275
Srzodae mp. Ex actis officii spectabilis consula[ti] civitatis Srzodae extraxit Petrus Ricklicky, notarius. RT
17
Schaffhaussen (Switzerland), 10 April 1638 Jan Škréta authorizes his brother Karel to withdraw his share of the family property in Prague. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber quietantiarum 2, 1579–1650, sign. 2179, f. 252v–253r. Literature: BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 9; NEUMANN 1974, pp. 23, 46; NEUMANN 2000, p. 40.
Ich Joannes Screta Schotnowsky von Zaworzitz, der Artzney Doctor Landgraf Reichmarschal Poppenheimischer der löb[lichen] Stadt Schaffhausen, wie auch der umbliegenden
Patrimonium in Königreich Böheimb mir von meinem hertzliebsten Herrn Vater seelig[en] den Edlen und Westen Herrn Conrado Screta Schot-
Gotteshaüßer alß Rhegnow, Paradiß und St. Catharinenthal bey die-
nowsky von Zavorzitz, der Römischen Kayserlichen Mayestät gewesenen Buchhalter bey der löblichen Kam-
ßer Hofen bestalter Medicus, gebe mit diesen meinen Brief dem Edlen
mer der Kron Böheimb, auch Fürst Lichtensteinisch Rath gehörig, güt-
und Vesten Herrn Carolo Scretae Schnotnowsky von Zavorzitz, meinen
lich und rechtlig einzuziehen zu Geld
hertzlieben Herrn Bruder, volligen Macht und Gewalt, daß hinterlassene
auch wieder alle unbilliche actus, welche vorgangen oder vorgehen
zu machen, die Debitores zu quitiren,
möchten, daß specie unter andern, waß die culpam negligentiae, daß Heinrichs Anlangen thuet zu protestiren und daß in optima et solemni forma in suma alleß dasjenige, waß er zu meinem Nutzen ersprießlich zu sein würde, erkennen zu verrichten. Zur besserer Urkund und daß ich daß brüderliche Vertrauen zu ihme trage, hab ich dieser mit meiner eigener Hand geschrieben und unterschrieben, auch mit meinen angebornen Petschier besiegelt. Welches
18
Prague, 9 July 1638 The Bohemian Court Office orders the burgomaster and the city council of Litoměřice to satisfy the plea of Karel Škréta in the matter of possessing the vineyard, now in the hands of Batista Reymund, the husband of Škréta’s sister Anežka, if the authorities do not find any substantial circumstances which would make the decision invalid. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), sign. L 32/33, Inv. No. 1981, box 1291, f. 6. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 46; Tomáš Sekyrka, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.12, p. 591.
O Karla Škrétu Litoměřickým Poctivý a opatrní nám milí. Co na
týchž spisův na kancelář Jeho Milosti císařské českou učiniti hleděli. Dán 9. julii 1638
nás Karel Škréta z Závořic v příčině dosažení vinice /své dědické/,² kteréž že by nyní Batista
[illegible signature]
Reymund, někdy Anýžky Reymundové sestry jeho manžel v držení a užívání zůstávati měl, stížně vznáší,
documents. The Litoměřice authorities thus probably complied with the
a jakého v tom opatření svého při nás snažně vyhledává, tomu z příle-
[The file does not contain any more
order.] TS 2 Note in the margin.
žících spisův vyrozumíte. I pokudž tomu tak, jak týž suplikující zpravuje a nejináče jest, protož jménem a na místě Jeho Milosti císařské královské a pána nás všech nejmilostivějšího vám poroučíme, abyste jemu týž žádosti a pratensi jeho bez odpornosti, v jednom i druhém punktu užíti dali. Pakliže co jiného podstatného a právního proti tomu se nachází, nám o tom neprodleně gruntovní zprávu s navrácením zase
DOCUMENT No. 18 The Bohemian Court Office orders the burgomaster and the city council of Litoměřice to satisfy the plea of Karel Škréta in the matter of possessing the family vineyard, if the authorities do not find any substantial circumstances which would make the decision invalid; dated 9 July 1638, Prague. Prague, National Archives, file Old Manipulation (Photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
276 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
geschehen zu Schaffhaußen den 10. Aprilis stilo Gregoriano anno 1638. Joh[annes] Screta D[octor] mp. Povoleno k vložení do kněh městských tohoto dvojího plnomocenství od pana purkmistra a pánův v radě f[eria] kvinta post Nativit[atis] B[eatae] Mariae Virginis, 2. Septemb[ri] anno 1642. Co[n]s[ule] domino Adalberto Wenceslao Seniore Had á Prosecze. RT
19
The Old Town in Prague, 1638–1639 Dispute over the house At the Hájeks’ in the Fruit Market in Prague – Karel Škréta requests the municipal officials to provide him the testament of Dorota (sometimes also stated as Anna, Johana or Zuzana) Strossburgerová to read. The officials ask for legal deferral. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Manuale dictorum, 1638–1641, sign. 1169, f. 27r, f. 52v–55r, f. 62r. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 35–36; NEUMANN 1974, p. 46; NEUMANN 2000, pp. 40–41.
Karel Škréta Šotnovský z Závořic s Jeho Milosti císařské panem
císařské, též páni ouředníci na místě a k ruce obce této, jakožto k přesly-
býti měl, vědomosti jmíti neráčili, jakož pak kdybyšte ráčili býti v tom
zdvižena býti má, toho z podstatné příčiny, totiž milostivou resolucí
rychtářem, též pány ouředníky šestipanskými.
šení té domnělé přípovědi obeslané strany, co od sebe přednášeti dali,
zpraveni, týž zvod vykonán nebyl. Dotčený pak pan Karel Škréta, že
Jeho Milosti císařské, též milostivý dekret Jeho Milosti císařské, spolu
Karel Škréta předně žádal za přečtení přípovědi na pozůstalost po
tohoto milostivého dekretu z komory Jeho Milosti císařské v příčině tohoto
jest se po ty všecky časy neohlašoval, tu jediná příčina jest, že jest
i s zvodem do téhož domu vykonaném, přednešeni jsou. Přičemž také
nebo[žce] Dorotě Strasburgerové, dcery vlastní nebo[žtíka] dokto[ra] Thadeáše Hájka z Hájku. Po pře-
domu pošlého, jako i druhého instrumentu zvodu do něho vykonaného, za přečtení žádají.
zde v tomto Králov[ství] českém přítomen nebyl, anóbrž v cizích zemích po umění svém se zdržoval.
že páni obeslaní zůstaveni budou, v tu naději přicházejí a že původní strana k provozování přípovědi při-
čtení přednésti dal: pokudž by Jeho Milosti císařské pan rychtář, též páni úředníci šestipanští, kteříž právem odoumrtním domu po též Dorotě Strasburgerové zůstalého v tomto Starém Městě pražského /ležícího/ se ujali, přípovědi této místa dáti nechtěli, tehdy že žádá, aby k provozování praetensi své připuštěn a jemu termín k průvodům jmenován byl. Jeho Milosti císařské pan rychtář tohoto Starého Města na místě a k ruce Jeho Milosti císařské, též páni úředníci úřadu šestipanského na místě a k ruce obce téhož města žádali hojemství právního, k čemuž od pana p[urkmistra] a pánův povoleno a termín k hojemství ad pri-
Dekret z komory Jeho Milosti císařské české It[em] zvod do domu Hájkovského. A pokudž jak vedle tohoto milostivého dekretu, tak i vedle jisté klausule ten a takový dům na způsob v témž dekretu doložený pánům ouředníkům šestipanským na místě a k ruce obce této v moc uved[en] jest. Za to tehdy páni obeslaní, nemíníce se v žádný spor proti témuž milostivému dekretu a resoluci Jeho Milosti císařské s pány připovídajícími vydávati, za to žádají, že je při tomto opatření a vyměření zůstaviti, přípověď pak tuto od práva zdvihnouti a v nic obrátiti ráčíte podle práva.
A navrátivše se sem, jest pořádnou přípověď podle prá[va] měst[ského] G 24 jakožto nejbližší přítel dotčené Zuzany Straspurgkerové učinil, o učiněném poručení z komory Jeho Milosti císařské české odeslaném žádné vědomosti nemaje a kdyby Jeho Milosti císařské komora o tom vědomost toho času měla, že on tak blízkým přítelem dotčené Zuzany Straspurgkerové zůstává, ovšemže by také takový dekret ku právu tomuto obeslán nebyl, jsa k Vaší Milosti té naděje nepochybné, že když dá-li Pán Bůh, tuto přípověď náležitě provede, že jemu také jakožto patriciusovi příti, aby on v témž domě podle vyměření práva Království tohoto českého takového nápadu
puštěna býti nemá, toho že z uvážení svého že vynajíti neráčíte, na to od Vaší Milosti jistého vyměření očekávati budou.
dosáhnouti a užíti mohl, nebo kdyby on krevním přítelem Zuzany Straspurgkerové nebyl, nechtěl by tohoto práva daremně zaneprazd-
jistého oznámení očekávati bude.
Od Karla Škréty Pan Karel Škréta na čem podstatu odpovědi své Jeho Milosti císař-
mam sessionem jmenován. Vide odpověď infra fol[io] 52, 62. [f. 52v–55r]
Od Karla Škréty Pan Karel Škréta potahuje se na p[rávo] m[ěstské] F 15, kteréž vyměřuje, kterak a jak daleko přátelé in linea collaterati stojící pod který stupeň děditi mají, on pak ten se v tom právně zachoval a podle práva m[ěstského] G 26, 27 Jeho Milosti císařské pana rychtáře, též pány úředníky obeslati dal, a tak dáleji že vedle p[ráva] m[ěstského] G 28 k provozování přípovědi své připuštěn bude, v tu naději k Jeho Milosti císařské přichází, na čež také od Vaší Milosti
Od Jeho Milosti císařské pana rychtáře, též pánů úředníkův
ské pan rychtář na místě a k ruce
ňovati, pročež jest k Vaší Milosti té
šestipanských
Karel Škréta s Jeho Milosti císařské panem rychtářem na místě a k ruce Jeho Milosti císařské, též úřed-
Jeho Milosti císařské a páni úředníci úřadu šestipanského na místě a k ruce obce této zakládati ráčí,
naděje, že ráčíte jemu termín k provozování té jeho přípovědi jmenovati a pokudž se jinší statek nachází, což
Že Jeho Milosti císařské, též Jich Milostí milostivých resolucí přesuzovati právu tomuto nepřináleží.
níky úřadu šestipanského na místě a k ruce obce tohoto Starého Města pražského hojemství
tomu jest vyrozuměli. Předně z zvodu to patrně ráčíte vynacházeti, že do téhož domu takový zvod jest
by obzvláštně na komoru a na obec tuto připadlo, že Jeho Milosti císařské jinším prostředkem to jím vyna-
A p[oku]dž již předešle svou obranu jsou předložili, na to také od Vaší Milosti jistého vyměření očekávati
Od Jeho Milosti císařské pana rych-
vykonán právem odoumrtním, tak jakoby paní Zuzana Štraßburgerová
hraditi milostivě motci ráčí. V čemž sebe Vaší Milosti k spravedlivému
budou. Načež z bedlivého povážení
t[áře], též úředníkův šestipan[ských] Vaše Milosti proti domnělé přípovědi pana Karla Škréty z Závořic na
bez krevních přátel, tak jakž strom krevní ukazuje, prostředkem smrti časné z toho světa vykročila, takže
opatření poroučí. Od Jeho Milosti císařské pana rych-
pana purkmistra a pánův takto oznámeno. Vide infra fol/i/o 62.
dům po někdy Thadeášovi Hájkovi z Hájku v lékařství doktoru nějakým
takovým právem ráčili jste skrze pana rychtáře takový zvod poru-
táře pánům úředníkům Zbytečně a daremně tímto repro-
[f. 62r]
právem nápadním učiněné dřívěji, nežli by Jeho Milosti císařské pan rychtář tohoto Starého Města praž-
čiti vykonati. Ale pan Karel Škréta v tu naději přichází, že jste o osobě jeho, aby on jakým krevním příte-
bírováním ráčíte býti zanášeni nebo proč páni obeslaní v žádný spor se vzdávati povinni nejsou, i také proč
1638 Böhmer á Weymar
ského na místě a k ruce Jeho Milosti
lem dotčené Anny [!] Strasburgkové
táž přípověď od práva Vaší Milosti
tou z jedné a Jeho Milosti císařské
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 277
Oznámení mezi Karlem Škré-
panem rychtářem na místě a k ruce Jeho Milosti císařské, též ouředníky šestipanskými na místě a k ruce obce oznámení. Poněvadž dům po někdy doktorovi Thadeášovi Hájkovi z Hájku pozůstalý, pod právem tímto ležící, vedle ohlášení a zvodu na onen čas jak k ruce Jeho Milosti císařské, tak i obce této učiněného (k němuž se žádný od mnoha let, zvláště pak v ty těžké
militárské časy, v kteréžto na týž dům pro zachování jeho nemálo od obce této vynaloženo, i také kontribucí a berní drahně zadržáno jest /aby tu jaké právo nápadní jmíti měl, neohlašoval/), právem odoumrtním připadlý
teď pominulého 1638, zcela a zouplna na jistý způsob v témž dekretu doložený k ruce obce odevzdán a postoupen jest. Jeho Milosti císařské pak milostivých nařízení a resolucí žád-
vedle milostivé Jeho Milosti císařské resolucí, jako i z komory Jeho Milosti
nému měniti nenáleží, z té tehdy příčiny přípověď Karla Škréty Šotnovského, jakožto proti též milos-
císařské české prošlého dekretu, jehož act[um] in cons[ilio] Camerae
tivé Jeho Milosti císařské resoluci a dekretu Jich Milostí čelící, od práva
Boh[emiae] Pragae 31. augusti léta
tohoto se zdvíhá, naproti tomu pak
20
Mělník, (c. 1638) Karel Škréta, as the heir of his mother Kateřina Škrétová of Morchendorf, assumes the claim on the city of Mělník in the amount of 1000 Meissen three-scores which his mother had lent to the city. Státní okresní archiv Mělník (State Regional Archives of the City of Mělník), Archiv města Mělník (Archives of the City of Mělník), Book 19, file Kopiář (The Book of Copies) 1637–1654, f. 42. Literature: KILIÁN 2011, pp. 161–165.
TS
21
The Old Town in Prague, 28 February 1639 Dispute between Karel Škréta and Ondřej Leynhoz from Břevnov for the paternal house At the Black Deer in the Old Town in Prague. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber appelationum 2, 1594–1654, sign. 1029, f. 310r. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 46; NEUMANN 2000, pp. 40–41.
pražského z strany druhé. Co se neod-
práva. A co k apelaci složeno, to aby
povídání na vynešení dotýče, jakž dvojí akta jednoho i druhého sporu to vše v sobě šířeji obsahují a zaví-
zase navráceno bylo. Tomu na svědomí pečetí naší císařskou k tomu soudu obzvláštně zřízenou jest zape-
My Ferdinand Třetí z Boží milosti
rají, pováživše toho všeho s pilností podle práva takto ta oboje oznámení
četěno. Dán na Hradě našem pražském v pondělí po památce svatého
volený římský císař … oznamujem tímto listem, že president a rady naše k apelacím na Hradě našem
na témž právě jedno feria sexta post sancti Petri et Pauli apostolorum domini, 2. julii a druhý feria sexta
Matěje apoštola božího, 28. februarii léta Páně tisícího šestistého třicátého devátého a království našich řím-
pražském zřízené a usazené na ta od práva Starého našeho Města praž-
post s. Margarethae, 16. julii, vše léta pominulého 1638 mezi nade-
ského třetího, uherského čtrnáctého a českého dvanáctého.
ského odeslaná a odevzdaná zapečetěná dvojí akta v tom dvojím sporu, v jednom mezi Karlem Škrétou
psanými stranami učiněná, napravují a z vrchnosti práva nacházejí, že dotčený Jakub Dobřenský s ním Ond-
Fridrich z Talmberka, president Petr Macer z Letošic Čtená tato reformací v přítomnosti
z Závořic z jedné a Ondřejem Laynhozem z Břevnova z strany druhé
řejem Laynhozem Karlovi Škrétovi v sporu tom, který on Karel Škréta
stran, jichž se dotýče, 16. martii anno
a v druhém mezi týmž Ondřejem Laynhozem z jedné a Jakubem Dobřanským z Nygropontu, oběma měš-
s jmenovaným Ondřejem Lainhozem začal odpovídati a oznámený Karel Škréta jeho Jakuba Dobřenskýho tu
RT
ťany téhož Starého našeho Města
proti sobě trpěti povinen jest podle
Reformací v příčině Karla Škréty z Závořic s Ondřejem Lainhozem z Břevnova, týž Ondřej Laynhoz s Jakubem Dobřenským z Nygropontu
278 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
1639.
úředníci šestipanští na místě a k ruce obce této při takovém domu zcela a zouplna se zůstavují a zanechávají podle práva. Actum in cons[ilio] f[eria] sexta, die sancti Faelicii 14. januarii anno 1639, co[n]s[ulo] domino Jacobo Böhmer á Weymar. RT
22
The Old Town in Prague, 1640 During the dispute over the house At the Black Deer, Karel Škréta gives evidence of the reasons which made him leave his homecountry, about his return to Bohemia in the period around Easter in 1638 and about the facts which should help him recover his family property. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Manuale dictorum, 1638–1641, sign. 1169, f. 166v–186r. Literature: Radka Tibitanzlová, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.13, p. 592; TIBITANZLOVÁ 2011, pp. 153–160.
Zápis sporu mezi Karlem Škrétou a Ondřejem Leynhozem o dům U Černého jelena. 1640 Consule domino Henrico seniore Řečický Actio mezi Karlem Škrétou Šotnovským z Závořic z jedné a pánem Ondřejem Leynhozem z strany druhé, kdež mezi stranami o dům U Černého jelena řečený činiti jest. Léta Páně 1640 19. martii Jakož jsou /Jich Milosti Jeho Milosti císařské římského císaře, uherského a českého krále tejná i jiné rady komorníci, deputýrovaní nejvyšší páni úředníci a soudcové zemští v Království českém, ten před/ vysoce důstojný[m] a nejjasnějším knížetem a páne[m] páne[m] Leopold[em] Viléme[m] arciknížet[em] rakouským, biskup[em] štrasburský[m], halberštatský[m], pasovský[m] a olomúcký[m], Jeho Milosti římského císaře, uherského a českého krále nad armádou Jeho Milosti generálem a plnomocným gubernátore[m] v Království českém, že mezi Karlem Škrétou Šotnovským z Závořic /jakožto původem/ z jedné a Ondřejem Leynhozem z Břevnova, měštěnínem a radním tohoto Starého Města pražského, / obžalovaným/ z strany druhé o dům U Černého jelena řečený a v témž městě ležící usque ad replicam vzešlý spor milostivým dekretem svým, jehož actum in cons[ilio] Cance-
Jeho Milosti císařské práva vrchního podělený byly, jakž takový Jeho
Nejmilostivější arcikníže, poněvadž
Milosti dekret sub signo [*] to v sobě obsahuje a zavírá.
jející ránu boží právní pře při právě řízené nejsou a to jest ode mě již prve dostatečně provedeno, že jest dotčený Andres Laynhoz proti žalobě
Vedle kteréhožto Jeho Milosti milostivého nařízení byvše strany výš dotčené k přeslyšení téhož nařízení, tak i k dalšímu zavření té pře obeslaní. Karel Škréta Šotnovský z Závořic žádal při vznešení svém … podaném a ku právu tomuto vedle nadjmenovaného sročení odeslaném zcela a zouplna zůstaven býti, kteréžto vznešení toto v sobě obsahuje a zavírá. Na Vaši Arciknížecí Milost pravdivě vznášeti přinucen jsem, kterak před půldruhým létem, vrátivše se z Itálie a z jiných cizích zemí z peregrinací do vlasti své milé, při právě Starého Města pražského jsem toho, abych do domu U Černého jelena řečeného, jakožto do dědictví mého po vlastním otci mém Kundrátovi Škrétovi zůstalého uveden a právně zmocněn byl, šetrně vyhledával, ale Andres Laynhoz, měštěnín a radní téhož města, nepořádný dotčeného domu nynější držitel, byv k tomu obeslán, mně netoliko dobrovolně jeho odstoupiti, ale ani na mé právní přednešení žádné odpovědi dáti nechtěl, nýbrž Jakubem Dobřenským, nynějším primasem města, od kteréhož takový dům (prý) koupil, aby jeho v tom zastoupil, jest se jalově vymlouval, takže sem od příležitého n[umero]
pro přítomnou belli ferias a pomí-
mé exceptionem předložil a Dobřanský jeho zastoupiti nechtěl, nýbrž od obzvláštního dictum, čímž jemu odpovídání nalezeno bylo, tolikéž apeloval, nyní onen na reformaci přestal, tento pak nějakého vysvětlení téhož ortele práva vrchního žádal a toho sobě k místu a konci, jakž náleželo, nevedl a nevede, takže se k tomu patrně směřuje, abych já [v] prodlouženém času nouzí přinucen jsouc, dědictví mého za nimi zanechati musil. K tomu následujícími vejpisy a právy dostatečně sem provedl a prokázal, že jest nadepsaný dům po otci mém vlastním zůstal, kterýžto kšaftem svým pořádně utvrzeným, do kněh vepsaným, tak dostatečně jest opatřil, aby toho domu i nynějšího statku paní mateř má, dokudž bych já Karel nejmladší syn jeho k letům právním nepřišel, bez vědomí jinších poručníkův nikterakž prodáván a odcizován nebyl, jakž toho týž kšaft n[umer]o 3 obšírněji dotvrzuje. Nadto Andres Laynhoz léta 1629, toho času tehdejší purkmistr, proti nadepsanému kšaftu patrně čelící zápisem, týž dům za 2500 kop koupivši a dřívěji, nežli jej tak podle nepořádného trhu doplatil, od 1629 až do [16]30
Naproti tomu já na to všeckno netoliko se souditi, kde bydleti, ale ani nač živě býti nemám, takže takovými obmysly a makavým spiknutím jich, to což sem v cizích zemích uměním svým zachoval, skrze daremný takové exceptiones hájením proti právu mé apelací, nedbáním na několikero od Jich Milostí rad nařízených nad apelacími poručení, též od Jeho Milosti císařské zde přítomného i z kanceláře v této materii odeslaná dekreta, o všeckno sem přišel a podle výšpsaných příčin v této mé tak patrné a povrchu ležící spravedlnosti otcovské žádné pomoci a fedruňku nedosahuji, ježto nadto nic patrnějšího býti nemůže, že od Andresa Laynhoza cizí dědictví kupováno býti nemohlo a pan p[urkmistr] a páni proti právu měst[skému] G 21, 27 o utvrzeným kšaftu k tomu povolovati neměli. Anóbrž ten dům, když Andres Laynhoz ouřad Jeho Milosti císařské purkmistrský sám držel, vědomě a zoumysla a to v nepřítomnosti mé koupil a zdali dotčený Dobřenský neb kdo jiný k tomu ode mě zplnomocněn jest, se neptal a právo městské patrně vyměřuje, že kde se statky sirotčí komu prodávají, tu v každém zápisu obzvláštní povolení, že ten prodaj k dobrému sirotku se vztahuje, doloženo býti má a já podle vyměření práva měst[skéh]o L 21, 24, F 54, 57 nebyvši nikdy s paní mateří mou rozdělen, bych pak se v 30 [!] letech z peregrinací navrátil, o odstoupení
1 dictum proti tak patrné mé spravedlivosti vynešeného s nemalým
víceji činže z něho vybral nebo byvši povinen peníze gruntovní časně, totiž po 500 kopách ročně, vedle tak nepo-
lariae Bohemicae Pragae 9. martii léta z svrchupsaného, ku právu nyní oznámeného Starého Města
svým nákladem a velikým obmeškáním umění svého malířského apelovati a po ten všecken nadepsaný
řádného trhu skládati, teprvá 750 kop léta jminulého 1639 13. dec[embri], druhých pak 750 kop léta předešlého
sám jediný nadepsaného otce mého syn, slušně se domlouvati mohu, obzvláštně abych v této tak patrné
remitýrovati a přitom to milostivě naříditi ráčili, aby strany, jichž se
čas rozepři trpěti musel. Však chvála Pánu Bohu od práva Jeho Milosti
1638, slyšíc o mém příjezdu, nadepsanému Jakubovi Dobřenskýmu
spravedlivé dědické spravedlnosti mé v tyto těžké časy dalších odkladův
dotýče, neprodleně sročení v průvodích a odvodích jich summariter beze všech interlocutorií vyslyšaný
císařské vrchního n[umero] 2 reformací 17. martii léta přítomného publikovanou jest to, že mi na žalobu
odvésti, takže jakož domu on, tak tento, peněz až posavad užívali a užívají a já nechtíce dědictví svého pro-
a větčího utištění od odporné strany netrpěl.
a spravedlivou vejpovědí s vejhradou
mou odpovídati mají, nalezeno bylo.
dati, domu a ne peněz užití žádám.
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 279
téhož domu podle práva městského F 31 representýrujíce v tomto Království
Protož k Vaší Arciknížecí Milosti ve vší pokoře se utíkám a Vaši
Arciknížecí Milost poníženě prosím … aby … Andresovi Laynhozovi patr-
k svým domům a gruntům i statkům buď sám osobně, však v náboženství
nou odpověď neprodleně dáti nařídili, zprávu svou přitom Vaší Arciknížecí Milosti na kancelář odeslali, činži
katolickým se s Jeho Milostí císařskou
pak dvouletní prošlou na právo složiti naříditi dostatečně poručili a tak vedle obnoveného z[řízení] z[emského] Jeho Milosti ku povážení přijíti a milostivou a spravedlivou resoluci při zpočátku psaném domu a dědictví
srovnajíc, najíti nedal, aneb jich skrze katolické plnomocníky neprodal, že ty a takové domové a gruntové a statkové, pro re derelicta, neboližto za odběžný držaný a pobraný býti mají, a tak nemíníce se, jak mátě téhož Karla Škréty, též i on a jiní dva bratři jeho jménem Jan a Jindřich tam až
mém mně milostivě zanechati ráčí…
posavad pro náboženství spolu i s sestrou jejich léta mající a od matky
Proti tomu pan Ondřej Leynhoz z Břevnova potahoval se na odpověď svou proti tomuto vznešení Karla
ven z země proti patentu vyvedenou zůstávající a léta svá tehdáž všickni tři a již dávno předtím mající v témž
Škréty… Maje sobě příležící spis Karla Škréty
škrétovských dané/, dávaje témuž
a válečným potřebovati dali a ještě
Hendrychovi synu svýmu týž list mocný pod pečetí téhož města vedle její přitištěnou k prodaji všech grun-
v tom odbojenství že trvají. Za druhé i to jest vůbec známo, že on Škréta
tův zde zanechaných k zapisování jich při knihách, kde se který řídí k přijetí za ně peněz a k vykvitování z nich, ještě tuto příčinu prodaje, týchž všech gruntův kromě v týchž patentích doloženou dokládá, totiž že ona od týchž třích synův svých jménem Jana, Hendrycha a Karla za to synovsky požádána jest, aby jednomu každému díl jemu náležitý vydala, což že by sice
navrátivší se před půl druhým létem sem do Prahy nekatolický a maje proto od Jeho Milosti císařské rychtáře Starého Města pražského arestýrován býti, potom teprve na Mělníce katolickým zůstal. I kterak jest tehdy on ve Vlaších na nějaké peregrinaci své po svém umění nekatolický zůstávati a se zdržovati mohl, poněvadž ve Vlaších, vzláště pak v městě
podle své nejvyšší možnosti vykonati chtěla, ale že až do téhož času dotčení
Římě žádný nekatolický člověk leč na podvedení a oklamání inkvisicí, se zdržovati nesmí.
termínu týchž čtyr měsícův buď k navrácení aneb k prodaji dotčených
gruntové ku prodaji nepřišly, ona pak ani namále, ani namnoze peněz žád-
…Já sice od osoby své, jsouc již také věkem sešlý, rád z toho srdce konec
i s alegací vedle milostivého dekretu a nařízení Vaší Arciknížecí Milosti od purkmistra a rady Starého Města
gruntův emigrantských jmenovaném a peremptorie uloženém, sem do Prahy k svým gruntům (an poruč-
ných, odkudž by týmž synům svým díly jejich vydati mohla, dostati a tou příčinou bezelstně žádosti jejich za
té věci co nejdřívěji by jen možné býti mohlo, dočkati bych sobě přál a vinšoval. V tom pak on Škréta týmž spi-
pražského propůjčený, z něho, co tak to vše v příčině domu mého U Čer-
níci od nebo[žtíka] otce jeho kšaftem zřízení vykročivše před několika
dosti že učiniti nemůže. Vedle kteréhož listu mocného on Hendrych syn
sem svým Vaši Arciknížecí Milost jakž vejš dotčeno nedůvodně zpra-
ného jelena řečeného mně od plnomocníkův Kateřiny Škrétové, mateře jeho až dosavad živé, před vyjitím jejím ven z země pro náboženství, právně zřízených trhem pořádným
léty ještě před rebelií časnou smrtí z tohoto světa, nikdy téhož poručenství se nevzali, méněji pak jiní v tolika let[ech] se nedožádali) navrátiti a při nich katolickými zůstati a obávaje se ovšem, aby týž dům dle znění patentův po projití uložených čtyr měsícův pro re derelicta, aneb za dům odběžný vzat nebyl, jej v tom čase a termínu jako i mlejn dskami zemskými se řídící, též dům při něm v Novém Městě pražském ležící, n[ebožtíkovi] Janovi Chryzostonovi Hymlštejnovi a Salomeně manželům za sumu 2000 kop míšeňských dle znění trhového vkladu v kva[ternu] trhovém druhé[m] zlatém H 2 pod datum ve
její pomohši ty výšpsané tři grunty, totiž mlejn, dům při něm a túž vinici prodati, peníze za ně i závdavek za týž dům můj, co tak po zapravení kvóty k obci náležející, též kontribucí zadr-
vuje a to předně, kdež mě za nepořádného držitele téhož domu mého pokládá, ježto on nikdy ještě žádnou nepořádnost proti mně jest neprokázal, což sobě taky proti té pořádnosti
žalé se našlo, k sobě přijal a s nimi po svých, aneb kde se koliv jemu vidělo, se odebral. A tak tudy týmž způsobem a tou měrou žádný z nich na nic takového víceji navracovati se nemá
a dostatečnému opatření mému týmž neslušným předsevzetím a lstnou a podvodnou obmyslností svou dokud živ, nedovede. Dokládá též nedůvodně, že by on to své domnělé dědic-
a nemůže. …bude se ještě dáleji i toho chtíti dotýkati, že on Karel Škréta vyšedši před desíti lety, jakž sám dokládá z Prahy, a nechtíc se v ten čas reformací Jeho Milosti císařské v náboženství katolickém, měvši již tehdáž také léta svá, srovnati, přede všemi jinými potřebami dřívěji nežli jemu na jeho dvoje vznešení kathekorická odpověď od nás prodávajícího
tví nějakými instrumenty a právy k tomu citovanými provedl a prokázal, i kterak jesti on kdy, kde, co, jak aneb vedle čeho co takového před právem převésti a prokázati mohl… …dokládá též dáleji nedůvodně z pouhého toliko dumnění [!], pohádek a domýšlení, že bych já z téhož domu svého od léta 1629 až do léta 1639 víceji činže nežli sumy trhové jest vybrati měl, v tom se však on
a kupujícího dána bude, to proká-
Škréta vysoce mejlí, nebo to bylo-li
zati a tak tudy zdali on Karel Škréta podle nového zřízení zemského B 41, § 2 jest legitima persona in judicis standi, způsobem tímto se legitimí-
by však budoucně zapotřebí ode mě se pronésti a prokázati moci bude, že sem já netoliko léta 1631 a 1632 v čas lidu kurfiřta saského každý tejden
rovati povinen bude, totiž kde jesti
po 40 kopách, též potom v následu-
on po ten všecken čas týchž desíti let, zdali v Itálii čili při nepříteli se zdržoval nebo předně komora Jeho Milosti císařské česká v vejš dotčené
jících rozdílných zimních kvartýřích na lid Jeho Milosti císařské vedle jiných sousedův z téhož domu do mnoha set, což na tisíce učiní, platiti,
resoluci své i tuto příčinu odnímání
ale také na žádný štok, kterýž dokonce jako i celý dům hrubě spuštěn byl, přes dva tisíce kop míšeňských
prodaného v sobě obsahuje, s nemalým podivením jsem vyrozuměl, že on Karel Škréta … o to usiluje, aby ta rozepře, kteráž při právě téhož Starého Města pražského vedle dvojího přístupu a vznešení jeho mezi ním původem činnou a Jakubem Dobřenským, jakožto jedním z nadepsaných plnomocníkův na živě zůstávajícím a prodávajícím, o prodaj téhož domu zašla, na dání odpovědi naší z téhož začatého a zašlého pořadu práva na budoucí zlý a velmi nebezpečný příklad, též na zmatek a porušení ordinarního procesu právního vyňatá a podle citovaného nového zří[zení] zem[ského] na kanceláři Jeho Milosti císařské české milostivou resolucí Vaší Arciknížecí Milosti rozsouzena
čtvrtek po svatém Petru v okovech 2. augusti lit[era] C /C vklad z desk zemských/, ano i vinici dle znění zápisu, jehož actum 6. [octo]bris vše téhož léta 1629 lit[era] D /D zápis trhový na vinici škrétovskou; E pallet na emigraty [!] a kvóta se vztahující/ trhem
byla… …že se netoliko téhož domu … ale tak i patentův z milostivého poručení v pánu Bohu odpočívající Jeho Milosti
prodati dali, ku kterémužto prodaji téhož mlejna a domu n[ebožtík] Jakub
císařské … pod datum 25. maii téhož
mocenstvím podle nového ZZ I 12 jemu od výš dotčené Kateřiny Škré-
léta 1629 vyšlých a na prodaj týchž všech gruntův a domův emigrantských patrně se vztahujících lit[era] B /B patent Jeho Milosti císařské místodržících/ dotýkati chtíti bude nebo dotčenými milostivými patenty to patrně jménem Jeho Milosti císařské formaliter vyměřeno jest, že kdož by koliv z týchž osob ven z země odebralých ode dne publikování týchž patentův ve 4 měsících pořád zběhlých
Kozel, témiž dskami zemskými a Jindřich Škréta vlastní bratr jeho plno-
tové mateře jeho ven z země tehdáž pro náboženství, jako i až dosavad na živě tam v městě Lišně zůstávající (o čemž v témž vkladu patrně doloženo,) zmocněni jsou byli, anóbrž což většího jest, táž Kateřina Škrétová na týmž příležícím plnomocenství v městě Lišně 21. julii léta 1629 datýrovaném, sub signo /generální plnomocenství na prodej všech gruntův
280 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
týchž peněz mezi jinými formaliter dokládá, že jsou se oni bratři Škrétové, nenavrátivší se časně dle výš dotknutých napomínajících dekretův Jich Milostí královských pánův místodržících k hospodářství a dědictví svému proti Jeho Milosti císařské a zemi této způsobem nepřátelským
na nové stavení (v čemž ještě řemeslníky na svědomí mám) vynaložiti musil. A naposledy on Škréta i tím své neslušné mínění a předsevzetí dotahovati a doličovati usiluje, kdež sobě i tyto domnělé a neprávní důvody
na pomoc bere. 1. že by on nějakými obmysly a spiknutím nás stran jeho odporných hájením apelací, zanedbáváním dekretův a co toho daremního víceji jest, o své zachování na peregrinaci nabyté přišel, 2. že by od purkmistra a rady k kupování nějakého jeho dědictví proti citovaným právům povolováno býti nemělo. 3. že mi se zápis za ouřadu mého purkmistrského na ten dům učinil, i co se prvního vysoce nařklivého důvodu dotejče, ten se budoucně proti němu bude věděti, jak k slušné nápravě přivésti, i také se na to nejprv ptáti, kdo obmyslu a lsti aneb podvodu, on-li čili my odporné strany jeho v tom požíváme aneb předešlý dekreta podobně od něho na potvrzení pořadu práva vyžádaná zanedbáváme, což hlavní rozsudek ukáže, jestliže pak on nějaké
prošeno, ještě vždy Vaši Arciknížecí Milost prositi nepřestávám, že mě … milostivě zůstaviti a nade mnou, jakožto každého času věrným starým a nikdy nezpronevěřilým služebníkem domu rakouského … milostivou ruku ochrannou držeti, při témž pak všetečném suplikantu, aby se on v témž neslušném a nenáležitém předsevzetí svém spokojil, začatým pořadem práva živ byl a toho, co jemu budoucně soud a ortel spravedlivý na to s vyměřenými pokutami podvodu, lsti a zoumyslného práva a vrchnosti zaneprazdňování dle nového ZZ D 52, též vynahražením škod a nákladů sebou přivede, očekával, milostivou resoluci svou naříditi ráčí, v čemž se Vaší Arciknížecí Milosti k milostivé ochraně v nejhlubší a poddané pokornosti poroučím.
spravedlnosti a práva svého vyhledává, na ni nastupuje a jí se ujímá, jaká tu lest, jaký podvod aneb oklamání býti může, což když se v bed-
Obzvláštně vědouce o kšaftu prve alegírovaném otce mého, kterýmž jest to mateři mé zapověděl, aby ona toho domu i jiného statku prodá-
livé povážení vede, tehdy najde
vati a roztrhovati nemohla. On pak
se proti mně nevinnému člověku pouhá zlost Andresa Laynhoza, ježto jsouce člověk moudrý, starý a soudce jiných, neměl by nic takového vedle
Andres Laynhoz ne podle nějakého veřejného Jeho Milosti císařské mandátu, neb obzvláštního dekretu, ale vedle (prý) a raději proti témuž
povinnosti své na sobě ani znáti
kšaftu takový dům jest koupil, a tak
dáti. Já pak nejsouce toho oumyslu a vědouce o tom, že žádného člověka spravedlností ani haněním a nářkem druhé strany se neumenšuje, ani
tím a nejiným titulem ke jménu Václava syna svého již mrtvého zapsati dal, v kterémžto kšaftu o mně Karlovi nejmladším a tehdáž nezletilém
ovšem doličuje, nýbrž totéž je, že
synu svém na několika místech dosti
právy Jeho Milosti císařské vážiti a vydaným právem a ZZ pod skutečnými pokutami zamezovati ráčí … co nejkračeji býti může tuto svou
v patrných slovích se zmínka obšírná činí, k čemuž kdyby byl Andres Laynhoz vědomě nepospíchal a téhož domu míti nechtěl, nýbrž týž kšaft,
odpověď dávám. Předně se ohlašuji,
nezletilost i nepřítomnost mou sám
že všeckno to, což Andres Laynhoz v potřebě své zde i onde mně k dobrému píše a seznává, pro confesione
u sebe i s panem purkmistrem pány v místě radním dobře uvážil, nebyl by on ani žádný téhož domu koupil
juridica přijímám a místo průvodu toho nejpodstatnějšího k užitku svému obracím, jakož pak obzvláštně i to, že při počátku bez potřebného svého spisu Andres Laynhoz sám to
mimo to právo městské. …Vedle kteréhožto práva a z[řízení] z[emského] sem já tu věc na Vaši Arciknížecí Milost jakožto plnomocného gubernátora země této vznesl a jako člověk v chudobě postavený, dědictví otce mého zbavený a na dlouhý proces právní, z čeho nakládati nemající, za sumární té věci vyslyšení a rozeznání žádal, i až posavad žádám, což sem vedle toho vyměření právního a z příčin napřed připomenutých dobře učiniti mohl. …ta patenta všechno jsou dobrá a na svém místě … než to toliko pravím, že se na mě v ničemž nevztahují, protože sem já žádným emigrantem, a jakž strana odporná v jednom místě dokládá, exulantem nikdy nebyl, nýbrž se v svém umění, kterémuž
zachované peníze své aneb odkudkoliv jinde vzaté na to nakládá, já se
Od Karla Škréty Šotnovského z Závo-
na to, po čem mi nic není, neptám, než na to každý původ má mysliti, kterak svou věc, vyzdvihnouc proti někomu rozepři, z čeho a odkud bude moci zakládati, v soud zaražený sobě dovésti nebo ne každý, kdo žaluje, práv zůstává, nýbrž jak právní regule ukazuje, in victoria consistit viitus et actore non probante reus absolvitur, etiam si nihil probaverit. Chce-li se on Škréta s tehdejším purkmistrem a radou z povolání k tomu trhu
řic proti odpovědi pana Ondřeje Leynhoze z Břevnova /tato/ replika sub signo * cum allegatie sub n[umero]o 6, 7 et cet[era]. Replika Jakého spisu proti suplikaci mé Andres Laynhoz pod titulem pokorně a na gruntu práva a spravedlnosti založené potřeby Vaší Arciknížecí Milosti podal, jsouce mi k replicírování propůjčen, jsem vyrozuměl a nacházím to, že podstatu své odpo-
hádati a souditi, má toho vůli. 3.[!] že se zápis za tehdejšího ouřadu mého na ten dům stal, tím sobě málo přiopraví nebo ať ještě proti tomu i to dokládám, že ten dům nejprv ne mně v tom termínu k prodaji všech domův a gruntův emigrantských výš
vědi založil jest na dvojí věci. Jedné: aby mě člověka mladého, od mé mladosti vždycky ctně a šlechetně chovalého, z mé cti loupil, naříkajíce mě lstí, podvodem a oklamáním práva, kterážto odpověď tomu ve všech punktích a artikulích plná nářků,
tvrdí, že jest od plnomocníkův Kateřiny Škrétové mateře mé ten dům U Černého jelena trhem koupil, a tak tehdy ne ode mě, neb plnomocníkův mých, kterýmžto vlastním přiznáním svým, nad kteréž žádného dalšího průvodu potřeba nejni, ten trh nepořádný o týž dům učiněný vyvrací a poráží. Přistupujíce pak dále již k samé věci a k příčině první Andresa Laynhoza, kterouž proti sumovnímu procesu předkládá, ačkoliv jedna každá rozepře, kde začátek svůj vzala, tu i k skonání při-
dotknutými patenty uloženým, ale Antonínovi Trentinovi za tu sumu 2500 kop míšeňských od plnomocníkův Kateřiny Škrétové trhem podán
hanění a neušetřených důtek jest. Druhé: vidouce mě člověka potřebného, patrimonium mého zbaveného a že na prodloužený soud proti
vedena býti má. …by mě ustáti a o spravedlnost mou dědickou připraviti chtěla, což se ze všech spisů jeho provozuje.
byl, ale když potom on z jistých pří-
němu člověku mocnému a bohaté-
čin toho trhu a domu užíti nemínil a nežádal, tu teprv mně se přitrefilo v té sumě bona fide od týchž plnomocníkův ho ujíti a pro mladšího
mu odkud nakládati nemám. Aby mě ustál a tím způsobem o spravedlnosti a právo mé otcovské žalostivé neslušně a proti vší spravedlnosti
žecí Milostí brevitate processus rozeznán býti i z této právní příčiny, že se tu dotýká netoliko nejpřednějšího a nejstaršího jednoho radního
syna mýho, již také v létu jminu-
připravil, což Pánu Bohu požalováno
a druhého primátora, ale také i rady
lém 1639 na morní bolesti, byvše on fendrychem nad jedním praporcem měšťanův staro[městských] a předtím také ve Vlaších na peregrinaci
buď. I v pravdě jest se jemu podiviti, že on Andres Laynhoz, jeden
Starého Města pražského, kteřížto jsouce po Jeho Milosti císařské nad sirotky nejpřednější v městě poruč-
přední a nejstarší konšel Starého Města pražského smí na takové věci
níci k tomu trhu povolovati nemohli a podle práva měst[ského]
nastupovati a jich tak nerozvážlivě k nějaké obraně své užívati, ježto nejmilostivější arcikníže, nechť
A 29, § 12 největší péči a starost o sirotky jmíti mají, aby oni, přijdouce k letům a nemajíce slušného
odpovídání vykazovati měl, se děje,
to všickni nejvzáctnější juristové soudí, sirotek dojdouce let svých
opatření z statku rodičův svých příčinou chudoby své, na ně naříkati
neztratí a ztratiti nemůže, pro nabytí umění na peregrinaci se oddavši, dědictví otce mého nikoliv sem tudy
nýbrž jakž vejš poddaně a pokorně
aneb přijdouce z peregrinací, když
a jako Pánu Bohu žalovati nemuseli.
neztratil a žádným způsobem ztratiti
a poctivé vysvědčení své sebou na to přinesši, zápis na něj svistem dáti učiniti … avšak ne k tomu cíli, abych já se z pořadu práva, již mezi námi zašlého vytrhovati a v postranní
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 281
…žádám také před Vaší Arcikní-
sem se vyučil a je sobě oblíbil, z Království českého podle příležité atestací od lehrmajstra mýho mně dané v létu 1627 in julio do cizích zemí se odebral, a tak v té příčině dotčený Laynhoz in signem errorem causae ut non causa komitýruje, vztahujíce příčinu peregrinací mé na religiji, ježto sem já se pro dosažení většího umění a experiencí ven z země, nejsouce od žádného puzen, odebral. To i v školách děti, nerci-li rozumní lidé, věděti mají, a tak tehdy neušedši já, o dědictví otce mého, nýbrž jsa tím ubezpečen, že se mně dle znění kšaftu otce mého, z podílu mého nic
nemohu, aniž se proto za odběžné pokládati může, a on Laynhoz cizí
provedl a prokázal, takže vedle milos-
Milosti císařské nic nepřátelského
nemajícímu, dovozovati chtěl. To jest
tivého poručení a nejposlednější resolucí Jeho Milosti císařské purkmistr a rada města Litoměřic jsou mě do té
se nedotčinil, jakž to Andres Laynhoz v několika spisích svých jako obzvláštně v jednom, že nejstarší
aby mě nejen o spravedlnost a právo mé otcovské a dědické přežalostivě, abych po mém otci nic nedostal a ne-
vinice právně uvedli… Co se pak tkne plnomocenství od
dávno před rebelií v cizích zemích oženil a jeden (prý) v Polště v umění
dosáhl, připravil, ale i z mé poctivosti, že se o spravedlnost mou a právo mé
mateře mé, někdy Jakubovi Kozlovi a Jakubovi Dobřenskýmu, též vedle nich Jindřichovi bratru mému, v létu
malířském se cvičí a že v brzkém čase sem do těchto zemí se navrátiti chce, a tak že nic proti Jeho Milosti
domlouvám, obloupil, což Pánu Bohu, Jeho Milosti císařské a Vaší Arciknížecí Milosti žalováno buď, že se s tím od
1629 daného, ačkoliv v něm se zmínka činí, jako bych já dílu svého otcov-
císařské neprohřešili, nač by se fiscus potahovati mohl, sám to vyznává
jednoho z nejpřednějších a nejstarších konšelův tak nerozvážlivě proti
ského od paní mateře mé žádati měl, však to ani s rozumem srovnáno býti nemůže, nebo jakž již dotčeno sem
a v tom artikuli naším svědkem jest. …že pak týž Andres Laynhoz ode mě průvodu dostatečného, kde sem
všemu svědomí potkávám. A po[ku] dž tato věc, jaká již napřed doloženo notoria jest a v právních resolucích
rok pořád na perekrinaci zůstával, k žádosti toho dílu plnomocenství
po všecken čas [v] peregrinaci své zdržoval, míti žádá, a mě za příči-
cí[sařských] dosti vysvětlena, nepotřebuje žádného obšírného procesu
z čehož se patrně vidí, že jest téhož domu dávno žádostiv byl, o sprave-
k prodaji žádnému nedával a to artikule mimo sama slova v témž pl-
nou náboženství nenáležitě do svědomí sahá, to jemu k žádné reputaci
dlnost mou dědickou stál, dříve nežli jaká příčina jemu k tomu od koho
nomocenství obsažená buď oustním psaním na to při právě učiněným aneb domnělou niakou žádostí z pod-
neslouží, nýbrž on chce-li mě buď v peregrinaci neb v víře mé tupiti, však dříve toho musí mně domu
právního a jsouce já tolikéž i člověk chudý, na prodloužený soud nemám odkud nakládati, takže kdybych od
staty práva se neukazuje. …nýbrž to též plnomocenství od
mého odstoupiti a potom vedle práva partes actoris defendýrovati
mateře mé v té formě dáno, jak jest odsud od plnomocníkův svých snešena byla, že neohlédajíce se (jakž prokázáno) na velikou diferenci mezi emigranty a mnou, i vzdálení mé veliké přede všemi patenty a dekrety obviněním zase všecko bráno býti mělo … co se předně patentův Pražanů Starého Města dotýče, ten se na mě nikoliv nevztahuje, protože jsem za tehdejšího času žádným sirotkem z země ven vyvrženým ani emigrantem nebyl, nýbrž jakž již napřed toho doloženo jest, po umění svém ještě dříve než ty patenta vyšly, anóbrž o rok dříve nežli mateř má emigraci před sebe vzala, do cizí země že sem se odebral, kterážto příčina jest v právích cí[sařských] že proto nižádný na dědictví a spravedlnosti své žádné škody nésti nemůže, nýbrž aby se po
a že jsem se buď na místech podezřelých zdržoval, buď že katolickým člověkem nejsem, provésti povinen bude. Já jsouce svědomím svým jist a majíce Vaše Arciknížecí Milost dostatečnou povědomost osoby mé, před duchovními a světskými lidmi v té příčině sebe dobře jak legitimírovati vím a na ten čas nechtíce někoho k hanbě přivésti, o tom, co se v té příčině zběhlo, mlčím. Pátá příčina na to se vztahuje, že bych já se nějakého patrného podvedení práva a na oklamání osoby jeho Andresa Laynhoze složené lsti a zformované praktiky dopustil, i odpovídajíce na to negative a potahujíce se prvnější průvody mé, pravím, že jak bratři moji, tak i já s nimi pro nullis personis civiliter mortuis jmíni být nemůžeme, protože jsme vedle
30 letech [!] zase z studium a peregri-
milostivé resoluti Jeho Milosti císař-
nací své vrátil … svých věcí užíti a do nich zveden býti má. …takoví patentové, kdyby se v čem
ské jura post liminii et restitutionis in integrum ani pro náboženství ven z země nevyjevše, ani proti Jeho
na osobu mou vztahovaly (jakož že jsou se nevztahovaly, to ode mě napřed ukázáno jest), byly by se vedle
Milosti císařské nižádného odbojenství se nedočinivše, nikdá neztratili, mnohem pak méně (jakž odporná
nich na mou vlastní spesu nežli vědouce, že toliko na emigranty a ven
strana toho nedůvodně dokládá) od žádného práva kondemnýrováni
z země vyvezené a vyvedené, slušně pominuli, a tak nevztahujíce se na mě a jich sobě v známost uvedené
aneb odsouzeni nebyli. …on Andres Laynhoz mně od datum toho nepořádného zápisu jeho
neměvše, vedle nich sem se chovati nemohl…
až do času přítomného z užívání slušně a náležitě práv býti povinen bude.
…kdyby fiscus kdy proti nám co takového práva byl vyhledával, byli bychom to dostatečně provedli, že
Přičemž však toho bedlivě dáleji povážiti sluší, co by tím trhem a koupí proti mně, člověku mladému, do mé
žádný z nás bratří nikdy ani emigrantem nebyl, o vše proti Jeho
patriae z perekrinací zase se navrátilému a o takovém trhu vědomost
spravedlnosti proti právu a své vlastní povědomosti, byvši toho času purkmistrem, ovšem pak proti patrnému kšaftu otce mého (formalia) “aby týž statček [!] můj pospolu až do let nejmladšího syna mého, kterýž také do let svých dospělých opatření svého jako jiní potřebovati bude, zůstával,” na sebe převozovati neměl. Nad to vejše nachází se ex actis jak zápisu, tak patentu vydaného, že jest Laynhoz dům můj U Černého jelena řečený o jeden rok přece nežli patenty vyšly, to jest 30. julii anno 1629 koupil,
daná byla, což jak proti božskému přikázání “nepožádáš domu bližního tvého,” tak i lidskému právu čelící jest, ježto Antonín Trentin, kupujíce také ten dům, za něj peníze hotové dával, však pro překážku Laynhoza za hotové peníze, to jest Laynhoz na termíny užil, obdržeti nemohl. Že pak při té druhé příčině týž Andres Laynhoz sobě některé jiné grunty od bratra mého prodané k obraně a ku pomoci béře, to jeho v ničemž [?], protože se tu sbíhají jiné případnosti a příkladové, i nemohou za žádnou reguli vyzdvihováni býti, nebo Judita Bylinová podle přátelského jednání a mezi námi švagrovského zpříznění jest se mnou o túž vinici a peníze za ni povinné, poznavši to, že by proti mně obstáti nemohla, dobrovolně smluvila, dobrovolně za jisté smlouvy a snešení všecka práva lomí, z strany mlejna od příjezdu mého z peregrinací jest ještě tři léta a 18 neděl neprošlo, k dobývání toho mám ještě dosti času a naději mám, že i ten nepořádný držitel mlejn po napomenutí sobě usmyslí a vodstoupení mého dědického odporen nebude, nad to, že Jan Baptista Reymund, když sem já o odstoupení jedné vinice na onen čas od mateře mé v městě Litoměřicích Anýžce, manželce jeho a sestře mé vlastní, postoupené skrze suplikování k Jeho Milosti pánům místodržícím a Jeho Milosti císařské nastupoval v odpovědi své podobným způsobem podobným plnomocenstvím Juditě Bylinové dané, zápisy já k jí sestře mé, tak i jemu učiněnými jako i tento vklad mlejna a prodaj domu a že to vše platnosti nemělo, dostatečně plnomocenství sem
282 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
Vaší Arciknížecí Milosti jakožto vrchnosti křesťanské retován a chráněn nebyl, skrze to nejsnázeji bych o mé tak patrné právo přijítí, o to ku Pánu Bohu úpěti musil. Pročež Vaši Arciknížecí Milost ve vší poníženosti za to žádám, jakoby mi se veliké proti vší spravedlnosti a právu ublížení a zkrácení díti chtělo, k srdci svému milostivě připustiti, mě v tom politovati, tu věc z prodlouženého procesu právního (zvláště že i on sám v potřebě své jsouce člověk věkem sešlý) … ráčíte. Po dání této repliky pan Ondřej Leynhoz žádal, aby jemu ad duplicam propůjčena byla. K jehožto žádosti slušně pan p[urkmistr] a páni povoliti a tuž repliku Karla Škréty ad duplicam comunicírovati naříditi ráčili. Po prošlém termínu od pana Ondřeje Leynhoze tato duplika sub sig. * et allegatie sub ku právu předložena jest. RT
23
The Old Town in Prague, 15 August 1640 Karel Škréta requests Jan Baptist Reymund to convey to him the paintings of his predecessors. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Manuale dictorum, 1638–1641, sign. 1169, f. 140v–141r. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
1640 Consule domino Joanne Khobr á Khobrspergka
panu otci, jako i paní mateři, tudíž
z Závořic, pana otce jeho nejmilej-
obrazy a kontrafekty odevzdal a ty
Pan Karel Škréta Šotnovský z Závořic
i sester a bratří pozůstalé, kteréž jemu panu Karlovi Škrétovi náležejí, navrátil, těch a takových obrazův
šího, učiněného a kterémuž ve všem všudy až posavad místo dáno jest, takové obrazy a kontrafekty náležejí
od sebe odvedl, přidržeti ráčíte podle práva. Baptista Reymund po tomto vzne-
vedle tohoto na Jana Baptistu Reymunda vyžádaného obeslání toto na
a kontrfektů nižádným způsobem odevzdati a jich postoupiti nechce,
a pokudž vedle prá[va] měst[ského] B 42, E 44 posledních vůlí kšaftujících
šení žádal hojemství právní s tou protestací, zdali povinen bude na
Vaše Milosti jakožto po Jeho Milosti císařské přední pány ochránce sirot-
ježto aby obrazy ty a kontrfekty kdy tomuto Baptistovi anebo manželce
netoliko vysoce se šetřiti, ale i nad tím ruka ochranná držána býti má.
též vznešení odpovídati aneb ne? K čemuž od pana p[urkmistra]
kův vznešení činí, kterak dotčený pan Jan Baptista Reymund, jsouce od něho pana Karla Škréty Šotno-
jeho a již dotčeného pana Karla Škréty sestře svěřiti a náležeti měly, toho od něho nikdy prokázáno a pro-
Pročež nadepsaný pan Karel Škréta Vaší Milosti za to šetrně žádá, že vedle vejš dotčeného artykule kšaftů,
a pánův povoleno ad [?] 2 proximam. RT
v[ského] z Závořic přátelsky skrze dobré lidi žádán, aby on pan Jan Baptista obrazy anebo kontrfekty po někdy panu dědu, paní báby, též
vedeno býti moci nebude. Nýbrž to se vyhledá a najde, že vedle artykule kšaftu od někdy dobré paměti panu Kundratovi Šotnov[skému] odtudž
kterýž netoliko na obrazy a kontrfekty, ale i na všelijaké knížky se vztahuje, dotčeného pana Baptisty Reymunda k tomu, aby se takové
24
The Old Town in Prague, 27 August 1640 Judgment of the city councillor in the dispute between Karel Škréta and Ondřej Leynhoz over the house At the Black Deer which shall remain the property of the new owner. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Manuale dictorum, 1638–1641, sign. 1169, f. 146r–147r. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 46; NEUMANN 2000, pp. 40–41.
Feria secunda post sancti Bartholo-
Škréty nad týmž statkem a dětmi
příčinou nepřijetí náboženství samo-
Škréty na něm díl svůj mající, pro-
maei Ap[osto]l[i] Domini 27. augusti anno 1640 Vejpověď mezi Karlem Škrétou Šot-
po něm zůstalými a tehdáž nezletilými s tou vejminkou, aby ona bez vědomí a povolení jí k radě
spasitedlného katolického v létu jminulým 1628 z Království českého odebrati) v nepřítomnosti dětí svých
dávati mohla. Z těch tehdy příčin přitom mezi panem Ondřejem Leynhozem z Břevnova z jedné a právně
novským z Závořic z jedné a panem Ondřejem Leynhozem z strany druhé
a pomoci dožádaných poručníkův jak z strany oznámených dětí, tak
již předtím let právních došlých, netoliko k prodaji z svrchudotknu-
zřízenými plnomocníky Kateřiny Škrétové z strany druhé o připo-
NB actio se nachází na spisích vide infra tato actio srovnaná a ingrosso fol. 166
i statku, nic činiti a před sebe bráti nemohla, nýbrž učinila-li by co toho o své újmě, to žádné platnosti
tého domu plnomocníky zříditi, ale i byvši od týchž dětí totiž Jana, Hendrycha a tohoto praetendýrujícího
menutý dům pořádně beze všech obmyslův zavřeným zápisem knih městských utvrzeném trhu (nad
Ačkoliv z průvodu od Karla Škréty
a moci nemělo, za mocnou otcovskou poručnici zřídil. Že však taková
Karla o vydání dílů jich dědických tam vně vyhledávaná, tentýž dům
nímž jako i jinými pořádnými trhy a zápisy dle vyměření práv králov-
Šotnovského z Závořic v tom mezi ním z jedné a panem Ondřejem Leynhozem z Břevnova z strany
vejminka patrně a vlastně toliko až do let dospělých jmenovaných dětí, obzvláštně pak výš dotčeného
(kterýžto sice pro neprodání jeho před projitím času v patentích Jeho Milosti císařské vůbec publikovaných
ství tohoto českého ruka ochranná držána býti má). Z toho všeho zcela a zouplna se zanechává a on pan
druhé o dům U černého jelena proti Tejnu v tomto Starém Městě praž-
Karla Škréty, jakožto nejmladšího syna, se vztahovala, a tak dojitím
a vloženým pro re derelicta položín a k ruce Jeho Milosti císařské, o nyní
Ondřej Leynhoz při pokojné possessi užívání takového domu již zcela
ském ležící vzešlém sporu to se vynachází, že nebo[žtík] Kundrat Škréta Šotnovský z Závořic, čině o grun-
let jich právních minula. Již tehdy prv oznámená Kateřina Škrétová (majíc se vedle nařízení Jeho Milosti
připomenutých syních proč a za jakými příčinami z země této, když při žádném právě od nich ohlášení
a zouplna zaplaceného zůstavuje, s tím přitom doložením, chce-li často dotčený Karel Škréta Šotnov-
tech a jiném statku svém pořízení kšaftovní, Kateřinu manželku svou
císařské pánův komisařův nad reformací v religii jménem a na místě
učiněno nebylo, se odebrali, konfiscírován by byl) svobodně jakožto
ský z Závořic (poněvadž se tu dle ohlášení Jeho Milosti císařské pana
a mateř vlastní dotčeného Karla
Jeho Milosti císařské učiněného za
též dle kšaftu nebo[žtíka] Kundrata
rychtáře a Jeho Vysoce Arciknížecí
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 283
Milosti rady na místě a k ruce Jeho Milosti císařské při zavření této acti
náležeti bude, hleděti, právo se mu v tom nezavírá. Škody pak z jistých
1640 con[sule] domino Joanne Khobr a Khobrspergka.
učiněného žádného podvodu a odtud pocházejícího interesse nenachází)
slušných a právních příčin mezi nadepsanými stranami se zdví-
Suscepit consulatum dominus Nicolaus Turek a Rosenthal feria secunda
v příčině peněz gruntovních od pana Ondřeje Leynhoza dle kvitancí kněh městských odvedených, k komuž
hají, vše podle práva. Actum feria secunda post sancti Bartholomaei Ap[ostoli] Domini, 27. augusti anno
post Nativitatis B[eatae] Mariae Virginis, 10. septembri anno 1640. RT
25
Prague, 18 October 1640 Karel Škréta is one of the witnesses to the signing of the transfer of the obligation to the claim of 4000 guilders of Antonius Brucius and 1296 guilders of Vilém Slavata among the Italian families settled in Prague. Národní archiv (National Archives), Sbírka opisů (Collection of Duplicates), Státní oblastní archiv Třeboň (pobočka Jindřichův Hradec) (State Regional Archives of the City of Třeboň [branch Jindřichův Hradec]), 18 October 1640. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 11, 26.
Jan Giacomo Carollini zapisuje zplnomocněnci Caspara Delfinetti, panu Josefovi Maggiolimu a jeho manželce Alžbětě na jim
Ehrenvesten Herrn Carl Skreta, Burger und Mahlern in der Alten Stadt Prag und Jo[hann] Lorenz Jerab von Kirchhaimb, Buerger
So geschehen zu Prag, den 18. Octobris anno 1640. L. S. Jo[hann] Giacomo Carollini mp. L. S. Carl Sskreta von Zaworzicz mp.
postoupenou obligaci pana Antonia Brucia …
und deutschen Schulhalter in der Kleinen Stadt alda, welche sich neben mir mit aigner Hand und gewöhnlicher ihrer Petschaft unterzeichnet.
L. S. Jo[hann] Lorenz Jerab mp. RT
…Dieses mehrer Sicherheit wegen zu bezeugen, hab ich erbeten die
26
The Old Town in Prague, 21 February 1641 Dispute over the house At the Black Deer – the court of appeal confirms the judgment of the city council from 27 August 1640. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber appelationum 2, 1594–1654, sign. 1029, f. 323r. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 46; NEUMANN 2000, pp. 40–41.
Konfirmací mezi Karlem Škrétou Šotnovským z Závořic z jedné a Ondřejem Leynhozem z Břevnova
a usazené na ta od práva Starého našeho Města pražského odeslaná a odevzdaná zapečetěná akta v tom
post sancti Bartholomaei Apostoli Domini, 27. augusti léta již pominulého 1640 mezi nadepsanými
Fridrich z Talmberka, president Publicat[um] coram partibus 7. martii 1641.
z strany druhé
sporu mezi Karlem Škrétou Šotnovským z Závořic z jedné a Ondřejem
stranami vynešeného, při své váze. Poněvadž tu co za právo vypovědíno
Jan Graff z Graffenburgu RT
My Ferdinand III. z Boží milosti volený římský císař, po všecky časy rozmnožitel říše a uherský, český,
Laynhozem z Břevnova z strany druhé, co se přípovědi na dům U černého jelena řečený v Starém
jest, tomu na svědomí pečetí naší císařskou k tomu soudu obzvláštně zřízenou jest zapečetíno. Dán na
dalmátský, charvátský etc. král, arcikníže rakouské, markrabě
našem Městě pražském ležící, též i škod v při hlavní vzešlých zdvi-
Hradě našem pražském ve čtvrtek po neděli první v postě, jenž slove
moravské, lucemburské a slezské kníže a lužické markrabě etc. Oznamujem tímto listem, že pre-
žení dotýče, jakž akta té pře to vše v sobě šířeji obsahují a zavírají. Pováživše toho s pilností všeho
invocavit, 21. februarii léta Páně tisícího šestistého čtyrycátého prvního a království našich řím-
sident a rady naše k apelacím na Hradě našem pražském zřízené
podle práva, zanechávají toho ortele na témž právě feria secunda
ského pátého, uherského šestnáctého a českého čtrnáctého.
284 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
27
The Old Town in Prague, 7 February 1643 The burgomaster and the councillor of the Old Town in Prague state that the house which was once the property of Tadeáš Hájek of Hájek (and is situated next to the King Wenceslas College) and, after him, of Zuzana Strassburgová – while the latter died without issuing her last will and the house is thus iure devolutionis ab intestate devolved upon the king and the community – is requested, according to the blood-related line of succession, by Karel Škréta Šotnovský of Závořice who claims his right to the inheritance here and who dwelled in foreign countries on travels when the above-mentioned inserting occurred. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), sign. H 199/5, Inv. No. 1399, box 926. Literature: Tomáš Sekyrka, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.14, p. 593.
Gnedige und gebietende Herren,
Waßerthuermbs, fünf Hundert Gul-
Euer Gnaden khönen wür hiemit wie windert nicht lassen, was mas-
den zu Hielf außderselben extra ordinarii mietheln, aller gnädigist
sen Ihro Römisches Kaiserliches Maÿestat, unser allergnädigister Herr, auf unser allerunterthänigistes
deputiret und angeordnet haben … berühmter Ihrer Kayserlichen Mayestat allergnädigisten Resolution
Ansuchen, sich gegen uns in Khayserlichen Gnaden, so weith inclinirt und zu wieder erhöb und Reparirung des vershienen 1636 Jahrs, den 4. Martii durch ein unglückselig ausgangene Herres brumst ruinirten und abgebrändten Altstädter
vermöge Euer Gnaden Decrets sub Lit. B. unß die eine Helfte des Weyland Thadeo Hagek und hernacher Susanna Straßburgerin zugehörigen und nachgelassenen Hauses, in welches nach ihrem ab intestato tödtlichen Hientwirt, weilen sich von
ihrer Freundschaft damahls niemand befunden, Ihro Römische Kayserliche Mayestat und der Gemeinde zu Handen iure devolutionis ab intestato
Documentis ersehen und verstehen, daß solches ausgewiesene Mittel bey dieser Beschafenheit fallen würt
die Immission beschehn, zu obangebüteten Ende aplicirt worden. Die-
müssen … Actum 7. Februarii anno 1643
weil aber Carl Screta Schotnowsky von Zawořic, der sich damahls, da gedachte Immission beschehen, in frembden Landen in peregrinatione aufgehalten, der BlutverwandnüsLinien nach diesorts ius hereditatis praetendiret, und wie wür aus denen
Euer Gnaden dienstgehorsambe Bürgermeister und Rath der Alten Stadt Prag TS
28
Mělník, (before 19 March 1643) Karel Škréta requests the city council of Mělník to convey to him a vineyard as reimbursement for unpaid interest on a claim which he inherited from his mother. The request was considered with an affirmative result at the session of the Mělník municipal council. Státní okresní archiv Mělník (State Regional Archives of the City of Mělník), Archiv města Mělník (Archives of the City of Mělník), Book 75, file Manuál neb protokol radní (The City Council’s Manual alias the Protocol) 1641–1646, f. 57. Literature: KILIÁN 2011, pp. 161–165. TS
29
Mělník, 19 March 1643 The Mělník city council gives Karel Škréta a vineyard situated on Tomášov city farmland near the Trinity church at Chloumek as reimbursement for the debt inherited from his mother. Škréta shall annually conscribe two three-scores of groschen from this vineyard, shall obligatorily assign a vineyard keeper there and, if he wants to sell the vineyard in the future, he must preemptively offer it to the city or the Mělník burghers. Státní okresní archiv Mělník (State Regional Archives of the City of Mělník), Archiv města Mělník (Archives of the City of Mělník), Book 120, file Kniha viniční (The Book of Vineyards) 1610–1745, f. 139. Literature: KILIÁN 2011, pp. 161–165. TS
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 285
von Ihme zum Theil producirten
30
(Prague), after 28 May 1643 The Bohemian Chamber orders Jan Petřík of Vokounštejn the Elder to help Karel Škréta acquire the house of Tadeáš Hájek of Hájek in the Old Town in Prague. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), sign. H 199/5, Inv. No. 1399, box 926, f. 1. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Jménem a na místě Jeho Milosti římského císaře, též uherského
neb> že naň týž dům, po
vůle Jeho Milosti Císařské naplněna
a českého etc. krále etc. pána nás všech nejmilostivějšího slovutným
Zuzaně Sstrospurgkerové dceři téhož Thadeáše Hájka, a tak krevní tetě jeho právem nápadním přišel a při-
bude. Ex Consilio etc. 28. maii 1643
purkmistru a radě Menšího Města pražského se poroučí. Ačkoliv létu
padl, avšak takový nápad a i posavad dle vyměření právního dokonale
Komora Jeho Milosti císařské česká slovutnému Janovi staršímu Petří-
pominulým 1638 dům někdy Thadeáše Hájka z Hájku v lékařství dok-
neprovedl a neukázal, jakž tomu všemu z přiložených spisův obšír-
kovi z Vokounštejna (titul) příležící přípisy ku právu malostranskému
tora v Starém Městě pražském vedle Koleje krále Václava ležící, jakoby Jeho Milosti císařské, též obci staro-
něji vyrozuměti mocti budou, aby oni Pražané Jeho Milosti císařské rychtáře v Starém Městě pražském
prošlého odsílati a při něm to náleží, aby on buďto sám aneb skrze plnomocníka svého fiskální interesse na
městské právem odoumrtním náležel k ruce fisci ujat byl, avšak Karel Škréta z Závořic navrátivše se po témž ujetí ze Vlach, na komoru Jeho Milosti císařské českou suplikovati, též na Pražany staroměstské vznášeti a za kasírování zvodu do téhož domu k ruce Jeho Milosti císařské, též obce staroměstské vykonaného žádati nepřestává, oznamujíce, <že
(titul), aneb koho by na svý místu [!] ku právu malostranskému s plnomocenstvím vypravil, též nadepsaného Škrétu neprodleně před sebe k témuž právu sročili je netoliko v tom ale také pokudž by mimo svrchupsané spisy co víceji a dáleji přednášeti chtěli beze všech zbytečných interlocutorií proti sobě dostatečně a summariter vyslyšeli strany na to vejpověď spravedlivou s výhradou vrchního práva podělili. Vědouce, že na tom jistá a milostivá
domě někdy Thadeáše Hájka proti Karlovi Škrétovi z Závořic při právě malostranským všelijak hájil a zastával, též Pražany malostranské k tomu, aby oni bez odkladu túž věc vyslyšeli a na to vejpověď s vejhradou vrchního práva podělili, napomenul, o čemž vědouce, tak se zachovati nepomine. Ex consilio 28. mai 1643 TS
31
The Old Town in Prague, March 1644 Karel Škréta requests the Bohemian Chamber to cover the supplementary payment of money owed to his father. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Komorní knihy (Chamber Books), Registry 1643–1646, Book No. 445, f. 109v. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Martius 1644, N[umer]o 40 Eliáš Maggauer, Škréta Pan rentmistr Král[ovství] česk[ého] zprávu dává na stížnost Karla Škréty z strany na doplacení mu vykázaných peněz. RT
286 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
32
The Old Town in Prague, 1644–1656 Records in the guild book, related to Karel Škréta as a master painter, refer to his joining the Old Town Guild, him participating at the confraternity’s sessions and the admission and releasing of the apprentices František Palinka, Ondřej Petr, Jakub Tuc and Samuel Globic of Bučín the Younger to and from their apprenticeship. A number of other records are linked with appointing Škréta as the superior of the guild in 1653 and with the ensuing duties, especially conscientiously keeping the guild financial statements, summoning sessions and solving problems which preoccupied the guild at that time – i.e. mainly disputes with woodcarvers and glaziers who wanted to become independent, and with the New Town painters. Many entries were written in Karel Škréta’s own hand. His work in the field of painting is linked with the recorded promise to execute a painting for the guild St Lucas altarpiece in the church of Our Lady before Týn and a portrait of the Empress, intended for the chancellor. Archiv Národní galerie v Praze (Archives of the National Gallery in Prague), fund Pražská malířská bratrstva (Prague Painter’s Confraternities), file Kniha protokolů pražského malířského cechu z let 1600–1656 (The Book of Protocols of the Prague Painter’s Guild from between 1600 and 1656), Acquisition No. AA 1209. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 46; HALATA 1996 (edition), p. 218; ŠRONĚK 1997, pp. 114–116; Radka Tibitanzlová, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.19, p. 598. RT
33
Mělník, 28 April 1645 Karel Škréta buys a desolated and uncultivated vineyard on Tomášov city farmland near Mělník from the widowed Kateřina Svobodová for 32 guilders. Škréta shall annually conscribe 46 groschen from this vineyard to the city of Mělník. Státní okresní archiv Mělník (State Regional Archives of the City of Mělník), Archiv města Mělník (Archives of the City of Mělník), Book 120, file Kniha viniční (The Book of Vineyards) 1610–1745, f. 77. Literature: KILIÁN 2011, pp. 161–165. TS
34
The Lesser Town in Prague, 9 July 1645 Karel Škréta marries Veronika, a daughter of Antonín Grönberger from the Lesser Town in Prague, in the local St Thomas church. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), St Thomas church, file Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1632–1649, sign. TO N2 O2, f. 18v. Literature: RYBIČKA 1869, p. 9; PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 28–29; BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 8; NEUMANN 1974, p. 46; NEUMANN 2000, p. 40.
Item copulatus est ingenuus et spec-
testes nobilis et ampliss[imus] domi-
senator Parvae Partis, Simon Dietz,
tabilis dominus Carolus Screta pictor cum honesta virgine Veronica
nus Wenceslaus Gifsberofsky, scriba minor Regni Boemiae, Antonius de
lorarius et civis Minoris Pragae, Simon Luth etc.
Grönbergerin, filia Antonii Grönberger, civis minoris Pragae, et Mariae,
Bossi, officialia salis, dominus Martinus Luth, vitricus sponsae, civis et
RT
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 287
35
Prague, 13 January 1646 Karel Škréta requests the emperor to pay off the claim which Emperor Rudolf II owed to his father from 1607.³ Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), sign. S 162/25, Inv. No. 3280, box 2251, f. 7–8. Literature: Tomáš Sekyrka, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.14, p. 593.
Allerdurchleuchtigster grossmächtigster, unüberwindlichster Römi-
Landen ereignen, Ihrer Maiestat rechtmessig zustendig sein, von
dass ich selbsten etwan ein in obengezogener Assecuration begriffe-
wollte, keine Hinderung oder Vorgrif zuetuen verstattet, inmittelst auch
scher Kayser, auch zue Hungarn und Böheim König, etc.
ihme Cunraden Skreta oder dessen Erben und Nachkommen eröffnet
ner Mittel erfragen und fürbringen möchte. Diesemnach nehme zue
zu meiner täglichen Unterhaltung aus langter Euer Maiestät Königliche
Allergnädigister Kayser König und Herr. Euer Kaiserliches und Königliches Majestat kan ich hiemit unter-
und angezeigt werden und noch niemands andern vergehen sein möchten, ihme Skreta, seinen Erben
Euer Kaiserliches und Königliches Maiestat ich hiemit meine gehorsamste Zuflucht und bitte allerun-
Cammer-Resstauchtsgefällen mir des Interesse bezahlet und gefolget werden solle. Solche Hohe Kaiser-
tänig ist nicht vorhalten, wie dass die Römische Kaiserliche Majes-
und Nachkommen, ohne Weigerung gefolget und gezahlet, inmit-
tertänigist Euer Kaiserliches und Königliches Maiestat geruehen mir,
lich Gnad werde mit untertänigsten treuen gehorchsam zu bestimen ich
tat, auch zue Hungarn und Böheim Keiserliche Königliche Maiestat Rudolphus der Ander, hochseligis-
telst auch selbige Summa, solang sie nicht abgestattet würde, von dato des Briefs jährlichen mit 5 per cento
als personae miserabili und der ich ausser dieser kaiserliche Gnad nach meinen Eltern, sonst kein anders
die Zeit meines Lebens mich befleissen und tue hierüber zu allergnädigsten gehörigen Resolution mich
ten Angedenkens dero Königlichen Böhmischen Cammer-Buchhaltern,
verinteressirt werden solle. Inmaßen solches berührte Ihren Maiestat
Patrimonium zuegewarten, die Kaiserlichen und Königlichen Gnad zu
untertänig ist befehlen. Actum Prag den 13. Januarii anno 1646.
weiland Cunrad Sskreta von Zavoritz, meinem lieben Vatern seeligen, wegen seiner Ihrer Majestät geleister getreue und ersprüsslicher Dienste, noch in dem verstrichenen 1607 Jahr, am Montag nach sancti Procopii, aus Kaiserlichen Gnaden mit 1300 Schock meisnisch begnadet und selbige Summe Geldes mit dero Kaiserliche Assecuration versichert, dergestalt, daß dieselbte aus allen Ihrer Maiestat als Könige zue Böheimb gebühren Rechten, es sei an Todfälligkeiten, Contrabanden, Poenfällen oder Confiscationen, welche sich etwan in deisem Königreich Böheim und dessen incorporirten
Assecuration, davon hiebey ein vidimirte Abschrift sambt deren glaubwürdigen transsumpt beyliegendt mit mehrern Zeigen thuet. Wann nun nach mehr berührt meines Vatern Absterben gedachte kaiserliche Donation mir, als dessen eheleiblichen Sohn, erblicken Rechtens zuekommen, auf meine Vermög derselben bei Euer Majestät hiesigen Königlichen Böhmischen Cammer vielfältig beschehene Anmeldung und gesuchte Bezahlung, aber mir immerzue zum Bescheid worden, daßweilen ietziger Zeit keine Mittel vorhanden, ich anderst nicht befriediget werden könne, es sein dann,
erzeigen und bey dero verordneten Herrn Praesident und Räten hiesiger Königliche Cammer durch ein gemessenes Decret, die allergnädigste Verordnung zutuen, damit, wan ich ins künftig etwan ein von denen in ofterserwehnten Kaiserlichen Assecuration begriffenen, Euer Maiestat rechtmessig gebührenden Mitteln, es sei an Tödlichkeiten ab intestato, Contrabanden, Poenfällen oder Confiscationen erkündigen, oder vor andern eröffnen möchte, ich derselbten auch nach laut selbiger Assecuration wirklich geniessen möge und mir darinnen von niemanden, er seye wer der immer
Euer Kaiserliche und Königliche Maiestat alleruntertänigst gehorsambster Carl Screta mp TS 3 Also attached are other documents written in German. The first document of 26 February 1646 informs that 184 three-scores and 32 groschen were paid on the discharge of claims until 1615 and interest was thereafter paid up to the St George holiday in 1617. It thus remains to pay 1115 three-scores, 27 groschen and 1 dinar, and the interest from St George 1617 to St George 1646 in the amount of 1617 three-scores, 30 groschen and 4 dinars, it is 2732 three-scores, 57 groschen and 5 dinars in total. The second, undated document contains the suggestion to negotiate a discount on the payment of interest with Škréta because the debt already exceeds the entire donated sum.
36
The New Town in Prague, summer–autumn 1648 Karel Škréta (similarly as other Prague inhabitants) saved his property with the Zderaz Augustinians during the siege of Prague by the Swedish army. Národní archiv (National Archives), Archivy zrušených klášterů (Archives of Abolished Monasteries), file Liber secundus seu Continuatio Annalium Excalceato-Augustiniani Nostri Asceterii Sub Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, ac Patroni Regni Boëmiae, In Neo-Civitate Pragensi Supra Zderas Situati ab Anno Partae Salutis MDCXLII ad Annum usque MDCLXIII Complectens. […] A Fratre Severino a Sancta Anna Ordinis Eremit. Fratrum Discal. S. P. Augustini Sacerdote Professo (issued 1749), Inv. No. 2452, manuscript 11 (formerly 3480 b), f. 82 (record up to 1648). Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 47.
Porro ex numero eorum, qui rerum suarum incolumitati consulere volentes, in monasterium eas con-
fore (quod tamen nota Suecorum perfida valde incertum reddebat) fuerunt Illustrissimus dominus Carolus
dominus Baro Spulirž, dominus Schebeschovsky, Don Florius, dominus Gezbenovsky, Christophorus
pictor, dominus Visner, dominus Skržichovsky, dominus intervad. Dominus Casparus Knespelius etc.
tulere, rati ibi quam optime tectas
comes Valtstein, Illustrissimus
Bek, dominus Screta praestans
ŠV
288 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
37
The Old Town in Prague, 27 June 1650 The beginning of the painters’ protest against the endangerment of the canopy above the guild St Lucas altarpiece in the church of Our Lady before Týn. Karel Škréta and the pre-eminent masters of guilds of both the Old and New Towns in Prague sign a lawsuit against the official Jan Pavel Dvorský. Archiv Národní galerie v Praze (Archives of the National Gallery in Prague), fund Pražská malířská bratrstva (Prague Painter’s Confraternities), file Kniha protokolů pražského malířského cechu z let 1600–1656 (The Book of Protocols of the Prague Painter’s Guild from between 1600 and 1656), Acquisition No. AA 1209, f. 127v–128r. Literature: HALATA 1996, pp. 144–145 (edition); PAŽOUT 1874, p. 814; KUCHYNKA 1915, pp. 27–28; KUCHYNKA 1919, pp. 21–22; NEUMANN 1974, pp. 115–117; OUTRATA 1986, pp. 161–162; ŠRONĚK 1996, p. 105. RT
38
Prague, 28 June 1653 Karel Škréta informs the emperor that the interest from the debt of Emperor Rudolf II, totalling 1300 Meissen three-scores, was paid for the year of 1616 when also 184 three-scores, 32 groschen and 6 dinars were paid off on the capital, and there are thus 1111 three-scores, 27 groschen and 7 dinars left to cover. Škréta at the same time points out that Jan Spilka, burgher of the Old Town in Prague, was caught in the very act of violating the marriage bed and imprisoned. Škréta, as the creditor of the above-mentioned debt, applies for the paying of a penalty to be imposed on Spilka. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. S 212/1, Inv. no. 870. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 47; Tomáš Sekyrka, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.23, p. 602.
Allergnädigster Kayser, König und Herr, Herr demnach glorwürdigen
Böhmischen Cammer bezahlt worden, dass also noch 1111 Schock meis-
im Ehebruch ergriffen und von dem Gericht in Verhaft genomen, Euer
erlegen, gütigst verordnen. Euer Maiestat mich in untertänigster Demut
Andenkens Rudolf der Ander, Römischer Kayser, anno 1607 meinem Vater Conraden Skreta, der Königlichen Böhmischen Cammer Buchhaltern vor seine nutzbare, treue Dienste
snisch, 27 Kreuzer, 1 Denarii mir als Erben meines Vaters schuldig verbleiben: Weilen dann gedachte Summa auf alle Euer Maiestat als Königs in Böhmen zugehörige Rech-
Maiestat poenae pecuniariae obnoxius wird, welches vor mir kein anderer noch angebracht, auch von Euer Maiestat jemanden angeschaft worden. Als tue Euer Maiestat alle-
empfehlende etc. Euer Kayserlichen Mayestät gehorsambter Underthan Carl Skreta etc. Prag den 28. Junii anno 1653 etc.
zue Gnaden recompens benanntlich 1300 Schock meissnisch erteilt und solche Summa sub interesse vermög der Beilag A schriftlich versichert.
ten, Caduciteten, Contrabanten, Strafen oder Confiscation, so etwa in diesem Königreich vorgehen und sich begeben möchten und desselben
runtertänigst bitten, sie geruheten solche Geldstraf, so Euer Maiestat zu Handen von dem Recht ihme Reo möchte auferlegt werden, in Abbruch
Der löblichen Kayserlichen Hofcamer mit freundlich dienstlicher Recomendation zuzuschicken. Ex Cancellariae Boemicae Aulicae,
Von Zeit aber dieser Gnadenversicherung befindet es sich, dass die Interesse bis vor das 1616. Jahr abgeführt und zwar im selben Jahr auch
Briefs ordentlicher Inhaber solche erstlich, ehe dass si von Euer Maiestat einem anderen vergeben weren, sich angebete, lauten tuet. Indem
der vom 1616. Jahr verlosenen Interessen mir allergnädigst Anweisen und bei der Königlichen Böhmischen Cammer oder Euer Maiestat Rich-
3. julii anno 1653 V. Pachta mp.
auf das Capital 184 Schock, 32 Kreu-
nun ietzt verwichener Tagen Johann
tern in der Alten Stadt Prag gegen
zer, 6 Denarii von der Königlichen
Spilka, Burger der Alten Stadt Prag,
gebürlicher Quitantz solche mir zu
39
The Old Town in Prague, 14 July 1653 Karel Škréta was appointed the superior of the Old Town and New Town joint guild of painters, glaziers and embroiderers. Archiv Národní galerie v Praze (Archives of the National Gallery in Prague), fund Pražská malířská bratrstva (Prague Painter’s Confraternities), file Kniha protokolů pražského malířského cechu z let 1600–1656 (The Book of Protocols of the Prague Painter’s Guild from between 1600 and 1656), Acquisition No. AA 1209, f. 140v. Literature: HALATA 1996 (edition), p. 157. RT EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 289
TS
40
Regensburg, 30 July 1653 Emperor Ferdinand III orders the Bohemian Chamber in Prague to provide him an advisory opinion as to Karel Škréta’s request to the chamber to pay off the debt of 1300 Meissen three-scores of which 1119 three-scores are left to be paid while Škréta demands the latter amount to be covered from the money forfeited to the benefit of the chamber from the penalty charged to the Old Town burgher, Jan Spilka. Národní archiv (National Archives), file ČDKM (Bohemian Section of the Court Chamber) I, 1653, box 512. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Was gestalten und aus Ursachen bei der Römischen Kaiser, auch zu
bei der Böhmischen Camer-Buchalterei zur Gnaden ausgesetzten 1300
ersehen die Herrn aus der Beilage mit mehren Ersuchen solchen noch
Hungarn und Böhmen Kaiserliches Maiestät, unsern allergnädigsten
Schock meisnisch annoch ruckstendigen 1119 Schock meisnisch und
dienstfreundlich hierübter uns ihr rätliches Gutbedenken unschwer
Herrn Carl Skreta gehorsamst suplicando einkomten geheten [?], das
dem pro rata davon verfallenen Interesse, das Johan Spilka, Burgern der
zukomen lassen wollen [?] allerseits Göttlicher Obacht empfelend.
ihme in Abschlag der seinem Vatern seeligen, des gewesten Buchhaltern
Alten Stadt Prag, verwirkten Strafgelder uberlassen werden solten, das
Regensburg den 30. Julii 1653. TS
41
The Old Town in Prague, 30 September 1653 Karel Škréta is listed in the leading position as the superior of the painter’s guild in the Old Town in Prague during the restoration of the city council. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber renovationum – Kniha obnov (The Book of Restorations), 1630–1678, sign. 70, not foliated. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 33.
Starší do pořádku malířského, sklenářského, krumplířského a řezbářského
Jiří Lambek Nikodém Čížek Jan Jiří Pentl inspektor pan Pavel Konstantin Fiala
Karel Škréta
RT
Fabián Harovník
42
The Old Town in Prague, 5 October 1653 The son of Karel Škréta, Václav Bohumil, was baptized in the church of St Gallus. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika narozených (Birth Register), 1652–1704, sign. HV N1, p. 13. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 42 (edition); BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 10 (mistakenly stated as sons Václav and Bohumil); NEUMANN 1974, p. 48; NEUMANN 2000, p. 130 (wrong date of baptism, 5 August).
Baptisat[us] e[st] infans nomine Wencesla[us] Deochar[us], parentu[m] Francisci [!] Skreta et
Veronicae, patrini Wencesla[us] Gesberovski, Dionysi[us] Miseron, dominus Antonius de Boosi,
290 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
Anna Miseronova, Maria Elisabetha Chinostinova. RT
43
The Old Town in Prague, November 1653 Karel Škréta requests payment of the amount charged to the Old Town burgher, Filip Vrba, by the Bohemian Chamber. Národní archiv (National Archives), Komorní knihy (Chamber Books), Registry 1653, Book No. 448, f. 130v. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
November 1653, N[umer]o 56 Karel Škréta, Vrba pokuta Karel Škréta žádá, aby mu ta pokuta, která na Filipovi Vrbovi pro
cizoložný skutek při právě Starého Města pražského přisouzena bude, na porážku praetensí jeho vykázaná byla. RT
44
s. l., 12 May 1654 Karel Škréta confirms to produce 5 barrels of wine per year at his vineyards near Mělník. Státní okresní archiv Mělník (State Regional Archives of the City of Mělník), Archiv města Mělník (Archives of the City of Mělník), file Spisy (Records), 12 May 1654. Literature: KILIÁN 2011, pp. 161–165. TS
45
The Old Town in Prague, 23 January 1657 Karel Škréta’s daughter Veronika is baptized in the church of St Gallus. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika narozených (Birth Register), 1652–1704, sign. HV N1, p. 69. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 17, 42 (edition); NEUMANN 1974, p. 48; NEUMANN 2000, p. 130.
Anno 1657 23. Januarius Baptizata est filia Veronica domini Caroli Szkreta et Veronicae, civium
Venceslao Jesberoski ex Monte Oliveti, vicescriba Regni Bohemiae et domina Veronica Mazankowa. RT
Veteropragensium, susceptoribus
46
s. l., 20 June 1657 Karel Škréta informs the city council of Mělník that he, after the death of his brother Jan, Doctor of Medicine, in Schaffhausen ascribes one third of the instalments of the claim which he has with the Mělník city council, to the heirs of his brother. Státní okresní archiv Mělník (State Regional Archives of the City of Mělník), Archiv města Mělník (Archives of the City of Mělník), file Spisy (Records), 20 June 1657. Literature: KILIÁN 2011, pp. 161–165. TS EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 291
47
Dresden (Germany), 1657 Karel Škréta, a councillor and an ironmaster were sent out to Dresden as a committee of experts in order to evaluate a metal crucifix originating from the workshop of Hans Hillger which Emperor Leopold I planned to buy and donate for the Charles Bridge as it eventually occurred. Literature: Archive document was not more closely ascertained and not found; NEUMANN 1974, p. 47; SEKYRKA 2011, pp. 147–152. RT
48
The Old Town in Prague, 6 July 1658 Karel Škréta is listed in the leading position among the representatives of the painter’s guild in the Old Town in Prague during the restoration of the city council. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber renovationum – Kniha obnov (The Book of Restorations), 1630–1678, sign. 70, not foliated. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 33.
Starší malíři, sklenáři, krumplíři a řezbáři Karel Škréta Fabián Harovník
Jiří Lambek Nikodém Čížek inspektor pan Fridrich Rašp RT
49
The Old Town in Prague, 23 November 1658 – 3 March 1659 Karel Škréta bears witness in the dispute of Marie Alžběta Prušková against Daniel Jaroměřský of Strohmberg. During the testimonies in 1658 and 1659, the painter concurrently states that he is 48 years old. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber testimoniorum albus, 1654–1660, sign. 1095, f. 73r–89r, 94r–115r. Literature: TIBITANZLOVÁ 2011, pp. 153–160.
že k panu Pruškovi nebo[žtíkovi]
synáčku, však slyším, že se proti
k přečtení jich požádala a které k té
již jde, poněvadž jemu víno sbírati zapověděl, jeho za propuštění žádati a abych s ním šel nahoru k panu
mně radíte… …na žádost paní vdovy [Prušková] jsme spolu šli [as witnesses with Elias
při náleží, s přítelem svým se radila i v nepřítomnosti mé v městech pražských.
Pruškovi. Já pak nechtěl, řkouc, aby sám šel a své věci řídil, neb jsem
Pistorius] v létu 1657 22. junii a to po poledni…
…jest tak, že potkajíce pana Jana Wolfa na plácku u Matky Boží
věděl, proč. Že jak neb[ožtík] pravil, pro neplacení ouroku za několik let, co vinici drží, a že se strojil několi-
…pan David Rafael Prušek měl paní Lidmilu, rozenou Cyrylovou z Konecchlumu, sestřenici vlastní
Sněžné, jemu sem pravil, že pan Jaroměřský upomíná vdovu a při naší přítomnosti pravil, že nic s neb[ož-
též i pan Jaroměřský se tam vynacházel, a shledavše se před domem
kráte to učiniti. ad 4 … což i neb[ožtík] paní
mou… Paní vdova nepotřebuje mě, neb
tíkem] panem Pruškem nemá, než všecko dobré, pravil pan Jan Wolf, že
neb[ožtíku] panu Davidovi Rafaelovi Pruškovi Jeho Milosti císařské rychtáři v městě Mělníce náležejí-
Lidušce, předešlé manželce pana Pruška, jedenkrát, což jsem slyšel, když se k ní [Jaroměřský] oulisně
ví, že má profesí není právní věci říditi, než to, že paní vdova neumějíc čísti, mně některý spisy po neb[ož-
jest tomu tak, na to sem odpověděl, bojím se, že nás paní vdova k svědomí požene, na to odpověděl, že také paní
cím, pan Jaroměřský tu sám povídal,
jměl, řekla, nechte mě pane
tíku] panu manželu jejím pozůstalé
von der Litten z dluhu po neb[ožtíku]
Svědomí ku potřebě paní Marii Alžbětě Pruškový Pan Karel Škréta z Závořic, měštěnín Starého Města pražského, v letech 48, po vykonané přísaze svědčil takto: ad 1. art[ikul]: pravda, že v létu 1656 jsouce na Mělníce k sbírání vína,
292 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
jejím Nydrumovi při komorním soudu upomínal, ona však týž auszug, že v Řezně kupci jednomu z nařčení pana Jaroměřskýho od jejího předešlého pána zaplacen jest, vynašla, a on že co slyšel, že svědčiti bude… Pan Jan Wolf, měštěnín Starého Města pražského při Jeho Milosti císařské královské komoře české koncipista, v letech 40, po vykonané přísaze svědčil takto. …o tom vím, že když pan Jaroměřský s neb[ožtíkem] panem Pruškem v příčině zápovědi sbírání vína začal mluviti, pan Škréta preč do komory šel a potom když přestali, zaše vyšel a řekl, srovnali jste se… …it[em] jednoho času na rynku staroměstským, jak se dobře pamatuji, k panu Škrétovi jsem pravil, pan Jaroměřský chce děditi. Herr Elias Pistorius, Burger der König[lichen] Neuen Stadt Prag, seiner Alters umb 40 Jahr, nach geleisteten gewöhnlichen Zeugenayd, weil er der böhmischen Sprach nit kundig, hat in der Teütschen, auf die ihme in judicio transferirte articulos positionales und interrogatoria außgesaget wie folget. Ist wahr, daß in vergangenen 1657 Jahre Zeüg mit dem Herrn Skreta von der Frau Maria Elisabeth Prusskin erbeten worden, daß sie zue dem Herrn Hanß Bernhart mit iemander gehen und ihr befragen, ob er davon einige Wiesenschaft habe, waß Herr Daniel Jaromirzsky hin und
her, unter den Leüthen redet und außstreüet… …herr Skreta hat den Herrn Hanß Bernhard zue dem Herrn Jaromirzsky
bylo, ano i řetízek, který neb[ožka] Liduška Šmídová na krku měla a jej na kamna pro zachování jeho vyhodila, nalezen a vzat byl, jako i jedno
Pravda, že tu knihu sem sobě půjčenou měl, však nepamatuji, zdaliž sem ji zaše vrátil, neb ji mezi svými knihami nemám. Mohla by státi za
zue schieken darumb gebeten, damit
prostíradlo, kteréž tehdáž vyšívala,
půl tolaru, neb byla stará nýdrland-
er Jaromirzsky solche Wörter und Übele nachreden lieber unterwegen laßen möchte. Ob aber Herr Skreta zue solche begehren von der Frau
vzala a feldzeüchů z něho nadělajíc, ty štercíři vzali, in summa všecko, tak že neb[ožka] nemajíc se do čeho oblécti, sestra má Anýžka jak sukně,
ská historie s kuprštyky některými na nic, že bych je darmo nevzal. Připomínal pan Daniel Jaroměřský o tu knihu, túž odpověď svú sem mu dal:
Prusskin erbeten worden sey oder
kabátku, mantlíku jí půjčiti musela,
a chtějí-li ji míti, nechť ji vynajdou
nit; solchen weys Zeug nit. Waß Herr Jaromirzsky für Reden habe sollen unterwegen laßen, ist damahls von Herrn Skreta nichts specificiret…
aby z domu vyjíti mohla. …mateř paní Ludmily z Konecchlumu možná žena byla a svůj krám otevřený s materiálními
takovou, zaplatím jim ji. …když jsem se dolů [do Mělníka] plavil pro nebezpečnost, tehdy jsouce neb[ožtík] pan Prušek nemocný, jsem
věcmi a barvami u Tří mezků a dům
doktora sebou vzal, vysvědčiti může v pravdě živý plavec Moudrý jménem,
[3 March 1659] Pan Karel Škréta, měštěnín Starého Města pražského, v letech 48:
ten, v kterým nyní pán z Rozkoše bydlí, měla.
…jakož jest urozený pan Daniel Jaroměřský z Stromberku mě ze
Pravda jest, že v létu 1638 neb[ožka] paní Lidmila Prušková jeden hal-
[about the journey to Mělník]
spod podepsaných, abych jemu jisté svědomí k té rozepři, kterou na místě a k ruce Anny manželky své,
sband mně ukazovala … týž halsband po neb[ožce] paní Pruškový zůstal, jest tomu tak, však zastavený a nyní
Jakož sám očitě jsem viděl, přijedouce tam v létu 1638 k velké noci, že tu žádného nedostatku nebylo,
též Daniele Šmída z Miltenberku, dědictví po otci jejich neb[ožtíku] Kundratovi Šmídovi pozůstalého se dotýkající, na jisté artikule dal a řezanou ceduli již dáti 6. feb[rua-
v mých rukou zůstává…
rii] 1659 odsílati dal, tak činím a tuto odpověď a svědomí dávám. Předně to mně povědomo jest, že neb[ožtík] pan Kundrat Šmíd žádný mrhač, neb opilec neb hráč nebyl, jak však v handli svém stál, neb dlužen-li byl, to mně povědomo není a jak jest před vyplundrováním v svých handlích byl, po vyplundrování však, kteréž po slavném vítězství na Bílé Hoře bylo, to sem slýchal, že všecken krám od zboží vyprázdněn, jako i nahoře v komorách vydrancováno a pobráno, na fasuňky naládováno
míti sobě pokládá, anebo aby mu pokoj dal a mezi lidmi ho nepomlouval, že by mu bylo od vrchnosti poručeno, odpovídal a jemu etc. sem dlužen, co se mám původem dělati malý, co proti mně, nechť toho vyhledává, jak náleží, ten lhář, partytář etc., žeť on tu mou Lidušku k pláči přivede, kdy chce, říkával, též medle nevnaďte jich k sobě, však jsou falešný.
mně také [Prušek] na přivítání prsten s turkusem daroval a tomu oba manželé chtěli, abych při nich zůstal, že již v letech jsou a děti že nemají, kterým by co nechati měli, mně také k potřebě mé sto kop půjčili, kteréž jsem zas toho roku, dostavše od obce šest sudů vína, čtyrmi sudy zaplatil.
Pravda jest, že jsem panu Pruškovi říkával, aby pana Jaroměřskýho obeslati dal, aby buď ukázal, co na něm
aniž jsem co od vody vynášeti pomáhal, aneb jiného sebou vezl.
…pravda jest, že paní mateř neb[ožky] paní Lidmily Pruškové nuzná nebyla a až do smrti z hotového živa byla, že z země pro náboženství vyšla, v Torgavě, potom v Lipsku živa byla, takže všeho neprotravila… RT
50
Prague, 23 May 1659 Karel Škréta informs the Bohemian Chamber about a house in Mělník being unlawfully used by the imperial magistrate, and seeks the rendition of the house from the emperor as an instalment of the 1300 Meissen three-scores, donated by Emperor Rudolf II to Škréta’s father. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), sign. S 162/24, Inv. No. 3280, box 2251, f. 16 and 19. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 47.
Milostiví páni páni, jakou milostivou dekratací jste
poručiti učiniti, pro připomenutí vejpis takové přikládám, poníženě a po-
vynachází se jeden dům, kterýž od držitelův vlastních buď pro nábo-
dědicové, co mně toliko povědomé jest, přes 20 let žádný se k témuž
ráčili na mé ponížené 13. tohoto měsíce máji přednesení a ohlášení
slušně děkujíce, tuto zprávu dávám. Že v městě Mělníce nad Labem
žentví, neb jinou příčinu opuštěný, takže držitelové předešlí ani jejich
domu neohlašuje. Z toho následuje, že se žádný více, který by dědičně
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 293
na něm co vyhledávati měl, nevynachází, a tak právem odoumrtním na Jeho Milost císařskou jakožto krále českého a pána země, připadá. Před 20 lety však jsouce nynější Jeho Milosti císařské pan rychtář Jakub Hamacyus purkmistrovským služebníkem, jest týž dům k obyvu od kohokoliv z ouřadu jemu propůjčen, však dokonale kněhami městskými, neb nějakým kontraktem, neb za ňákou směnu, není postoupen, v kterémž až posavad nadepsaný Jeho Milosti císařské pan rychtář přebývá
a jej zaplacený, ani právně postoupený od žádného nemá. I poněvadž týž dům od pravých držitelův opuštěn a v tolika létech žádný z nich neb dědiců jich se na něj neptá a nepotahuje, následuje, že žádný víceji, který by dědičně k němu náležel, se nevynachází, a Jeho Milosti císařské pan rychtář jej sobě právně od žádného postoupený nemá, takže vlastně právem odoumrtním Jeho Milosti císařské připadá a slavná komora česká o takovém nic věděti nemohla, míněji komu zadala. Pročež Vašich Milostí
poníženě žádám, že to při panu purkmistru a radě téhož města Mělníka,
Vašich Milostí poníženě poslušný Karel Škréta
aby oni ten jmenovaný dům skrze řemeslníky shlídnouti a prošacovati dali a Jeho Milosti císařské pana rych-
[on the tergo:] Sernetur až zpráva od ouřadu mělnic-
táře aby z užívání také vedle uznání práv byl, k tomu přidrželi, milostivě
kého přijde. [Attached is the copy of the Empe-
nařídili a takový dům, zač by oznán, i v tolika letech užívání, mně vedle milostivého zakázání na porážku této
ror Rudolf II’s donation to Kundrat Škréta in the amount of 1300 three-scores, dated 10 July 1607.]
přiložené praetenci mé, užíti popřáti milostivě ráčíte. V čemž se Vašem
TS
Milostem k skutečnému nařízení poručena činím a zůstávám.
51
The Old Town in Prague, 13 June 1659 The son of Karel Škréta, Antonín, was baptized in the church of St Gallus. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika narozených (Birth Register), 1652–1704, sign. HV N1, p. 95. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 42 (edition); BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 10; NEUMANN 1974, p. 48; NEUMANN 2000, p. 130.
Anno 1659 13. junii Baptizat[us] est Antoni[us] Caroli Skretae et Veronicae filius legitim[us], patrini dominus
Antoni[us] de Bossi, Antoni[us] Stephan[us] Steinschneider [!], Anna Klobizowa. RT
52
s. l., 25 June 1659 Karel Škréta reminds the city council of Mělník to pay off the debt in the amount of 100 groschen which he lent to the city in 1653. Státní okresní archiv Mělník (State Regional Archives of the City of Mělník), Archiv města Mělník (Archives of the City of Mělník), file Spisy (Records), 25 June 1659. Literature: KILIÁN 2011, pp. 161–165. TS
53
(Prague), (before 2 September 1659) Karel Škréta repeats his previous request of 23 May 1659, addressed to the Bohemian Chamber in the matter of the house in Mělník being unlawfully used by a local imperial magistrate. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. S 162/24, Inv. No. 3280, box 2251, f. 20, 21. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Milostiví páni páni, jistou zprávu mám, že pan purk-
Labem v příčině domu, v němž Jeho Milosti císařský rychtář přebývá a na
však od Vašich Milostí na porážku mé praetensí milostivě jminulého
mistr a konšelé města Mělníka nad
Jeho Milost císaře připadlého, mně
15. mai zakázaného, jednu i druhou
294 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
zprávu Vašim Milostem jsou dali. Poněvadž se jinak nenaději, než
poníženě prosím, že tu věc sobě přednésti dal a milostivě resolvíro-
a zůstávám Vašich Milostí poníženě poslušný
že tak a nejinač, jak jsem tu věc 23. mai léta tohoto přednesl a se
vati ráčíte. V čemž se Vašem Milostem poníženě a poslušně poroučím
Karel Škréta TS
vynachází. Pročež Vašich Milostí
54
The Old Town in Prague, 23 September 1659 Karel Škréta is a witness at the wedding of Daniel Wussin in the church of St Stephen in the New Town in Prague. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Stephen, file Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1641–1663, sign. ŠT O1, f. 81v. Literature: PODLAHA 1916, p. 256.
Potvrzení svatého manželství Poctivý mládenec Danihel Wusin, rodilý z Kraczu a Štajermarku s poctivou pannou Kateřinou, pozůstalou dcerou po nebožtíkovi panu Baltazarovi Putlerovi, m[ěšťanu] Nového Města pražského. V přítomnosti
pana družby Felixa Krapfle, pana
m[ěšťanky] Nového Města pražského,
Karla Škréty, měšťana Starého Měšťana pražského, pana Matyáše Webnera, měštěnína Menšího Města
urozené panny Kateřiny Wejvarovské, m[ěšťanky] Nového Města pražského. RT
pražského, pana Jana Jiřího Benera, měštěnína Menšího Města pražského, urozené panny Anny Dobšický,
55
s. l., 9 November 1659 Karel Škréta repeatedly reminds the city council of Mělník to pay off the debt to him in the amount of 100 three-scores of groschen which he lent to the city in 1653. Státní okresní archiv Mělník (State Regional Archives of the City of Mělník), Archiv města Mělník (Archives of the City of Mělník), file Spisy (Records), 9 November 1659. Literature: KILIÁN 2011, pp. 161–165. TS
56
(Prague), 16 September 1660 Karel Škréta warns the Bohemian Chamber that the list of creditors of the city of Mělník, addressed to the Imperial Office in 1653, mistakenly omits the creditor Kristián Uzlar whose debts were to be passed on the ruler. The Mělník officials thus concealed a debt in the amount of 9500 three-scores. Škréta requests a reinvestigation of the matter and informs the Chamber that he would seek the reimbursement of his claim. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. S 212/1, box 870. Literature: Tomáš Sekyrka, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.23, p. 602.
Milostiví páni páni, že jste ráčili mé přednešení milosti-
a královské komoře nepovědomý a až posavad nežádaný jest, že odtud žád-
13. septembris anno 1660, zacož Vaše Excelence a Milostem poslušně
vou resolucí dekretýrovati, že pokudž dotknutý prostředek extraordinární
ného na praetensi svou výkazu užíti mám ex consilio Camerae Bohemiae
děkuji. Prostředky pak tyto jsou a fundament, že na Jeho Milost
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 295
císařskou právem pokutním přichází, takový jest, že pan p[urkmistr] a páni města Mělníka nad Labem v létu 1653 dadouce na kancelář Jeho Milosti císařské na Hradě pražském poznamenání dluhů svých od obce rozdílným lidem povinných, mezi jinými věřiteli vypustili Krystiana Uslara jako podobným způsobem nyní při comissi tractationis mezi městy a věřiteli jejich totéž se stalo, ani jeho věřitele svého aneb dědice jeho skrze psaní jako jiné věřitele k té komisi necitovali, ani on Krystian Uslar neb dědicové jak při Jeho Milosti císařské kanceláři, tak také při comissi tractationis se neohlásil a neohlásili. Oni pak páni mělničtí
kdy ohlašovati a jich upomínati. I jestli jest on Krystian Uslar pro své delictum zbavení své praetensi
Mělník 700 kop grošů sv. Jiří 1622 Mělník 1000 kop grošů Nové léto 1621 Mělník 200 kop grošů sv. Jiří 1614
[on the tergo:] Suplikujícímu oznámiti, poněvadž jest někdy Eva Uzlarová nade vším
zasloužil, to ne na debitorovi jeho, než na Jeho Milost císařskou při-
Mělník 500 kop grošů sv. Jiří 1610 Záduší Mělník na vyplacení dvora
a všelijakým statkem svým mohovitým i nemohovitým té času své léta
padá. A že tomu tak jest (bez dání Vaší Excelenci a Milostem jaké vyměření) račte moci příkré poru-
300 kop grošů 1613 — 9550 kop grošů
1628 emigraci někdy pana Filipa Fabriciusa z Hohenfeld za plnomocníka, tak jakž se toho
čení o zprávu k Jeho Milosti císařské rychtáři Jakubovi Hamaciusovi
Ouroku na tuž sumu se kvitancími věřitelů svých likvidýrovati nebudou
zpráva činí, zřídila, tehdy že královská
a panu purkmistru a radě na Vaši Excellenci Milosti pravdivě zpravili poručiti učiniti.
moci. Co by pak z těchto prostředků na zaplacení praetensi své sobě vybrati měl, o tom dáleji se vyjeviti
Praetensi pak téhož Uslara jsou tyto:
nepominu. S tím se Vašim Excellencím
Nové Město Pražské 1000 kop grošů o sv. Jiří 1610 Nové Město Pražské 1000 kop grošů.
a Milostem poroučím. Vaší Excelenci a Milosti hotově poslušný
o sv. Jiří 1612 Nové Město Pražské 500 kop grošů
Karel Škréta mp.
domy spoliroval, za mnoho tisíc jak vína, tak jiných věcí z města vyvezl,
Jubilate 1618 Nové Město Pražské 1000 kop grošů sv. Havla 1618
Praes[entum] 16. septem[bri] 1660 Jeho Milosti Císařské etc. Jeho Excelenci panu panu presi-
k císařskému obrazu a erbu střílel a sobě nenáležitě počínal a vedl, jeho páni mělničtí proto kondemnýrují a sumu jemu povinnou sobě přivlastňují. On pak z druhé strany ex diffidentia causae se ostýchal
Nové Město Pražské 350 kop grošů sv. Jiljí 1620 Nové Město Pražské 2000 kop grošů sv. Havla 1618 Český Brod 1000 kop grošů 3. junii 1622
takový dluh zamlčeli z té příčiny, že týž Krystian Uslar při vpádu kurfirsta saského, byvši na Mělníce, že
dentu a pánům pánům radám zřízené komory v Království českém, pánům pánům mně milostivým poslušné ohlášení
57
(Prague), 4 October 1660 The response of Michael Gabriel Matthaeides of Sonnenstral, an official of the Old Town in Prague, to the reproval to his work between 1653 and 1655, concerning the collection of charges of wine imported to Prague for tapping. Archiv Národního muzea (National Museum Archives), Sbírka (Collection) F, Inv. No. 169, Old Town in Prague, file věci obecní i soukromé (Community and Private Matters), 1645–1670, box 132. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Replika
purkmistrského vynáší z počtů léta
proti odpovědi paní Rosiny Ludomilly
1653 u příjmu
Wernerové, kterou jest ona na nedostatky z počtův obecních nebožtíka pana Balthazara Bernarda Wernera
Art. 3 dle opáčených register ouředních propuštěno k šenku
staršího z Beyerspergu pana manžela svého, a to za léta 1653, 1654 a ¼ 1655
… 31. dito [října] panu Karlovi Škrétovi
puštěného … 36 zlatých, 58 kejcarů, 4 denáry. …
složila
vína mělnického 12 [věder]⁴ …
Actum v puchhalteriji Starého Města pražského 4. octobris anno 1660.
9. novembris panu Karlovi Škrétovi vína mělnického 6 [věder]⁵ …
Michael Gabriel Matthaeides z Sonnenstralu TS
1653 … 1654 a ¼ 1655 … Další nedostatkové, kteří se tak při konfrontýrování register
Z každého vědra po 21 krejcarech, 2 denárech počítajíc, vynáší cla
obecních proti registrám vin-
na penězích 201 zlatých, 14 krejcarů, 4 denáry. …
ným ouřadu Jeho Milosti císařské
Z počtů léta 1654
296 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
U příjmu … 31. dito [decembris] od pana Škréty z 104 věder vína českého k šenku pro-
4 Hogshead – old Bohemian measure of capacity, 1 hogshead = 56.6 litres. Twelve hogsheads is thus 679.2 litres. 5 Six hogsheads are 339.6 litres.
komora česká viděti nemůže, vedle čeho by ty od obce mělnické zapsané posty, ač na osobu její vedené, právem fiskálním aficírované býti měly. Ex cons[ilio] Cam[erae] Boh[emiae] Pragae 26. augusti 1661. Vyhledati spisy strany pozůstalosti Uslarovské. TS
58
The Old Town in Prague, 14 October 1660 Karel Škréta gives evidence in favour of Jiří Adalbert Pruina of Marpach in the dispute of the latter with Kateřina Emílie Řečická, born Florinová of Lambštejn, for the inheritance from Silvestr Florin of Lambštejn. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber testimoniorum 27, 1658–1664, sign. 1076, f. 210v–230v. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 111; TIBITANZLOVÁ 2011, pp. 153–160.
Svědomí ku potřebě pana Jiříka Adalberta Pruiny z Marpachu, měště-
a přátelích, dům pak ten na Šmerhově řečený po strejci mém Jiříkovi
manželka jeho, sestra vlastní paní Kateřiny, pošla od mateře, která
nína Starého Města praž[ského] proti paní Kateřině Emilii Řečické, rozené Florinové z Lambštejna, též měš-
Škrétovi, manželu jejím, společným zadáním zdědila. 27 to od nebožky sem slyšel, že když
strejce mého krevního za manžela měla před otcem manželky jeho, pravda jest.
těnínce Starého Města praž[ského], kdež činiti jest, v příčině odporu
se pro náboženství ven strojila, tehdy že dům šmerhovský Jeho Milosti
…To jest povědomé, že mnoho let v službě nebožtíka pana nejvyš-
kšaftu neb[ožtíka] pana Silvestra Flo-
císařské panu hraběti z Valdštejna postoupila, dále nevím.
šího purkrabí Adama z Valdštejna za sekretáře byl a potom vrchním písařem při ouřadě nej[vyššího] purkrab[-
[as concerns Silvestr Florian of Lambštejn] 31 pravil mně sám jedenkrát, že každý den na dukát přichází. 32 nevím, co zachoval a proč nezachoval, ovšem kdyby spořil, byl by zachoval. 33 někdy sem bejval a skleničku vína s ním vypil, i také za mé peníze. 34 nevím, než že rád lidi viděl a s nimi poseděl. …Blízkost jest taková, že nebožka
ství] pražského, co platu měl, nevím, než vrchním písařem jsouce, mně jedenkráte pravil, že přijde na dukát za den … měl rád lidi u sebe, jakož sem sám někdy skleničku vína s ním vypil, utratil-li svou službu, nevím. RT
rina z Lambštejna při právě tohoto Starého Města pražského registry vedené. 14. octob[ri] a[nno] 1660 Testis 3, pan Karel Škréta Šotnovský z Závořic, měštěnín Starého Města pražského na artikule positio pana Jiřího Adalberta Pruiny z Marpachu examinován, svědčil takto: Ad 19, 20 není mně povědomé jináče, než že neb[ožka] Voršila Florinová nětco po rodičích svých
59
(Prague), 1 August 1661 The Bohemian Court Chamber reminds Countess Dorotte Ryvarová in the matter of paying off the debt to the benefit of Karel Škréta. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. R 56/1, box 745. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
[office note:]
z příležitýho suplikujícího spisu porozumíváme, tomu se od vás až
Spokojení v dluhu Karla Škréty za malování pocházející
posavad zadosti nestalo, protož týmž jménem a na místě Jeho Milosti císařské ještě jednou a již nakonec
Paní Dorotě Františce hraběnce Ryvarové
vám poroučíme, abyste dle předešlého nařízení našeho skutečně
V paměti snášeti budete, kterak jsme jménem a na místě Jeho Milosti císařské krále a pána nám
zachovati a dotčeného Škrétu v tom od něho praetendirovaném dluhu bez všelijakých dalších odkladův spokojiti a nás tím více zbytečně zaná-
všem nejmilostivějšího při vás to, abyste Karla Škrétu v jistém jemu
šeti nedopouštěli. Pakli
za práci jeho povinném dluhu spokojiti, anebo, pokudž byste co proti žádosti jeho měli, nám odpověď vaši
byste proti tomu co podstatného za obranu měli, tehdy nám touž odpověď vaši s navrácením těch vám v té
co nejdříve odeslati hleděli, dosta-
příčině komunicírovaných spisův na Jeho Milosti císařskou kancelář
tečně neučinili. I poněvadž, jakž
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 297
českou co nejdříve odeslati nepomíjeli. Dán 8. augusti 1661. TS
60
The Old Town in Prague, 1661 The dispute of the painter’s guild, concerning the disposal of the canopy of the St Lucas altarpiece in the church of Our Lady before Týn. Archiv Národní galerie v Praze (Archives of the National Gallery in Prague), fund Pražská malířská bratrstva (Prague Painter’s Confraternities), file Akta o cechovním oltáři sv. Lukáše v Týnském chrámu (Files on the Guild Altarpiece of St Lucas in the Týn church), 1650–1779, Acquisition No. AA 1220. Literature: PAŽOUT 1874, p. 814; KUCHYNKA 1915, pp. 27–28; KUCHYNKA 1919, pp. 21–22; NEUMANN 1974, pp. 115–117; OUTRATA 1986, pp. 161–162; ŠRONĚK 1996, p. 105; Radka Tibitanzlová, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.22, p. 601.
Urozené a statečné vladyky, slovutné
dotvrzení Vaší Milosti příležitě in
ještě také netoliko příležející extrakt
napsaný vyjevuje a ukazuje. Jakož pak
a mnohovzáctné poctivosti Vaše Milosti pane purkmistře a páni radní,
forma probante předkládáme sub n[umero] 1 extrakt z konfirmací privi-
sub n[umero] 4 řádu a artikulův od Vaší Milosti vzáctných překův [!] pana
pro tím patrnější spatření toho všeho abris téhož stavení teď sub n[umero]
páni nám laskavě náchylní, jakož jste po přečtení od Jich Excel[encí] a Mi-
legií od slavné paměti Jeho Milosti císařské a královské Ferdinan-
purkmistra a pánů Starého a Menšího měst pražských témuž pořádku
5 se přikládá. A k tomu přistupuje dáleji i to, že by vše v létu jminulém
lostí královských pánův místodržících v Království tomto českém na poručené vznešení a žádost v příčině nebo-
da I. v létu 1562 a tak téměř již před 100 lety týmž předkům našim udělené, v kteréžto konfirmaci Jeho Milosti
našemu v létu 1598 vydaných, v kterých opěty to patrně doloženo se nachází, že jsou podobně již tehdejší-
1621 od Jeho Milosti císařské slavné a svaté paměti císaře Ferdinanda II. jistí páni komisaři k reformíro-
ření oltáře našeho v kostele Blahoslavené Panny Marie Matky Boží před Tejnem a starožitného stavení neboližto portálu nad týmž oltářem se nacházejícího a ním spojeného, Jich Excel[ence] a Milosti od nás 5. aprilis léta přítomného podanou k Vaší Milosti pod datum 25. téhož měsíce prošlé dekretací při nás to, abychme Vaší Milosti dostatečnou zprávu naši a podstatu práva k témuž oltáři majícího přednésti hleděli, naříditi ráčili. Vedle takového Vaší Milosti nařízení v náležité šetrné uctivosti tak činíme a (však z ohledu toho, že pořádek náš ve všech těchto slavných třech městech pražských od starodávna v jedné spojený zůstává, práva a interese pana p[urkmistra] a pánů Nového
císařské patrně dokládati a vysvědčovati ráčí, že jsou již tehdáž dotčení předkové naši malíři ze všech třech měst pražských oltář u Matky Boží před Tejnem v Starém Městě pražském měli a toho NB podle privilegium jim daného společně užívali, přikazujíce, aby při témž oltáři, jakožto NB od starodávna bejvalo, na budoucí časy neporušitedlně zachovaní byli. It[em] sub n[umero] 2 podobný extrakt listu od Jeho Milosti císařské Rudolfa toho jména druhého římského císaře, kdež Jeho Milosti císařské potvrzujíce tolikéž milostivě týmž předkům našim všechna privilegia a obdarování jich na teď dotčenou konfirmaci Jeho Milosti císařské Ferdinanda I. se potahovati a dáleji při-
ho času takovou milost a obdarování na týž oltář majíce tehdejší předkové naši od předkův svejch až do téhož času z milosti boží dochovanou měli, tím víceji utvrzuje, alébrž také čím by tak tíž předkové naši proti vykonávání při témž oltáři služeb božích na den památky sv. Lukáše patrona našeho panu faráři, žákovstvu, varhaníku a zvoníkovi povinni býti měli, to zřetedlně vyměřuje. Neméně ukazují patrně často dotčené právo k témuž oltáři pořádku našemu náležející erbové a štítové pořádku našeho, totiž umění malířského, též řemesle sklenářského, zlatotepeckého a krumplířského na portálu neboližto klenutí nad týmž oltářem a stavení při něm se nacházející, kteřížto erbové a štíto-
vání téhož kostela Matky Boží před Tejnem a co by tak v něm proti svaté a samospasitedlné víře římské katolické se nacházelo, toho k zrušení a vyvržení nařízeni, ačkoliv táž komisí tak horlivě a přísně konaná byla a řízená byla, až i některé věci na milostivé Jeho Milosti císařské poručení zase v svá místa postavené býti musely, však nenalezevše tíž páni komisaři při témž oltáři našem a portálu jeho nic takového, co by proti řádu a církve svaté katolické čelilo, toho jsou v své podstatě a způsobu zanechali, což by sice jináče nikoliv pominuto nebylo. Aniž také může od koho rozumného a antiquitatuum neboližto starožitných věcí a památek milovníka řečeno býti, že by týž oltář
a Menšího měst pražských, jak dalece by to vzáctným ouřadům týchž měst tu příslušeti mohlo, v nitčemž neumenšujíce) Vaší Milosti tuto gruntov-
tom i to, že jsou již opáčení předkové naši od slavné paměti krále Ludvíka na týž oltář obdarování sobě udělené měli a týž Jeho Milost císař Ferdi-
vé ne teprvá nynějších časův na témž portálu postaveni jsou, alébrž od starodávna se na něm nacházejí, jakož pak i nápis okolo téhož stavení
a stavení nad ním a okolo něho se nacházející k jaké ohyzdě byl, neb totéž stavení vlastně starobylá památka jest a takové antiquitates bez
ní a pravdivou zprávu naši přednáší-
nand I. jim téhož listu a obdarování
a oltáře při obnovení jeho (kteréž
toho v chrámích Páně pilně pozoro-
me, totiž, že majíce sobě od slavných a svatých pamětí císařův římských a králův českých předkové naši pořád-
krále Ludvíka že jest potvrditi ráčil, patrně dokládati a vysvědčovati ráčí. List pak téhož Jeho Milosti krále Lud-
podobně ne pokoutně, alébrž zřejmě a zjevně v létu dávno jminulém 1604 učiněno jest) titul téhož oltáře a že
vané a pohledávané bývají, neb tehdáž když to stavení bylo, takový způsob architektury se zachovával
kův umění malířského a řemesel sklenářského, krumplířského a jiných k nim přivtělených na týž vejš připo-
víka teď sub n[umero] 3 přiložený de dato v středu velikonoční léta 1523, kterýž sice jinší privilegia dotčeného
ten ke cti a chvále Kristu Pánu a sv. Lukáši a pospolu 3 evangelistů Páně (nikoliv však ke cti nějakého
a užíval a to se architektura gothica jmenuje, kteráž trvala několik set let až do architekt[ury] Michaelis Angeli
menutý oltář rozličná milostivá obdarování a privilegia daná a potvrze-
pořádku našeho potvrzuje, ukazuje zase na jinší starodávný listy a obda-
Rokycanského a že by ňáké statuae na témž stavení býti měly, jakž by
Bonarote, kterýž poslézeji zase pravou a za starých Římanů užívanou
ná, téhož oltáře jsou s dotčeným jeho příslušenstvím od starých a dávných věkův jakž týž předkové naši, tak i my
rování, kteříž nám od předkův téhož Jeho Milost krále Ludvíka dané byly, vysvědčujíce, že jest obzvláštně Jeho
k ošklivení našemu při vrchnosti milostivé taková příčina zboření téhož portálu nedůvodně předstíraná
architekturu grecam vyzdvihl a táž se od toho času až posavad užívá. Mnohem pak méněji může řečeno
po nich až dosavad vždycky a beze vší překážky (jakž Vaší Milosti samým
Milost císař Karel též pořádek s vlastními milostmi a svobodami obdaro-
býti chtěla, an kdyby toho potřeba ukazovala, i to by se, že týž Rokycan-
býti, že by též stavení v cestě na překážku aneb k jakému zastínění bylo,
i sice vůbec to dobře známo a vědomo jest) v takovém právě držení a užívání téhož oltáře k službám božím zů-
vati ráčil a že jsou předkové naši takové obdarování tehdáž již NB od starodávna měli. Kteréžto tak staro-
ský ne při témž našem oltáři, ale kde jinde položen byl, vynajíti mohlo) tak jak se nachází, vyzdvižen a poslézeji
neb toho ničehož se nenachází. Že pak týž oltář náš v způsobu s jinými oltáři v témž chrámě Páně se nesrov-
stávali. Čehož pro tím lepší
bylé právo naše k témuž oltáři dáleji
znovu ozdoben jest zlatými literami,
nává a jakožto náš také by se skvěti
298 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
měl, v tom nám vina přičítána býti nemůže, neb chtějíce my před někte-
všeho ten nevyvratitedlný gruntovní důvod následuje, že právo k často
nadání a milosti od Jich Mi[lostí] císařův římských a králův českých
sklenářského, krumplířského a jiní k němu přivtělení společně.
rými lety pořádek náš v čas těch trvajících vojenských časův velmi skleslý
připomenutému oltáři od slavné a svaté paměti císaře Karla pocházejí-
pořádku našemu udělené a při nich od tak dávných let milostivě zanecha-
[on the reverse]:
zase vyzdvihnouti a v řád uvésti, kdež by vše především o to, co by k většímu vzdělání, cti a chvále Boží též pobož-
cí při starodávném pořádku našem již takměř tři sta let trvá a týž pořádek náš jak téhož práva, tak i dotčeného
ný z obzvláštního uvážení toho, že se při nás žádné prohřešení, neb provinění, pro který by takové právo naše
Prae[sentum] 28. junii a[nno] 1661
nosti náleželo, jednáno a kdo by co k témuž oltáři našemu pro okrášlení
oltáře ve všem tom způsobu, jakž se až posavad nachází, bez přetržení, též
starodávný nám odňato býti mohlo, nenachází, že vždy dále při tom všem
slovutné a mnohovzáctné poctivosti panu purkmistru a pánům radním
jeho učiniti měl, rozvrženo, nětco také již zhotoveno. Tu v to taková překážka přišla, že jsou řezbáři z dob-
bez všelijaké překážky vždy stalé, v pokojném držení a užívání až do času přítomného zůstává a přitom
neporušitedlně zanecháni a přichráněni budeme a na čí koliv při vrchnosti milostivé zvláštního snad toliko
tohoto slavného Starého Města pražského, pánům k nám laskavě náchylným šetrná zpráva.
rého řádu vykračujíce statutis od Vaší Milosti nám vydaných poddaní býti
nic takového, co by proti víře svatořímské katolické čeliti, neb ku pohor-
oblíbení a žádosti s nedůvodným ošklivením nás toho pohledávání,
Nr. 5:
nechtěli, Vaší Milosti proti nám spisy podali, z čehož potom formální soud pošel a ten na šest let trvajíce, na
šení, ohyzdě, aneb jaké překážce téhož chrámu Páně býti mělo a to k nápravě přivedeno býti nemohlo,
nám to mocně a bezprávně odňato nebude, v té pevné a neomylné naději zůstáváme. A tak přikládajíce k tomu
Grunt portálu neb tabernaculi, pod kterými oltář jest
apelaci Jeho Milosti císařské již od 3 léta zůstával. Nyní pak na publiková-
se nevynachází. V vejš alegírovaných privilejích našich také od Jich císař-
tolikéž Vaší Milosti jakožto představené vrchnosti měšťanův k nám a spra-
A oltář neb kámen oltářní B pilíř, v němž oltář zazděný
ní konfirmací neb reformací Vaší Milosti vejpovědi pozůstává, takže ty prostředky, kteréž na dotčený oltář
ských a královských Milostí jak při všech vrchnostech a páních, obyvatelích Království tohoto generaliter to,
vedlnosti mající náchylnost a lásku, s touž důvěrností a ujištěním Vaší Milosti ve vší šetrné uctivosti prosí-
C vrchní stupeň při oltáři D prostřední stupeň, v němž díry E třetí nejdolejší stupeň, v němž
náš obrácené býti měly, na dvojí soud
abychme při takových obdarováních
me, že zprávou svou v té příčině Jich
zadní sloupy tabernaculi zazděné
s týmiž řezbáři, jakž při právě tohoto Starého, tak podobně Menšího Města pražského vynaložené býti musely a vyšly. Nicméně však služby Boží při témž oltáři našem od starodávna vystavené a nařízené, jak prve za časů předešlých, tak i pod týmž trvajícím soudem, bez umenšení se konají, ku kterýmž od nás páni faráři žákovstvu, varhaníku a zvoníkovi netoliko to, co dle znění vejš alegírovaných statut a artikulův od Vaší Milosti nám daných vyměřeno jest, ale mnohem víceji každoročně dávati a platiti se přichází, jakž z příležejícího poznamenání toho sub n[umero] 6 to spatřiti ráčíte. A poněvadž pak z toho ze
a často opáčeném oltáři našem neproměnitedlně zachovaní byli, nařízeno jest, ale také rozličné instrukcí od Jeho Milosti císařské a královské Vaší Milosti dané, kteréž v sobě obsahují, že Vaší Milosti nad cechy, řemesly a pořádky ruku držeti a v čem by který pořádek jakou stížnost měl a na Vaši Milost to vznesl, v tom je, aby Jeho Milosti císařské o to zaneprazdňován býti neráčil, náležitě opatrovati přísluší, ano i práva městská Království tohoto cestu a outočiště při Vaší Milosti k pohledávání nám ukazují a vystavují. Pročež spolíhajíce se my v případnosti této na vejš přiložené posavad pevné a neporušitedlné
Excel[encím] a Milostem královským pánům místodržícím učiněnou za nás v tom, aby taková antiquitas a nákladné stavení často jmenovaný oltář náš tak, jakž od starodávna až posavad zůstával, dáleji vždy na budoucí časy v své celosti zanechán a my, též budoucí potomci naši, při právě a pokojném držení jeho bez překážky jednoho každého člověka zůstaveni a zachováni byli, platně se přimlouvati, i také dále k laskavé a pevné ochraně sobě nás poručené míti ráčíte. V čemž se Vaší Milosti poroučejíce zůstáváme. Vaší Milosti šetrně poslušní starší pořádku umění malířského, řemesla
jsou F čtyry sloupy tabernaculi, kteréž klenutí z kamenné ražby nesou G železo, který skrze pilíř, v němž oltář zazděný jest, jde H prampouch od jednoho sloupu k druhému jdoucí a vprostřed na pilíři odpočívající, v kterýmž též oltář vzděný jest J jiné železa, které sloupy tabernaculi v hromadě drží K mřížka dřevěná L zídka zároveň s vrchním stupněm, kteráž též jeden sloup v sebe pojímá, však díl prkny od vrchního stupně přikrytá jest. RT
Urozeným a statečným vladykám,
61
The Old Town in Prague, 1662–1663 The dispute concerning the verbal assault of Karel Škréta from the side of Daniel Jaroměřský. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber testimoniorum 27, 1658–1664, sign. 1076, f. 344r–352v. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 112.
Svědomí ku potřebě Daniela Střelce, měštěnína a radního v městě Měl-
Danielovi Jaroměřskému z Strombergku, radnímu Starého Města
…mohu na svý dobrý svědomí vzíti, že sem to od pana Jaroměřského, aby to
i co toho mluviti se mělo, nemohu se s dobrým svědomím nic o tom pama-
níce nad Labem a Jana Motyčky, v službě zůstávajícího u paní Marie Alžběty Pruškové, vdovy na Měl-
pražského. Svědčí pan Daniel Jedlička, svíčník a měštěnín Starého Města pražského,
o panu Škrétovi mluviti měl, dokonce nic neslyšel a nevím, nebo ode mě nikdy bez dobrého snídaní aneb vobědu
tovati, ale jednoho času to jest pravil pan Jaroměřský, však také nepamatuji se, zdali bylo u mě doma, neb na
níce, z strany poctivosti proti
v letech 38:
páni mělničtí neodešli, nýbrž vždycky s dobrým truňkem, takže kdyby
hospodě a taky nevím, zdali ten čas neb předtím bylo, že pan Škréta ty
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 299
mělnický dobře šidí a příčinou toho jest, že paní Prušková s panem Jaro-
měštěnín Nového Města pražského, v letech 42:
pánům mělnickým mluvil, tak tuze spolu mluvili, jako by se vadili, kři-
v Království českém v létu 1659 se nacházeli…
měřským se soudí a že všechno po ní děditi chce … já sem pana Jaroměř-
…potkavši mě pan Jaroměřský v Celetné ulici náhodů, povídal sem
…to jest pravda, že jsou byli všichni při dobrém rauši…
skýho tam u Píseckých asi po třikráte viděl, že s pány mělnickými mluvil, ale aby o panu Škrétovi co neslušného
mu, že pan Škréta u mě byl a mě se dotazoval, zdali mně hanění od pana Jaroměřskýho povědomo není, já
čeli, to sem zaslejchla, právě když sem tehdáž do kuchyně šla, že jest pan Jaroměřský mluvil “ten malíříček,”
mluvil, to sem já neslyšel … pan Jaroměřský co zlého o panu Škrétovi aneb
odpověděl, že o ničemž nevím.
o ňákým lidu nepřátelským, který by v létu 1659 v Království českým býti měl, mluvil.
[11 August 1662] Svědčí Ludmila Štangová, měštěnínka Nového Města pražského,
…já se s panem Škrétou neshledávám, také sem nic od něho neslyšel,
v letech asi 50: [owner of the pub At the Píseckýs’]
aby co o panu Jaroměřským mluviti měl, mimo asi dvakrát, za jinší příčinou byvši v domě jeho pana Škréty,
…když páni mělničtí měli odsud do Mělníka jeti, tehdy se spolu u mě v hospodě zastavili a truňk vína v síni
od něho i od jeho manželky sem slyšel, že na Mělníci všecko podvodníci
sobě dáti dali, ani nesedli … já sem tak na to pilně, co sou mezi sebou
…jakou danou sobě příčinu měl, aneb od koho že o panu Škrétovi co
a lháři jsou, ale to se pana Jaroměřskýho nic nedotýkalo…
mluvili, pozoru nedala, když sem jim vína přinesla, tehdy sem zase od nich po své práci odešla, než to se něco
zlého mluviti měl, to já nevím, ani mínil-li jest jeho, když o tom penz-
[7 August 1662]
pamatuji, že pan Jaroměřský o nia-
Svědčí Václav Štang z Labětína,
kém penzlichu a malování tuze k těm
však jednoho pro druhého nebylo slyšet. Co dál bylo, abyť něco toho dále
…já sem od něho pana Škréty, ani jeho paní manželky, ani od jiného, aby jeho pana Jaroměřskýho v čem
mluveno bylo, tehdy toho v tom čase nepamatuji … neb mnohokráte opilý člověk [?] mluví a potom se za to stříz-
pomlouvati měl, nic neslyšela, také sem s panem Škrétou nikdy nemlu-
livý stydí a já raději odtud hned jdu, nebo toho nerada slyším.
nou viděla s mým mužem, když o toto svědomí s ním mluvil a dnes podruhé před kanceláří.
…ale s ním [Jaroměřským] nemluvila, já sem nic jinšího neslyšela, než o nějakém penzlíku a malování a někomu že nadával malíříčků a to se dobře pamatuji…
vila, ani s paní jeho, jen co sem jed-
Tyto svědomí strany ujaly za publikování 15. januarii anno 1663. RT
líku, malování, neb malíříčku mluvil, já taky toho nevím, aby jací nepřátelé
62
(Prague), 19 April 1663 Karel Škréta, referring to his plea of 1660, requests the Bohemian Chamber to order the royal prosecutor to address his matter. Škréta himself would then provide all relevant documents to the prosecutor. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. S 212/1, box 870. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Milostiví páni páni, Vaší Excellenci a Milostem k milostivé paměti přivozuji, kterak jsem v létu 1660 13. septembris jistý spis a žádost o přednešení prostředku, skrze který bych v praetensi mé, vztahující se na 1100 kop míšeňských a od léta 1616 na ně vzešlých pět ze sta ourokův k zaplacení přijíti mohl. Na kteroužto žádost mou od Vašich Excelencí tuto přiložená dekretací se stala, na kteroužto zase v témž létu
1660 17. septembris jsem spis, v němž prostředky a že se Krystiana Uslara a jistot jemu svědčících dotýče, jsem oznámil. Nyní pak na tom pozůstává, abyste ráčili milostivě při Jeho Milosti
přináší, aby to právo žádnému jinému mimo mě, tak jakž jste se ráčili milostivě zakázati, zadáno nebylo, an bez toho mimo mou praetensi dobrý díl královské komoře zůstane, já jemu
[on the tergo:] P[resentum] 19. April 1663 Jeho Milosti císařské etc., Jeho Excelenci panu panu presidentu a pánům
císařské a královské prokurátora adjunktu naříditi, aby tu a takovou ode
nepominu dokumenta k tomu náležející do rukou dáti. O čemž se Va-
pánům radám zřízené komory v Království českém, pánům pánům mně milostivým ponížená žádost
mě Vašim Milostem přednešenou věc vedl, s tím však takovým opatřením,
šim Excelencím a Milostem poručena činím a zůstávám Vašich Excelencí
Karla Škréty TS
když se takového prostředku dosoudí (jakož žádná pochybnost není) a jakž Vašich Milostí dekretaci s sebou
a Milostí poníženě poslušný Karel Škréta z Závořic mp.
300 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
63
(Prague), (before 14 June 1663) A request by Karel Škréta, addressed to the Bohemian Court Chamber and concerning the claim of 50 thalers for the repair of one Dürer’s and one Tintoretto’s paintings which suffered damage during cabinetmaker’s works in the Prague Castle Picture Gallery. According to the testimony of Adam Kühr, however, only 25–30 tollars should be paid for the repair of the two paintings. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), sign. S 21/7/rok 1663, Inv. No. 3139, box 2109. Literature: NEUMANN 1964, p. 27; Pavel Preiss, in: SLAVÍČEK 1993, p. 33; Olga Kotková, in: KOTKOVÁ 2006, pp. 126–127, fig., p. 125, notes 53–55 (editions, bibliography); STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.24, p. 603; SEKYRKA 2011, pp. 147–152.
Milostiví páni páni, Vaší Excelenci a Milostem pokorně připomínám, kterak před některým měsícem skrze pana šatzmistra Ferdinanda Missirona jste ráčili při mně naříditi, abych dva kusy malované, jeden od vznešeného malíře Alberta [!] Durera a druhý od Tentoreta, které od truhlářů velice zhanobené byly, abych takové zase k svému způsobu přivedl a spravil. Což jsem na poručení Vašich Excelencí a Milostí vedle mé možnosti vykonal a ty dva kusy malované dobře spravené zase k rukám pana šatzmistra dodal a odvedl. Za kteroužto práci padesáte tolarů od Vaší Excelence a Milosti
žádám, který že mně račte poručiti vydati a zaplatiti poníženě a pokorně prosím a zůstávám.
[on the reverse, in a different hand, statement of Adam Kühr] Gnädig und hochgebietende Herrn
erhalten, daß er Herr Screta bey solcher Reparirung von 25 bis in die 30 Reichthaler verdient hatte. Was
Vaše Excelence a Milosti poníženě poslušný
Herrn. Herr Carl Screta, Burger und Mahler der Königlichen Alten Stadt
nun Euer Excellenz und Gnade ihme darvor und was die Tischler, weilen
Prag, begehrt in seinem mir umb Bericht und Guttachten, in Gnaden communicirten und hierbey wieder
durch ihre Unachtsambkeit eines darvon in etwas verderbt und hien wiederumben ausgebeserth wer-
zuerukhkomenden Memorial wegen Ausbesserung zweyer Bilder, so eins hiervon bey Beklaid oder Austafflung der Bilder Gallerie, von den Tischlern Schaden gelitten, 50 Reichsthaler. Hierüber habe ich Herrn Schazmaister und Malerey verständige, was etwa davon verdient sein möchte, vernomen und soviel Nachricht
den müssen, bezahlen lassen wollen, stehet bey deroselben gnedigen Belieben. Mich aber zu beharlichen Gnaden gehorsamlich empfhelende Euer Excelenz und Gnaden Gehorsamber Adam Kühr mp.
Karel Škréta mp. [on the tergo of the spread:] Jeho Milosti římského císaře, uherského a českého krále etc., Jeho Excelenci a Milostem panu panu presidentu a pánům pánům radám zřízené komory v Království českém ponížená žádost o zaplacení od opravování dvouch kusů malovaných Karla Škréty.
TS
64
Prague, 9 July 1663 The Bohemian Chamber orders the Prosecutor of the Bohemian Kingdom, Kryštof Norbert of Fahnenschwungk, to summon Karel Škréta, the painter and burgher of the Old Town in Prague, and to assure him that he has priority in the payment of his claim if fiscal means are acquired for the imperial treasure. He shall also take over all documents related to this matter from Škréta, weigh them and provide his advisory opinion report to the Bohemian Chamber. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. S 212/1, box 870. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
před sebe povolati a jeho jménem
patřící in originali vyzdvihnouti,
dotknuté Jeho Milosti císařské královské komory české, že z nadřeče-
je bedlivě uvážiti a jak by táž věc dáleji předsevzata býti mohla opá-
ných fiskálních prostředkův, když tak dotčeným způsobem k dobrému Jeho Milosti císařské přive-
čené Jeho Milosti císařské Komoře české zprávu a zdání své učiniti nepomíjel.
kontentýrován a zaplacen býti mohl. Pročež aby on svrchupsaný
dené budou, na zaplacení praetencí své před jinými vejkazu užití má,
Ex consilio Camerae Bohemiae Pragae 9. julii 1663.
Jeho Milosti císařské královský pan prokurátor nadjmenovaného Škrétu
ujistiti a naproti tomu od něho všechny dokumenta k té potřebě
TS
Jménem a na místě římského císaře, též uherského a českého krále etc. při
fiskální prostředky přednésti jako i dokumenta k tomu patřící vydati,
Jeho Milosti císařské a prokurátoru v Království českém panu Kryštofovi Norbertovi z Fahnenschwungku
na ten způsob a s tou žádostí se uvoluje, aby budoucně se z týchž fiskálních prostředkův, kdyby k dobrému Jeho Milosti císařské mající
takové se nařízení činí: Jakož na Jeho Milosti císařské královskou komoru českou Karel Škréta, měštěnín a malíř v Starém Městě pražském, se uchází a jistý
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 301
65
Mělník, 1664 Karel Škréta along with the numerous and non-resident notables attends the wedding of Karel Elsheimer in the Mělník house of Marie Alžběta Prušková. Státní oblastní archiv Praha (State Regional Archives Prague), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), ř.k.f.ú. (Roman-Catholic Parish Office) Mělník, Register No. 2, year 1664. Literature: KILIÁN 2011, pp. 161–165. TS
66
(Prague), (before 6 July 1665) Karel Škréta informs the Bohemian Chamber that the royal magistrate from Litoměřice has already consigned some Uzlar securities to the above-mentioned chamber and asks they be given to the prosecutor in order to expedite the case. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. S 212/1, box 870. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Milostiví páni páni, jistou toho zprávu mám, že Jeho Milosti císařské rychtář v městě královském Litoměřicích na milostivé Vaše Excelence a Milostí
poručení některé jistoty uslarovské in originali na slavnou komoru jest složil. I aby ta věc od Jeho Milosti císařské pana prokurátora fedrována býti mohla, Vaši Excelenci
a Milosti poníženě žádám, aby ty jistoty uslarovské Jeho Milosti císařské panu prokurátoru dodané byly, a při tom povážení té věci že milostivě nařídíti ráčíte. S tím zůstávám
Vaší Excelenci a Milosti poníženě poslušný Karel Škréta TS
67
(Prague), (before 1 October 1665) The Bohemian Royal Prosecutor, Adam Norbert Knaut of Fahnenschwungk, gives a report to the Bohemian Royal Chamber, presented on 1 October 1665, that Karel Škréta has already given him various copies of claims belonging to convicted persons and also informed him that the originals are held by Mikuláš Nicarius in Litoměřice. The prosecutor moreover reports that because the latter makes excuses that he had sent the originals to their owners in Dresden, which is prosecutable, he recommends imprisoning Nicarius until he places security deposits. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. S 212/1, box 870. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Milostiví, též laskaví páni, k paměti Vaší Milosti přivozuji, kte-
komory české Jeho Milosti císařské panu rychtáři dotčeného města Lito-
rak Karel Škréta, měštěnín a malíř Starého Města pražského, jistý pro-
měřic psáno, aby ty jistoty in originali od jmenovaného Mikuláše Nicariusa
středky, kteréž mu také per decretum, jakby se dalece jeho praetensí vztahovala, vykázaný jsou, přednesl, a mně
vyzdvihl, a také týž císařský rychtář, když v Praze byl, je za sebou již míti pravil. Nicméně na královskou
rozdílné vejpisy jistot na mnoho tisíc se vztahujících a některým osobám
komoru českou niaké jiné dvě jistoty, o které psáno nebylo, odeslal, o druhých pak jistotách, které odeslati měl,
odsouzeným náležejících, přednesl, i také, že originalia těch jistot jeden měštěnín v městě Litoměřicích, jménem Mikoláš Nicarius za sebou má, v známost uvedl. I byvši od královské
I poněvadž často pravený Mikuláš Nicarius o tom dobrou vědomost měl, že ty jistoty odsouzeným osobám, a tak vlastně královskému fisku náleží
bylo, aby on ty jistoty od téhož Mikuláše Nicariusa vyzdvihnouti, a kdyby jich vydati nechtěl, aneb se tím, že je do Drážďan poslal, nejsouc to posta-
a on netoliko jich ven z země vysílati
čitedlná vejmluva, vymlouvati chtěl,
neměl, ale i také, že jest takové fis-
s asisencí práva arestem stížiti hleděl, dotad a tak dlouho, dokavad by takových jistot nesložil. Při tom se Vašim Milostem k stálé milosti poslušně
kální praetensí ututlal a jich nevyjevil, v pokutu královskému fisku patenty vyměřenou upadl a z té příčiny ta jeho vejmluva jemu nijakž postačiti
poroučeje zůstávám Vašim Milostem
píše, že opáčený Mikuláš Nicarius se
nemůže. Pročež byl bych v té případ-
excusíruje, že již těch jistot více nemá, a že je zase tomu, komu (prej) nále-
nosti toho poslušného nevyměřujícího zdání, aby poznovu Jeho Milosti císař-
k službám poslušně volný A[dam] N[orbert] Knaut [z Fahnenschwungku] mp.
žely, ven z země, do Drážďan, odeslal.
ské rychtáři řečeného města psáno
TS
302 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
68
The Old Town in Prague, 1665 Karel Škréta requisitions the undercharge of the debt from the Uzlar claims. Národní archiv (National Archives), Komorní knihy (Chamber Books), file Kniha památná na spisy (The Memorial Record Book), 1665, Book No. 453, f. 25r and 47v. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 37; BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 49.
N[umer]o 14 Julius a[nno] 1665 Karel Škréta žádá, aby jistoty uzlarovské Jeho Milosti císařské pana prokurátora od Jeho Milosti císařské rychtáře města Litoměřic dodané a v povážení vzaté byly.
O jistoty uzlarovské; C. rycht[ář] litoměřický
je od Mikuláše Hylariusa, na Jeho Milosti císařské Komoru českou slo-
— December anni 1665
žiti hleděl. KŠ, jistoty uzlarovské, Hylarius,
O připomenutí k Jeho Milosti císařské rychtáři města Litoměřic, aby rozličné jistoty uzlarovské vyzdvihnouc
C. rycht[ář] litoměřický RT
69
Prague, 1665–1666 A convolute of documents in the matter of the dispute between Karel Škréta and Daniel Jaroměřský of Strohmberk, the latter being the plenipotentiary of the Prague family of the Šmíds, for the claim of Marie Alžběta Prušková in the amount of 150 guilders or, respectively, for the vineyard which Škréta was using. Škréta eventually lost the dispute, conducted in both Mělník and Prague, at the court of appeal. Státní okresní archiv Mělník (State Regional Archives of the City of Mělník), file Spisy (Records), Convolute of Documents on the Lawsuit Škréta vs Jaroměřský 1665–1666. Literature: KILIÁN 2011, pp. 161–165. TS
70
(Prague), (before 1 March 1666) Karel Škréta informs the Bohemian Royal Chamber that the holder of the Uzlar securities, Mikuláš Hilarius,⁶ the burgher and councillor in Litoměřice, was indeed imprisoned but he, however, keeps denying that he would have sent these documents to Dresden. Škréta further states that the acquisition of these documents is, after all, unnecessary because the debtors are aware that they are neither allowed to pay to the creditors whose property was forfeited for confiscation nor can they be reminded about the payment from abroad. He also recommends that the royal magistrates in the New Town in Prague, in Mělník and in Český Brod examine the reports about these debts in the city books. As it follows from the note, the Bohemian Royal Chamber sent this plea to the prosecutor Kryštof Norbert Knaut of Fahnenschwung, asking him for his report and advisory opinion, as early as on 1 March 1666. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. S 212/1, box 870. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Milostiví páni páni, jistou zprávu toho mám, že by Jeho Milosti císařské pan rychtář
Hilariusa, měštěnína a radního v témž městě, za příčinou nesložení rozličných uslarovských jistot od 21.
Týž pak Mikuláš Hilarius svou vejmluvou, že by ty jistoty v tom křik turecký těm lidem, kterým náleželi,
věděti se nemůže, spíšeji, že tomu tak
v městě Litoměřicích na Vaše Excelenci a Milostí poručení Mikuláše
januarii do toho času do arestu na rathauz téhož města dáti způsobil.
do Drážďan odeslati měl, se zastírá. Jestli však tomu tak jest neb ne,
proto by Jeho Milosti císařské interessí hynouti nemohlo a dlužníci by
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 303
není, se souditi může. A byť i bylo, že by je tam do Drážďan poslal, tehdy
dluhu z té příčiny, že by originalia před rukami nebyly, pozbýti nemohli a neměli, nebo věřitelové dlužníků pro jejich předkův dočinění, a že vědí, že předkové jejich kondemnýrovaní jsou, a že ty jistoty Jeho Milosti císařské náleží, dlužníků svých upomínati nesmějí, bezpečí se na to, že věřite-
vyměření) kdybyste ráčili sobě ten způsob oblíbiti a Jeho Milosti císařské pánům rychtářům v těch
osáhnouti nemohly, a ta města dlužní
kdyby se takových jistot originalia dosáhnouti nemohly, pro nedosažení
Vaše Excellence milostiví páni páni,
jich by interese Jeho Milosti císařské hynouti nemohla. Ale poněvadž jisté
dlužných městech poručiti (totiž v Novém Městě pražském, v městě
Čehož já při milostivém Vaší Excelenci a Milosti uvážení zanechávaje
osoby zde v městech pražských jsou, které ty jistoty viděli a v rukou svých jměli, nepochybně, že by Jeho Milosti
Mělníce a Českém Brodě), aby oni přípisy takových jistot, kterýchž jsem na milostivé Vašich Excelencí a Milostí poručení Jeho Milosti císařské panu
Vaši Excelenci a Milosti k milostivé resoluci se poslušně poroučím a zůstávám Vaší Excelenci a Milosti
lové jejich kondemnýrovaní, jich upomínati smíti nebudou, takových jistot
císařské panu Fiscalu to vysvědčiti mohli, ano i on sám Mikuláš Hilarius
v poznamenání mezi jiné jejich dluhy při comissi tractationis neuvedli, proto aby se nevyjevily, neb vyjeveny
se přiznává, že originalia těch jistot u sebe jměl. Jako také (však nedávajíce Vaší Excelenci a Milosti žádného
jsouce, že by je platiti museli.
Fiscalu složil, za nimiž posavad zůstávají, konfrontýrovali, které v knihách dlužních týchž měst se vynacházejí, a folium a knihu vyznamenali. Takže kdyby ty jistoty se naleznouti neb
71
The Old Town in Prague, 1666–1669 Bartoloměj Alexius records the debt owed to Karel Škréta in the amount of 300 guilders. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber obligationum No. 7, 1653–1674, sign. 2257, f. 413r. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Bartoloměj Alexius… oznámil a přiznal se, že jest dlužen panu Karlovi Škrétovi Šotnovskýmu z Závořic, dědicům a budoucím jeho dluhu pravého … tři sta zlatých … v létu 1656 na den svatého Havla jemu zapůjčené … a jedno sto zlatých ourokův … na domě svém, v němž bydlí,
u Černého vorla řečeném, 12. april[i] anno 1666. [in margine:] Pan Karel Škréta Šotnovský z Závořic stoje osobně v radě i při knihách městských Starého Města pražského … přijal od dědicův neb[ožtíka] pana
Bartoloměje Alexiusa tři sta zlatých z sumy hlavní a jedno sto zlatých starých ourokův, i co jich k tomu víceji až do složení teď dotčeného kapitálu dle ujištění naproti psaného přirostlo. 19. 9. a[nno] 1669. RT
72
The Old Town in Prague, 1666 Karel Škréta requisitions the undercharge of the debt from the Uzlar claims. Národní archiv (National Archives), Komorní knihy (Chamber Books), file Kniha památná na spisy (The Memorial Record Book), 1666, 1667, Book No. 454, f. 16r, 51v and 56r. Literature: BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 49.
Aprilis anni 1666 N[umer]o 14, Jeho Milosti císařské
strany jistot uzlarovských, též vznešení mělnických.
prokurátor Připomenutí na spis pana Karla Škréty v příčině jistot uzlarovských.
— N[umer]o 20 Martius anni 1667
— Januarius anni 1667
Ouřad města Mělníka nad Labem Zpráva strany domnělého dluhu uzla-
Jeho Milosti císařské prok[urátor] Zpráva spolu s rozdílnými spisy
rovského. Při tom rozdílné vidimírované allegata. RT
304 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
platiti by nechtěly, tehdy musely by své knihy tu, kdež náleží, edirovati.
poníženě poslušný Karel Škréta z Závořic m. p. TS 6 Other documents state the name Nicarius. See Document No. 67.
73
The Old Town in Prague, 3 September 1668 Karel Škréta sold the cellar in the draper’s stalls at the Coal Market in Prague. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber contractuum albus, 1659–1733, sign. 4447, f. 57r–58v. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Urozený pan Linhart Křečík z Lilienfelsu a z Kreutzbruku, měštěnín, též přísedící správce při ouřadu šes-
z Vokounštejna, měštěnína Starého Města pražského a pana Matěje
držení, dědičnému užívání a vládnutí tím vším právem, jakž jest týž
Krečíka kupujícího s budoucími svými od příštího svatého Havla léta
tipanském Starého Města pražského stoje osobně v ouřadě šestipanským
Čechlaskýho zedníka z strany druhé ležící od urozenýho pana Karla Škréty z Závořic, měštěnína často
sklep on pan Karel Škréta jistým zápisem libro contractuum albo, folio 507 postoupené a zapsané měl,
1668 každoročně po 30 zlatých rýnských do důchodu obecního tohoto ouřadu šestipanskýho nadřečeného
v témž Starém Městě pražském přiznal se jest, že jest sobě, paní Juditě
jmenovanýho města pražského za sumu jedno sto a padesáte zlatých
bez překážky jednoho každýho člověka v držení a v užívání zůstával,
odvozováno býti má. Přiznal se k tomu osobně při ouřadě šestipan-
Juliáně manželce, dědicům a budoucím svým sklep v kotcích souke-
rýnských hotových, zcela a zouplna zaplacených, koupil, z nich pan pro-
žádnýho práva, aniž jaké zvláštnosti sobě a budoucím svým více a dále na
nických od Uhelnýho trhu do nich jdouc po pravé ruce patnáctý, vedle sklepu pana Jana Václava Vokouna
dávající pana kupujícího kvituje, prázdná a svobodná činí nyní, na časy budoucí a věčné a to k jmění,
týmž sklepě nepozůstavujíce. Maje závady spraviti právem města. Z kteréhožto sklepu od pána Linharta
ským pán prodávající. Actum 3. septembris 1668. RT
74
The Old Town in Prague, 1668 (1674) The Old Town burgher Ondřej Čermák records the assumption of a debt owed to Karel Škréta. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber obligationum No. 8, 1668–1676, sign. 2258, f. 10r. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Pan Ondřej Čermák, měštěnín Starého Města pražského … přiznal se, že jest dlužen dluhu pravého a spravedlivého panu Karlovi Škrétovi Šotnovskému z Závořic, paní Veronice, manželce, dědicům a budoucím jeho jeden tisíc zla-
poručníkům Amarellovským knihami městskými 13. aug[usti] a[nn] o 1663 pojistili a tíž páni poručníci Amarellovští týchž 500 zlatých na témž domě jsou nadepsanému panu Karlu Škrétovi 26. januarii léta 1665 proti jim zase na svém domě ujiš-
[in margine:] Veronika po Karlovi Škrétovi Šotnovském z Závořic zůstalá vdova stoje osobně v radě … oznámila a přiznala se, jakož jest v létu 1668 3. septembris Ondřej Čermák … nadřečenému Karlu Škrétovi a jí Veronice jeden
tých rýnských, totiž 500 zlatých, které pan Daniel Walthauser a paní
tění postoupili, tak jakž to pojištění a vedle něho iuxtou připsané postou-
tisíc zlatých rejnských pod ourok obyčejný … byl ujistil a takovou
Lidmila manželé, jakožto předešlí držitelové domu U černé hrábě řečeného v Dlouhé střídě [!] … pánům
pení v knihách městských … plněji svědčí. 3. septembris a[nn]o 1668.
sumu hlavní i s ourokem dle téhož pojištění na ni vzešlým, ještě za živobytí opáčeného Karla Škréty jim
75
The Old Town in Prague, 26 April 1670 Karel Škréta gives evidence during the sale of the house of Kateřina Krásná of Lewenfeld to Vilém Dyryx of Bruk. Ústav dějin umění Akademie věd ČR (Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), Oddělení dokumentace (Documentation Department), fund Rudolf Kuchynka, box RK 2. Literature: Unpublished – the given Book of City Records burned in 1945 during the fire at the Old Town City Hall.
Karel Škréta byl 26. 4. 1670 svědkem při prodeji domu Kateřiny Krásné
z Bruku (Liber contractuum caeruleus V, sign. 2116, f. 295).
z Lewenfeldu Vilému Dyryxovi
RT
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 305
manželům náležitě odvedl a zaplatil, pročež že z toho dluhu ona Veronika Škrétová dotčeného Ondřeje Čermáka, dědice a budoucí jeho kvituje … 3. septembris a[nn]o 1674. RT
76
The Old Town in Prague, 30 September 1670 Karel Škréta gives evidence during the sale of the house of Doctor Jiří František Becelli to Felix Freund, a painter from the Old Town in Prague. Ústav dějin umění Akademie věd ČR (Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), Oddělení dokumentace (Documentation Department), fund Rudolf Kuchynka, box RK 2. Literature: Unpublished – the given Book of City Records burned in 1945 during the fire at the Old Town City Hall.
30. 9. 1670 Karel Škréta svědčí při prodeji domu doktora Jiřího Františka Beceliho malíři Felixovi Freundovi (Liber contractuum caeruleus V, sign. 2116, f. 301). RT
77
Prague, 27 November 1670 Karel Škréta and Jan Konstantin Kouřimský testify that Anna Skalická, burgher of the Old Town in Prague, bequeathed both her immovable and movable property for the benefit of Prague University. Archiv Národního muzea (National Museum Archives), Sbírka (Collection) F, Inv. No. 169, Old Town in Prague, file věci obecní i soukromé (Community and Private Matters), 1645–1670, box 132. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Wir Carl Screta von Zavoritz und Johan Constantin Kaurzimsky von Campo Belli, beide Bürgern der Königlichen Alten Stadt Prag, hier-
welches nach dem es geschehen und nach erfolgter Publication auf des (titul) Herrn Bürgermeisters und Rathes der Königlichen Alten Stadt
und verwahrter gehalten worden, als nemblich Geld, Silber und Gold, Getreidich, Mähl, Kleider, Bett- und Leinen- Gewand etc. und in Summa
noch zu suchen haben, auch, weil wegen derselben nicht Ausfolgung vorhin von unterschiedlichen Partheien protestirt worden, wir uns
mit urkhunden und bekennen, demnach den 14. Maii anno 1668 in dem exempto der löblichen Carolinischen Universität zu Prag Jurisdiction zugehörigen Collegio Sancti
Prag wiederholtes geziemendes Ersuchen, so wohl auf unser selbigenes gethanes inständiges Anhalten und Bitten, wie auch mit Einwilligung des hierzu gehörigen Erbens
alles und jedes wie es den Nahmen haben mag und zu dieser Skaliczkischen Verlaßenschaft pertinent und gehörigist, ohne einigen Mangel und Abgang sambt der Loßbrief
dahero beide vor Einen und Einer vor beyde in solidum zur Schadloßhaltung erbieten und wieder jedermäniglichs Anspruch wohlgedachte Universität darumb jederzeit ver-
Wenceslai die Anna Skaliczkin als geweste Wirthin daselbst und zugleich Bürgerin der Königlichen
Georg Milota von wohlgedachter löblichen Universität (titul) Herrn Rectore Magnifico und Magistratu
von der Unterthänigkeit der Annae Skaliczkin in originali zu unseren Händen richtig empfangen haben.
tretten wollen und sollen. Inmassen wir uns in Kraft dieses hierzu verbinden mit Verpfändung aller unser
Alten Stadt Prag mit Tode abgegangen und die dahero wegen der Sperr
Academico auß der Academischen Sperr und Jurisdiction dieselbe völ-
Derowegen thuen wir über solchen Empfang und richtige Ausfolgung
Gabe und Guths, und Insonderheit unserer bürgerlichen in der Alt
Ihrer Verlaßenschaft und Publication Ihres Testaments entstandene Strittigkeit zwischen gemelter Uni-
lige Verlassenschaft der obbemelten verstorbene Annae Skaliczkin, uns als verordneten Skaliczkischen
dieser ganzen und völligen Verlassenschaft der Annae Skaliczkin seeligen Ihrer Magnificenz wohlernanten
Stadt Prag situirten Häusern, auch daß dieses mit Bewilligung eines löblichen Magistrats der Königli-
versität und einem löblichen Magis-
Testamentarischen Executoribus
(titul) Herrn Rectorem und gantzen
chen Alten Stadt Prag in dero Stadt
tratn der Königlichen Alten Stadt Prag von Ihro Kaiserlichen und Königlichen Maiestät also allergnädigist decidirt werden, daß der Uni-
ausgefolget worden, also daß wir solche Verlassenschaft als wie dieselbe nach mehrmahl gemelter Anna Skaliczkin Tode in besagten Colle-
löblichen Academischen Magistratum der Kaiser- und Königlichen Carolo-Ferdinandischen Universität zu Prag oder wer sonsten in diesem
Bücher, wann es gleich ohne beisein unser geschehen solte, einverleibet werden möge, content und zu Frieden sein. Zu Urkhund dessen haben
versität angeführte Fundamenta
gio Sancti Wenceslai bestanden und
Fall quittirens vonnöthen hat hiemit
wir diese Quittung und Schadloß-
in denen Stadt-Rechten und Ihren Privilegiis possessione et usu stabilirt zu sein befunden, und das Testament der Universität ad publi-
entweder alldorten unter der Universität Sperr bishero verblieben, oder von dortten umb Sicherheit und besser Verwahrung willen in
und in Kraft dieses in bester Form Rechtens quittiren und liberiren, mit Verzicht, daß bei oft erwehnter löblichen Universität wie weiter
haltung nicht allein aigenhändig unterschreiben und mit unsern aufgedruckten Petschaften bekräftiget, sondern auch solches obbe-
candum zugeschickt, und die Erben
das Collegium Carolinum versch-
nichts solcher Skaliczkischen Ver-
melter Erbe George Milota wegen
dahin verwiesen werden sollen,
losener und gesperter übertragen,
lassenschaft halber zu praetendiren
seines hierzu gegebenen völligen
306 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
ja Worths und consenses, wie auch die zu diesem Actu von einem löbli-
Riesenberg, beide Rathsverwandte der Königlichen Alten Stadt Prag
Zawořicz, von der seeligen Anna Skaliczkin executor testamenti mp.
L. S. Georg Johan Reißman zum Zeignus mp.
chen Magistratu oftbesagter Königlichen Alten Stadt Prag alles fleißes
unterschrieben und mit Ihren Petschaften ausgefertiget. So gesche-
L. S. Johan Constantinus Kauřimsky von Campobelli, Executor testa-
L. S. Jiří Milota, poslední vůle nebožky Anny Skalický od ní zřízený
deputirte Herren Commissarii, die Wohledle Gestrenge Herr Nicolaus Joannes Eymer von Waltiřow und
hen Prag den 27. Novembris anno 1670.
menti ut supra mp. L. S. Niclas Johann Eymer von Waltershoffen in fidem mp.
dědic mp. TS
Herr Georg Johann Reißman von
L. S. Carl Screta Ssotnowsky von
78
The Old Town in Prague, 24 November 1671 Record of the dispute between Karel Škréta and Daniel Břekovec in the matter of using the coat-of-arms and the title Šotnovský of Závořice. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Protokol vejpovědí, přísah a relací (Protocol of Testimonies, Oaths and Reports), 1658–1668, sign. 1247, f. 122r–123r. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Oznámení mezi urozeným panem Karlem Škrétou Šotnovským z Závořic z jedné a panem Danielem Břekovcem z strany druhé. Poněvadž urozený pan Karel Škréta
tak i kdy co do knih městských klásti a zapisovati dává, k nemalému oznámených pana Karla Škréty, též strejcův a potomkův jeho praejudicium osobovati měl, by co v jistém
obsílka jeho nezašla, vycházeti, a davše se ven z rozepře o jiné a k této acti nepatřící věci, excipírujíce dilatorie, odpovídati povinen nebyl, vycházeti a toho obeslání prázdna
pan Daniel Břekovec na obeslání pana Škréty svou patrnou excepci, nechtíce jeho za takového pan Škréta uznati, ve dvouch nedělích pořád zběhlých s průvodem složiti má.
Šotnovský z Závořic, měštěnín Starého Města pražského, obsílajíce ku právu pana Daniele Břekovce, podobně měštěnína nyní dotknutého Starého Města pražského de eden-
od práva vloženém termínu, zdali z rodu a lineae Vavřince Břekovce pochází a toho erbu a predikátu užívati může, dostatečně prokázati, a pokudž by toho provésti nemohl,
se učiniti vynasnažoval. Práva pak Království tohoto českého, že jak původ povinen jest žalobu svou před právem provésti, tak také obviněný svou před právem předloženou pří-
Škody pak a outraty z jistých příčin mezi stranami na ten čas se zdvíhají podle práva. Actum et publicatum in consilio Antiquae Urbis Pragensis feria tertia pridie sanctae Catharinae
dis, to od něho užívajíce, on málo od některého času erbu jemu a strejcům jeho, též i predikátu Šotnovský z Závořic od slavných císařův římských a králův českých předkům jeho nadaného, že by jak co v podpisích,
při něm takové užívání zamezené bylo, povyhledával. Kteréžto obeslání jsouce připomenutému panu Danielovi Břekovcovi propůjčené a maje v času právy vyměřeném excepci svou složiti, ten jest, že by
činně aneb vejmluvou opodstatniti. A chtěl-li by dilatorie excipírovati, má a povinen jest in [?] peremptoris odpovídati, v sobě patrně zdržují a zavírají. Pročež to se z práva vynachází, že tolikráte oznámený
Virginis et Martyris, 24. novemb[ri] anno 1671. Consule domino Nicolao Eymer de Valtirzow. RT
79
The Old Town in Prague, 30 January 1673 – 6 October 1673 Dispute between Škréta and Jaroměřský, concerning the defamation of honesty. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber appelationum 3, 1655–1670, sign. 1030, f. 401r, 402r, 416r. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Refor[matio] mezi panem Danielem Jaroměřským a panem Karlem Škrétou
zřízené a usazené: na ta od práva Starého Města pražského odeslaná a odevzdaná zapečetěná akta v tom
vše v sobě šířeji obsahují a zavírají. Pováživše s pilností takto to oznámení na témž právě 7. dne měsíce
jeho tehdejší přítel právní Jan Šťastnej Kouřimský taková akta ve dvouch nedělích vydati. A kdyby se to uči-
Jménem a na místě Jeho Milosti římského císaře, uherského a čes-
postranním sporu mezi Danielem Jaroměřským apelujícím z jedné
září léta pominulého 1671 vynešené, napravují a z práva nacházejí, že
niti spěčoval, tehdy skutečným vězením k tomu přidržán býti, potom
kého krále, pána pána nás všech nejmilostivějšího praesident, vice-
a Karlem Škrétou apelátem z strany druhé, co se na složení spisu odvod-
naddotknutý Daniel Jaroměřský těch pohledávaných akt nebo spisů
pak opáčenej Daniel Jaroměřský svůj spis odvodní, též ve dvouch nedě-
praesident a rady Jeho Milosti nad apelacími na Hradě pražském
ního v hlavní rozepři z nářku poctivosti dotýče, jakž acta toho sporu to
pořádný popis ve třech dnech ku právu přednésti, vedle kteréhožto
lích pořád zběhlých složiti má podle práva, škody a outraty mezi vejš
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 307
dotčenými stranami, v tom sporu vzešlé, z jistých a hodných příčin se
jsme sobě ty mezi Danielem Jaroměřským apelujícím z jedné a Kar-
naddotčeného Daniele Jaroměřskýho pohledávané spisy vydati má, ubez-
přednáší, že již třinácte let dotčená rozepře trvá a až posavad k skončení
zvdíhají [!]. A co k apelací složeno, to aby zase navráceno bylo. Tomu na
lem Škrétou z strany druhé za příčinou složení spisu odvodního
pečlivou zprávu Vaši učiniti nepominete. Dán na Hradě pražském 30.
svému nepřichází, jménem a na místě Jeho Milosti císařské pána nás
svědomí pečetí Jeho Milosti císařskou a královskou k tomu soudu obzvláštně zřízenou jest zapečetěno.
zašlá akta přednésti dali a po vedlivém [!] povážení příležející právní vyměření vynesli, ježto vy náležitě
dne měsíce ledna léta Páně 1673. Frantz Voldřich z Vchynic J[an] Václav Šrepl
všech nejmilostivějšího vám poroučíme, abyšte túž rozepři beze všech dalších průtahův pořádně inrotulí-
Actum na Hradě pražském po neděli septuagesima 30. dne měsíce ledna,
vyhlásiti, ano i v skutek uvésti dáti věděti budete. A poněvadž od opá-
— Karel Škréta s Danielem
rovati dadouce, ji povážili a potom strany spravedlivou vejpovědí s vej-
léta Páně šestnáctistého sedumdesátého třetího. Frantz Voldřich z Vchynic
čeného Daniele Jaroměřskýho prvnější přítel jeho právní Jan Šťastnej Kouřimský in puncto praevaricatio-
Jaroměřským Slovutné a vzáctné poctivosti přátelé nám milí, v čem se k nám Karel
hradou Jeho Milosti císařské práva vrchního podělili, pakli by v tom co jiného na překážce bylo, nám zprávu
J[an] Václav Šrepl —
nis navržen jest, protož v té případnosti k vyhledávání pravdy ex officio
Škréta za příčinou inrotulírování jisté mezi ním a Danielem Jaroměř-
toho učinili. Dán na Hradě pražském 6. dne měsíce října léta Páně 1673.
O téhož pana Daniele Jaroměřskýho a Karla Škrétu Slovutné a vzáctné poctivosti přá-
dáleji postupovati nám, pak toho neméně i z strany vydání těch akt po vyjití dvounedělním čase, v kte-
ským z strany druhé při právě vašem zašlé rozepře šetrně uchází, z příležejícího spisu jeho vyrozumíte. Pokudž
telé nám milí, netajíme vám, že
rýmžto Jan Šťastný Kouřimský ty od
tomu tak jest, jakž on suplikující
Jan František Vrbna vicepraesident Jan Václav Šrepl RT
80
The Old Town in Prague, 21 March 1673 – 23 November 1673 Continuation of the dispute between Karel Škréta of Závořice and Daniel Břekovec in the matter of using the coat-of-arms and the ensuing title. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber appelationum 3, 1655–1670, sign. 1030, f. 410r, 420r. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
O Daniele Břekovce Slovutné a vzáctné poctivosti přátelé nám milí, davše sobě příčiny odvolání Daniele Vojtěcha Břekovce od toho při právě vašem mezi ním
jednané byly, což v budoucích případnostech na pozoru míti nepominete. Dán na Hradě pražském 3. dne měsíce března léta Páně 1673. Frantz Voldřich z Vchynic J[an] Václav Šrepl Publ[icatum] 21. martii 1673
pročež vedle toho sebe i strany, jichž se tu dotýče, zpraviti a dáleji v tom vedle řádu a práva jak postupovati, věděti budete. Dán na Hradě praž[ském] 17. dne měsíce června léta
učiniti nepomíjeli. I aby se tomuto Jeho Milosti císařské nejmilostivějšímu nařízení povinně zadosti stalo, pročež teď includýrovanou suplikaci téhož Daniele Břekovce s jis-
Páně 1673. Frantz Voldřich z Vchynic J[an] Václav Šrepl
z jedné a Karlem Škrétou z strany druhé 7. dne měsíce března léta teď pominulého 1672 vynešeného oznámení, kdež o pozdě složenou excepci činiti jest, náležitě přednésti, po
Daniel Břekovec Slovutné a vzáctné poctivosti přá-
O Daniele Břekovce a Karla Škrétu
tým termínem straně jeho odporné propůjčiti a nám potom to obý [!] s připojenou zprávou vaší, jestli by jste co v tom k připomenutí měli, odeslati nepominete. Dán na Hradě
bedlivém všeho povážení vynacházíme, že takové odvolání místa a průchodu míti nemá, v kteréžto
telé nám milí, jakož jest jeho císařská a královská Milost král a pán, pán nás všech nejmilostivější na
Slovutné a vzáctné poctivosti přátelé nám milí, jakož jest Jeho císařská a královská Milost král a pán nás
pražském 23. dne měsíce listopadu léta Páně 1673. Jan František hrabě z Vrbna,
příčině vedle řádu a práva jak dáleji postupovati, věděti budete. Poně-
předcházející poslušnou zprávu a zdání naše v příčině Daniele Bře-
všech nejmilostivější suplikací Daniele Břekovce, měštěnína Nového
vadž sice častěji viděti jest, kterak skrze ku právu již přijaté praesentírované, pak zase stranám navrá-
kovce za zdvižení toho proti němu zaraženého fiscálního procesu a opatření jeho na poctivosti poníženě
Města pražského, níž on za restituci in integrum contra lapsum fatalium k složení excepcí v té při, kterouž
vicepraesident J[an] Václav Šrepl RT
cené spisy, rozdílná nedorozumění
a pokorně prosícího při témž práv-
s Karlem Škrétou za příčinou predi-
a nepořádnosti povstávají, protož by z toho budoucně sešlo a zbytečný průtahové na zkrácení toliko spravedlnosti čelící uvarováni býti mohli,
ním procesu zanechati a nám přitom skrze obzvláštní reskript pod datum v Laxenburku 3. dne měsíce června léta přítomného 1673 milostivě poru-
kátu Šotnovský z Závořic, též erbu vladyckého při právě našem trpí, poníženě žádá, nám odeslati a přitom skrze obzvláštní psaní své pod
zapotřebí bude, aby podobně po
čiti ráčil, abychme dotčenému Bře-
datum v Vídni 28. dne měsíce června
vyjití termínu v den sváteční nebo jinších ferií k úřadu Jeho Milosti císařské purkmistrskému podává spisy stranám nikoliv zase zpátkem
kovcovi na dovedení oznámeného procesu ukázati, ano i co dále, kdež náleží a zapotřebí bude, intimírovati nepomíjeli, jakž v tom Jeho
léta docházejícího nejmilostivěji poručiti ráčil, abychme, vyrozumějíce v tom stranu odpornou, všeho bedlivě povážili a na to na kance-
navrácené, nýbrž při prvním potom
Milosti císařské nejmilostivější vůle
lář Jeho Milosti královskou českou
na právě sedění další v tom potřeby
a intencí skutečně naplněna byla,
dvorskou zprávu s dobrým zdáním
308 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
81
The Old Town in Prague, 23 April 1673 Karel Škréta is stated as one of the witnesses at the wedding of Konstantin Vilém Frank of Hohenberk and Konstancie Leopoldina, the daughter of Fabián Harovník of Sferyn. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1652–1704, sign. HV O1, p. 629. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 33.
Aprilis 23. copulati sunt matrimonio pra-
Constantia Leopoldina, domini
dominus Carolis Screta, domina
emissis in facie ecclesiae dominus Constantinus Wilhelmus Francken
parentis Fabiani Harovnik a Sferen, c[ivis] A[ntiquae] U[rbis] P[ragensis], testes dominus Mathias [?],
Anna Dirixova, á p[ater] Wenceslao a Sancto Alberto.
de Hohenberg cum honesta Virgine
dominus Joannes Severinus Dirix,
RT
82
s. l., 15 February 1674 Karel Škréta lends 900 guilders to Count Anton Pankratz Gallas. Státní oblastní archiv v Litoměřicích (pobočka Děčín) (State Regional Archives in Litoměřice [branch Děčín]), fund Historická sbírka (rodinný archiv) Clam-Gallasů (Historical Collection [Family Archives] of the Clam-Gallas Family), Gallas Familienakten, file Dluhy Antonína Gallase (Debts of Anton Gallas), 1661–1674, Inv. No. 1450, box 417. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
1661–1674, Schulden des Anton Grafen von Gallas Nach fleissigen Nachsuchen bey der König[lichen] Landtafel im König-
allwo alle Schuldobligationes einverleibet werden, seind nach folgende specificirte von dem Hoch und Wohlgebornen Herrn Herrn Antonio Pancratio Rudolpho des Heil[igen]
auf heutig unten gesetztes Datum befunden worden, wie folget. …Herrn Carl Screta de dat[o] oblig[ationis] 8. Aug[usti] 1671 Hypotheca Anfalles vermögen in 2 Jahren
reich Böh[eim] in denen größern Schuldverschreibungs Quatern,
Röm[ischen] Reichsgrafen von Gallas aufgerichte Schuldverschreibung biß
zue bezahlen – 900 Florin RT
83
The Old Town in Prague, February 1674 Karel Škréta disburses Václav Rosa (the father of his daughter-in-law, Alžběta) the amount of 1000 guilders which Rosa passed on to Škréta as the debt of Vojtěch Had of Proseč. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber obligationum No. 7, 1653–1674, sign. 2257, f. 332r. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Vojtěch z Proseče a Pelerštejna dlužen Václavovi Rosovi, dědicům a budoucím jeho 1000 zlatých rýn-
starodávna U Porybných řečeným, má … postoupil jest panu Karlovi Škrétovi Šotnovskýmu z Závořic …
Václavovi Rosovi tisíc zlatých rejnských hotových odvedl a vyčetl. 24. 2. 1674
registrátora jeden tisíc zlatých … od osoby své i na místě dětí svých a dědicův po dotčeném panu Karlovi
ských V[áclavu] Rosovi…
s ourokem od jminulého svatého Havla léta 1673 běžícím … na něho
Paní Veronika po neb[ožtíku] panu
Škrétovi zůstalých kvituje a hypotéku z kněh městských propouští
[in margine:] Václav Rosa přiznal se, že těch tisíc zlatých rejnských, které
pana Karla Škrétu, dědice a budoucí jeho všechno a celé své právo úplně převozuje a přenáší. A to proto,
Karlovi Škrétovi Šotnovským z Závořic zůstalá vdova … přijala od pana Jindřicha Kryštofa Klusa při Jeho
sobě na domě nárožním na Tarmarce a Konešovic ulici ležícím, od
že jest on pan Karel Škréta proti takovému postoupení jemu panu
Milosti císařské královském ouřadě berničném na Hradě pražském
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 309
a kasíruje nyní i na časy budoucí a věčné … 29. 10. 1674 RT
84
The Old Town in Prague, 1 August 1674 Karel Škréta was buried in the church of St Gallus in the tomb before the altarpiece of Our Lady. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika zemřelých (Register of Deaths), 1645–1731, sign. HV Z1, p. 205 (modern pagination in pencil). Literature: RYBIČKA 1869, p. 10; PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 17, 4; BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 10; NEUMANN 1974, p. 48; NEUMANN 2000, pp. 116–117.
1674 Augustus 1. sepultus est in crypta[m] B[eatae] M[ariae] ante altare B[eatae] M[ariae] V[irginis] dominus Carolus Screta famosissimus pictor. RT
85
s. l., 1675 The city council of Mělník terminates the quittance of the debt which it owed to Karel Škréta and paid if off annually in two instalments of 35 guilders. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), sign. M 28/36, Inv. No. 2209, cat. no. 1472. Literature: KILIÁN 2011, pp. 161–165. TS
86
The New Town in Prague, 12 March 1686 Veronika Škrétová, born Grönbergerová, the wife of Karel Škréta, was buried in the Church of St Henry in the New Town in Prague. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Henry, file Matrika zemřelých (Register of Deaths), 1679–1699, sign. JCH Z6, p. 176. Literature: BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 10; NEUMANN 1974, p. 48.
Martius 1686 12. [Pohřbena] urozená paní Veronika Škrétová, dlouhý čas již věkem sešlá, od Modrýho lva z Koňského trhu. RT
310 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND PERSON OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
II. Documents on the Oeuvre of Karel Škréta
87
1641 In connection with the construction of the church, consecrated to St John of Nepomuk, in Nepomuk near Plzeň, Bohuslav Balbín mentions the publication of the book Fama Posthuma (1641), written by the Jesuit Jiří (Ferus) Plachý the Elder and illustrated by Karel Škréta. Bohuslaus Balbinus, Miscellanea Historica Regni Bohemiae Decadis I. Liber IV. Hagiographicus, seu Bohemia Sancta, Continens Sanctos et Beatos Bohemiae, Moraviae, Silesiae, Lusatiae, […], Pragae 1682, p. 106. Literature: Petra Zelenková, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. IX.1, pp. 372–373.
Nostra memoria Ilustrissimus dominus Franciscus de Sternberg Nepomuci dominus, R[everendo] P[atre]
B[eati] Joannis Nepomucensis honori magnis sumtibus exstruxit. Benedici ecclesiam illam permisit Ernestus
Joannis imago imago radiata conspicitur, atque in veneratione habetur; per eam novi templi caussam an[no]
Georgio Fero Soc[ietate] Jesu incitante, Sacellum hoc vetustate labas-
Archiepiscopus Pragensis, et Cardinalis per alios, cum ipsemet per mor-
1641 R[everendus] P[ater] Georgius Ferus Soc[ietatis] Jes[u] librum edi-
cens totum dirui iussit, et novam, eamque perelegantem ecclesiam
bum venire, et consecrare non posset. In altari summo hujus templi B[eati]
dit, quem Famam Posthumam B[eati] Joannis Nepomuceni inscripsit; in eo
libro, elegantibus imaginibus, summo pictore Carolo Screta Pragensi praebente operam, vitam et mortem B[eati] Joannnis, brevissimis titulis triplici idiomate, Latino, et Bohemico, et Germanico comprehendit. ŠV
88
The New Town in Prague, c. 1641 Record about the execution of the St Wenceslas cycle and fifteen portraits of distinguished members of the Order of Barefoot Augustinians by Karel Škréta for the cloister of the Zderaz monastery of the Barefoot Augustinians in the New Town in Prague; the royalty paid to Karel Škréta amounts to 50 guilders per painting (compared to 32 guilders paid to other painters). Národní archiv (National Archives), Archivy zrušených klášterů (Archives of Abolished Monasteries), file Annales Monasterii S. Wenceslai Eremit[arum] Discal[ceatorum] S[ancti] P[atris] Augustini ab Anno 1623 usque ad Annum 1659 (issued 1659), Inv. No. 2450, manuscript 9 (formerly 3479), f. 23i/r,v (record to the period 1641–1644). Literature: ŠÁMAL 1948, p. 91; DVORSKÝ 1966, pp. 305–306; NEUMANN 1974, pp. 65–66.
Quoad fabricam monasterii fuerat quidem illa ruditer quantum ad muros eo usque perfecta. Deerat
etiam arcuatae tabuluae artificiosae, seu imagines pictae, 30 numero, ab insigni artifice domino Carolo Screta
tamen eidem adhuc ultima aliorum artificium, ad ultimum complemen-
pleraeque depictae. Pretium singularum ex his a domino Screta elabo-
tum, in plurimis locis maxime in inferiori claustri ambitu, in dormitorio versus meridiem, in hortis etc. Igitur huius triennii P[ater] Prior ante
ractis pervenit ad 50 florenorum ab aliis depictae 32⁷ florenorum singulae constabant. Quae omnes, totam Sancti Wenceslai Bohemiae Patroni, et olim Ducis Martyris vitam, pulche-
rae Italiae Congregationis virorum illustrium repraesentantes. V[enerabilis] G[eneralis] V[enerabiles] P[a-
muratis, corresponderent singulae rotundae seu arcuatae fenestrae
rrime adumbrantes, mire exornant totum claustrum et ingredientes extraneos magna admiratione sus-
ordinis, Augustini Mariae a S[anctissim]a Trin[itate] primi Vicarii Generalis, P[atris] Joannis Pauli a Sancto
viterae [!], quarum singulis iterum e regione fuerunt oppositae, totidem
pensos detinent. Rursum inter fenestras in columnis intermediis duorum
Nicolao, P[atris] Juliani a Sancta Maria, P[atris] Jacobi a Sancto Felice,
omnia claustrum complevit quadrilaterum, ita ut singulis fornicis arcubus
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 311
claustri laterum, collocatae sunt 15 aliae minorem tabulae quadratae, eb eodem praefato celebri pictore domino Screta artificiose depictae,
P[atris] Simeonis a Sancta Cruce, P[atris] Vincentii a Jesu Maria, P[atris] Joannis Baptistae a Jesu Maria, P[atris] Joannis a Sancto Guilelmo, P[a-
veras effigies primorum nost-
tris] Cypriani a Sancto Martino, Patris Pauli a Sancto Joanne Evang[elista],
tres] Andreae Dicz, Andreae a Sancto Job, fundatoris socii nostri illustres
Fratrum Bernardi, bini Zachariae Conversorum (horum virtutes vide in Eremo Sacra Augustiniana nuper authore P[atre] Mauritio a Sancta Maria vulgata typis. ŠV 7 Originally probably stated 30 florenorum, which was rewritten to 32.
89
The New Town in Prague, c. 1641 Report about the St Wenceslas cycle and the portraits of Augustinian monks in the cloister of the Zderaz Augustinian monastery in the New Town in Prague. Also mentioned is the inspection of the paintings by Emperor Ferdinand III (which occurred in 1646 in the presence of King Ferdinand IV.⁸). Národní archiv (National Archives), Archivy zrušených klášterů (Archives of Abolished Monasteries), file Liber primus Annalium Nostri Excalceato-Augustiniani Asceterii Sub Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, et Patroni Regni Boëmiae, In Neo-Urbe Pragena Supra Zderas Situati Ab Anno partae Salutis MDCXXIII ad Annum usque MDCXLII Complectens. […] A Fratre Severino a Sancta Anna Ordinis Eremit. Fratrum Discal. Sancti P. N. Augustini Sacerdote Professo (issued c. 1749), Inv. No. 2451, manuscript 10 (formerly 3480 a), f. 258–259 (record to 1641). Literature: ŠÁMAL 1948, DVORSKÝ 1966, NEUMANN 1974, pp. 65–66.
Igitur sub hoc Prioratu Reverendus
spectantium animis ad pietatem non
solvi: rursus inter fenestras in epys-
Patris Joannis a Sancto Quilelmo,
Pater Prior [i.e. P. Aegidius a Sancto Joanne Baptista] ante omnia claustro
parum accensis vehementer rapiunt, quarum unaquae 30 florenorum constat: Screta tamen suas eduxit ad 50
tiliis, seu capiculis pilarum concamerationes sustentantium occupabant duo claustri latera, quindecim aliae
Patris Cypriani a Sancto Martino, Patris Pauli a Sancto Joanne Evan-
florenorum usque. Unde Augustae memoriae Ferdinandus III. Impera-
minores tabulae quadratae penicillo itidem Scretae excellenter depictae,
tor, dum quadam vice Caesarea Sua praesentia interiora subiret monasterii, videns claustrum, et singulas imagines contuens, uti erat non imperitus huius artis, in aliorum opera levem vibrabat palpebram, at picturis Scretae fixo pede, ac lumine inhaerens manu artificis cognita hoc elogium Patri Priori sese comitanti idiomate teutenico dixit: Screta est bonus pictor, sed curati sibi bene
quae dimidias veras tamen effigies primorum nostrae Italicae Congregationis virorum illustrium exhibebant, uti sunt Patris Andreae Dicz, Patris Andreae a Sancto Job, Patris Augustini Mariae a Sanctissima Trinitate primi Vicarii Generalis, Patris Joannis Pauli a Sancto Nicolao, Patris Juliani a Sancta Maria, Patris Jacobi a Sancto Felice, Patris Simeonis a Sancta Cruce, Patris Vincentii a Jesu Maria,
quadrilatero complementum dedit, ita ut singulis fornicis arcubus murali opere extructis responderet singulae semirotundae, seu arcuate speculares fenestrae, quarum singulis iterum e regione intra arcus fuerunt oppositae in forma hemcycli totidem tabulae arte pictoria vitam Titularis, et Tutelaris Patroni Divi Wenceslai Ducis et Martyris Inclyti referentes ab insigni Magistro domino Carolo Screta potiori ex parte elaboratae. Sunt autem numero triginta duae, quae structuram claustri mire exornantes oculos
90
The New Town in Prague, c. 1641 Report about the crypto-portraits of the Zderaz Augustinian, Brother Jindřich from St Peter and provost of the St Giles monastery from St John the Baptist (Daniel Václav Himmelstein of Velechov), on the lunette St Wenceslas Consecrating the St Vitus Cathedral by the Regensburg bishop St Wolfgang, situated in the cloister of the Zderaz monastery. Národní archiv (National Archives), Archivy zrušených klášterů (Archives of Abolished Monasteries), file Liber secundus seu Continuatio Annalium Excalceato-Augustiniani Nostri Asceterii Sub Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, ac Patroni Regni Boëmiae, In Neo-Civitate Pragensi Supra Zderas Situati ab Anno Partae Salutis MDCXLII ad Annum usque MDCLXIII Complectens. […] A Fratre Severino a Sancta Anna Ordinis Eremit. Fratrum Discal. S. P. Augustini Sacerdote Professo (issued 1749), Inv. No. 2452, manuscript 11 (formerly 3480 b), f. 218 (record to 1658). Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Eius [i.e. Fratris Henrici a Sancto
Ratisbonensem Prosulem [!], in qua
Petro] effigiem verissimam infra in claustro videre est inter vitam Sancti Venceslai in illa imagine,
pariter Patris Aegidii effigies cernitur ad perennem merito eorum memoriam. ŠV
qua fit dedicatio ecclesiae Sancti Viti per Sanctum Wolfgangum
312 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
g[elista], Fratris Bernardi, et fratris Zachariae Conversorum, qui omnes virtutibus non vulgaribus exculti haud obscuram post se opinionem sanctitatis reliquere, ut nos trahant in odorem unquentorum suorum, modo sit, qui currere velit. ŠV 8 See the treatise by Štěpán Vácha in the present publication.
91
The New Town in Prague, c. 1641 Karel Škréta painted The Lamentation, i.e. of the Mother of Sorrows with St John the Evangelist and the two Marys, for the altarpiece of the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre in the Zderaz Augustinian monastery which was built at the expense of the Supreme Scrivener of the Bohemian Kingdom, Kryštof Wratislav of Mitrovice († 1645). Národní archiv (National Archives), Archivy zrušených klášterů (Archives of Abolished Monasteries), file Liber primus Annalium Nostri Excalceato-Augustiniani Asceterii Sub Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, et Patroni Regni Boëmiae, In Neo-Urbe Pragena Supra Zderas Situati Ab Anno partae Salutis MDCXXIII ad Annum usque MDCXLII Complectens. […] A Fratre Severino a Sancta Anna Ordinis Eremit. Fratrum Discal. Sancti P. N. Augustini Sacerdote Professo (issued c. 1749), Inv. No. 2451, manuscript 10 (formerly 3480 a), f. 260 (record to 1641). Literature: ŠÁMAL 1948; DVORSKÝ 1966; NEUMANN 1974, pp. 65–66.
Eruebantur similiter fundamenta Sacelli Domini Sepulchri ad calcem
suprema manus imposita fuisset, vita functus in eam est positus.
ecclesiae hortum versus expensas potiores suppeditavit in hoc pium opus Illustrissimus dominus domi-
Sola imago Virginis Dolorosae cum suis assectis Joanne, et Magdalena Dilectis Domini, ac alia Maria arae
nus Christophorus Wratislav Supremus Regni Scriba, qui pro foribus huius sacrae aediculae cryptam sepulchralem cadaveri suo condendo posuit, et non diu post, dum sacello
sepulchri superposita domini Scretae penicillo scite efficta 60. aureos e crumena Wratislaviana eduxit. ŠV
92
The New Town in Prague, c. 1641 Karel Škréta was paid 60 guilders for the painting [of the Mother of Sorrows with St John the Evangelist and the two Marys] executed for the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre in the Zderaz Augustinian monastery. Národní archiv (National Archives), Archivy zrušených klášterů (Archives of Abolished Monasteries), file Annales Monasterii S. Wenceslai Eremit[arum] Discal[ceatorum] S[ancti] P[atris] Augustini ab Anno 1623 usque ad Annum 1659 (sepsáno 1659), Inv. No. 2450, manuscript 9 (formerly 3479), f. 23i/v (record to the period 1641–1644). Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Screta 60 florenorum pro imagine Sancti Sepulchri soluit. ŠV
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 313
93
The New Town in Prague, c. 1641, resp. 1645 The Prague Castle District Administrator, Jan Karel Příchovský of Příchovice, contributed 50 guilders to the execution of one of the paintings of the St Wenceslas cycle in the cloister of the Zderaz Augustinian monastery; his daughter Anna Žofie commissioned a “large painting” with St Mary Magdalene and Christ as the Gardener (Noli me tangere) for the anteroom (“atrium”) of the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre in the same place. Národní archiv (National Archives), Archivy zrušených klášterů (Archives of Abolished Monasteries), file Liber primus Annalium Nostri Excalceato-Augustiniani Asceterii Sub Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, et Patroni Regni Boëmiae, In Neo-Urbe Pragena Supra Zderas Situati Ab Anno partae Salutis MDCXXIII ad Annum usque MDCXLII Complectens. […] A Fratre Severino a Sancta Anna Ordinis Eremit. Fratrum Discal. Sancti P. N. Augustini Sacerdote Professo (issued c. 1749), Inv. No. 2451, manuscript 10 (formerly 3480 a), f. 63 (record to 1645). Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Nec ommittendus est hic Illustrissimus, ac Generosissimus heros dominus Carolus Pržichovsky Arcis
ex imaginibus Sancti Wenceslai in ambitu conventus pretio 50 florenorum, et alteram Sancti Patris
Pragensis Praefectus, et postea unius legionis Croatarum Ductor, qui praeter alia etiam suggesti novi artificiose sculpti, et picti author fuit, et 600 florenos in sculpturam, et picturam impendit, unamque
Augustini in ecclesia posuit. Non dissimilem marito sese exhibuit eius domina consors nata Pisniciana, quae nostro monasterio domum donavit: et laudabiliter parentum vestigia legens filia Anna Sophia ornatum
sacrum pro altari Sanctae Annae haud vulgarem, et magnam imaginem Sanctae Mariae Magdalenae cum Christo hortulano in Atrio Sacri Sepulchri ab egregio, ac famoso pictore Carolo Screta coloribus expressam fieri iussit. ŠV
94
The Lesser Town in Prague, 31 December 1644 Karel Škréta received payment of 200 guilders for executing two altarpiece paintings with The Holy Trinity and The Assumption for the chancel of the St Thomas church of Augustinian Anchorites in the Lesser Town in Prague. Národní archiv (National Archives), Archiv české provincie augustiniánského řádu (Archives of the Czech Province of the Augustinian Order), file Diarium exitus Monasterii Pragensis S. Thomae Tempore R. P. SS. Theol. Doct. et Magistri fratris Angelici de Tapparellis [1637–1665], Inv. No. 142, sign. IIc 7, f. 115r. Literature: MATĚJKA 1896, file 121; NEUMANN 1974, p. 46.
31. [Decembris 1644] Erecta fuere duo altaria latis magna in choro ecclesiae, unum S[anctissi]mae Trinitatis aliud B[eatae]
Virginis Assumptae: pro iis haec fuere expensae: […] Domino Carolo Scretae pictori pro imaginibus florenorum ducenti. ŠV
314 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
95
The Lesser Town in Prague, 1644 Karel Škréta painted The Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and Souls in Purgatory for the altarpiece of the Confraternity of the Dead in the St Nicolas church in the Lesser Town in Prague for 200 guilders, paid from the bequest of the Land Vice-Scrivener, Knight Zdeněk Ježovský of Luby († 1645).⁹ Národní archiv (National Archives), fund Náboženská bratrstva (Religious Confraternities), file Pamětnice dušičkového bratrstva při kapli sv. Barbory kostela sv. Mikuláše na Malé Straně (The Memorial Book of the All Souls’ Day Confraternity with the St Barbara Chapel of the St Nicolas church in the Lesser Town in Prague), sign, XVII/57, f. 68, box 133. Literature: Štěpán Vácha – Sylva Dobalová, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. V.2., pp. 210–211.
Perillustris dominus n[omen] n[escio] Loubsky Eques alius sepulturae haberet, in crypta Sacelli Defunctorum pro altari illius contulit 300 florenorum ex qua pecunia imago Crucifixi altaris
curata est, et soluta domino pictori Carolo Screta 200 florenorum. ŠV 9 On the identification of the donor, see OULÍKOVÁ 2010, p. 1223.
96
Prague, 29 August – 5 November 1646 Financial statement for the works on the castrum doloris for Anna Maria of Spain. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), Inv. No. 1580, sign. K 1/33, subfile Smrt císařovny Marie, manželky Ferdinanda III. (Death of Empress Maria, Wife of Ferdinand III), box 1053. Literature: NOVOTNÝ 1946, p. 76; POPELKA 1994, pp. 43, 116.
Prag den 29. Augusti a[nno] 1646 Rentmeister und Gegenhandler Anstat und im Nahmen Höchstg[edachter] Ihrer Mayestät unsers Allerg[nä]d[ig]sten Herren
abgelaufenen [1]646 Jahrs in der Königlichen Prager Schloß Thumbkirchen für Ihr Mayestät, die in Gott iüngst abgeleibte Römischen Kayserin Mariae hochster[melter] Andenkens aufgerichtet worden gestan-
decretum gnädig anzubevehlen, daß er sowohl diese particular Verzaichnuß nach Ratificirung solcher sambt Quittungen, alß auch daß Crönungs particular nebens aller Parteyen Quittungen und taxirten Handwerks
Gedachtnus iungsthin aufgerichten castri doloris noch 50 Floren reinisch bey den Euch anvertrauten ambt zu fordern und hiervon Ihrer Kayserlichen Mayestät Bauschreiberey des Königlichen Prager Schloß Adamen
befehlen wir euch hiemit ihr wollet dem Carl Screta Mahlern weg[en] Mahlung des castri doloris für Ihr
den und belauft sich, wie hierbey zu sehen in allem auf 1172 Floren, 4 Kreuzer, 3 Denarii, dieweil dann
außzügen (in maßen die Buchhalterey hiebevor in ihrn Euer Gnaden eingeraichten Guetachten dahin
Gottfrieden Khuer von Kuhrbach 13 Floren wegen dargegebnen Holcz dem Zimmerman, wegen verrich-
Mayestät die verstorbene Kayserin Glorwürdigster Gedächtnis in
die Parteyen (außgenomben Herrn Festa so noch nit gar contentirt) von
gangen), zu seiner Verraittung von mir der Ordnung nachübernehme
tern Arbeith 15 Floren, dem Hoffuhrman wegen der Fuhren 10 Floren
Abschlag des mit ihme getrofenen Accords für dießmahl 50 Floren reinisch gegen richtiger Quittung dar-
den jenig[en] Geld, welche auf Euer Gnaden gnädige Verordnung gegen meinen Interimsscheinen ich auß
und meine Interimsschein hergegen außhändigen lassen wolle, wie es nun an sich selbsten billich und die
reinisch, die ubrige 12 Floren ermelten Screta gegen allerseits Quittung zu bezahlen verwilliget worden. Als
geben und bezahlen.
dem Königlichen Böhmischen Ren-
unumgängliche Notturft erfordert,
befehlen anstat und im Nahmen
Hochlöbliche Königliche Böhembi-
tambt empfangen durch mich caußer deß Herrn Scretae bezahlt worden, worüber ich dero Quittungen in Handen und nun solche alweg
alß thue zue dem Gnaden ich mich gehorsam empfehlen. Euer Gnaden gehorsambster Adam Gottfried Kuhr mp.
mehr höchstermelte Kayserlichen Mayestät wir euch hiemit Ihr wollet obner standener maßen ermelten Khur angeregte 13 Floren, dem Zim-
sche Camer,
zu Herrn Rentmaisters Verraitung,
gnädig hochgebietende Herrn hierbey überreichen Euer Gn[a]d[en] ich nochmale in gehorsamb eine particular Verzaichnuß deß einigen
damit es den Partayen können fürgeschrieben und etwan doppelte Bezahlung verhütet werden, gehören. Alß gelanget an Euer Gnaden mein
Prag den 22. Octobri 1646 Rentmeister und Gegenhandler Demnach Carl Screta Mahler wegen
10 Floren und die ubrige 12 Floren dem Screta gegen allerseits richtiger Quittung dargeben und bezahlen. So euch hier auf kunftig Beyraittung
Costens, was das castrum doloris,
gehorsambes Bitten, sie geruhen
des fur Ihrer Mayestät die ver-
fur quit gelegter passiret werden
welches den 6. Septembris unlengst
bemeltem Herrn Rentmaister per
storbene Kayserin glarwurdigster
sollen.
[?] Kempink mp.
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 315
merman 15 Floren, dem Hoffuhrman
Prag den 5. Novemb[ri] anno 1646 Rentmeister und Gegenhandler
jungsthin aufgerichten castri doloris von höchster[melter] Ihrer Mayestät
hiemit, ihr wollet ermelten Screta Quittung über angeregte 200 Flo-
wisset per Empfang und Außgab in Raittung einschriben. So euch kunf-
Demnach Carolo Screta Mahlern
Haubtman dero Herrschaft Podiebrad 200 Floren gegen hiebey ver-
ren anstat baaren Gelts annehmen und dem Haubtman berührter Herr-
tig für [?] gelegter passiret werden solle.
wegen Verfertigung des in alhiesiger Königlichen Prager Schloßkirchen für Ihre Mayestät die verstorbene
wahrter original Quittung bezahlt worden. Als befehlen anstat und im Nahmen mehr höchster[melter]
schaft Podiebrad hierüber gebührent bescheinigen und es alß eine Herrschaft Gefälligkeit per Empfang
RT
Kayserin glorwürdigster Gedächtnus
Kayserlichen Mayestät wir euch
und Außgab, wie Ihr recht zuthuen
97
(Prague), September 1646 The castrum doloris for Anna Maria of Spain, the wife of Emperor Ferdinand III. Státní oblastní archiv v Plzni (pobočka Nepomuk) (State Regional Archives in Plzeň [branch Nepomuk]), fund Rodinný archiv falknovské větve Nostitz-Rienecků 1364–1945 (Family Archives of the Falknov Branch of the Nostitz-Rieneck Family), Inv. No. 34, sign. DD 4 – Úřední spisy českého místodržitelství (Official Records of the Bohemian Governor’s Office) 1617–1721, box 6. Literature: NOVOTNÝ 1946, p. 76; POPELKA 1994, pp. 43, 116; Radka Tibitanzlová, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.16, p. 595.
Den 1. Septembri 1646 dem Herrn Rentmeister 4 Müntzzettel geben, so außgetragen jeden 2 Münztzettel 1376 Florin
Dem Hofglaser für Trad, Schrauben, Paumbwoll, die Lampen zue hencken und dieselben zu versorgen, von jeder 6 Kreuzer – thuet von
Der Hofglaser begehrt 20 Florin, in Abschlag Item der Schneider 10 Florin Sambt 10 Florin, ist es 429 Florin,
767 Florin –––– 175 Pfund weiße Wachskerzen zue 42 Kreuzer – thuet 122 Florin, 30 Kreuzer
500 Florin, 50 Kreuzer ½ Centen oder 60 Pfund Paumböhl, 4 Lot zu jeder Lampen per 14 Florin Item dem Schneider 10 Florin Summa 429 Florin, 50 Kreuzer
30 Kreuzer Vor das castrum doloris dem Mahler Screta 550 Florin RT
1000 Elln Tuch zue 14 Kreuzer
98
Prague, November and December 1648 Karel Škréta executed a drawn model for the graphic portrait of the Jesuit priest Jiří Plachý, defender of Prague against the Swedes in 1948, at the request of the Imperial General Christoph Buchheim. The portrait was engraved by the Zderaz Augustinian, Brother Jindřich from St Peter. Literature: BREVIS RELATIO 1910, pp. 83–85. 12. [Novembris 1648]
defensor patriae, pater juventutis
aetatis 43, staturae 6 pedum et
impressionis convertatur, sequi inde
Solennes exequiae in Tejnensi ecclesia pro domino colonello Czabelicky
Academiae a[nno] 1648 staturae 6 pedum et 5 digitorum.
5 digitorum. Symbolum ejus est: dulce et deco-
multa inconventia etc. Responsum eam non esse amplius prae mani-
ab hoste in assultu generali vulnerato et mortuo; plurimae missae pro illo lectae. Propria effigies P[atris]
rum est pro deo et patria mori. 15. [Novembris 1648] Sculpitur aere a fr[atre] Henrico ad
6. [Decembris 1648]
Plachi a domino Screta missa ad fratrem Henricum, ut illam aere sculpat
requisitionem et expensas Illustrissimi domini comitis Bucheimii
R[everendus] P[ater] rector collegii Soc[ietatis] Jesu Sancti Clementis
bus, sed missa Ilustrissimo domino comiti Buchaimio generali, qui curavit sculpi et solvit laborem. ŠV
expensis domini comitis Buchaimii generalis, qui heri in Austriam discessit. Epigraphia illius Patri est
generalis P[atris] Plachi cum tali epigraphe: R[everendus] P[ater] Georgius Franciscus Plachi e Soc[i-
misit P[atrem] Hencelium, concionatorem germanicum, petendo laminam, in qua sculpta fuit effi-
talis: R[everendus] P[ater] Georgius Franciscus Plachi e Soc[ietatis] Jesu
etatis] Jesu Budvicensis defensor patriae, pater juventutis Academi-
gies P[atris] Plachi a nostro fr[atre] Henrico, promittens se velle eam
Budvicensis in obsidione Pragae
ae in obsidione Pragae a[nno] 1648,
solvere, modo non amplius ad usum
316 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
99
The Old Town in Prague, 1652 Karel Škréta received payment of 150 guilders for executing the altarpiece painting with The Crucifixion for the White Friars’ church of the Great Cross in the Old Town in Prague (an equal amount was paid to Antonín Stevens for his painting with the The Assumption). Národní knihovna ČR (National Library of the Czech Republic), Sbírka rukopisů a starých tisků (Collection of Manuscripts and Old Prints), file Johann Carl Rohn, Ianus Bifrons respectans praeteria, asens praesentia prospiciens futuris seu Liber Archivi Primus Sanctae Crucis, sign. VII A 10 a, f. 85v (record to 1652). Literature: KOŘÁN 1968, p. 175.
Hoc anno accesserunt ecclesiae Sanctae Crucis duo notabilia alta-
proveniente egregios sumptus fecit, et hoc anno integre exsolvit. Sculp-
ria, Crucifixi videlicet, et Ascensionis Domini, antehac enim tantum
tori dati sunt pro utraque ara 240 florenorum domino Carolo Screta
penes majorem Aram unum, alterum non tam altaria, quam altariola (ut in ratiociniis woltar-
pictori praeclaro pro imagine Crucifixi 150 florenorum, domino Antonio Stephano Steinfels pictori
žicžiky vocantur) exstabant. In haec dua altaria dominus Praepositus ex nervo a domina Lecžanska
pro imagine Ascensionis Domini 150 florenorum. ŠV
100
Svatá Hora near Příbram, July 1654 Two records in the diarium of the Jesuit residence at Svatá Hora, informing that Karel Škréta visited the place of pilgrimage in the company of Count Bernard Ignaz Borzita von Martinitz for the purpose of executing a painting of the local graceful Marian statue and designing a sanctuary (“tabernaculum”) for its display. Národní archiv (National Archives), Řádový archiv redemptoristé (Archives of the Redemptorist Order), Diarium Residentiae in Sacro Monte a 24. Augusti Anno 1647 usque ultimam Decembris 1669, Inv. No. 104, sign. P 7, f. 123. Literature: KOPEČEK 2002, pp. 165–166 (published with inaccuracies).
18. [Julii 1654] Adduxit etiam secum Excellenti-
19. [Julii 1654] Dominica VIII. post Pent[ecostem]
etiam summo mane dominus Carolus Screta celeberimus pictor caepit
ssimus Comes Carolum Scretam primarium et celeberrimum picto-
… peregrini Excelentissimus Dominus Comes de Martinitz (titulus)
effigiare B[eatam] Virginem nostram et ob hoc data opera evocatus
rem regni, hunc data opera evocavit Praga, ut statuam miraculosam B[eatae] V[irginis] in Sancto Monte
ab hesternis vesperis cum tota sua aula. Haec Dominica tertio suam devotionem in honorem Sanctissi-
effigiaret et ut elegans aliquod tabernaculum pro eadem statua B[eatae]
mae Trinitatis et Beatissimae Matris peregit, promisit se curaturum ele-
est Praga ab Excellentissimo Domine Comite de Martinitz Supremo Regni Purgravio. ŠV
Virginis delinearet. Sumptus dabit ipsemet Excellentissimus Comes.
gans tabernaculum pro statua miraculosa Beatae Virginis Mariae. Hodie
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 317
101
Svatá Hora near Příbram, July 1654 Report from the hand-written history of Svatá Hora about Karel Škréta and Count Bernard Ignaz Borzita von Martinitz visiting the same place on 18 and 19 July 1654 for the purpose of executing a painting of the local graceful Marian statue and designing a sanctuary (“tabernaculum”) for its display. Národní archiv (National Archives), Řádový archiv redemptoristé (Archives of the Redemptorist Order), Synopsis historiae Sacromontanae ordine annorum digesta (written 1679), Inv. No. 113, sign. P 131, f. 37. Literature: KOPEČEK 2002, pp. 165–166 (published with inaccuracies). Julii 5. [1654] Excellentissimus Dominus Burgravius Regni Bernardus
ut statuam B[eatae] V[irginis] effigia-
picturae gloria ac potissimum reprae-
Comes a Martinitz. Ejusdem 18. iterato adfuit et adduxit secum domi-
ret. Sequenti mox die opus aggressus, omnem artem impendit, stando, sedendo multis continue horis ad
sentanda, quam proposuit cuiuslibet effigie, felicissimus habebatur.
num Carolum Scretam illum inter celeberrimos aevi sui Apellem eo fine,
lineas omnia revocando. Sed tamen consumpsit, non tangendo. Qui alias
Juxta se posita utraque imagine, picta damnata est uno ore ab omnibus. Prototypon est contra ipsum
pro se approbatum. Illa autem imago a domino Screta transpicta est illa ipsa, quae in valva tabernaculi lateralis B[eate] V[irginis] intra fornicem quasi situata visitur. ŠV
102
Svatá Hora near Příbram, 1654 Bohuslav Balbín describes Škréta’s trouble in executing a painting of the graceful Marian sculpture at Svatá Hora near Příbram in his book about the same sculpture. Bohuslaus Balbinus, Diva Montis Sancti seu Origines et miracula magnae Dei hominumque Matris Mariae, in Sancto Monte Regni Bohemiae, ad Argentifodinas Przibramenses, quotidiana populi frequentia, et pietate, in statua sua mirabili, aditur, et colitur: V. libris comprehenda, Pragae 1665, pp. 127–128. Literature: KOPEČEK 2009, pp. 164–165.
(Car[olus] Scr[eta]) Praga unum aliquem misit, antiquis pictoribus parem, virum apud nos genitum, sed orbi et urbi notum, ubique ab arte laudatum; (nominae opus non est, digito viator
ostendet) hic in S[acro] Monte pictorio pluteo statuto, ante oculos stante imagine, in diva nostra exprimenda omnem artem consumit, stetit, seditque multis continuis horis, ad lineas omnia revocavit, nam Principis in
Regno viri urgebat imperium. (Catull. Horat.) Ridete quidquid est domi cachinnorum! Currente rota cur urceus exit? et tamen picturae gloria, ac potissimum repraesentanda, quam
proposuerit cujuslibet effigie, foecilissimus habetur; utraque juxta se posita imagine, hanc pictam damnavimus uno ore omnes. ŠV
103
Svatá Hora near Příbram, 1654 Bohuslav Balbín describes Škréta’s trouble in executing a painting of the graceful Marian sculpture at Svatá Hora near Příbram in his book about the same sculpture (Czech translation by Matěj Václav Štajer). Bohuslav Balbín, Přepodiwná Matka Swato Horská Marya, W Zázracých a Milostech swých na Hoře Swaté nad Městem Přjbrami Hor Střjbrných den po dni wjc a wjc se stkwěgjcý […], Litomyšl 1666, pp. 26–27. Literature: Vít Vlnas, in: sekyrka 1997, cat. no. 3.26, p. 98–99.
Jeden výborně dobrý a v svém umění
od předního pána v Čechách [tj. hra-
není rovného v Čechách, který by
kteří jsme se na ně dívali, všickni
velmi zkušený malíř z Prahy pokusil se o to, všeckno své umění na to
běte Bernarda Ignáce Bořity z Martinic]. Nicméně svatohorského obrazu
uměl tak vlastně vyobraziti jakoukoli tvář kteréhokoli člověka anebo
jednosvorně jsme pravili, že chybil daleko.
vynaložil, aby jej vlastně přemaloval. Hleděl, seděl, maloval několik hodin pořád, neb mu bylo poručeno
dobře přemalovati nemohl, jakkoli všickni ho v malířském umění bez příčiny chválí a za to mají, že mu
obrazu jako on. Vzali jsme oba obrazy spolu, starý, i ten nový od něho malovaný, a cokoliv nás bylo,
ŠV
318 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
104
(Prague), after 2 September 1654 List of payments of the Bohemian Chamber, disbursed for the work on the castrum doloris for Ferdinand IV, built in the St Vitus Cathedral. Karel Škréta executed works worth 428 guilders. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. K 1/4, Inv. No. 1580, box 1055. Literature: Tomáš Sekyrka, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.21A, p. 600; SEKYRKA 2011, pp. 147–152.
Particular Verzaichnus was das für der Römischen auch zue Hungarn
zur erzeugte Nottürfen, bei denen
Herrn Carln Screta, Mahlern, war-
4 Staduis, soviel Kindln, item unter-
und Böheimb etc. Khönigliches Maÿestat Ferdinandi IV. Hochwür-
vom letzten Augustii bies 2. Septembris 1654 Jahrs per 3 Tage übergehaltenen Exequien gestauen und
uem er aber die Zimmerleuthe, item Fuhrlohn und dar zue gebrauchte Holz Materialien selbsten bezahlen
schiedliche Todtenköpfen und denen Guldenfelußen umbher in die Bögen zue machen … 200 Florin
dige Gedächtnus alhier in der Schloß Thumbkirchen sancti Viti aufge-
gekostet, als nemblich Fridrich Riezel Tischler vor deßen
müßen … 428 Florin Dem Bildhauer Ernst Heydelbergern
richte castrum doloris und die dar
Arbeit … 300 Florin
und deßen Adhaerenten von den
–––– Summa … 1672 Florin reinisch TS
105
(Prague), 8 October 1654 The Bohemian Chamber orders its treasurer to disburse to Karel Škréta the rest of the 728 guilders for the commissioned castrum doloris for Ferdinand IV. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. K 1/4, box 290. Literature: Tomáš Sekyrka, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.21B, p. 600; SEKYRKA 2011, pp. 147–152.
[office note] Herr Rentmeister sol dem Carln Screta Mahlern in der Alten Stadt Prag die per pausch veraccordierte 728 Florin wegen Aufrichtung des Königs Ferdinandi Quardi castri
Herrn Renthmeister und Gegenhandler, demnach dem Carl Skreta Mahlern an denen mit ihme wegen Verfertig- und Aufrichtung des Königlichen castri doloris per pausch ausser
Specification [?] 728 Florin annoch 128 Florin ruckstendig verbleiben und nun wir Ihme solche aus dem Euch anvertrauten Renthambts gefählen befehlen zulasen verwilliget. Als befehlen anstatt und im
gebührende Quitung bezahlen und erfolgen lassen, und die also mit Ihme vergleiheme völlige Summa der 728 Florin ein Reitung per Ausgab einbringen, massen es Euch ausser Mängl sein und pasiert
doloris, annoch restierende 128 Florin gegen Quitung ausfolgen lassen. Prag den 8. Octobris anno Domini 1654.
der auf 200 Florin absonderlich veraccordirten und nunmehr bezahlten Bildhauerarbeit verglichenen und in hiebey khomender glaubewürdige
Nahmen höchstgedachter Ihrer Kayserlichen Mayestät wir euch hiemit, ihr wollet obbesagten Skreta berühete aufstendige 128 Florin gegen
werden solle. TS
106
The Old Town in Prague, December 1654 The closing financial statement of the church funds of Our Lady before Týn (dated 31 December 1654) states that Karel Škréta was disbursed the difference of 44 guilders and 8 kreuzers from the Old Town municipal government for adding two figures to the altarpiece painting with The Assumption in the same church. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), Týnské záduší (Týn church funds), file Kniha různých počtů za léta 1654–1663 (The Book of Various Figures for the Period 1654–1663), sign. 1646, f. 23r (record to 1654). Literature: Štěpán Vácha, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. V.13, p. 226.
Náklad na veliký oltář: 31. decem-
figur na plátně v oltáři velkém
doplaceno proti kvitanci jeho
bris panu Karlovi Škrétovi malíři, co se jemu od malování dvouch
restýrovalo, ostatek zouplna
44 zlatých, 8 krejcarů. ŠV
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 319
107
The New Town in Prague, (c. 1654) Henricus a Sancto Petro, a monk of the Augustinian monastery in the New Town in Prague, requests the Bohemian Chamber to pay for his work on the engraving which depicts the castrum doloris of the Emperor and King Ferdinand IV. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. K 1/4, box 290, f. 19. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Milostiví páni páni, nečiním před Vašich Milostem tejná, jakož mně od Vašich Milostí měď k vyrytí po slavné a svaté paměti Jeho Milosti římského, uherského a českého krále Ferdinanda IV. castrum doloris k zhotovení dána. Nyní jsouc ta věc již před několika dni k místu a konci přivedena. Co se rytí dotčeného castrum doloris práce mé stalé šestinedělní dotýče, Vaší Milosti modlitebně žádám, že k vynahražení tomuto klášteru našemu svatého Václava, není-li peněžitých prostředkův před rukami, buď dva sudy vína, aneb něco nápodobně od obilí, laskavě naříditi a vykázati ráčíte. V čemž se Vašim Milostem k milostivé resoluci poroučím. Za Vašich Milostí na modlitbách trvající Fr[ater] Henricus â Sancto Petro, řádu bosáckého svatého Augustina u svatého Václava v Novém Městě pražském TS DOCUMENT No. 107 Henricus a Sancto Petro, a monk from the ranks of the Barefoot Augustinians, requests the Bohemian Chamber to pay for his engraving which depicts the castrum doloris of the late Ferdinand IV. (c. 1654), New Town in Prague. Prague, National Archives, file New Manipulation (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
108
Úštěk, 1656 The Memorial Book of the Úštěk parish states that Karel Škréta executed the painting Our Lady with Ss Peter and Paul for the main altarpiece of the Ss Peter and Paul parish church for the amount of 300 guilders (?). Literature: PREISS 1955, pp. 158–159. ŠV 320 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
109
Venice (Italy), 1656 The inventory of inheritance of the Venice painter and collector, Michiel Pietro (Michiel Steiner), written on 5 and 6 April 1656, mentions two paintings by Karel Škréta with the subject of Adam and Eve (“Uno Adamo, et Eva di Carlo Creta” or, respectively, “Un Adamo et Eva di ma[no] di Carlo Creta”). Published by Jana Zapletalová from the source held in Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Giudici di Petizion, Inventari, Busta 366, Vol. 11, f. 7v. Literature: ZAPLETALOVÁ 2010, p. 153. ŠV
110
Verona (Italy), 1656 The 1656 inventory of inheritance of the Verona lawyer Giovanni Pietro Cortoni mentions Škréta’s painting representing The Dance or The Exultation of Players (“Carlo Screta pezzi uno – n[umer]o 1 Tripudio di giocatori, largo p[iede] 5 o[nce] 4, alto p[iede] 3 o[nce] 1.”). Published from the source held in Jesi, Biblioteca Comunale Planettiana, Archivio Azzolino, box 206, Vol. 3, not foliated (f. 2v). Literature: ZAPLETALOVÁ 2010, p. 155. ŠV
111
Venice (Italy), (1660–1663) Škréta’s paintings included in the inventory of paintings offered to Count Humprecht Johann Czernin in Venice for sale (undated). Státní oblastní archiv Třeboň (pobočka Jindřichův Hradec) (State Regional Archives of the City of Třeboň [branch Jindřichův Hradec]), Rodinný archiv Černínů (Černínská ústřední správa) (Family Archives of the Czernin Family [Czernin Central Administration]), Černínská galerie (The Czernin Gallery) 166*–1799, box 761, f. 5–8. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, pp. 148–149. [No. 18] Bersabea original … del
[No. 124] Ritratto Veronica Franca,
Screta [No. 19] Giosef fuggitivo dal letto original del Screta
ven[ezian]a poetessa Screta [No. 126] Rit[ratto] Cassandra Fideli, ven[ezian]a oratora
[No. 35] Virgilia … Screta [No. 36] Dea Vestale, che porta aqua
[No. 142] Ballo di satiri, original del Screta
nel crivello con arma di monsignore al colliere di cane, NB Screta [No. 43] Diluvio, original di Screta
[No. 146] La Verità della bocca in Roma del leone con un matto, original del Screta ŠV
[No. 44] Causa di diluvio, original Screta [No. 63] Venere Adone, che si bacciano, paese di Baldissera, figure di Screta
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 321
112
Venice (Italy), (1660–1663) Inventory of paintings purchased by Humprecht Jan Czernin in Venice, also mentioning Škréta’s works from the above-mentioned collection of paintings on offer. Státní oblastní archiv Třeboň (pobočka Jindřichův Hradec) (State Regional Archives of the City of Třeboň [branch Jindřichův Hradec]), Rodinný archiv Černínů (Černínská ústřední správa) (Family Archives of the Czernin Family [Czernin Central Administration]), file Lista der eingekhaufften Bielder (Czernin Galerie 166*–1799), box 761, f. 21–24. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, pp. 148–149.
[14] Giosef fuggitivo dal letto … 24
[87] Historia di Virgilio colla donna,
[15] Bersabea … 30 [33] Ballo di satiri … 20
che lo scherni … 48 [108] Una poetessa veneta, vestita di
[36] Il Diluvio … 48 [37] Crapula causa del diluvio … 48
verde … 56 [109] Una compagna venetiana, ora-
[39] Un re con un turbante, sei figure, bacuri[?] d’ora … 48 [83] Una donna, che monta le scale
toressa che scrive … 56 [122] Donna, che baccia un giovane in un paesin … 16
con un sedazzo e altre figure … 48
ŠV
113
(Klatovy), 27 June 1661 The municipal government of Klatovy replies to Karel Škréta’s demand note in the matter of repaying a debt, stating that two payment terms indeed expired but that reconstructing the office and accommodating the army brought expenses to the city. The body, however, promises that it would send the due amount as soon as possible in the forthcoming days. Státní okresní archiv Klatovy (State Regional Archives Klatovy), fund Archiv města Klatovy (Archives of the City of Klatovy) 1353–1945 (1956), Inv. No. 84, file Kopiář listů odeslaných radou a purkmistrovským úřadem (Kniha copiarum) (The Duplicate Book of Letters Sent by the Council and the Burgomaster’s Office) 1657–1662, Evidence No. K 68, f. 321r. Literature: BERÁNKOVÁ 2004, pp. 183–185.
Panu Karlovi Škrétovi 27. junii 1661 Že pán nás ze dvouch terminův umluvených a již prošlých upomíná
vkročilo. Nicméně pána v konečnosti ubezpečujeme a se zavazujeme, že povinnej peníze bez dalšího pána
a nám psaní naše, v němž k placení jistá přípověď se stala, připomíná,
zdržování a zaneprázdnění v krátkých dnech po schválním poslu
porozumíváme. Čemuž v konečnosti zadosti by se bylo stalo, kdyby obnova ouřadu a nářek lidu vojan-
našem odešleme, toliko žádáme, že krátké s náma strpení a sečkání učiní, v čemž se jistotně pán ubezpe-
skýho a u nás logírovaného, načež nemalá outrata vzešla, v to bylo
čiti moci bude. TS
DOCUMENT No. 113 Copies of two letters addressed to Karel Škréta by the municipal government of Klatovy and respectively dated 21 May 1673 and 14 June 1674. State Regional Archives Klatovy, file Archives of the City of Klatovy, The Book of Copies 1669–1681 (photo: 1662, State Regional Archives Klatovy)
322 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
114
The New Town in Prague, 1661 Karel Škréta executed two paintings with the subjects of The Last Supper and Washing the Feet for the refectory of the Zderaz Augustinian monastery at the expense of the New Town book-binder Jeroným and the Lesser Town book-seller Bartoloměj Lucerna, receiving 35 guilders for each. (Also mentioned are two canvases, The Marriage Feast in Cana of Galilee and Mary Magdalene in the House of the Pharisee, both painted by Fabián Harovník.) Národní archiv (National Archives), Archivy zrušených klášterů (Archives of Abolished Monasteries), file Liber secundus seu Continuatio Annalium Excalceato-Augustiniani Nostri Asceterii Sub Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, ac Patroni Regni Boëmiae, In Neo-Civitate Pragensi Supra Zderas Situati ab Anno Partae Salutis MDCXLII ad Annum usque MDCLXIII Complectens. […] A Fratre Severino a Sancta Anna Ordinis Eremit. Fratrum Discal. S. P. Augustini Sacerdote Professo (issued 1749), Inv. No. 2452, manuscript 11 (formerly 3480 b), f. 276–277 (record to 1661). Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 66.
Anno abhin uno duabus imaginibus
Lucerna bibliopola Parvo Parten-
apud Pharisaeum a benefactore uno
artificiosis, et devotis refectorium nostrum statim ad initium illustratum est; quarum unam Coenae
sis: ille quidem quindecim florenos, hic totidem sexagenas offerendo compararunt, imagines tamen
et altero nempe a domino Doctore Birka, et domino Nicolao Chyrurgo triginta pariter, et quinque florenis
Domini compactor noster dominus Hieronimus civis Neo-Pragensis, alteram, quae lotionem pedum habet, dominus Bartholomaeus
a domino Caloro [!] Screta pictore triginta quinque florenis appretiatae, et solutae fuerunt. Duae alterae Caenae Galileae, et Magdalenae
12. Martii comparatae sunt. Pinxit has ultimas dominus Fabianus pictor. ŠV
115
s. l., 8 October 1663 Prince Karl Eusebius of Liechtenstein orders Karel Škréta be reimbursed the amount of 450 Rheinish guilders for three paintings which he had purchased from him. HALW, HZR 1663/64, f. 57v. Literature: HAUPT 1998, p. 71.
… dem Carl Screta, burger[lichen] Mahlern zue Prag vor drey von ihm erkauften Bielder, vor iedes per 100
Reichsthaler, in allem aber … geben 450 Florin reinisch. RT
116
(1663) Two epigrams by Bohuslav Balbín where portraits of Count Karl Maximilian Lazansky of Bukowa or, respectively, some Diadomilla – both executed by Karel Škréta – are equalled to the ideal appearances of an angel or, respectively, Venus. The first epigram was published in Balbín’s collection of epigrams, entitled “Examen Melissaeum seu Epigrammatum libri quinque […]”, Pragae 1663. The second epigram is part of Balbín’s undated manuscript “Adversariorum R. P. Balbini 2da seu Litt. B”, f. 319 (held in the library of the Strahov monastery, sign. DE V 28). Literature: PREISS 2008, pp. 161–162 (with Czech translation); Konečný 2002, p. 53 (with Czech translation).
Modestia optimi adolescentis Caroli. Angelicam effigiem cupiebat pingere Screta,
Effigiem Veneris cum vellet pingere Screta, Effigiem pinxit o Diadomilla tuam.
Effigiem pinxit Carole parve tuum.
ŠV
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 323
117
Prague, 9 April 1664 Karel Škréta enters into contract with Count Karl Caretto-Millesimo. The contract obliges the painter to execute castrum doloris after his own design for Countess Silvia of Baden, born Caretto-Millesimo. According to the receipt dated 5 June 1664, Škréta received the amount of 600 guilders for the work. The source, which was originally deposited in the archives of the family of Czernins of Chudenice, was not found. LITerature: OPOČENSKÝ 1910 (edition), pp. 134–135. RT
118
(Prague), 17 July 1665 Karel Škréta enters into contract with the abbot of the Zblaslav monastery, Jiří Oldřich of Oberkunreut. The contract obliges Škréta to execute a painting with the subject of The Assumption for the main altarpiece of the Zbraslav monastery and to complete it by the time the woodcarvers and cabinetmakers have completed their works at the latest. Škréta will be paid 650 Rheinish guilders for the painting, receiving 200 guilders upon signing the contract and the rest upon delivering the work. Records confirmed by Škréta prove that 200 guilders were paid immediately, on 17 July 1665, and the remaining 450 guilders on 26 February 1668. Státní oblastní archiv v Litoměřicích (State Regional Archives in Litoměřice), fund Cisterciáci Osek (Cistercians from Osek), file Miscellanea, sign. D II 68 (today missing). Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 126; SEKYRKA 2011, pp. 147–152.
Im Jahre 1665 den 17. Juli ist nachfolgende Berednuss [!] zwischen hochwürdigen und hochgelehrten in Gott andächtigen Herren Herren Georg Ulrich Junkern von
Unterschreibung dieses Contrakts Ihme Herrn Screta zwei Hundert Gulden rheinisch zuerlegen. Die übrige vier Hundert und fünfzig Gulden bei Lieferung des gemeld-
Oberkunrauth des heiligen Cistersienser Ordens Königlichen Stifts Königsaal Abten an einer, dan dem Herren Carol Screta, Bürgern und
ten Stück. Das dieses zwischen Ihr Hochwürden und Gnaden und dem Herren Carol Screta geschlossen ist worden und fest gehalten wird,
Mahlern in der Alten Stadt Prag, an andern. Nemblich dass der gemeldte Herr Carol Screta, Mahler, für Ihr Hochwürden und Gnaden zum
haben sich beide contrahierende mit eigenen Händen unterschreiben und ihre Petschaften zugedruckt. So geschehen zu Königsaal
grossen Altar in die grosse Kirche
den Tag und Jahr wie oben.
zu Königsaal mahlen soll ein Stück acht Ellen und etliche Zoll hoch, dan vier und eine halbe Ellen breit, darauf Unser Lieben Frauen Him-
L. S. Carl Screta mp. L. S. Georg Ulrich Junckter von Oberkunreuth, Abt zu Königssaahl
melfahrt mit zwelf Aposteln, eine
Den 17. Juli wie geschlossen, habe
Gloria mit Engeln und Kindeln und die Heilige Dreifaltigkeit. Und das gemeldte Stück aufs längste zu Aufrichtung der übrigen von Bild-
von Ihr Hochwürden und Gnaden empfangen zwei Hundert Gulden reinisch bekenne mit dieser Schrift und Unterschrift
hauen und Tischler darzu gehö-
Carl Screta mp.
rige Sachen verfertigen. Dargegen versprechen Ihr Hochwürden und Gnaden obgemeldten Herrn Screta für das gemahlte Stück sechs Hun-
Den 26. Februar 1668 habe empfangen wegen Stückes der Unser Lieben Frauen Assumption die übrige
dert und fünfzig Gulden rheinisch
vier Hundert und fünfzig Gulden
zu geben der Gestalt dass erst bei
reinisch und der mit völlig bezahlt
324 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
worden, dass dem also beuzeuge mit meiner Hand Unterschrift. Carl Screta mp. TS
119
1666 Bohuslav Balbín sets Škréta’s university theses (“emblemata”) as the example for stage directors of theatre performances, comparing them to “portraits” and “pictures” by the leading painters, Raphael and other Italians, and also Peter Paul Rubens, Albrecht Dürer, Egidius Sadeler, Phillip Galle and Balthasar Moncornet. Bohuslaus Balbinus, Verisimilia humaniorum disciplinarum seu Juducium privatum de omni litterarum (quas humaniores appellant) artificio quo in libello praecepta epistolarum […] proponitur. […], Pragae 1666, pp. 216–217.¹⁰ Literature: KROPÁČEK 1992, p. 115; KONEČNÝ 2002, p. 53.
Est (quod saepe dixi), est quaedam
gestus insignes et raros in affectibus
laudata curiositas, imagines et picturas magnorum atificium sedulo
ostendut. ŠV
inspicere, quales sunt Raphaëlis Urbinatis et ceterorum Italorum, item Rubeni, Dureri, Sadeleri, Galei, Moncorneti et apud nos antiquis non cessuri, Bohemi pictoris Caroli Scretae emblemata. Hi non tantum apparatum personarum, sed
10 Comp. the modern edition and the Czech translation: Bohuslav Balbín, Rukověť humanitních disciplín = Verisimilia humaniorum disciplinarum, prepared for publication, accompanied by commentary and notes and translated from the Latin original with the help of Bohumil Ryba’s translation by Olga Spevak, Praha 2006, pp. 472–475.
120
Telč, 1666–1667 Karel Škréta executed the painting The Adoration of the Jesus Name, representing not only the monogram IHS but also the Saviour Himself and St Ignatius of Loyola with St Francis Borgias and St Francis Xavier, on commission from Countess Francess Slawata for the main altarpiece of the Jesus Name church with the Jesuit college in Telč. He received 300 guilders for the work. The altarpiece was replaced by a new one with the canvas by Daniel Gran in 1747. Literature: ZVOLÁNKOVÁ 2007, pp. 34, 49–52. ŠV
121
Litoměřice, 2 May 1669 The Litoměřice Bishop Maximilian Rudolph of Šlejnice writes the Metropolitan Canon, Tomáš Pešina of Čechorod, informing him – beside other things – that Škréta’s painting for the main altarpiece of St Stephen cathedral in Litoměřice is being finished. … Ego interim apparo dominis canonicis meis nova hic stella et de notanda nova hac mea cathedrali ecclesia de meo jam pariter. Interim et d. Screta picturam suam pro altari majore est perfecturus… LITerature: SCHLENZ 1914, p. 566, note 2; VLNAS 1992, p. 137; Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. V.33, V.34, p. 262. ŠV
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 325
122
(Prague), (7 February 1670) Petr Štupart of Löwenthal, councillor of the Bohemian Chamber, informs the body about the damages caused to the Prague Castle Picture Gallery which dawned both on the paintings and the building due to the fast melting of snow at night. Members of the committee judging the damage included Superintendent (Schatzmeister) Ferdinand Miseroni, construction scrivener Ondřej Čermák, court painter Johann Hess, court builder Santin de Bossi, and Karel Škréta. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Stará manipulace (Old Manipulation), sign. S 21/7–1670, Inv. No. 3139, box 2109. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 48; SEKYRKA 2011, pp. 147–152.
… hab ich mit Zuziehung Ihro Maie-
Kunstcammer an Bildern, wie auch
Regenwetters das von beiderseits
Hofmalers und Herrn Screta ganz
stät Schatzmeister Herrn Ferdinand Miseron, dann des Bauschreibers
an dem Gehäu … in Augenschein genomen … soviel nun die Gemälde
Dächern haufig zusammengefallene Wasser nicht hat für dem können,
kein Schaden geschehen, all dieweilen dieselbe von dem Herrn Schatz-
Andreas Tschermaks und Hofmalers Johann Heß, wie auch des Hofmau-
in der Kaiserlichen Kunstcammer betrifft, ist nicht ohne, dan die
sondern an etlich Orten übergangen, über dass auch bei dem Abfal
meister bald abgenomen, in einem geheitzten Zimmer getrucknet und
ermeisters Santin de Bossi, sowohl auch nachgehende durch Herrn Carolum Sckreta den Schaden, wel-
zwischen denen zweien Dechern über den grossen Saal liegende, mit Schnee angefülte Rinnen, wegen des
übel versehen ist, dannenhero auf atliche Bilder in dem Bildersaal stark getropfet, wordurch aber nach
an sicher Ort in dem Bildersaal bis dieses remedirt sein wird, gestellet bleiben.
cher vorkommen in der kaiserlichen
so gehlingen eingefallenen Tau- und
einhelliger Erkantnus des Herrn
TS
123
s. l., 27 February 1670 Acquitted voucher to the full sum of 191 guilders, which were accepted by Karel Škréta from Count Franz Gallas. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka papírových listin (Collection of Paper Documents), sign. AMP PPL – V – 1008. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 33–34 (edition); NEUMANN 2000, pp. 93–94; Radka Tibitanzlová, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.27, p. 607.
Daß ich Unterschriebener auß Anordnung H[och]gräf[lichen] Gnaden Herrn Francisci Grafen Gallassen v[o]n (titul) Herrn Bernard Flückhe wohlbestelten
Hauptman zu Reichenberg ein hundert ein und neünzig Gulden paar empfangen habe, bezeügt dieße meine aigenhändige Schrift und
Unterschrift. So geschehen den 27. Febr[uarii] anno 1670. Carl Screta mp. Id est 191 Florin RT
124
The Lesser Town in Prague, 1670 (Škréta’s) painting of The Crucifixion, procured by Countess Susanna Polyxena of Dietrichstein for 100 guilders, was exhibited on the main altarpiece of the St Nicolas church with the Jesuit professional house in the Lesser Town in Prague. Wien, Österreichische National Bibliothek, file Literrae Annue provinciae Boemiae Societatis Jesu 1670–1674, Cod. 11963, f. 3r. Literature: Stolárová – Vlnas 2010, pp. 312, 334–335; Oulíková 2011, pp. 39–47.
Ex acuendis vero fidelium affectibus,
regno Boemiae Burgravii coniugis,
quaque feria serico velamine (quo
mortuorum sacello secundis feriis
proportionata materiae Christi in cruce extremum loquentis, et agonizantis effigies, liberalitate Excell[en-
centum florenorum comparata pretio, et ab insigni saeculi nostri in Boemia Apelle depicta, in summo
per hebdomadam caeteram obtegitur) reducto, omnium oculis non sine tenero piarum animarum sola-
tissi]mae et Ill[ustrissi]mae Dominae Dominae Polyxenae supremi in
altari exposita est, quae etiamnum e dextro arae latere collocata, sexta
tio proponitur. Patet eadem imago, quoties Venerabile sacramentum, e
ad aram primariam, peracta pro defunctis aut menstruae, aut hebdomadaria devotione refertur. PO
326 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
125
The Lesser Town in Prague, 1670 Karel Škréta executed the painting St Thomas Villanueva Giving Alms to the Poor for the side altarpiece in the St Thomas church of the Augustinian Hermits in the Lesser Town in Prague. Národní archiv (National Archives), Archiv české provincie augustiniánského řádu (Archives of the Czech Province of the Augustinian Order), file Summarium rerum memorabilium Conventus Micro-Pragensis S[anc]ti Thomae Apostoli Ordinis Fratrum Eremitarum Sancti Patris Augustini […] a P. Theobaldo Gruber (issued 1756), sign. Ia 5, manuscript 6, f. 265–266. Literature: MATĚJKA 1896, file 122; NEUMANN 1974, p. 130.
Anno 1670.
capella. Altare S[ancti] Thomae de
Erectum fuit in ecclesia Thomaea altare S[ancti] Thomae Villa-Novani,
Villa-Nova O[ordinis] N[ostri] de quo: Gott dem Allmächtigen der Unbe-
in quo altari imago hujus Sancti plus auro aestimata a pictore Screta
fleckten Jungfrauen Mariae und dem Wunderbahren heil[igen] Thomae de
hodiedum asservatur de hoc altari perhibet manuscriptum vetus in fasc[iculo] n[umero] XV. lit[erae] B
Villa-Nova zu Ehren ist dieser Altar aufgerichtet worden anno 1670. ŠV
notatum sequentia: Ad dexteram
126
The Lesser Town in Prague, 1671 Karel Škréta received an advance payment of 30 guilders for executing the painting St Thomas Villanueva Giving Alms to the Poor for the side altarpiece in the St Thomas church in the Lesser Town in Prague, and another 270 guilders upon completing the work. Literature: MATĚJKA 1896, file 122; NEUMANN 1974, p. 130. ŠV
127
The Lesser Town in Prague, 1672 During Lent in 1672, the worshippers in the St Nicolas church with the Jesuit professional house in the Lesser Town in Prague indulged in contemplation before the painting of Christ on the Mount of Olives, executed by Karel Škréta for 111 guilders. Národní knihovna ČR (National Library of the Czech Republic), file Annuae litterae provinciae Boemiae Societatis Jesu 1671–1674, sign. XXIII C 105/8, f. 166v. Literature: Nevímová 2004, p. 112; Stolárová – Vlnas 2010, pp. 313, 320–321; Oulíková 2011, pp. 39–47.
Qui per magni ieiunii ferias de mysteriis horti olivarum quotidie perora-
raro artificio expictum pretio centum undecim florenorum fidelibus oculis
vit ecclesiastes ipsum Christi orantis simulacrum Apellea Scretae manu
spectandum exhibuit. PO
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 327
128
Litoměřice, 1672 The poem (epigram) by the Litoměřice Bishop Maximilian Rudolph of Šlejnice, inspired by Škréta’s painting The Stoning of St Stephen from the main altarpiece in the Litoměřice cathedral. Maximilianus Rudolphus Schleinicensis, file Memorabilium Romanorum Exornatorum Poëtice, Ad Ethicum alicubui, aut Politicum sensum, Centuria una. Sive Curae Remissiores, Pragae 1672, p. N4/a–b. Literature: MACHYTKA 1990, p. 218.
Divus Stephanus Protomartyr, dum in Icone, in terram genu tenus prostratus, a Judaeis lapidatur,
Ut tollit super astra oculos? lapidumve nec imbre Territus, in coelum lumina versa tenet?
in coelum suspicit.
Et Jesum in coelo stantem, dextramque tenentem, Cernere se, Patris, mox moriturus, ait?
VII. Aspice, quam placido tranquilli lumine vultus,
Quid dixi moriturus? in ipso limine mortis, Aethereae vitae redditus, astra subit.
Innumero Stephanus, se videt hoste peti? Quam cupit ignosci duris lapidantibus? et dum Sternitur, ut Numen mitigat ipse prece?
Jam Stephane, in Domino obdormi, dum te astra coronent Stellaque sit capiti, quod modo plaga fuit. ŠV
129
(Klatovy), 21 May 1673 The municipal government of Klatovy replies to Karel Škréta’s demand note in the matter of repaying a debt. The body appreciates that Škréta is willing to postpone the payment, at the same time pleading high deficit and other creditors and promising to disburse at least part of the debt in the amount of 50 guilders. Státní okresní archiv Klatovy (State Regional Archives Klatovy), fund Archiv města Klatovy (Archives of the City of Klatovy) 1353–1945 (1956), Inv. No. 85, file Kopiář listů odeslaných radou a purkmistrovským úřadem (Kniha copiarum) (The Duplicate Book of Letters Sent by the Council and the Burgomaster’s Office) 1669–1681, Evidence No. K 69, f. 273r–273v. Literature: BERÁNKOVÁ 2004, pp. 183–185.
Panu Škrétovi 21. mai anno 1673
hájemství nám propůjčí, my neú-
Když toho, kterak laskavý pán, s zadlužilou obcí naší outrpnost maje v příčině povinného dluhu, nám seč-
měrně se o to starati, aby laskav pán k náležitýmu povinnýho dluhu zaplacení ten dřívěji přijíti mohl.
kání činil, považujeme tehdy takovýho přátelství a diskreci víceji in ab
S tím laskavýho pána ochraně boží poroučeje, zůstáváme k službám
usum bráti se ostejcháme, a proto pečujíce všelijak, abychom laskavýho pana kontentýrovati mohli,
TS
vždycky volní.
50 florenů rejnských s tou největší těžkostí v nynější obtížné časy jsme shledali, a ty taky proti pořádné kvitanci odsíláme. Jistotně srdečně bychom rádi víceji byli shledali onen celý dluh zaplatili, ale i veliký nedostatek, i jiných pánův věřitelův na nás husté a těžké nastupování nám v tom překážku činí, pročež laskavýho pána přátelsky žádáme a dokonalou naději máme, že nepříčíme ostatního restu, ještě dalšího
DOCUMENT No. 129 The Duplicate Book of Letters sent by the Klatovy council and burgomaster’s office, 1669–1681, State Regional Archives Klatovy, Archives of the City of Klatovy, f. 273rv (photo: 1662, State Regional Archives Klatovy)
328 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
130
(Klatovy), 14 June 1673¹¹ The municipal government of Klatovy replies to Karel Škréta’s demand note of 26 May in the matter of paying off the remaining debt. The city has already disbursed 50 guilders but it does not have more funds so far due to the community’s poverty, bad annuities and claims of other creditors. The body thus asks Škréta to avoid compelling the rest of the debt before the court and exposing the city to additional legal charges. Státní okresní archiv Klatovy (State Regional Archives Klatovy), fund Archiv města Klatovy (Archives of the City of Klatovy) 1353–1945 (1956), Inv. No. 85, file Kopiář listů odeslaných radou a purkmistrovským úřadem (Kniha copiarum) (The Duplicate Book of Letters Sent by the Council and the Burgomaster’s Office) 1669–1681, Evidence No. K 69, f. 281r. Literature: BERÁNKOVÁ 2004, pp. 183–185.
Panu Karlovi Škrétovi Šotnovskýmu z Závořic 14. junii 1674
se nakloní a žádných outrat nám nedohazujíc, za krátký čas sečkání
Byli jsme dokonalý naděje, že laskavý pán po přijetí 50 florenů v příčině ostatního restu od nás
učiní, my v jistotě všelijak se k tomu přičiníme, aby laskavý pán v zadržalým restu co nejdřívěji zaplacen
povinnýho nějakou outrpnost a sečkání míti bude, ale z psaní de dato 26. maii léta tohoto k nám prošlýho vyrozumíváme, že laskavý pán, nás ostře z restýrující sumy upomíná, s tím doložením, pokudž (prej) od datum psaní ve čtyřech nedělích ostatní sumy nezapravíme, že podle práva svýho postupovati bude. Víme sice, že jeden každý svýmu chce a dluhův svých užíti žádostiv jest a my taky bychom vinšovali, aby všeckny páni věřitelové naši náležitě kontentýrovati býti mohli, což však, pravdu mluvie pro velikou schuzelost a zadlužilost obce nějaký učiniti nemůžeme nebo kde jaký duch [!] se vyskytne, hned několik pánův věřitelův na něj očekává,
býti mohl. Což že laskavý pán učiní doufanlivou naději máme a zase té prokázané nám a obci naší přátelské náchylnosti všem vším příjemným se odměňovati neumineme, jakož pak dle ochrany božské jsme a zůstáváme laskavýmu pánu.
a odtud pochází, že pořádně a včas určitý smluvení termínové placení býti nemohou, ačkoliv nyní nejšpatnější důchodové jsou. Však naději máme, že zase v krátkým čase něco peněz shledáme a dle nejvyšší mocnosti jistý kvantum laskavýmu pánu odeslati konečnosti neumineme, pročež vždy předce laskavýho pána přátelství žádáme, že ještě k zchuzelé, a zadlužilé obci naší tak dalece
11 The copy of the letter issued by the Klatovy municipal government is dated 14 June 1674. The date is, however, wrong according to the findings of Maruška Beránková. The letter is recorded as part of the documents of 1673 and its contents, too, corresponds to this dating.
TS
DOCUMENT No. 130 The Duplicate Book of Letters sent by the Klatovy council and burgomaster’s office, 1669–1681, State Regional Archives Klatovy, Archives of the City of Klatovy, f. 273rv (photo: 1662, Archives of the City of Klatovy, f. 281r)
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 329
131
(Klatovy), 7 July 1673 The municipal government of Klatovy replies to Karel Škréta’s demand note of 20 June in the matter of paying off the remaining debt. The body informs him it is unable to redeem the debt since it has no more funds to satisfy its creditors. It, however, promises to repay half of the remaining debt during Christmas of the given year and the rest during the Candlemas of the year to come. Státní okresní archiv Klatovy (State Regional Archives Klatovy), fund Archiv města Klatovy (Archives of the City of Klatovy) 1353–1945 (1956), Inv. No. 85, file Kopiář listů odeslaných radou a purkmistrovským úřadem (Kniha copiarum) (The Duplicate Book of Letters Sent by the Council and the Burgomaster’s Office) 1669–1681, Evidence No. K 69, f. 290r–290v. Literature: BERÁNKOVÁ 2004, pp. 183–185.
Panu Karlovi Škrétovi 7. julii anno 1673 Urozený pane nám zvláště laskavě příznivý, tak jakož jsme laskavého pána skrze několikeré psaní i také z prostředku našeho vyslané osoby o trpělivé sečkání od nás poviného dluhu snažně následovali a na to dokonalou resoluci pod datum 20. dne přítomného měsíce junii, že totižto jistý termín věděti a jaké kvantum v témž složené býti má, laskavý pán žádostiv jest, jsme vyrozuměli. Přichází nám to sice velmi lítostivě, že po tolikerém nás upomínání povinnosti naší zadosti učiniti nemůžeme. Nicméně však pokudž laskavý pán ty veliké nedostatky a obce klatovské nemož-
vynacházíme, že pokudž všemohoucí Pán Bůh letošního podzimního lovení požehnati ráčí, z ryb něco shledati a odtud polovici zůstávajícího restu k příštím slavnostem vánočním shromážditi, ostatní pak polovici téhož k hromnicúm též nejprv příštím odeslati mocti budeme se doufanlivě těšíme, že tehdy laskavý pán na schuzelost obce naší se tak lítostivě ohlídnouti a již jmenované dva termíny k zaplacení dluhu svého akceptýrovati odporný nebude, ve vší uctivosti žádáme a dle ochrany božské zůstáváme B. P. k službám příjemně hotovi, Jeho Milosti císařské p[urkmistr] a r[ada] královského m[ěsta] Klatov. TS
nost v své považení užili a to k srdci připustiti sobě oblíbí, tehdy naděje nám odtud povstane, že k útrpnosti příčina poznaná bude. Neb to v pravdě celá obec vyznati, až nás jeden každý svou škodou a záhubou zakoušeti musí, že nemajíce již psáno obec klatovská téměř žádných, obzvláštně nynějších, časův, uplacení svých pánův kreditorův, prostředkův sami sousedé své živnosti opouštěti, a nyní obec zastupovati musejí. Poněvadž ale jináčeji učiniti nemůžeme, nežli že, jak jiný, tak taky laskavého pána podle nejvyšší možnosti kontentýrovati musíme, pročež pro-
DOCUMENT No. 131 The Duplicate Book of Letters sent by the Klatovy council and burgomaster’s office, 1669–1681, State Regional Archives Klatovy, Archives of the City of Klatovy, f. 290rv (photo: 1662, Archives of the City of Klatovy)
hlídajíce na budoucí obecní intrády
330 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
132
The Lesser Town in Prague, 1673 Three paintings by Karel Škréta, representing The Judged Christ, were displayed on the main altarpiece of the St Nicolas church with the Jesuit professional house in the Lesser Town in Prague during the Candlemas of 1673. Národní knihovna ČR (National Library of the Czech Republic), file Annuae litterae provinciae Boemiae Societatis Jesu 1671–1674, sign. XXIII C 105/8, f. 331r. Literature: Nevímová, 2004, p. 112; Stolárová – Vlnas 2010, pp. 313, 322–327; Oulíková 2011, pp. 39–47.
Per magni ieiunii ferias propositus est Christus apud diversa tribunalia iudicatus, idemque mysterium in tribus elegantibus Scretiano penicillo
elaboratis imaginibus pro summa ara exhibitum est. PO
133
The Old Town in Prague, 1673 Two paintings by Karel Škréta – St John of Patmos (1650s) and St Catherine (1658) – were recorded according to the inventory in the Carolinum assembly hall. Archiv Univerzity Karlovy (Charles University Archives), sign. A 12/2, f. 130–136. Literature: Marcela Vondráčková, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. nos. V.15 and V.16, p. 230.
…in aula magna Carolinae sunt dua imagines, una S. Joannis, altera S. Catharinae, manu domini Screta picta.” RT
134
Prague, 31 March 1674 Jacob Graf informs Count Czernin that The Flagellation, executed by painter Karel Škréta for the St Nicolas church in the Lesser Town, was completed and the only thing left is to frame it. Graf thus requires the disbursement in the amount of 81 guilders, which is the price for both the painting and its fittings. Státní oblastní archiv Třeboň (pobočka Jindřichův Hradec) (State Regional Archives of the City of Třeboň [branch Jindřichův Hradec]), Černínská ústřední správa (Czernin Central Administration), sign. VIII Fd/20, Inv. No. 761, f. 142. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 140 (wrong date 23 March 1674); DOBALOVÁ 2004, pp. 82, 89 (wrong date 23 March 1674); Tomáš Sekyrka, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. VII.16, pp. 340–341; SEKYRKA 2011, pp. 147–152.
Pragae 31. Martii 1674 Illustrissime et Excellentissime Domine Domine Comes, Domine Patrone colendissime Cum Illustrissima Excellentia vestra promptissima liberalitate in imaginem Christi flagellati a Carolo Screta pingenda consensuit, ac illa artificio sua eiusdem pictoris manu non solum pridem absoluta, verum et
publica devotioni in hac elapsa quad-
et id ipsum pro picta cum dictis
precor, maneoque uti in multis aliis
ragesima exposita fuerit, iamque precio iusto una cum aliis more alieno ad eam pertinentibus ornamen-
appertinentijs veniant. Pro gratia et liberalitate speciali Societas nostra primario vero Domus Professa nostra
ita in et ob hoc specialiter. Illustrissimae Excellentiae vestrae obligatissimus, devotissimus et
tis, inaurata scilicet lista ac cortinis solvenda sit. Rogo Illustrissimam
se obligatam semper agnoscet, Deus vero Optimus Maximus in carne pro
humillimus servus in Christo, Jacobus Graf
Excellentiam vestram dignetur pro omnibus hisce octaginta et unum imperialies mihi exsolvere, cum hoc
nobis passus et mortuus hoc donum sanctum sancta et felici morte haud dubie se munerabitur, quae ut quam
TS
precio, aliae quoquae sint comparatae
longissime differatur ego animitius
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 331
135
The Lesser Town in Prague, 1674 The Jesuits from the Lesser Town in Prague purchased three paintings with The Suffering of Christ, executed by Karel Škréta some time ago, for 300 guilders. Národní knihovna ČR (National Library of the Czech Republic), file Annuae litterae provinciae Boemiae Societatis Jesu 1671–1674, sign. XXIII C 105/8, f. 524v. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Aevi nostri, nostraeque Patriae Apellis praestantissimi opus, patientis DEI ternae imagines, priusquam fatis concederet ab eo parate
a nostri unius cura procuratae 300 rhen[ensium]. PO
136
Prague – Vyšehrad, 1677 The 1677 inventory of the Ss Peter and Paul capitular church at Vyšehrad in Prague lists Škréta’s painting The Conversion of St Paul (“In the St Paul chapel with gilding and also with the nice virtuoso achievement by the noble painter, Master Škréta”) as well as The Crucifixion and Ss Peter and Paul “which the late artist painted”. Literature: KOŘÁN 1987, p. 544. ŠV
137
s. l., 1678–1720 Works by Karel Škréta, held in the collections of the Count Gallas family between 1678 and 1720. Státní oblastní archiv v Litoměřicích (pobočka Děčín) (State Regional Archives in Litoměřice [branch Děčín]), fund Historická sbírka (rodinný archiv) Clam-Gallasů (Historical Collection [Family Archives] of the Clam-Gallas Family), Frýdlant, (1238) 1529–1947, Inv. No. 1963, 2192, cat. no. 549. Literature: KRUMMHOLZ 2005, pp. 273, 274, 276, 277; CLAM-GALLASŮV PALÁC 2007, pp. 81–83, 91, 98; Radka Tibitanzlová – Tomáš Sekyrka, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVII.22, p. 634.
Inventarium uber die hochgräfliche Gallasische Prager Hauß Mobillien, welche nach der Theilung, so den 17. Junii anno 1720 geschöhen, sich in
N[umer]o 30. des Herrn v[on] Straka Conterf[ait] von Skreta
selben Hauß befunden und ihro hochgräflichen Gnaden Herrn Herrn Grafen Frantz Carl von Gallas zu kommen seynd.
81. 1 gros St[uck] mit viel[en] Figuren von Skreta 107. kleiner Cupido vom Skretta
Mahlereyen, so bey der Theillung bey den Hauß gelassen worden N[umer]o Hoch Breith von folgenden Meisters
The 1720 Inventory of the Prague palace
Ehlen/Virtl/Zoll Ehlen/Virtl/Zoll 30. Herrn Stracka Contrefait 2 1 2/4 ½ Screta Inventory of 6 September 1678, Gallery
Mahlereyen, so bey der Theilung bey den Hauß gelassen worden 30. des Herrn v[on] Straka Conterf[ait] von Skreta; 2 Ehlen hoch, breit 1 Ehlen, 2/4 Virtl, ½ Zoll 81. romanische Histori von vielen Figuren 2 ½ x 4, Screta RT
332 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
138
(Klatovy), 30 January 1680 The municipal government of Klatovy replies to Veronika Škrétová’s demand note in the matter of repaying a debt, pleading for more patience in receiving the instalments. Státní okresní archiv Klatovy (State Regional Archives Klatovy), fund Archiv města Klatovy (Archives of the City of Klatovy) 1353–1945 (1956), Inv. No. 85, file Kopiář listů odeslaných radou a purkmistrovským úřadem (Kniha copiarum) (The Duplicate Book of Letters Sent by the Council and the Burgomaster’s Office) 1669–1681, Evidence No. K 69, f. 613v. Literature: BERÁNKOVÁ 2004, pp. 183–185.
Urozené paní Veronice Škrétové, vdově, měštěnínce královského Starého Města pražského 30. januarii 1680 Urozená paní, kterak nás paní spolu s pány dědici nebožtíka dobré paměti pana manžela jejího strany zaplatcení od obce naší restýrujícího kvantum napomíná, po přečtení za tou příčinou k nám prošlého psaní pod datum 18. currenti, jsme vyrozuměli. I ačkoliv povinnost naši býti uznáváme, takový rest co nejspíše zaplatiti, však ale nenacházíce při obci naší žádných prostředkův paní a spoludědice její v tom šetrně následovati a za nějaké další strpení žádati nuceni jsme. Pročež jsouce oumyslu pokudž ne všecko, aspoň dobrý díl na týž rest odeslati, že s námi tak laskavě naložiti a poněkud sečkání učiniti sobě oblíbí, přátelsky žádáme. S tím vedle mocné ochrany božské zůstávajíce paní k službám hotovi. P[urkmistr] a r[ada] m[ěsta] Klatov. TS
DOCUMENT No. 138 The Duplicate Book of Letters sent by the Klatovy council and burgomaster’s office, 1669–1681, State Regional Archives Klatovy, Archives of the City of Klatovy, f. 613v (photo: 1662, Archives of the City of Klatovy)
139
1681 Bohuslav Balbín mentions Škréta’s paintings [the Passion cycle], displayed in the St Nicolas church in the Lesser Town in Prague, in his enumeration of imposing Prague church architecture. Bohuslaus Balbinus, Liber III. Decadis I. Miscellaneorum Historicorum Regni Bohemiae, Topographicus et Chorographicus, qui Fines et Terminos totius Bohemiae, tum ipsorum Districtuum figuras, Arces, Oppida, et Urbes […] continet, ac complectitur; Tum Opera Publica Bohemiae, Pontes, Basilicas et Templa Celebriora, Palatia, Coenobia, Aedificationes sumtuosas […], Pragae 1681, p. 134. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Norbertinorum in Strahov ecclesia inter ornatiores, quas habet Praga, computatur. Idem dici potest de nova ecclesia S[anctae] Mariae Magdalenae
Praedicatorum in minore Praga; Hibernorum Ordinis S[ancti] Fran-
S[ancti] Thomae Apostoli ecclesia in minore Praga tum seipsa, tum altari
cum tormentis graphice depictus ab Apelle Belgii Rubenio spectatur.
cisci Minorum ita nunc adornatur, ut istis dubiam palmam relinquat.
summo memorabilis censetur, in quo S[ancti] Thomae Apostoli obitus
Eadem imaginum gratia spectabilis est ecclesia S[ancti] Nicolai Domus
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 333
Professae Pragensis, quae Caroli
tribuo, sed pictorum sententiis, quos
Scretae, eximii apud nos pictoris, pretioso penicillo, et laboribus illustratur; quod non amicitiae (quae mihi
saepius audivi laudantes. ŠV
cum vivente intercessit maxima)
140
1683 Bohuslav Balbín mentions Škréta’s painting St Luke Drawing the Virgin on the altarpiece of the Prague painter’s guild in the church of Our Lady before Týn in the Old Town in Prague. Bohuslaus Balbinus, Miscellanea Historica Bohemiae, Decadis I. Liber V. Parochialis et Sacerdotalis in duas divisus partes; quarum Prior Parochias omnes Veteris Bohemiae, per Decem Archidiaconatus recitat; […], Pragae 1683, p. 79. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 8.
Erectio et dotatio altaris S[ancti] Lucae Evangelistae et S[ancti] Laurentii Martyris in ecclesia ante Laetam Curiam Pragae a civibus an[no] 1388.
Hoc altare S[ancti] Lucae nostra memoria exornandum sibi sumsit Carolus Screta civis Pragensis et pictor aetate nostra in patria summus. ŠV
141
The Old Town in Prague, 1 September 1684 After the death of the court gem cutter, Ferdinand Eusebius Miseroni, the inventory of his inheritance was issued in his house at Prague Castle under the presence of Václav Mořic Salomon of Friedberg and Ferdinand of Lichtenburg. The inventory lists gold, silver, jewellery, clothes, documents, correspondence and debts as well as many crystal products executed by the deceased (found in the gem-cutting workshop) and numerous paintings. In addition, it mentions portraits of rulers and saints, hunting scenes and still-lifes alongside family portraits, while one of the latter can be reliably attributed as the Portrait of the Gem-Cutter Dionysius Miseroni and His Family. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber inventariorum, 1680–1688, sign. 1178, f. 227r–275r. Literature: URBAN 1976, p. 11; SKŘIVÁNEK 1980, pp. 1–19; SKŘIVÁNEK 1982, p. 71; SKŘIVÁNEK 1983, pp. 66–68.
Von Mahlereyen In der großene Stueben
Des Gottseel[igen] Herrn mit jetziger Frauen Contrfect in Rahm mit ver-
In dem Kinderzimmer Contrfect des seel[igen] Herrn Dionisi
Ein großes Stuckh von Screta gema-
golter Leisten … 2 Des seel[igen] Herrn Contrfect, als er
Misiron, wie er annoch jung war, in Rahm … 1
noch jung war, in Rahm … 1
Contrfect des seel[igen] Herrn, als er 18 Jahr alt war, in Rahm … 1 Contrfect der Frau Mutter sambt dem
hlt, worauf der gottseel[ige] Herr Dionisius Misiron sambt dessen Frau und allen seinen Khindern an Contrfect, woran ein geschtickter Firhankh
In dem Zimmer in obern Stock ober den Thor Ein altvaterisches Contrfect … 2
334 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
seel[igen] Herrn, als er ein kleines Khind war … 1 RT
142
The New Town in Prague, 19 February 1685 Felix František Bláha Chotětovský, burgher and councillor of the New Town in Prague, issues his testament in 1685, bequeathing two paintings by Karel Škréta to the New Town and Old Town city halls. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber testamentorum 5, 1666–1708, NMP (New Town in Prague), sign. 4084, f. 312v–327r. Literature: FEJTOVÁ 1996, pp. 171–172.
… od Jeho Milosti císařské a krále pána pána mého nejmilostivějšího a dědičného tu císařskou a královskou milost sobě učiněnou, že jest Jeho císařská a královská milost osobu mou nejprve v královském Starém, potomně pak, když odtud na Nové Město pražské jsem odebral a v něm se osadil, také v témž královském Novém Městě pražském za jednu osobu radní nejmilostivěji zvoliti a dosaditi ráčila a já také podle té císařské a královské milosti od obouch slavných magistrátův jak Starého, tak také Nového
obouch královských měst pražských po všechny časy, po které v prostředcích jich jsem zůstával, všeliké zdvo-
klíně mající magistrátu Nového Města pražského do místa radního v císařském a královském Novém
řilosti a vlídnosti jsem užil, pročež na dokázání mé povinné vděčnosti předně obraz svatého milého Václava,
Městě pražském na památku odkazuji a legíruji. Žádaje, že tato malá oferýrovaná památka netoliko vděčně
patrona tohoto Království českého, od vznešeného malíře neb[ožtíka]
ode mě přijata, anóbrž také nějaký pamětný přípis k jednomu i druhému
pana Karla Škréty malovaný magistrátu královského Starého Města praž-
obrazu, že do jednoho i druhého Božího místa in perpetuum oferýro-
ského na věčnou památku do místa radního královského Starého, druhý pak též od nyní praveného malíře vlastní rukou malovaný obraz Matky Boží Bolestné synáčka mrtvého na
vané jsou, povolen bude. RT
143
The New Town in Prague, 23 January 1690 The testament issued by Jan Octavius, son of Dionysius Miseroni of Lison, on 5 January 1690 contains – alongside many other items – the list of paintings found in the testamentary’s property. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Kniha sirotčí čtvrti sv. Štěpána (The Book of the St Stephan Orphan’s Quarter), 1690–1767, sign. 2288, f. 1r–7r. Literature: URBAN 1976, p. 11; SKŘIVÁNEK 1980, pp. 1–19; SKŘIVÁNEK 1982, p. 71; SKŘIVÁNEK 1983, pp. 66–68.
Rubrica G Mallerey Meine Gemählde, unter welichen Unßer Lieben Frauen Bild in der Capellan für ein großen Schatz halte, dießes solle mit allen Ornamentis, welche sich anjetzo auf dem Altar befinden, sambt denen Blumwerck, mit welichen bey höhern Festen das Altar orniret wird und die Lißerle in ihren Verwahrung hat. Meinem Sohn Josepho Antonio alß ein Praelegatum seyn und so lang jemand auß meinen Descendentibus im Leben seyn, wird jedesmahl bey dem eltisten verbleiben und dafern meine Descendenslinea aufhören solte, so solle dießes Bild mit allen seinen Ornamentis der Kirchen des Größern
heyligen Stephan anheimb fallen, meine Erben oder Descendentes dahin verobligire alle Sambstag eine
familiae verbleiben. Item solle das große Bild, worauf der Bacchus mit denen Satyren nach Rubens gema-
meinem Absterben in Gegenwarth der erbetenen Herren Assistenz Räthen durch vorständige Mahler
Lampen täglichen aber ein kleines
hlet, in gleichen meinen Sohn Jose-
Wachßlichtel, wie ich es bißhero gehalten, brennen laßen. Diejenige 6 Stuckh Bilder aber alß nemb[lich] meines Ahndl Herrn Hieronymi
pho Antonio verbleiben. Wie nicht weniger das Bild des heyl[igen] Dionysius, so Herr Screta seelig mit eigener Hand gemahlet, mehr gemel-
geschätzet und unter meine Erben getheilet werden.
Mißiron und deßen geweste Ehefrau Isabella, den meines Großvatern wey-
deten meinem Sohn Josepho Antonio zuvor herauß gebühren. Meiner Frau
l[and] Herrn Octavius Mißiron und deßen Ehefrau, seel[ige] Laura Mißironin, im gleichen meines Herrn
Lißel seel[ige] zwey Contrafait, eines nach dem Zimbrecht, das andere aber nach Herrn Demuci, solle das erste
Vatern weyl[and] Dionysius und meiner Frauen Mutter Juditha Con-
meinem Sohn Wenceslao Dionysio, das andere aber meiner lieben Toch-
trafeit, welche ich unlengst mahlen laßen, sollen meinen Sohn Jose-
ter Maria Elisabeth gebühren. Und weilen wegen der übrigen Gemählde der Zeit einige Taxa zumachen, die
pho Antonio und Consequenter bey denen Descendentibus pro memoria
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 335
Zeit nicht verstattet, alß solle nach
RT
144
The New Town in Prague, late 17th century Description of the St Stephen parish church in the New Town in Prague, also mentioning a painting by Karel Škréta. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Farní úřad u sv. Štěpána na Novém Městě pražském (Parish Office at St Stephan in New Town in Prague), file Liber memorabilium I, 1641–1706, Book No. 1, Inv. No. 1, f. 73v–74r. Literature: NEUMANN 1974, pp. 131–132.
Svatého Jana Křtitele, kde prv, jak praveno, oltář svatého Václava a českých svatých patronův stával, na
sufragána de Longa Villa na kněžstvo posvětil. Relikvie v němž jsou složené s. Celestina, Saturnina a Cyrila.
náklad urozeného a statečného vladyky pana Jana Benedikta Smolíka,
/small altarpiece of St Virgin Rosalia/
Jich Milosti Královské Kanceláře pražské sekretáře, jenž léta 1689 dne 5. aug[usti] z prostředku živých vykro-
Proti témuž druhý také již posvěcený s. Panny Rosalie dílem velebný kněz pan Jakub Chvojný, někdejší farář sva-
čil, zhotoven jest. S obrazem od dobré paměti pana Karla Škréty, vzneše-
toštěpánský, dílem nynější pan farář kněz Daniel Hubka (na náklad však
ného malíře, malovaném, dosáhna posvěcení v létu 1649 12. dne octobris skrz vysoce důstojného pana Josefa Cortiusa sufragána, který nynějšího Jeho Milosti císařské pana pana
odjinud sobě poskytnutých) postaviti dali. Reliquia v něm jsou s. Geneseia, Vincentia a Felixa. RT
145
The Old Town in Prague, 19 June 1704 The inventory issued after the death of Jan Karel Fridrich Fischer, the second husband of Veronika Škrétová, the daughter of Karel Škréta the Elder, does not only list commonplace items but also numerous musical instruments, a vast collection of books and books with copper engravings, mathematical instruments and large numbers of paintings among which Škréta’s works can also be found. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber inventariorum, 1702–1712, sign. 1180, f. 119v–147v. Literature: HOJDA 1993, pp. 60, 65, 67, 74–81, 92, 97, 98; SLAVÍČEK 2007, p. 169.
Vornehmen Mahlers Caroli Screta Conterfait mit Reyßblei gezeichnet 1 oval Scretisches Manns Conterfait 12 Florin 1 ein Scretisches Cavaliers Conterfait 8 [Florin] RT
336 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
146
Sluhy, May 1708 The inventory of the St Adalbert church in the village of Sluhy lists paintings attributed to Karel Škréta. Národní archiv (National Archives), Archiv pražského arcibiskupství (Archives of the Prague Archbishopry), file Recepta 1708, V–VI, Inv. No. 3023, box 1001. Literature: Apparently unpublished. The painting in question was formerly attributed to Škréta by Schaller and Pazaurek and later recognized as the work by J. J. Heinsch (NEUMANN 1974, p. 94, ŠRONĚK 2006, pp. 149, 160).
Genuina et conscientiosa relatio super praesente statu ecclesiarum ad beneficium Kosteleczense pertinentium a decano Kosteleczensi Ecclesia Sluhensi patrocinio S. Adalberti protecta est satis bene instructa.
Inventarium der Kürchen Altär, Ornath und andern Kürchen Sachen, so sich bieß den 15. May deß 1708 Jahr in der Sluher Kürchen St. Adalberti befinden thuet.
Aditicio bona sed in choro et sacristia
Aufm großen Altar daß Bild in Lebensgröße, deß an in dem andern Altar
nescio a quali [?] valdest. Altare majus habet decorum cum imagine sancti Adalberti personali, admirabiliter
rechterhand daß Altarblat in Crucifix, auch von solcher Hand … 1 Heyligen Adalberto von Mahler
a Carolo Screta depicta. … Nunx anno 1708 die 5. junii de parata pecunia in cancellaria Steiniczensi deposita habet.
Screto … 1 [on the tergo:] Inventarium uber die zur St. Adalberti Kirchen in dem Dorf Sluha gehörige Paramenta RT
147
The Old Town in Prague, 8 April 1710 Some works by Škréta are listed in the inventory issued after the death of the Old Town burgher and pharmacist, František Dirix of Brux and Rotenberk. Although František Kleo of Roudná, the second husband of Alžběta Škrétová, the widow of Karel Škréta the Younger, was related to this distinguished Old Town family, it was already Karel Škréta the Elder before him who was in frequent contact with the members of this family (among them especially the Old Town burgomaster Jan Severin Dirix) on various occasions. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber inventariorum, 1702–1712, sign. 1180, f. 337r–339r. Literature: HOJDA 1993, pp. 65, 69, 75, 98, 99.
An Bildern N[ume]r[o]
6. drey deto Landschaft per 15 Florin 7. ein andten Stuck per 10
16. ein kleines Bild Auferstehung auf einen Brettel, per 10
24. der letzt verstorbene Herr Frantz Dirix 10
1. ein großes Bild Cyrus in vermetalirten Rahm per 20 Florin 2. zwey Contrafe, ein jedes zu 10 R[e-
8. ein Kuchelstuck 10 9. ein Cupido mit der Venus 6 10. ein Scretisches Contrafe der seel[i-
17. ein Paulus von Screta per 20 Florin 18. ein Joseph von Screta per 20 Florin
25. ein Dirixisches Contrafe ohne Händen 10 26 Contrafe Herrn primatoris Reiß-
gen] Frauen Dirixin per 15 Florin 11. ein große Landschaft 24
19. ein Hieronymus von Screta per 20 Florin
man 10 27. seel[iger] Herr Pochs 3
3. vier Steinfelsisches Landschaften per 24 Florin 4. eine deto Landschaft per 8 Florin
12. ein Neptunus mit der Venus 6 13. ein Argus per 6 14. Pignalien [!] mit der Venus 10
20 ein Contrafec mit einen Moor 10 21. ein Sebastianus 20 22. seel[iger] Herr Primator Dirix 10
28. eine Landschaft 7 29. eine Pallas 3 RT
5. eine Landschaft von Leonard 10 Florin
15. Geißlung Christi sambt gantzen Altar per 7
23. seel[iger] Herr Wilhelmb Dirix 10
ichs]th[aler], machen zusamen 20 R[eichs]th[aler]
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 337
148
The New Town in Prague, September 1749 The art agent (maybe inspector of the Dresden gallery, Pietro Guareti) to August III, the Saxony Elector and King of Poland, purchased five paintings (with Ss Gregory, Ambrose, Jerome, Paul and Moses) from the Zderaz Augustinian library for 2060 guilders and, subsequently, also four paintings of the Evangelists for 1500 guilders. Národní archiv (National Archives), Archivy zrušených klášterů (Archives of Abolished Monasteries), file Liber sextus seu Continuatio Annalium Excalceato-Augustiniani Nostri Asceterii Sub Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, et Patroni Regni Boëmiae Neo-Pragae Supra Zderas erecti ab anno partae Salutis M DCC XX V ad annum usque M DCC L II., Inv. No. 2456, manuscript 15 (formerly 3480 f), f. 256–257 (record to 1749). Literature: NEUMANN 1974, p. 156.
Mense septembri die 2. repertus est quidam liberalis emptor, qui
a conventu nostro emere, et pro ipsis pretium obtulit 2060 floreno-
et contra rationibus suum dederunt annutum, hoc tamen exceptione,
Praettactus emptor summe sibi in arte picturae Scretianae collibuit,
pro exornanda Regis Poloniae Aula (prout rumusculus ab ipsomet vul-
rum, insuper appromittens easdem imagines aestimato optimi pictoris
ut dictarum imaginum (si consensus majorum superiorum accesserit,
die 18 supra dictis mensis vendicavit sibi quoque quatuor Evangelis-
gatus est) quinque imagines Scretianas, nempe Sanctorum trium ecclesiae Gregorii, Ambrosii, Hiero-
penicillo propriis expensis copiatas adinstar venditarum conventui nostro procurandas, uti spectantibus
sicut etiam infra paucarum dierum moram accessit) una cum annuo censu in sumptus antiqui aedifi-
tarum imagines, pro quibus parato numeravit 1500 florenos, servandis tamen iisdem supra in prima vendi-
nimi, Sanctique Pauli Apostoli atque S[ancti] Moysis commentabatur
in bibliotheca apparent. Quocirca R[everen]di Patres examinatis pro
cii jam e proximo ruinam minitantis impenderetur. Praeterea quia
tione conditionibus. ŠV
149
s. l., late 18th century Jan Quirin Jahn: Aneckdoten zur Lebensgeschichte berühmter Mahler und Beurtheilung ihren Wercke (Škréta’s biography) Strahovská knihovna Královské kanonie premonstrátů (Library of the Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians at Strahov), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), sign. DA II 7, pp. 626–635. Literature: PREISS 1958, p. 145; Vít Vlnas in: HOROVÁ 1995, pp. 308–309; NEUMANN 2000, pp. 9, 10, 48, 86, 88, 105; SLAVÍČEK 2005, pp. 26–37. Carl Screta Wir haben dießes großen Meisters darumben gedacht, weilen er zwar
seiner natür[lichen] scharfen Vernunft als eine fleißige Bühne von allen besten Blumen den Süssen fast der Kunst zusammen gesamlet hatte, begab er
so, daß alle von frembden Ländern nach Prag kamen, die Kunstkennern dieselbe vor derer alten Meisterwercke ansehen, massen er zuweilen aus der
darunterstehenden Aposteln. Dießes Stück hat er als seinen Meisterstuckh der Mahlergilde allda vorgestellet und hat dar in der Manier des Dominiquins
Joachim Sandrart seinetwegen gemel-
sich nach geendigten (zu Prag aber
römischen Schul den großen Raphäel
durchausgefolget. Lincker Hand die-
det, jedoch nicht alles von ihm aufgemercket, so ich (gleich wie bey andern Lebensbeschreibungen gesehen) aber
angefangenen) 30jährigen Krieg wieder in sein Ruhm ruhiges, wie wohl verwüstetes Vaterland, allwo er sich
d’Urbin, Michael Angelo, Caravagio und Lanfranc und der bolognesischen den Hanibal Carasi, Dominiquin und
ßes gedachten Altars siehet man in einen Seithenaltar vorgestellet einen englischen Gruß. Die Composition
allhier außführ[lich] mache! Er ist in Prag gebohren worden und seine
der in Staub und Aschen liegenden Kunst eyfrigst Annahme und sie auß
sonderlich dem Quido Rheni (dem meist nach Grahmet [?] hat) und in der
hieran ist halb raphaelisch und halb quidorhenisch angenehm, nobel und
Eltern waren Italäner [!] von Nation. Seine Kunstruhm war bey seiner Lebenszeit allbereits überall auß-
deren Rudern hervorzogen und ihr Vermäg seines herr[lich]en Kunstpinßels und andern recommondablen
Venetianischen Schul den Titian und Paulo Veronesse etwas abgesehen und in seine Wercke mit sonderbahrer
herrlich außführ[lich] gemahlet. Rechter Hand ein Seithenblath mit der Heil[igen] Catharina aus dem Gusto
gebreithet und der warhafte Ruf seiner großen Meisterwerke bezeichten
Qualitaeten ein neües köst[liche]s ehren Kleyd anlegte und sie in den
Adresse hat einzuverleiben gewust. Ich gebe dem kunstliebenden Leßer
des Dominiquins, dann eben dießen ein etwas kleineres Altarblaths in sich
solches täglich mehr und mehr, welche wir nun auch mit großen und gebührenden Respect und höchster
grösten splendeur also setzte, daß alle hohe und niedrige Stands Persohnen dießes Königreichs darvor wieder eine
hiemit eine kleine Notitze seiner verschiedenen unß hinterlassenen different Kunststücke, woran man mit
haltend Jesus, Maria und Joseph nach dem vortreften Gusto des Hanibal Carazi. Lincker Hand etwas weither
Bewunderung betrachten und darauß die Kunstfähigkeit unßers großen
neüe Hochachtung bezeichnen müsten. Es ist höchstens zu verwundern in
kunstgelährten Augen alter Hand Arthen obgedachter Meister vollkom-
unten ist das schöne Blath des Mahleraltars zu sehen, vorstellend den
Landesmanns ersehen können. Ja er nun (nach Zeigungs J. Scandrart [!], der ihm gekennet hat) die
Ansehung seiner Wercke, in wie vielerley Mannieren anderen großen italiänischen Meistern, dießer brafe
mend fünden und sehen kan. In der Theynkirchen der Altstadt Prag auf dem hohen Altar siehet man ein gro-
Heilig[en] Evangelisten Lucam in actu, wie er die Heilige Mutter Gottes Mariam abmahlet. Man siehet hieran
samment[lichen] italiänische Kunstschulen durchpassiret und mittelst
Mann seinen edlen Pinßel hat zu vermetamorphosiren gewust und zwar
ßes Werck, vorstellend die Himmelfahrt Mariae mit dem
die Demuth und Modesti selbst in der Figur der Mutter Gottes vorgebildet
338 DOCUMENTS ON THE OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
und der Kopf von S[ank]t Luca stellet daß Pourtrait dießes großen Meisters
Patrons S[anc]ti Wenceslai Leben in verschiedenen Stücken und veränder-
allen andern großen Meistern von Italien daß gleich Gewicht hielten, so
schönen Schatz von Kunstsachen als Mahlereyen, Zeichnungen und
Carl Screta selbsten vor, das gantze Werck aber an sich selbst ist nach dem
ten Arth von Meistern zu sehen, worin er meist Titian, Dominiquin, dem
muste er endlich auch die Zeit erwarten, die ihm von Gott bestimmet war,
Kupferstichen nach großer Meisterwercke hinterlassen, welche nach
Gont des Quido Rheni. In der Augustiner Kirchen S[ank]t Thomas in der Kleinern Stadt Prag stehet ein wunder-
Quido aber wenig exerciret hat. In der daßigen Bibliothec aber ist würck[lich] von seinen Sachen eine gantze Schule
der Natur den letzten Lebenszinß zu bezahlen und abzustatten. Einige Zeit vor seinen Tod, da er schon bethläge-
seinen Tod (wie wir gesagt worden) umb eine große Summa Gelds nacher Nürnberg verkaufet worden seyn. Sein
bahres Seithenaltarblad, gleich bey Eingang der großen Kirchthür lincker
zu finden und soll er die in dießen Closter befünd[lichen] Stücke zu Zei-
rich dar niederlag und verschiedene von denen Anweßen den Freünden,
hinterlassener Sohn hat auch mit guten Success den Pinßel hantiret und
Hand, vorstellend dem Heilig[en] Nicolaum de Tolentino, wie er denen Armengeld und Almoßen außtheilet.
ten seines Assili[us], da er wegen eines Italiäner, den er weg[en] angestochtener Ehre in Eyfer erstochen, verferti-
die ihm besuchten, sein Abscheiden sollende Kunst höchst betauert wurde, sprach er also zu: ich habe so viel
ist denen Fußstopfen seines Vaters rühm[lich] gefolget. Letzt[lich] aber muß noch dießes beyfügen, daß die
Es ist völlig aus dem Gusto des unvergleichten Hanibals Carazi tractiret und
get haben. Unter so vielen andern höchst preyßlichen Stücken aber ist
gethan, als ich kunte und habe euch durch meinen Pinßel so viel gewie-
Italiäner unßern Carl Screta mitnichten haben aus ihren Land entlassen
sehr künst[lich] und herr[lich] ordiniret, schön gemahlet und wird von denen Kunstkennern vor sein Werck
eines, so mich sonder[lich] jederzeit charmiret hat, so oft ich Gelegenheit gehabt habe, solches zu besehen,
ßen, das ihr Zeügnüsse genug davon gesehen habet, als nemb[lich] in samt[lichen] 3 Prager Städten, in dem
wollen, massen er schon so hochgeachtet war, daß man ihm auf der Academie zu Boglonio dem Nahmen
allda gehalten. In der Maltheser Kirchen zu Matka Boži genand auf der
solches ist in der Parochial Kirchen zu S[ank]t Martin auf der Altstadt Prag
Closter Königsaal, zu Leutmeritz in Dohm, aber in einen kleinen Kirchel
und Sitz eines Professoris Accademici zu aignete, die röm[ischen] Bent tauf-
Kleinen Seithen zu Prag ist das daßige großen Altar ebenmässig von seiner Hand, es stellet die Mutter Gottes in
linker Hand des hohen Altars (so auch sein Werck ist und S[ank]t Martinum zu Pferd vorstellet) unter dem Bogen
eines Dorfs unweith Leütmeritz, allwo ein höltzerne Henckel an der Kirchthür ist (womit er daß Dorf Krzestitz
ten ihm mit dem Beynahmen Schlacht-Schwerd. Es seynd auch viele durch von seinen Kunststücken nach
Wolcken und darunter den Patron von
und stellet vor die Desponsation der
meinde und da derselbe Hänckel noch
der Hand von denen Italiänern erkau-
der Insul Maltha, nemb[lich] den Heilig[en] Joannem Babtistam, von nebst einigen zur Erd auf denen Knieen liegenden und betenden alten Malthesen Rittern, in dem Hinterwerck siehet man verschiedene Schiffe und Galleern. In dießen Stuck hat er sich theils der Arth des Titians, theils des Pauli Veronensis bedienet. Item ist allda ein Seithenaltarblad mit der Decollation der Heiligen Barbara von vermischten Gusto des H[anibal] Carazi und Guido Rheni. In dem Professhauß der Jesuiten seynd nebst einen schönen Crucifix Bild an denen Seithenpfeilern der Kirche verschiedene schöne Passionstücke zu sehen und unter dießen absonderlich ein
Heil[igen] Catharinae mit dem Kindlein Jesu, war in dießer Große Künstler sehen lassen, daß er in der That keinen von denen grösten Meistern zu weichen Ursach habe. Mein kunstbegüriger Leßer gehe hin und betrachte es mit Gelöhrter Attention nur wohl, ich weiß gewieß, du wirst mir hierum Recht sprechen und mit mir eines seyn, das obern Bladel dießes Altars stellet einen S[ank]t Joanis Evangelisten Kopf vor und ist sein aigen Portrait, als er etwa 40 Jahr alt war. Daß Closter Königsaal unweith Prag hat auch nebst verschiedenen andern Wercken ein Haubtaltarstück, vorstellend eine Mariae Himmelfahrt nach der Arth des Dominiquins. In gleichen
heütiges Tags zu sehen ist), allda habe ich daß Vermögen meiner Kunst gelassen. Es ist dießes ein kleines Altarblädlein dießes Filialkirchels zu S[ank]t Mathai genant, so dem Leütmeritzerischen Bisthum unterworfen ist und stellet den Heiligen Mathaeum vor, gleichsam in Begrief sein Evangelium zu schreiben, da er von der Spitz oder Seithen durch einen Engel informiret und ihm die rechte Hand mit der Feder durch des Engels Hand geführet wird. Wahrlich man solte bey Ansicht dessen fast fragen, ob Raphael d’Urbin selbsten (nach dessen Grantes gemahlet ist) etwas Besseres habe machen können als dießes ist, ein sicherer eyfriger Kunstkenner Herr Gabriael
fet und nach Italien und andern Ländern versendet und verkauft worden, wie mir dann selbsten der Chevalier Schaub, vormahlig geweßener englischer Envoje an spanischen Hof, bey meinen Anweßen in London a[nn]o 1728 ein schönes Stück von seiner Hand zu meinen grösten Plaisir und meines Landmanns Ehren gewüßen hat, so den Alexantrum und Diogenem in dem Vaß vorbildete, welches er in Spanien erkaufet und nacher Engeland mit sich gebracht hat. Seine Pinßele Handlung war schmältzend außführ[lich] starck und wohl coloriret, man findet keine schweichlende oder geschmünckte Farben in seinen Wercken, sondern die pure Natur.
Abnehmung Christi von Creütz, völlig nach der besten Arth des Han[ibal] Carazi und ein Grablegung Christi nach Titians Arth gepinßelt. Auf den
die bischöf[liche] Thumkirch zu S[ank] t Stephan in Leütmeritz auf dessen hohen Altar die Martyr dießes Heyligen wundervoll und kunstmässig
Sensa kunte bey Erblückung dessen sich nicht baudigen, ohne die grösten Lobsprüche vor großer Freüde hievon zu sagen und ich muß von Hertzen
Seine Zeichnungsarth ist vest, richtig und von denen besten Antiqien entletznet und dießfahls nobel, edel und fast sine errore. Man findet auch keine
Hratschin in der Kirche derer P. P. Bar-
vorgestellet und theils nach Arth des
lachen, da ich ihm hörete sagen: ich
extravagante Stellungen in seinen
nabitten ein Seithenaltarblad vorstellend die Enthaubtung der Heil[igen] Barbara, völlig nach dem prächtigen
Carazi, die untern Figuren belangend die Gloriae, aber nebst denen Engeln und Kindeln nach des Dominiquinus
habe nie was Bessers von Screta gesehen, es ist warhaftig wie ein Raphael und ich finde daß Alt und Neun Testa-
Figuren und so er doch nach Umständen der Sachen dergleichen etwas vorstellen muste, so war es doch nicht
Gusto des Pauli Verenese [!]. Auf der Neüstadt Prag in der Kirche von S[ank]
Manier tractiret ist, auch seynd 4 andern Nebenaltärbläder da zu sehen
ment darinen, massen ich an dem Kopf des Heilig[en] Mathai ein veritab-
wider die Natur, noch all zu wild, er hat übrigens nach der Boulognischen
t Stephan der Größen eine Tauf Christi herr[lich] und künst[lich] gemahlet, fest und edl gezeichnet und wunder-
als: ein Heuliger [!] Schutzengel von raphaelischer Zeichnung und quidischen colorirt, ein Heiliger Adalber-
len jüdischen grau Barth mit einer so christlichen Stirne und Angesicht vereiniget siehe und wie mahlen dieße
Schul etwas ins Braune coloriret und wann er das damahl nach nicht so, wie heünt zu Tage bekannte clair-obs-
würthig coloriret, auf die richtigst und preyßwürtigste Arth des Quido Rheni.
tus, vollkomen nach Titians Arth, ein Heiliger Petrus und Paulus, und dann
Expression etwas lächerlich vorkam, so ist sie doch wahr und außdrückend
cur oder mittel Licht verstanden hätte, wären seine Wercke fast untadelhaft
Dann in daßiger S[ank]t Heinrich Kirch ein englischer Gruß nach ebenmässigen quidschen Gusto. Weithers
der Martyrtod des Heilig[en] Wenceslai als ein Nachtstück, von der Manier des Cheval[ier] Lanfrancs. Da er nun also
genug gesaget, er war übrigens ein Mann von Ehr liebenden Honetten, Gemüthe und Stunde bey hohen und
und angenehmer als sie seyn. Er hat nebst den studio historico auch treff[liche] Pourtraite gemahlet,
in dem Closter derer P. P. Augustiner Barfüsser zu S[ank]t Wentzl der gantze
in dießen seinen Vaterland sein Vermägen in der Kunst zur genüge hat
niedrigen in großer Estim und Reputation und hat durch seine Emsigkeit,
wovon man in den grösten Familien dießes Königreichs noch die preyß-
Creützgang ad ambitus dießes feilig[en] böhmischen Herzogs und
sehen lassen und gezeichet hat, daß seine Inventiones und Pinßels Kräften
Mühe und Arbeith ein ansehnliches Geld zusammengebracht, auch einen
würdigen Zeichnüße findet. RT
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 339
III. Documents on the Life and Oeuvre of Karel Škréta the Younger
150
Rome, 1673–1675 Karel Škréta the Younger is recorded in Rome as a resident of the Isola Toscanella neighbourhood, staying in house No. 5 on the street of San Felice. Published by Jana Zapletalová from the source held in Rome, Archivio Storico del Vicariato di Roma, San Lorenzo in Lucina, Stati delle anime, anno 1673, f. 88, Vicolo del Bottino. Literature: ZAPLETALOVÁ 2010, p. 157. RT
151
The Old Town in Prague, 20 February 1675 Veronika Škrétová marries Jiljí Jelen. The witnesses present at the wedding include Vílém Dirix of Bruk and Rotenberk and Samuel Globic of Bučín. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1652–1704, sign. HV O1, p. 637. Literature: BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 10; PAZAUREK 1889, p. 43 (edition), NEUMANN 1974, p. 48.
Copulati sunt matrimonio in facie eccl[es]iae clarissimus dominus Aegidius Jelen, Utriusq[ue] Juris Doctor cum honesta Virgine
generosus dominus Wilhelmus Dirix de Bruck et Rotenberg, questor S[acrae] C[aesarae] M[ajestatis] et generos[us] dominus Samuel Globicz
Veronica, relicta filia post dominum Carolum Screta de Zavorzitz. Testes
de Buczina. RT
152
(Prague), (before 28 February 1678) Request of Karel Škréta the Younger, addressed to the Bohemian Governor’s Office and asking the body to exact the amount of 75 guilders from the Appelate Councillor Baltasar Türchner, which the person in question owes for the drawings executed for the universe thesis of his oldest son by his father. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. S 212/2, box 985. Literature: NEUMANN 2000, p. 133; Tomáš Sekyrka, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.29, p. 609; SEKYRKA 2011, pp. 147–152.
Hoch und Wohlgeborne, Wohledle
seeligen Vater Carl Skreta wegen
mir bis dato 75 Florin schuldig ver-
zu fordern hat und praetendirt, also
und Gestrange, Gnädig Hochgebietende Königliche Herrn Statthalter,
unterschiedlicher Delineationen und Zeuchnungen, welche er vorgedach-
bleibet und nur von einer Zeit zu der anderen die Zalung aufschiebet. Weil
bitte dieselbe unterthänigst und gehorsambst mir die hohe Gnade zu
Euer Excellez und Gnaden bringe hiermit gehorsamst anbei, wasmassen der Königlichen Appellations-
ter Herr Doctor Türchner eltisten Sohn zu seinen gehabten Disputatio-
dann obgemelter Herr Doctor Türchner wegen seiner gehabten Granitz-
tuen und damit bei den Königlichen Ober Steuer Ambt (doch ohne Mass-
nibus schon vor etlichen Jahren mühsamb verfertiget und übersendet,
Commission bei Euer Excellenzen und Gnaden annoch einige Gelder
gebung) mir meine rechtmässige Schuld inbehalten und zugestellet
Rat Herr Baltasar Türchner meinen
340 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA THE YOUNGER
werden möchte, per Decretum in
Euer Excellenzen und Gnaden
[on the tergo:]
Communicetur (titl.) Herrn Appelati-
Gnaden anzubefehlen. Zu dero gnädigen Resolution und stets beharlichen hohen Gnaden mich untertenigst
gehorsamer Carel Sskreta von Zaworžitz mp.
Carl Screta bittet Herrn Doctor Türchner zur Bezahlung 75 Florin vor unterschiedliche gelieferte Disputa-
ons Rat Türchner etc. Ex consilio Regiae Cancellariae Bohemiae Pragae
tions Delineationes anzuhalten. Februar 1678
5. Martii 1678 TS
empfehlend verbleibe,
153
The Old Town in Prague, 22 July 1678 Karel Škréta the Younger records his debt owed to Jindřich Achtman and Václav Šárovec, the guardians of the Vodičkas’ orphans. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber obligationum No. 11, 1678–1699, sign. 2261, f. 42v–44r. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Poručníci sirotků Vodičkovských Jindřich Achtman a Václav Šárovec ze
jiných věřitelův dluh na týchž sirotcích Vodičkovských pohledávají-
Kašparovi Francovi … a připovídáme z opáčené sumy každého půl léta
zapsání dlužní náležitě a pořádně postoupené měl, na hotových peně-
Starého Města pražského … vydlužili pro potřebu sirotků od urozeného a statečného vladyky pana Karla Škréty Šotnovského z Závořic … 400 zlatých rejnských … pro zaplacení
cích, totiž urozenému a statečnému vladyce panu Danielovi Globicovi z Bučína, měštěnínu a radnímu SMP šedesáte zlatých rejnských, item urozenému a statečnému vladyce panu
ourok obyčejný 6 per cento náležitě a časně odvozovati, sumu pak hlavní v roce pořád zběhlém … panu věřiteli našemu, dědicům a budoucím jeho a tomu každému, kdo by sobě toto
zích dáti a zaplatiti… RT
154
Prague, 14 December 1678 Karel Škréta the Younger informs the Prince of Liechtenstein that he is aware of the Prince’s interest in some of his father’s paintings. He, however, states that he has hitherto hesitated as to which paintings he would dispose of because he initially planned to keep them for his own studio. But because the Prince is still interested, he eventually decided to sell him some of these. Lichtensteinisches Hausarchiv, Vaduz, box 68. Literature: NEUMANN 2000, p. 31; HAUPT 1998, p. 255 (with minor divergencies from the present transcription; carried out by Dr. Matouš within the preparatory works on the 1974 exhibition of Karel Škréta. The transcription is part of the inheritance of Jaromír Neumann, held in the Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic).
il mio piacere nella Galleria di Sua
Serenissima il Duca de Lichtenstein
Majestà. Finalmente il che non dubito d’haver di Vostra Altezza Serenissima alteri impiegh(?)i et commandi appar-
a Feldspurg¹² Von Screta von Prag den 14. Decembris 1678
Serenissimo Duca, Vostra Altezza compatirà con la solita grandezza d’Animo il mio har-
Si non considerasse il carattere di Galanthomo. Data la parola a Vostra Altezza Serenissima di volerli vender,
dire. Già che ho compreso del Maestro di Casa, la continuatione del affe-
son contento ultimatamente di privarmene per tanto. Il Horatio Gen-
tto, que Vostra Altezza Serenissima tiene verso quelli consapevoli, gli quali stanno ancora nel suo essere.
tileschio 160 total Rt, Rompimento del arco per 120 Rt et quel ultimo grande niente di meno di 200 Rt. Et
E ben vero, que io era quella volta risoluto di venderli, per amor le spese,
questa risolutione di vender Io per li obligh(?)i grandi delle gratie ricevutte
que ho fatto (alla proportione della mia persona vile) grand nel fabricare, nulla di meno havendo mi rifatto
dal S[erenissi]mo di Vostra Altezza signore Padre il mio defunto. Poi la speranza que tengo per certo d’otte-
tantino, ho proposto di conservarle
ner per mezzo di Vostra Altezza Sere-
[on the tergo:]
per il mio proprio studio e tesoro.
nissima la libertà a copiar secundo
Con pieno Tit. a Sua Altezza
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 341
tinenti alla mia professione. Accioché mi possi gloriare d’esser d’un cossi grande Principe che oi di Vostra Altezza Serenissima. A Praga agli 14. Decembre
12 The city in question is Valtice, the family residence of the Liechtenstein family in Lower Austria. Valtice was annexed in 1919 to Czechoslovakia which is, today, the Czech Republic.
Anno 1678 Schiavo obedientissimo
TS
Carlo Screta
155
Prague, 12 April 1679 Commission of a painting intended for the family chapel of Counts Sternberbergs in the church of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception with the college of the Irish Fransciscans in the New Town in Prague. The contract is attached by four Sternberg seals of black wax on the reverse of the preparatory drawing – i.e. a modeletto to the painting The Stigmatization of St Francis. Národní galerie v Praze – Sbírka kresby a grafiky (The National Gallery in Prague – Collection of Prints and Drawings), Inv. No. K 357. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 45, note 2; BERGNER 1910, cat. no. 74; NEUMANN 1974, pp. 259–261, cat. nos. 208–209; KESNEROVÁ 1976, cat. no. 50; PREISS 1979, pp. 68–69; NEUMANN 2000; PREISS 2006, pp. 68–69; MÁDL (in print). (The transcription by Martin Mádl included in the present publication slightly diverges from J. Neumann’s transcription.)
Vermög dieses Abrys hat der Herr Screta sich verobligiret sancti Fran-
Geist spiritum sanctum super apostolos mittentem, waylen die
Satisfaction unser mahlen wird, 50 Thaler werden ihm gegeben werden,
cisci Bild in die Sternbergerische Capellen bey den Patribus Hibernis einzumalen und auf das klai-
Allerheyligste Dreyfaltigkheit ihm in selber Kirchen in andern Capellen gemahlet ist. Für diese beede Bil-
wan er anfangen wirt zue mahlen, ante festum sancti Francisci Seraphici 8. Tag zuvor soll es in Altar
nere Blat mus ein besonderer Abrys geschehen, aliquid de Trinitate, als zum Exempel etwan den Heyligen
der seind dem Herrn Screta Hundert Thaler versprochen worden, mit Condition, wann er soliche zur
schon sein.
Prag den 12. April 1679 W[enzel] A[dalbert] G[raf] v[on] St[ernberg] [?] RT
156
The Old Town in Prague, 2 June 1679 Karel Škréta the Younger marries Alžběta, a daughter of Václav Rosa. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St James, file Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1632–1710, sign. JAK O1, p. 30. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 46 (edition); BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 10; NEUMANN 2000, p. 130.
In facie eccl[esi]ae juncti sunt vinculo matrimonii generosus dominus
Elisabeth Rosina, filia generosi ac clarissimi domini Venceslai Rosa,
Budinowa, copulans Rev[erendissi] – mus dominus abbas Sedlecensis
Carolus, filius pie defuncti g[enerosi] domini Caroli Screta Ssaknowsky [!] v Zaworzicz et ingenua virgo Anna
U[triusque] J[uris] D[octore], domino Gielhelmo Dirix z Wobumbergu [!], domina Veronica Scretowa, Anna
Ord[inis] Cister[ciensium]. RT
157
The Old Town in Prague, 16 April 1680 Karel Škréta the Younger’s daughter Anna Kateřina is baptized in the church of St Gallus. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika narozených (Birth Register), 1652–1704, sign. HV N1, p. 288. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 47 (edition); NEUMANN 2000, p. 133.
Baptizata filia Anna Catharina domino Carolo Creta et Elisabetha conjugibus. Patrini: r[everen]
canonicus Wissegradensis, clarissimus dominus Carolus Jaroslaus Borowansky de Borowan, J[u-
Maximiliana Machtin, domina Catharina Klobitzin. Cum facultate et licentia no[str]a baptizavit r[e-
diss[imus] dominus Joannes Benol,
ris] U[triusque] D[octor], domina
verendiss]imus dominus Joannes
342 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA THE YOUNGER
Samuel Borowansky de Borowan, canonicus Budissynensis. RT
158
(Prague), (before 29 March 1681) List of nineteen paintings by Karel Škréta, issued by his son of the same name who delivered it to Johann Kastner, the Liechtenstein administrator in Prague. Kastner sent the list to the Prince of Liechtenstein on 29 March 1681.The list was returned to him with notes and directions as to the purchase of three paintings, and was accompanied by a letter dated 9 April 1681 in Bučovice. Vaduz, Lichtensteinsche Kunstsammlungen…, HALV, box 68. Literature: NEUMANN 2000, p. 31; HAUPT 1998, pp. 282–283.
Verzeychnus, was bei gleichen in der Eil hat künnen aufgemerkt werden
auch von 5 Elen, höhe von 3 Elen … 180 Florin
Kindln darbei, von 2 Elen und halb lang und anderthalb hoch, originale
meisten von C[arl] Screta NB. 1 Aus dene Pastor Fido ein Spiel
NB. 5 Nach den Quido Reno ein Centaurus, Nessus genant, wie er eine
C[arlo] Screta … 59 Reichstaler 11. Ein Crucifix in Klein auf Kupfer
origi[nal] … 130 Florin 18. Eine Schükung ode Erleichtung heiligen Geistes über die Apos-
mit viel Lebensgröss Figuren auf teutsch die Blinde Kuhne genant von
Nimpham raubet, lebesgross von Carlo Screta copiert … 100 Florin /Vor
von Carlo Screta mit einer in Amacht singender Madonna und Johanne,
teln von C[arlo] Screta, originale … 40 Reichstaler
Carlo Screta gemacht, aber etwas unausgemacht … 330 Florin NB. 2 Aus dem Pastor Fido auch von
diese Copay in fahl es sich also befinden wird, das es von des Carlo Screta Hand abcopirt ist, soll darvor 80 Flo-
originale … 30 Reichstaler 13.¹³ Unser Libe Frau Maria gloriosa sitzend ob den Wolken sambt den
19. Ein Lucretia nach Quido Reno von Carlo Screta eigener Hand copiert, Lebensgross …
Carlo Screta wie der den Bogen zerbrechen thuet ein Jäger, weilen er seine Liebste, vermeinend ein Wild zu sein, geschossen, von 5 Elen hoch und 3 ½ breit … 150 Florin NB. 3 Ein Fuga in Egipten nach dem Horatio Gentilescho von Carlo Screta copiret, lebensgross Figuren und Joseph darbey schlafend; gross lang 5 Elen, hoch von 3 Elen, … 180 Florin 4. Ein Musiqspiel von den Musen auf allerhand Instrumenten. Lebensgross Figuren, nach Tintoretto von Carlo Screta copirt, lange
rin geben werden. Numero 5./ 6. Ein Conterfay von Titiano, ganze Statur eines Fürsten genant Rosenberg, überaus treflich gemacht, originale … 60 Reichstaler 7. Ein Conterfay eines Schöfers gestalt von Carlo Screta originale … 25 Reichstaler 8. Eine Diana gestadtlich Conterfay C[arlo] Screta … 25 Reichstaler 9. Ein Romanischer Kopf von Carlo Screta Brustbild, köstlich überaus … 25 Reichstaler / Vor diesen Kopf wil man geben 30 Florin. Numero 9./ 10. Eine Venus mit einem Satiro und
Engeln von C[arlo] Screta orig[inale] … 25 Reichstaler 14 Kindln von Carlo Screta spielend und einander kampfend wegen der abrupfenden Apfelen von den Baumen, originale … 56 Reichstaler /Vor diese Khiendlen solle ihme geben werden 56 Florin, Numero 14./ 15. Ein Englischer Gruess von Carlo Screta originale … 60 Reichstaler 16. Eine Barbara, wie sie von
60 Reichstaler 20. Eine Maria spielend und saugendes Kindl von Carlo Screta, originale … 30 Reichstaler
dem Vater enthaubtet wird … 40 Reichstaler 17. Ein Marie Himmelfahrt sambt
allen beywesenden Aposteln,
Sonsten viel andere unzehlbare Köpfe und Sachen von Carlo Screta, wie auch von anderen vornehmen Authoribus, die die Zeit nicht zulass aufzumerken und zu beschreiben zu finden sein. TS 13 Item No. 12 is missing.
159
Prague, 29 March 1681 Johann Kastner sends the Prince of Liechtenstein the list of paintings by Karel Škréta which was delivered to him by the painter’s son, Karel Škréta the Younger. The son reportedly also wants to wait for the Prince’s arrival into Bohemia and Kastner then awaits the Prince’s instructions as to the purchase of paintings. Vaduz, Lichtensteinsche Kunstsammlungen…, HALV, box 68. Literature: NEUMANN 2000, p. 31; HAUPT 1998, p. 282.
Durchleuchtigter Hochgeborner Hertzog, Gnädigster Fürst und Herr Herr,
sein aygene Handschrift nicht umbfertigen wollen lassen, sondern in originali überschicke, in andern
miteinander bekant, mir zur Antwort gegeben, ers zwar nicht recht betracht, ob es Originalien oder
und zwar meistenteils umb Gewehr, Flinten und Röhr von gedachten Gerzurowskii eingehandlet und
Euer Hochfürstlichen Gnaden gehorsambst berichte, wie daß mir der
auch mit Ihme zu redkommen, welcher Gestalt von andern gewissen
abcopirt von seines Herrn Vaters Originalien weren, dan er ebenfalst
schwerlich alle 4 Ihn 200 Florin kosten, mir aber Herr Borziowski ein
junge Screta dise hier beifolgente Verzeuchnuß durch seinen Diener einhändigen lassen, so aus Unacht-
Leuten vernommen 4 Stück Historii Malwerk Herr Borziowski von seines seelligen Vatern hat, hette
gute Leut gehalten, die wohl seiner Hand nach abcopirt haben, so wie er aber vernommen, so hette er die
Stuck, so doch nicht gross umb 150 Florin geboten, zu gehorsambster Nachricht. Ers auch so teuer mir
sambkeit wegen des so üblen Wetters beschmutzet, weilen es aber
Ihme ohne Zweyfel wohl wüssent sein werden, aldieweilen sie wohl
4 Stuckh obemdliche von ein von Adl Girzurowskii umb leidliches Geld
geboten, aldie weilen mir selber gemeldet, das Herr Wijschnoberskij
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 343
Ihme wohl wolte anbringen. Her Screta aber wünschete Ihro Hoch-
seins Vatern hinterlassene Malerii zu Diensten sein solle. Wormit einem
Euer Hochfürstlichen Gnaden ein untertänigst gehorsambster
fürstlichen Gnaden Ankunft in Böhmen wehen gehorsambst aufwarten
Hochfürstlichen Gnaden in Schutz des allerhöchsten, mich aber zu
Johann Kastner TS
wolle und was ihm müglich zu thun were Ihro Hochfürstlichen Gnaden
Hochfürstlichen Gnaden empfehle. Prag den 29. Martii 1681
160
Bučovice, 9 April 1681 Jan Kastner returns the list of Škréta’s paintings to the house administrator in Prague with the instruction to him taking charge of the three indicated paintings if Karel Škréta the Younger would sell them for 166 guilders instead of the initially required 181 guilders. In the case of an affirmative answer, the paintings shall be transferred to Kostelec nad Černými lesy from where they will be paid for and sent to Bučovice. If Škréta is interested, he can also send several smaller paintings and give their lowest price. Vaduz, Lichtensteinsche Kunstsammlungen…, HALV, box 68. Literature: NEUMANN 2000, p. 31; HAUPT 1998, pp. 283–284 (with minor divergencies from the present transcription; carried out by Dr. Matouš within the preparatory works on the 1974 exhibition of Karel Škréta. The transcription is part of the inheritance of Jaromír Neumann, held in the Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic).
An Hausmeister uf Prag Euer Schreiben sambt den uberschikten Lista der vorhandenen Malerey haben wir zue recht erhalten und sein wir zwar der Meinung gewest, alle diejähnige P[ilder], allwo ein Notabene stehet, zu nehmben. So lasset es sich aber nicht thun, ungesehenere, weillen es ein zimb[liches] Geld antrift, zu kaufen. Doch wollen wir 3 P[ilder] nehmben in Hofnung, es wird von des Screta Haus sein; als folgt die Liste hiemit wieder zurückund diejähnige 3 P[ilder], die wir nehmben werden, bei denselben ist ein Zettl angeklept, wie viel wir darvor geben wollen. In Fal er es dan
in diesen Wert lassen wollte, wird ihn das Geld aus den Kosteletzer¹⁴ Renten darvor gegeben werden. Die Lista soll wieder zuruckgeschikt werden. Folget zugleich ein Befehl an den Leiter wegen das Geld, zum Fal er solche umb diesen Preiss lassen wiel, khennet alsdan dem Leiter den Befehl zuschicken, damit er Euch das Geld ubermache und sodan die 3 P[ilder] nacher Kosteletz dem Leiter wohl eingemachter zuschicken sollet, welche er uns durch eigenen Pothen uberschicken wird. Und weilen mit Fleiss dieser Poth darmit abgeschickt werden wird, kan der Screta, wan er wiel, noch sonsten
etlich kleine P[ilder] mitschicken und den negsten Preis berichten. Butschowitz, den 9. April 1681 [illegible signature] [in margine] Vor ein Khopf No. 9 … 30 Florin No. 5 … 80 Florin No. 14 … 56 Florin — … 166 TS 14 The city in question is Kostelec nad Černými lesy, in the property of Princes of Liechtenstein from 1623.
161
The Old Town in Prague, 19 August 1681 The son of Karel Škréta the Younger, Karel Rafael, is baptized in the church of St Gallus. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika narozených (Birth Register), 1652–1704, HV N1, p. 298. Literature: PODLAHA 1917, p. 142; NEUMANN 2000, p. 133.
Anno 1681, Augusti 19. Baptizatus e[st] filius Carolus Raphael nobili domino Carolo
patrini nobilis dominus Wenceslaus Pawlowsky, medicinae doctor, nobilis dominus Wenceslaus
Screta et Elizabetha coniugibus,
Fleissmon, Dorothea Borowanska,
á R[everendissi]mo domino Joanne Benol, canonico Wissehradensi. RT
344 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA THE YOUNGER
162
The Old Town in Prague, 11 October 1681 The son of Karel Škréta the Younger, Karel Rafael, was buried in the church of St Gallus. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika zemřelých (Register of Deaths), 1645–1731, sign. HV Z1, p. 20. Literature: PODLAHA 1917, p. 142.
October 1681 11. sepultus e[st] in coemiterio Carolus Raphael Screta, infans duodecim septimanarum. RT
163
The Old Town in Prague, 7 December 1682 The son of Karel Škréta the Younger, Mikuláš František, is baptized in the church of St Gallus. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika narozených (Birth Register), 1652–1704, HV N1, p. 312. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 47 (edition); NEUMANN 2000, p. 133.
Baptizat[us] e[st] Nicola[us] Francisc[us] domino Carolo Screta et Elisabetha conjugi[bus], patrini dominus Francisc[us] Felix Necassi, a[tque] R[everendissimus] dominus Joannes Benol, canonic[us] Wissegradi[censis], domina Veronica Scretin, a patre Procopio. RT
164
The Old Town in Prague, 5 August 1685 The daughter of Karel Škréta the Younger, Alžběta Dominika, is baptized in the church of St James in the Old Town in Prague. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Jacob, file Matrika narozených (Birth Register), 1671–1707, sign. JAK N3, p. 192 (modern pagination in pencil for the needs of microfilm). Literature: PODLAHA 1917, p. 287; NEUMANN 2000, p. 133.
Anno 1685 Augusti
virgo Anna Catharina Ablunkowa, civ[is] Antiquae Urbis Pragensis, asi-
5. dominus Carolus Screta de Zaworzicz, civis Antiquae Urbis
stantes Catharina Benolowa filiola, dominus Maxmilianus Benol, civis
Pragensis et domina Elisabeht [!], uxor eius, curarunt baptisari filia suam propriam, cuis est nomen Eli-
Antiquae Urbis Pragensis, baptisans fr[ater] Didacus Novatius, concionator ordinarius. RT
sabeth Dominica, patrina quae ex fonte baptismatis illa levavit honesta
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 345
165
The Lesser Town in Prague, 14 October 1685 Karel Škréta the Younger is a witness at his sister Veronika’s second wedding, to Jan Fridrich Karel Fischer, a registrar with the Office of Land Registers. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of the Holy Virgin under the Chain, file Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1622–1745, sign. PMŘ N2 O2, p. 120. Literature: BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 10.
1685 den 14. Octobris [?] proclamatione in facie copulade Herr Johann
Veronica Scretin Sottnofski von
Artilerie, 3. Herr Nicolaus Leb-
Fridrich Carl Fischer bey der Königlichen Böhmisch[en] Landtafel
Zaworitz, testes 1. Herr Adalbertus von Petzendorf, Kleinseithner Rathsverwandter, 2. Herr Michael Müth,
kesselt, Stuckgiesler, 4. Herr Carolus Screta.
bestalten Registratori mit der Frau
Oberhauptman von der Kayserlichen
RT
166
(Prague), (before 9 February 1688) Report of the Royal District Administrator in the New Town in Prague, Jindřich of Gutštejn, informing the royal governors about the dispute between the New Town municipal government and the painter Prosper de Mutii. The painter requires 50 guilders for the delivered painting of The Holy Trinity from the municipal government but the body wants to disburse only 36 guilders on the basis of statements received from other painters. The district administrator therefore suggests the governor’s office appoint a committee to consider the painting. The municipal government should be represented by painter Jan Jiří Heinsch and Prosper de Mutti by Jean Baptiste Mathey while a superintendent (Schatzmeister)¹⁵ and “Mr Škréta” should be appointed as the unbiased. As it follows from the official note of 22 April 1688, the New Town district administrator received the decision on the basis of this advisory opinion. Národní archiv (National Archives), file Nová manipulace (New Manipulation), sign. G 1/M/1, box 193. Literature: NEUMANN 2000, pp. 133, 151, note 313.
Gnädige Herren Herren, wie Euer Excellenzen und Gnaden gnädig anbefohlen den Magistrat der
der Prosper de Mutii wider die Stadtmaler als interessirte, der Magistrat aber wider die, welche der Mutii
den Magistrat verursacht seye worden, indeme sie ihme solang afgehalten, sein Abries bis dato auf den
Schatzmeisters und Herrn Screta als unparteischen gnädig anbefehlen belieben möchten, dass diese
Königlichen Neuen Stadt Prag über die Beschwerde des Prosper de Mutii, Malern, zu vernehmen und nach
anführt, als seine Landsleute protestiren tuen. Die Stadtmaler setzen zwar in ihrer Attestation, dass das
Rathaus haben, wodurch er nicht anders hat schlüssen können, weilen sie seinen Abries behalten, die
die Mangel bei den Bild der heiligen Treyfaltigkeit aussetzen und dem Wert nach schetzen sollen.
Befund der eingebrachten Beschafenheit solchen Diferentien güt-
Bild nicht mehres als 36 Florin wert, jedoch setzen sie keine Ursach oder
contrahirte Arbeit von ihm nicht abwenden wollen, derowegen er alle
Worüber Euer Excellenzen und Gnaden weitern gnädigen Befehlig
lich abzuhelfen mich zu bemühen, wofern aber ein erhebliches gegen Bedenken sich ereignen und man
Mangel aus, worumb es so wenig wert sein solle, wo doch die Deputirte vom Magistrat selber 50 Florin
andere ihm vorgefallene Arbeit fahren lassen, und wann er diese contrahirste Arbeit aus verlassen müste,
erwarte und mich zu dero Beharrenden Gnaden gehorsambst empfehlend verbleibe Euer Excellenzen und
hieraus in der Enge nicht gelangen könte, die eugentliche Bewand-
darfür zu geben sich offeriret, der Magistrat auch dasselbe plecidiret.
dadurch in das gröste Verderben geraten möchte. Derowegen were
nus mit beirukenden Gutachten berichten solle, demselben bin ich gehorsamblich nachkommen, so Euer Excellenzen und Gnaden aus
Wie aus ihrem Bericht zu ersehen, der de Mutii aber nit allein diesen widerspricht, vorwendend, dass ihme unmöglich were, so wenig für
meine gehorsambe, doch unmassgebliche Meinung, damit man desto besser aus der [?] kommen könte, wann Euer Excellenzen und Gnaden
Gnaden gehorsambster Heinrich Graf von Guttenstein TS
obgedachten Magistrats beigelegten
ein Bild, welches viel mehres laut
von den Parteyen der Attestanten
Bericht mit mehrern gnädig ersehen können. Weilen dann gnädige Herren Herren zwischen ihme diese Strittigkeit gänzlich aufzuheben
der walischen Maler Attestat wert seye, zu nehmen, sondern praetendirt, wofern man ihme, doch wider sein Verhofen, die übrige Malerei zu
Malern, als nemblich vom Magistratsseiten den Hans Georg Heinisch, Burgern und Malern der Königlichen Alten Stadt Prag, sodann von
nicht hat geschehen könen, indeme
malen absprechen möchte, die Scha-
des de Mutii den Johann Babtista
beide Recht zu haben vermeinen,
den und Unkosten, die ihm durch
Mathei sambt Zuziehung des Herrn
346 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA THE YOUNGER
15 The person in question is probably the superintendent of the Prague Castle Picture Gallery. This position was held by Frans Leux of Luxenstein between 1683 and 1714.
DOCUMENT No. 166 Examination of the dispute between the painter Prosper de Mutti and the New Town municipal government. The artist requires his due royalty for the delivered painting and Karel Škréta the Younger is invited to expertly asses its price; dated before 9 February 1688 (Prague). Prague, National Archives, file New Manipulation (photo: National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David)
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 347
167
The Old Town in Prague, 9 March 1688 The son of Karel Škréta the Younger, Jan of God, is baptized in the church of St James. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St James, file Matrika narozených (Birth Register), 1671–1707, sign. JAK N3, p. 222 (modern pagination in pencil for the needs of microfilm). Literature: PODLAHA 1917, p. 287; NEUMANN 2000, p. 133.
Anno 1688 9. Martii ex parochia Jacobi Baptisatus est infans nomine Wenceslaus Joannes Dei, parentes Carolus Screta de Zavorzicz et Elisabetha, levans Ill[ustrissi]m[u]
s dominus Comes Wenceslaus de Sternberg, Ill[ustrissi]m[u]s Baro Straka ex Libczan, Baro Jo[ann] es Spork, baptisanti Wenceslaus Antonius cantor. RT
168
The Old Town in Prague, 20 February 1690 Karel Škréta the Younger accuses Václav Hrdlička of an unspecified theft. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber appelationum 6, 1689–1695, sign. 1006, f. 27v + 28r. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Dotýče se Karla Škréty a Václava Hrdličky Slovutné a vzáctné poctivosti přátelé nám milí, co tak na nás Karel Škréta z strany Václava Hrdličky při vás za příčinou krádeže jemu stalé
srovnalá, aby takové přečinění pro příklad jiných škůdcův bez trestání nezůstalo. Pročež proti v počátku dotčenému Václavovi Hrdličkovi v té tak patrné krádeži, zdvihnouce náležité corp[us] delicti, summariter
v té případnosti stalé limitaci, od něho Karla Škréty zavyupomínati věděti budete. Dán na Hradě pražském 20. dne měsíce února léta Páně 1690. Václav Norbert Oktavián hrabě
zjištěného vznáší a aby proti témuž delikventu ex officio inkvisírováno bylo, snažně žádá, to z příležejícího spisu jeho obšírněji vyrozumíte. I jsouce věc slušná a právům
procedýrovati a co za právo jest, nad takovým oučinkem ortel vynésti, outraty na ten inkvisitorní proces pak vcházející (pokudž týž škůdce prostředkův nemá) podle té od nás
z Vchynic a Tetova Praes[entum] 9. Martii 1690. Pub[l]icat[um] 10. Martii 1690. RT
169
The Old Town in Prague, 3 January 1691 Karel Škréta the Younger is buried in the tomb before the altarpiece of Our Lady in the church of St Gallus. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika zemřelých (Register of Deaths), 1645–1731, sign. HV Z1, p. 44. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 17, 42 (edition), BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 10; NEUMANN 1974, p. 48; NEUMANN 2000, p. 133.
Anno 1691 Januarius 3. gen[erosus] dominus Carolus
in crypta[m] apud altare B[eatae] M[ariae] V[irginis] Neapolit[anae]. RT
Screta pictor, 45 an[nos], sep[ultus] 348 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA THE YOUNGER
170
The Old Town in Prague, 10 January 1691 Samuel Globic of Bučín the Younger is authorized as guardian after the death of Karel Škréta the Younger. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Manuale dictorum, 1690–1693, sign. 1312, f. 33v. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Anno 1691 den 10. januarii pan mladší Samuel Globic z Bučína k radě přidán paní ovdovělé Škrétové, rozené Rozové, poručenství po inventuře jí se svěří. RT
171
The Old Town in Prague, 12 January 1691 Inventory of inheritance from Karel Škréta the Younger. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber inventariorum, 1687–1702, sign. 1179, f. 100v–114r. Literature: ZAP – ERBEN 1857 (edition); NEUMANN 1974, pp. 48–50, 89, 97, 120, 257; HOJDA 1986, pp. 44, 46; HOJDA 1993, pp. 51, 53–54, 60, 68, 74–76, 80, 82, 92; HOJDA 1994, pp. 65, 68, 70; SLAVÍČEK 2007, pp. 123–124; SLAVÍČEK 2008, p. 879, note 11; Radka Tibitanzlová, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI. 30, pp. 610–611.
Inventář pozůstalosti po neb[ožtíku] panu Karlovi Škrétovi z Závořic Léta Páně 1691 12. dne měsíce januarii v přítomnosti urozených a sta-
přišel, tehdy neb[ožtík] pan Škréta, nechtíce na vystavení náklad vésti, dle jeho vlastního upsání se prohlásil, že z téhož domu i s tím, co do živ-
tečných vladyk pana Jana Daniele Krocína z Drahobejle a pana Maximiliána Čečelického z Rozenwaldu, jakožto z místa radního královského Starého Města pražského deputýro-
nosti vložil, více nic praetendírovati nežádá než 1800 zlatých rýnských, ku kteréžto sumě podle přiznání paní vdovy neb[ožtík] pán na stavení jí na hotově ještě připůjčil 300 zla-
vaných komisařův, stal se popis vší a všelijaké pozůstalosti po neb[ožtíku] urozeným pánu Karlovi Škré-
tých rýnských, a tak z téhož domu Korandovského do této pozůstalosti patří –2100 [zlatých]
tovi z Závořic, Jeho Milosti císařské
V jedné černé hrobové truhle roz-
královské soudu nejvyššího purkrabství radě a měštěnínu teď řečeného Starého Města pražského, jakž následuje.
№ 12 – 150 zlatých № 13 – 100 zlatých № 15 – 50 zlatých № 17 – 50 zlatých № 18 – 50 zlatých № 22 – 50 zlatých № 23 – 100 zlatých № 26 – 100 zlatých № 27 – 100 zlatých № 28 – 150 zlatých № 29 jsou peníze in natura, základ
též řetízek hrachového díla pozlacený, který se za falešný drží, na něj dle zaznamenání zapůjčeno 5. maii léta 1688 100 zlatých Suma kapitálu na základy zapůjčeného – 2980 zlatých Dlužní zapsání N. 1 obligaci in originali pana Jana Clerixa, souseda na maltézským
vyzdvižen 50 zlatých № 31 – 100 zlatých
právě v Menším Městě pražském a Agnes manželky jeho de dato 9. octob[ri] anno 1679 na pana Karla
ličné základy, na kteréžto zapůjčeno, jakž v knize neb[ožtíka] pana Škréty vlastní rukou poznamenáno. Kalmanovi Brandejsovi židu, na něm No 1 – 30 zlatých
№ 32 – 200 zlatých № 34 – 100 zlatých
Škrétu znějící na – 1200 zlatých N. 2 originální židovský staar na
№ 35 – 200 zlatých № 36 – 150 zlatých Israelovi Brandejsovi židu náležející
2000 zlatých od Lebla Wienera a jeho otce na pana Karla Škrétu znějící, na kterýmžto neb[ožtíka] pána vlastní
Na jiný základ témuž No 3 – 50 zlatých
základ, na něj půjčeno 200 zlatých Jiný základ dva prsteny, každý s jed-
rukou napsáno, že na něj 1000 zlatých zaplaceno a zůstává – 1000
№ 4 – 100 zlatých № 8 – 100 zlatých № 10 – 100 zlatých
ním diamantem, na něj do jistého místa zapůjčeno 100 zlatých Základ zapečetěný v malé krabičce,
zlatých N. 3 zapůjčeno jest od neb[ožtíka] pána dle obligací in originali de
v Starém Městě pražském vedle Černého Vorla, nedaleko Mince ležící. Polovice domu nákladnického U Korandů od starodávna řečený dle
№ 11 něco stříbra a ostatek má býti
od koho zastavený jest, se neví, jsouce odpečetěný, nachází se zlatý
dato 15. julii anno 1690 panu Petrovi Mikulášovi Františkovi Kostomlat-
zápisu kněch městských; když pak
dosaditi má, jest půjčeno – 500 zlatých
řetízek pancířovýho díla, při něm polouportukleser. Dva zlatý prsteny, v jednom 9 dia-
skýmu Vřecovcovi [!] z Vřesovic – 1000 zlatých N. 4 originál židovský staar na
mantků a v druhým jeden diamant,
neb[ožtíka] pana Karla Škrétu znějící
Paní vdova Alžběta Škrétová, rozená Rozová Sirotek Václav Jan Boží, stáří 2 ¾ léta Na gruntech Dům od starodávna U Hájků řečený
týž dům v ten velký oheň k shoření
na punčochách, ku kterémužto žid Kalman Brandejs se přiznal a prohlásil, že co se nedostává, sám
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 349
od Löble Wienera de dato 16. junii 1687 léta na – 1000 zlatých
N. 12 landšaft bez rámu na něm Scheferin – 1
N. 5 originál staar na neb[ožtíka] pána znějící od Aarona Planty žida
N. 13 figura, jak se poklad dobejvá – 1 14. malovaný žebráci – 1
de anno 1686 na – 500 zlatých N. 6 originál staar též /na/ neb[ožtíka] pána znějící od Kalmana Bran-
15. hlava staré ženy v okrouhlým pozlaceným rámě – 1 16. svatý Jan Křtitel – 1
dejsa žida dle dato 23. januarii anno 1685 na – 200 zlatých
17. ženská osoba s hadem – 1 18. obdýlný obraz Nanebevzetí Panny
N. 7 originál obligací od Její Milosti paní Marie Renaty ovdovělé hraběnky Slavatový de dato 14. septem-
Marie s rozličnými svatými bez rámu – 1 19. figura pobožnosti – 1
b[ri] anno 1688 – 800 zlatých Suma kapitálu na obligací zapůjče-
20. Rachel, velký kus, však nedomalovaný – 1
ného – 5700 zlatých
21. Nanebevzetí Panny Marie – 1 22. svaté Lidmily usmrcení – 1 23. Panna Marie s Jesulátkem u prsu
Od zlata, stříbra Dva prsteny, který neb[ožtík] pan Škréta nosíval, v jednom každém pat-
a svatý Josef, velký kus, který neb[ožtík] sám maloval – 1
nácte routových diamantů, z jednoho však ten prostřední, a to největší, se nedostává.
24. obrázek na mědi, krucifix s Pannou Marií a svatým Janem – 1 25. doktor a pacienti – 1
Dva zlatý prsteny, v každém 3 český diamanty fasovaný v stříbře. Koflíček stříbrný maličký okrouhlý – 1 Kord s stříbrnými kříži, hákem a nákončím – 1 V šrejbtiši dubovým, vnitř žlutě pacovaným Hodinky stříbrné s budíčkem, v stříbrném futrálku, váží – 28 ½ lotu Dvě slánky stříbrné nízký, na způsob třích lžic v hromadě, váží obě – 17 ½ lotu
26. nahá ženská osoba malá – 1 27. maličký obrázek, jak svatý Josef spí – 1 28. maličký konterfekt generála Picolomini – 1 29. et 30, maličký noční landšafty, vejchoz měsíce – 2 31. seslání Ducha svatého na apoštoly a Pannu Marii – [1] 32. velký kus, na něm 6 ženských obnažených osob, jak musicírují – 1 33. kontrfekt neb[ožtíka] pana starého Škréty v rámě – 1 34. kontrfekt neb[ožtíka] pána, když ještě mladý byl, v rámě – 1 35. kontrfekt neb[ožky] paní Škrétový – 1 36. malý obrázek Nanebevzetí Panny Marie – 1
Stříbrných stejných lžic – 9 Koflík nízký s pokličkou na třích knoflíkách, pozlacený, váží – 17 ¼ lotu Ve futrálku erb škrétovský z jaspisových pulírovaných kamenů v hromadu kunstovně složený, při něm dva stříbrné litý groše, jeden s ouškem a škrétovským erbem. V tom šrejbtiši majestát in originali na pargameně psaný od císaře Maximiliána na vladyctví neb[ožtíka] Jana Škréty. Od obrazů N. 1 obrázek starý obdýlný na prkně přilepený, na něm Poslední večeře Páně – 1 2 et 3 landšafty stejný, na jednom jak voda ze skály teče, na druhém pusté stavení v černých rámích – 2 N. 4, 5 et 6 stejné menší landšafty v černých rámích – 3 N. 7 et 8 ještě menší stejný landšafty v černých rámích – 2 N. 9 item landšaft něco málo větší, též v černým rámě – 1
37. Ecce homo – 1 38. starý kontrfekt mužský – 1 39. kontrfekt neb[ožtíka] pana Cortesii – 1 40. malý landšaft – 1 41. nedohotovený 3 hlavy – 1 42. kontrfekt mužský – 1 43. figura ženské osoby – 1 44. kontrfekt jednoho biskupa – 1 45. kontrfekt neb[ožtíka] pana hraběte Bernarda z Martinic – 1 46. kontrfekt císařovny Margarety – 1 47. figura jednoho muže – 1 48. holandský dryáčník – 1 49. kontrfekt mužský – 1 50. obraz podmalovaný mužské
N. 10 et 11 landšafty, na nich moře
figury – 1 51. kontrfekt mužské osoby – 1 52. nahá ženská osoba s starcem – 1
malovaný, bez rámců – 2
53. divokých lidí způsob – 1
55. anjel Gabriel – 1 56. začatý kontrfekt mužský – 1 57. jak 3 osoby v lese spějí – 1 58. kontrfekt císaře Ferdi[nanda] III. – 1 59. kontrfekt ženské osoby – 1 60. bolestná Matka Boží s Kristem Pánem na klíně – 1 61. svatý Petr a Pavel – 1 62. historia na zemi [se] sedícím starcem – 1 63. svatý patriarcha Jakub, jak viděl anjele z nebe stupující – 1 64. konterfekt neb[ožtíka] pana kardi-
99. model Nanebevzetí Panny Marie – 1 100. dva modely na jednom plátně – 1 101. et 102. modely kvítí – 2 103. konterfekt ženské osoby – 1 104. kvítí rozličné – 1 105. svatý Petr, jak spí – 1 106. figura jednoho muže – 1 107. konterfekt neb[ožtíka] opata zbraslavského Jungera – 1 108. konterfekt Jeho Milosti císaře v mladém věku – 1 109. konterfekt s flintou – 1
nála z Harrachu – 1 65. model nějaké historie – 1
110. ženská osoba s smrtí hlavou – 1 111. patriarcha Isaac dávající požehnání Jakubovi – 1
66. ženská osoba až k prsům figurovaná v rámě – 1
112. velký kus, nějaká historie, na něm pět osob a jedno dítě – 1
67. konterfekt ženské osoby – 1 68. nedomalovaný obraz ženské osoby – 1
113. Korunování Krista Pána – 1 114. Tobiáš, jak ho anjel vede – 1 115. Zvěstování Panny Marie – 1
69. konterfekt neb[ožtíka] pana Škréty mladého věku – 1
116. konterfekt celý osoby pana hra-
70. hlava jednoho starce, ostatek nedomalovaný – 1 71. starý obraz ženské osoby s nápisy – 1 72. pohanská vdova sedící – 1
117. konterfekt nějakého starýho duchovního – 1 118. konterfekt jenerála Colloredy – 1 119. konterfekt nějakého mladýho duchovního – 1 120. konterfekt pana hraběte Jana Hartvíka z Nostic – 1 121. uherská ženská osoba – 1 122. Turek – 1 123. konterfekt nějakého duchovního – 1 124. svatý Josef, jak Ježíška na loktech
73. krucifix 74. malý obrázek svaté Máří Magdalény – 1 75. konterfekt nějakého mladého pána v kyrysu – 1 76. pět hlav mužských starcův – 1 77. dvě mužský hlavy nedodělaný – 1 78. Venuše s měsícem na hlavě – 1 79. tři malé osoby, jeden jak beránka na hlavě nese – 1 80. starý obrázek Korunování v nebi Panny Marie – 1 81. Nanebevzetí Panny Marie – 1 82. bohyně Pallas – 1 83. tři nahé ženské osoby – 1 84. mužská hlava vzhůru patřící – 1 85. konterfekt nějakého jenerála – 1 86. konterfekt jednoho kardinála – 1 87. svatý Hieronymus – 1 88. konterfekt jednoho jenerála – 1 89. ženská osoba plačící – 1 90. pět dětinských hlav – 1 91. malá ženská osoba celá – 1 92. svatý Václav, jak ho bratr morduje – 1 93. Ježíšek s křížem – 1 94. Panna Marie, jak Ježíška kojí – 1 95. konterfekt ženské osoby starodávný – 1 96. ženská osoba nahá, spící s jedním starcem – 1 97. model obrazu svaté Panny Barbory – 1 98. model nějaké staré historie – 1
54. kontrfekt mužské osoby – 1 350 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA THE YOUNGER
běte Franze Gallase – 1
chová – 1 125. et 126 konterfekty nějakého hraběte a paní jeho – 2 127. konterfekt nedokonalý mužský – 1 128. konterfekt jiný, též nedodělaný – 1 129. et 130. dva obrazy stejný s sťatou hlavou a okolo ní všeliké žížaly – 2 131. et 132. dva landšafty mořský – 2 133. landšaftíček malý – 1 134. na prkně malovaný obrázek obdýlný – 1 135. starý obraz, nějaká historie s mnohými osobami – 1 136. velký obraz, na něm nahá ženská osoba – 1 137. velký obraz, šarvátka Němcův s Turky – 1 138. témuž nápodobný – 1 139. zase takový – 1 140. model obětování Panny Marie v chrámě – 1 141. svatý Jan Evangelista, veliký kus, in insula Pathmos, nedohotovený – 1 142. Panna Maria s Ježíškem,
s svatou Annou a svatý Carolus Boromaeus, velký kus – 1 143. velký obraz, na něm svatý Michal archanjel, jak zlý anjele z nebe pudí – 1 144. velký kus, 12 znamení měsíčních – 1 145. velký kus, štvaní divokého kance – 1 146. k témuž podobný kus štvaní jelena – 1 147. historie poetická – 1 148. velký kus, ležící ženská osoba nahá – 1 149. Lugrecia, velký kus – 1 150. velký kus, svatý Václav, jak jest od bratra zamordován – 1 151. obrázek malý Panny Marie
nemůže, nýbrž to vše vesměs neb v sumě k prodaji přijíti musí, pročež
Theatrum poeticum – 1 Considerationi civili di M. Remigio
franclemi a tři poutkový mašle pod halstuch
takové všechny při společnosti, až by se dobrý kupec nalezl, v jednom
Fiorentino – 1 Philosophia naturale di M. Alesandro
Kaputa černá z holandského sukna – 1
sklepě suchém nahoře a v druhém dole při zemi zavřené zůstanou.
Piccolomini – 1 Bible svatá drobného tisku – 1 Scripta philosophica – 1
K ní kamizola z černého tercenellu, s krajky premovaná – 1 Plášť zánovní z černého španihel-
Od kněch Bible česká in folio – 1
Glinnalidi Cornelio Tacito – 1 L’historia di Milano M. Bernardino
ského sukna – 1 Sukna takového – 7 loket
Beschreibung der Contrafactur der vornehmbsten Stätt der Welt in magno folio, 2 Theile – 2 st.
Corio – 1 Iconologia del Ripa – 1 Vokabulář sedmi řečí – 1
Plášť černý kronrašový – 1 Kaputa a dvoje spodky tuze ochozelý z černého šaršetu de nirais
Právo městský – 1 Řízení [!] zemské – 1
Le ministre d’estat – 1 Colerus, teutsch – 1
Kabátek a spodky z šaršetu černého, spodky kamelhorový – 1
Herbář Mathiola in fol. – 1 Historie církevní in fol. – 1 Policie historická – 1
Discorsi del S. don Antonio Agostini geschriebenes altes Artzney Buch – 1 Frantz Renner Artzney Buch – 1
Kaputa a spodky z štrafovaného stříbrné barvy harasu, s bavlněným strakatým plátnem podšitá
s Jezulátkem, jak spí – 1 152. obrázek maličký dřevěný, na něm 5 hlav 153. velký obraz, na něm svatý Ště-
Flavius Josephus německá – 1 Titi Livii Römische Historien – 1
Theses hraběte z Altanu – 1 Janua linguarum reserata aurea – 1
Při tom vesta též z takového plátna Kamizoly z modře žahaného plátna – 2
Kniha německých carminův in fol. – 1 Posloupnost knížat Paprockýho – 1 Beschreibung der Schiffarth und
Le imagini delle Done Auguste – 1 Del Governo di M. Francesco Sansovino – 1
Šarpa jednou okolo života černá hedbábná [!] s černýma franclemi – 1 Kaputa již onošená z černého holand-
pán od neb[ožtíka] pana starého Škréty malovaný, který však porušený jest a náležel do kláštera na Šopku pod Mělníkem – 1 154. v té velikosti týž obraz v nově kopírovaný, který na místě téhož na Šopku přijíti má – 1 155. krucifix s Pannou Marií a svatým Janem, velký, ještě nedomalovaný – 1 156. velký obraz nedomalovaný, Bolestná Panna Marie syna
Raiss in die Türkey Niclas Nicolai Kamling – 1 Lexicon Philosophicum Rodolphi Goclenii in par fol. – 1 Historie del mondo in par fol. – 1 Philippi Theophrasti Bombast von Hohenheimb in par fol. – 1 Díl pátý a šestý Bible český Nového zákona in par fol. – 2 kusy Privilegia Království českého psané – 1 Kniha z regálního papíru, v ní
Relationi universali di Giovanni Botero Benese – 1 Historia d Italia di M. Francesco Guicciardini – 1 Kriegsmanual Johann Jacobi von Wallhaussen – 1 Descriptiones Ptolemaicae Corneli Wytfliet – 1 Nové kratochvíle Bartoloměje Paprockého – 1 Weiblicher Lustgarten – 1 Il primo volume delle cagioni delle
ského sukna – 1 Kožich z černého holandského sukna s černým beránkem, však od molův zkaženým, podšitý – 1 Bornowill z prostého sukna s černým pajem podšitá – 1 Plášť dešťový z modrého kamelhoru kartýzem podšitý – 1 Kamizola stará černá z plisu – 1 Šchlafpelz z strakatého bavlněného plátna a s bavlnou vycpávaný – 1 Deka z tureckého stříbrohlavu s zele-
Božího na klíně mající, s svatým Janem a svatou Máří Magdalénou – 1 157, 158, 159, 160 čtyry obrazy, ženské osoby rozličných krojův – 4
něco receptů napsaných, ostatek prázdná – 1 Fürmahlung und Beschreibung der Horologien alten Truckhs – 1 Comentarien und Beschreibung von
guerre antiche – 1 Le vite de Glihvomini – 1 Apologiae der bohmischen Stände – 1 Svázaných knížek in octavo 12 et 16 latinsky, francouzsky, vlasky
ným plátnem podšitá – 1 Item taková deka něco sprostější s zlatým plátnem podšitá – 1 Punčochy zimní dlouhý, englický, nový – 2 páry
161. malý obrázek na mědi, krucifix s Pannou Marií, s svatým Janem
dero Leben und Herzug Cyri des Ersten, alten Truckhs – 1
a německy, sečtlo se jich – 248 kusů
Punčochy harasové kropenaté, ochozelé – 1 pár
a svatou Máří Magdalenou – 1 162. velký obraz svinutý, Nanebevzetí Panny Marie – 1 163. začatý konterfekt neb[ožky] paní
Marci Velseri Libri octo – 1 Francisci Petrarchae Trostbücher – 1 Miscellanea Bohuslai Balbini – 1 Accuratae Effigies Pontificum
Ve sklípku proti zadní světnici V almaře ve zdi od chodících šatův Plášť černý kanavacový tuplovaně
Černý punčochy zimní, též ochozelé – 1 pár Rukavice s černýma krajky – 1 pár Paroky krátký 2 a dlouhá 1 – 3
Škrétové, toliko hlava – 1
maximorum – 1
s krajky, k němu kabátek a spodky též
Klobouky černý 2 a šedivý 1 – 3
čtyry kusu mědi, na nich obrazy vyrytý it[em] velký plát mědi, asi 2 lokte dlouhý a 1 loket široký
Architectura Militaris in fol. – 1 De serponte, právní kniha in quarto– 1 Nicolai Caussini Trecensis e Soc[ietas]
s krajky premovaný Jiný kabátek a spodky též z černého kanavacu Kabátek a spodky také černý sou-
Portýr z modrýho sukna – 1 Firhaňk modrý harasový od okna – 1 It[em] od dveří – 1 Spodky kožený barevný – 1
Jesu – 1
kenný, již hrubě ochozelý
Item soukený černý – 1
Co se pak ostatních malířských věcí, totižto všelikých kunstovních figur
Dikcionář latinský a český – 1 Lectiones Joannis Christophori Schambogen – 1 Revelationes Nicolai Drabicio – 1
Kabátek a spodky z černého kamelhoru Kaputa z holandského sukna myškové barvy, veskrz prokátem podšitá,
V almaře ořechové barvy Od bílých šatův
voskových a kipsových, též kup-
Historie del mondo Gio[vanni] Tar-
při ní knoflíky s stříbrem protká-
Prostěradlo tenké s krajkami – 1
ferštychů (které od jednoho v tom zběhlého a povědomého pána sortýrované jsou) a rysův na papíře dotýče, poněvadž pro množství toho každý
chagnota, vlaská, parte 1 et 4 – 1 Il Decameron di Messer – 1 I dieci libri dell architetura – 1 Daniel Schwentzers Geometriae
vané. K ní kamisola také prokátová s podšívkou stejná, kalihoty z strakatého aksamitu. K těm šatům opasovací wehrgehenk s zlatem a stříbrem
Cejcha stará s karmazínem vyšívaná – 1 Cejcha stará barchánová – 1 Ubrusy cvilinkový – 2
kus specifice zaznamenán býti ne-
practicae – 1
krumplovaný
Detto ručník – 1
mohl, majíce také ohled na to, že jedno bez druhého prodáno býti
Cento novelle scelte – 1 Akta Království českého léta 1547 – 1
Item rukavice s hedbávýma [!]
Košile na klidmona – 1 Košil neb[ožtíka] pana tejnkých – 8
164. item druhý začatý konterfekt týž paní Škrétový, když již stará byla
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 351
Prostějších – 2 Stará malá cejška – 1 Šchlafthozny – 1 Bavlněných punčoch – pár 1 Plena – 1 Vobojek a pár taclí poynt devenis Halstuchů krajkových a s krajky – 11 Taclí s krajkami – párů 5 “–” prostých – párů 2 Šátek s krajky – 1 Punty plátěný s bavlnou – 2 Pěkný damaškový ubrus a 12 servetů zůstávají v zástavě, na které neb[ožtík] pán 5 zlatých do jistého místa půjčil. Od cínu V almaře velký vykládaný, dole s šubládem Mís nových 14, váží – 37 lib. Šály 4 – 4 lib. Mís nových – 5 Menší misky – 3 Malých nových misek – 8 Talířů – 21 Paštička malá – 1 Půlpinty – 2 Konvice pivní – 1 Flaše pinetní čtyrhranná – 1 Škopíček pod umyvadlo – 1 Plát pod sklenice – 1 Mříže pod prase – 1 Džbánky na kvítí – 1 Půl a ¼ žejdlíčka – 2 Svícny s pokličkami – 2 Serpentýnového kamene okrouhlá flaše s cínovým šroubem – 1 S. V. hrnec noční – 1 Mořdíř [!] velký mosaznej s železnou paličkou – 1
Váhy mosazný s železným gleichem, při nich liberní rozbírající závaží – 1
Pistol starodávných – pár 1 Dragounský kord – 1
A něco jiného sprostého rozličného hliněnýho nádobí
Od rozličných mobilií v velikým pokoji
V zadní světnici
V světnici na pavlači
Stolečků starých malých, na třích
Plátěný modrý firhaňky při oknách – 3
Šenktisch dubový s čtyrmi dvířkami, v něm některá vinná sklenice – 1 Porculánová miska – 1 Prostých nožů – párů – 6
sprostý turecký štrafování a na dvouch kožený starý koberce – 5 Okrouhlej malej stoleček – 1 Židliček sprostých – 7
Před poličkou též takový firhaňk – 1 Stůl čtyrhranatý čer/ve/ně
Vrcáby celý kameny – 1
Starý firhaňky při oknách z zeleného
Futrál na flaše [s] vínem, toliko jedna sklenná flaše – 1 Seslí nízkejch [se] zábradlíma s červeným květovaným na žluté půdě tlače-
harasu – 3 Velká almara nízká, v ní již nepotřebný líky – 1
Tabule s kipsovýma figurami v dřevě fasovaný – 2 Klidmužíčky malý – 2
ným aksamitem potaženým – 6
V malým pokojíčku při tý světnici
Item takový malý sesličky – 2 Židliček stejných vyřezávaných – 12 Stoly sprostý, na nich harasový žahaný koberce – 3
Srcadlo [!] v pacovaným rámě – 1 Khamplfutter starý, peygelového díla – 1
Stůl s černým kamenným plátem, na
Stoleček nízký malý, na něm starý
něm starý kožený koberec – 1 Na něm instrument – 1 Clavicord – 1
žahaný harasový koberec – 1 Postýlka malá, nízká, stará – 1 Na ní modrace [!] a polštář Kord sečný – 1 Dlouhý kord – 1 Tesáček – 1 Špacírhůlky – 3 Opasovací nový khinky – 2 Střevíc nových – páry – 2
V komoře na pravé ruce vedle té světnice Polookrouhlé stoly, na nich harasové koberce – 2 Stoleček s černým schiefer kamenem – 1 Almara velká bílá, v ní turecký koberec s harasovýma franclemi – 1 V pokoji vedle té komory
V malý komůrce proti té světnici Postýlka pod nebsy [!] na jednu osobu – 1 Při ní zelených kronrašových firhaňků i s věncem – kusy 4
obarvený – 1 Stoleček červený starý – 1
Kámen na tření barvy – 1 Stolečky malířský – 2 Šráky malířský – 2 Plátno gruntované na rámích, kusy – 2 Rámy velký k obrazům – 2 Španihelská zeď, toliko dva pláty – 1 Flor na rámě natažený – 1 Židličky prostý – 3 V hořejším štoku, kde se malovávalo v světnici V starém futrálku loutna – 1 Prostřední basa – 1 Trombamarína – 1 Klidmuž velký – 1 Tabule stará velká – 1 Plátno natažený na rámě a gruntovaný pro malování velkého obrazu do oltáře – 1 Item plátna gruntovaného na rámích, nataženého k malování – kusů 5 Šrák velký malířský – 1
Almara velká bílá prázdná – 1 Maličké nízký stolečky, na nich modrý soukenný koberce – 4 Starý sesle modrý soukenný [se] zábradlíma 4 a bez zábradlí s haraso-
Na ní vázaná deka vlněná, modrá a bílá – 1 Deka z tlačeného plátna – 1 Deka z tureckého bavlněného plátna s prostíradlem – 1
výma franclemi – 8 Podstavníků pod svícny černě
Velká peřina – 1 a menší 1 – 2 Polštář 1, podhlavníčky 3 – 4
v nově dělati dala
obarvených – 6 Loutna ve futrálu – 1 Chytara – 1
Modrace – 2 Polštáře modracový – 3 Židličky – 3
V podzemním sklepě
Housle s futrálem – dvoje
Almárka sprostá ořechové barvy – 1 Githara – 1
Majolikových šálečků s pokličkami – 5 Hliněných šálků s pokličkami – 5 Hliněných šálů na konfekty – 6
V komoře vedle světnice po levé ruce Stoleček maličký, na něm modrý sou-
Seslička malá stará – 1 Schreibkastl, v něm 3 mosazný pera, jeden cirkl a železný též 1 cirkl
Serpentýnový maličký džbáneček s cejnem obitý – 1
kenný kobereček – 1 Sesličky nízký s zábradlíma s mod-
Na mázhauzku
waldu, commissarius
Mistička maličká – 1 Obrázek malý stříbrný v černým rámě, Korunování Krista Pána a na
rým suknem potažený – 4 Postýlka zavírací zelená – 1 Stoleček čtyrhranný starý, na něm
Pan p[urkmistr] a páni královského
V sklepě proti světnici zadní
rámě 6 anjelských hlaviček – 1 Vážky dukátový kolínský v futrálu – 1
Velký dubovej stůl – 1
kožený koberec – 1 Tabulka stará červená – 1
Vážky jiný visící – 1 Vážky mosazný lotový s kolínským gleichem, při nich mosazného závaží
Stará zeleně barvená truhla – 1 Tabulky šifer kamenný – 2 Štůcek krátký tažený – 1
Stará almara – 1 V ní hliněných bílých šálkův – 11 Koflíčky – 4
na 64 dukátů – 1
Pistol s německýma stroji – pár 1
Mistička majoliková – 1
V témž sklepě v almaře ve zdi Bílý majolikový džbánek s stříbrným pozlaceným víčkem s erbem neb[ožtíka] pána – 1 Barevný majolikový džbánek s stříbrným bílým víčkem – 1 Džbánky s cínovýma víčkami – 2
352 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA THE YOUNGER
Dole v domě Krytý vůz toliko sama korba, poněvadž paní vdova sama celý spodek
Sud červeného vína léta 1680 zrostlého – 10 věder It[em] červeného vína téhož léta soudek – 2 vědra Actum anno et die ut supra. L. S. Maximilian Čečelický z Rozen-
Starého Města pražského ráčí povolovati, aby tento inventář tu, kdež náleží, do kněh městských vtělen a vepsán byl. In consilio Antiquae Urbis Pragensis 3. septembris 1691. Pavel Kratochvíle syndicus. RT
172
The Old Town in Prague, 5 June 1691 Alžběta Škrétová marries František Theofil Kleo of Roudná and enters into nuptial agreement with him. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka papírových listin (Collection of Documents on Paper), sign. AMP PPL IV – 6425. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Léta Páně 1691 dne 5. měsíce června mezi urozenou paní Alžbětou ovdo-
otce jejího urozeného a vysoce uče-
docela přináležejícím, jakž knihy
vělou Škrétovou, rozenou Rozovou, měštěnínkou královského Starého
ného pana Václava Rozy, obojích práv doktora a Jeho Milosti císařské nad apelacími na Hradě pražským
městské libro contractuum rubro 2, fol. 323 plněji ukazují, však toliko do jedné polovice obvěňuje, takže
mp. Joann Václav Benol, děkan a prelát vyše[hradský]
František Theofil Kleo z Roudné
Města pražského, jakožto nevěstou z jedné a urozeným panem Františ-
rady, jí paní nevěstě a předešlému panu manželi jejímu knihami měst-
paní nevěsta budoucně, kdyby pana ženicha živobytím přečkala, polovici
Jan Karel Dyryx z Bruku na Rotenberku, na svědomí mp.
kem Theophilem Kleo z Roudné, též měštěnínem téhož města, jakožto
skými královského Starého Města pražského libro contractuum rubro
téhož domu dokonalým dědickým právem užíti má a v takovém pří-
Samuel Globic z Bučína, při Jeho Milosti císařské královské kance[láři]
ženichem, z strany druhé, staly se smlouvy svatební dobrovolný takový. Jakož umínivši sobě jmenovaný
primo, folio 328 k dědičnému vládnutí odevzdaného a postoupenýho, potom pak shořevši v tom
běhu pan ženich jen toliko s druhou polovicí domu vládnouti a dědicům svým zanechati mocti bude. Přičemž
místodržické expedici koncipista ut testis Karel František Gränitzer mp.
pan František Kleo z Roudné v stav svatého manželstva vstoupiti a oblíbivše sobě k témuž stavu za budoucí choti a manželku svou tolikéž jmenovanou paní Alžbětu Škrétovou jak při ní, tak i při páních přátelích jejích toho snažně povyhledával, aby jemu se zakázala, což i taky dnešního dne v přítomnosti z obouch stran dožádaných a tuto tolikéž podepsaných pánův přátel vykonáno jest, takže jedině na tom pozůstává, aby skrze správce duchovního k témuž stavu potvrzeni byli. Aby pak oba, jak pan ženich strany věna, tak i paní nevěsta strany obvěnění opatření své náležité měli, pročež předně paní nevěsta místo věna polovici domu svého nákladnického
nešťastném velikém ohni, znova zase od paní nevěsty jejími prostředky vystavenýho, postupuje, dává a odevzdává, ihned k jmění, držení a dokonalému dědičnému vládnutí, sobě na tuž polovici domu žádného práva víceji nepozůstavujíce a to panu ženichovi Františkovi Kleovi z Roudné, dědicům a budoucím jeho za pravé věno a místo sumy věnní, takže on pan ženich, dadouce tyto smlouvy svadební tolikéž i před potvrzením církevním do kněh městských vložiti, dokonalým pánem a vladařem téhož polovičního dílu ihned býti má. Naproti tomu zadruhé přijímajíce pan ženich toto rozepsané věno od paní nevěsty se vší vděčností, takový zase domem
však zatřetí jak paní nevěsta, tak i pan ženich sobě v moci zanechávají, aby budoucně sebe jinačeji buď skrze poslední vůli a kšaft aneb skrze společné statkův vzdání aneb jiným jakýmkoliv povoleným právním způsobem zaopatřiti mohli. Na potvrzení toho jak pan ženich, tak i paní nevěsta, též páni přátelé z obojí strany dožádaný vlastními rukami se podepsali a sekrýty své přitiskli, jim pánům přátelům však beze škody. A budou mocti tyto smlouvy svadební s povolením slavného magistrátu jakž dotčeno každého času, též i dříve potvrzení církevního v nepřítomnosti jedné, neb druhé strany do kněh městských se vložiti a vepsati dáti. Stalo se v městech pražských
Karel František Felix mp. na svědomí Povoleno k vložení do knih městských in con[silio] Antiquae Urbis Pragensis 3. julii 1691. Pavel Kratochvíle
od starodávna Korandovský řečeného s hvozdem, sladovnou a jiným příslušenstvím od neb[ožtíka] pana
svým na rynku Starého Města pražského proti rathauzu ležícím, U červené lišky řečeném a panu ženichovi
dne 2. julii léta Páně 1691. Alžběta Škrétová, rozená Rozová
The reverse: Ingrossatum libro contractuum rubro 2, fol. 324 Johann Frantz Felix mp. Z nařízení pana kanclíře zanechán tento originál v kanceláři a dán toliko vejpis autentický z příčiny té, že se originál v kanceláři teprvá od paní nevěsty korigíroval a místo třetiny polovice domu Korandovského napsáno bylo. RT
173
The Old Town in Prague, 30 September 1691 Appendix to the inventory of Karel Škréta the Younger, issued on the occasion of separating the inheritance after the new marriage of Alžběta Škrétová, born Rozová. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber obligationum caeruleus 5, 1691–1696 /1709/, sign. 3601, f. 110v–113v. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Léta Páně 1691 dne 30. měsíce septembris u přítomnosti urozených a statečných vladyk pana Maximi-
a pana Bohuslava Voříkovskýho z Kundratic, jakožto od slavného magistrátu královského Starého
deputýrovaných pánův komisařův mezi urozenou paní Alžbětou, prv Škrétovou, nyní Kleovou, roze-
panem Samuelem mladším Globicem z Bučína, při Jeho Milosti císařské královské kanceláři místodržické
liána Čečelického z Rosenwaldu
Města pražského z místa radního
nou Rozovou, z jedné a urozeným
koncepistou k radě přidaným, též
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 353
panem Václavem Rudolfem Vyšínem z Klarenburku, k ruce nezletilého
přináležejí, totiž 6773 zlatých, 2 krejcarů, kteréžto paní mateř v dob-
malovaných, dohromady svinutých. Za čtvrté: ostatní malířský věci až
L. S. Bohuslav Jan Voříkovský z Kundratic, commissarius
sirotka Václava Jana Božího Škréty ad hunc actum zřízeným kuráto-
rou bezpečnost přivésti a aby z nich k dobrému sirotka interesse vychá-
do prodaje jich in indiviso zůstanou, kteréžto byvše na dvoje zámky
L. S. Alžběta Kleová, rozená Rozová L. S. Samuel mladší Globic z Bučína,
rem strany druhé, stala se dokonalá pořádnost a podělení pozůstalosti škrétovské, jakž následuje. Jakož
zeti mohly, zaopatřiti se vynasnaží. Za druhé: od zlata a stříbra pro sirotka vybrané šest stříbrných lžic,
zamknutý, jedny klíče paní mateř a druhý zpočátku jmenovaný pan Globic za sebou míti bude. Za páté:
k radě přidaný L. S. Václav Rudolf Vyšín z Klarenburku, ad hunc actum zřízený
urozený a statečný vladyka pan Karel Škréta z Závořic, Jeho Milosti
kord s stříbrnejma kříži, dvě slánky 17 ½ lotu vážící, dva zlatý prsteny
chodicí šaty i jiný pod rubrikou šatův v inventáři poznamenané věci, byvše
kurátor Povoleno k vložení do knih měst-
císařské královského soudu nejvyššího purkrabství rada a měštěnín dotčeného Starého Města pražského
s českejma diamanty asi za 5 zlatých, mimo čehož jeden koflík s teklem na třech knoflíkách, již předtím odji-
sice na větším díle již spotřebovaný, též proleželý a zkažený, nicméně za 100 zlatých, 45 krejcarů zpeněžený
ských in consilio Antiquae Urbis Pragensis 15. aprilis 1692, consule domino Joanne Christophoro Mauck
vykročivše z prostředku živých dne 2. januarii běžícího 1691 léta, po sobě
nud darovaný, sirotku zůstává. Co se pak dotýče dvouch zlatých prstenův
jsou, z nichž sirotku 67 zlatých, 10 krejcarů náleží jako i nápodobně. Za
a Königshan, Paul Kratochvíle. RT
paní vdovu, nadjmenovanou paní Alžbětu, tehdáž Škrétovou, již nyní Kleovou a jedinkýho [!] s ní zploze-
s routovejma diamanty jako i stříbrnejch hodinek, takový prsteny paní mateř v 90 zlatých jest ujala
šesté: co tak za těch sirotku patřících osum věder vína se utržiti mocti bude, k sirotčím penězům se přiloží.
ného syna Václava Jana Božího všeho jmění svého, kteréžto v pořádný
a naproti tomu hodinky stříbrný, ač vejš šacovaný byly, jen toliko v 18 zla-
Za sedmé: ty namále se nacházející bílý šaty k potřebě sirotka paní
inventář uvedeno a v knihy městské libro inventariorum ab anno 1688, folio 100 vepsáno jest, dědice
tých sirotku propustila a k doplnění jeho dvouch třetin ještě na penězích 54 zlatých doplatiti má. Erb škrétov-
mateř obrátiti a vynaložiti chce. Za osmé: od cejnu dvě třetiny sirotčí vynášejí 110 liber, kteréžto paní
ab intestato zanechal, pod tím pak
ský z jaspisu s dvouma stříbrnýma
mateř na peníze za 40 zlatých při-
podotknutá paní vdova, přikročivše k druhému manželstvu a chtíce jak syna svého při sobě, tak také pozůstalost na něj připadlou titulem poručnickým opatrovati a spravovati, aby dřívěji náležitá pořádnost a podělení se stalo, při slavným magistrátu objednala. Pročež takové podělení a pořádnosti činěné předsevzato a k ruce sirotka dvě třetiny celé pozůstalosti dle práva měst[ského] C 42 vybrané jsou. Předně co se peněz dotýče, vynašlo se na základích 2980 zlatých rýnských, na obligacích 5700 zlatých rýnských, z domu U Korandů pocházejících 2100 zlatých, vycházející ouroky z kapitálův až do 30. septembris vynášejí
groši, též majestát na vladyctví, jako i všechny knihy a muzikální instrumenta paní mateř pro sirotka zanechává. Za třetí: rozstavivše paní mateř všechny obrazy na tři díly, z nich dva díly vybraný dle numerů a vypsání inventáře následují tyto: N[umer] o 1–8, 10–13, 16, 17, 20, 22, 27, 28, 31, 33, 35, 41–43, 46, 47, 49–51, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 62–65, 67–70, 72, 73, 75–78, 81–83, 86, 87, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 99, 100, 102, 105, 106, 108, 110–112, 115, 117–124, 130, 136–141, 143, 144, 147–150, 153, 155, 157–160, 162–164. Mimo kterýchžto v inventáři podle numerů specificírovaných obrazův ještě některý špatnější obrazy
vedla. Za deváté: ostatní všechny mobilia v inventáři specificírované, nemoha se náležitě do dílův položiti, pod ochranou a počtem paní mateře zůstanou a z týchž mobilií buď in natura aneb z peněz za ně stržených dvě třetiny sirotku náležeti budou. Za desáté: dům od starodávna U Hájků řečený na Starém Městě pražském, vedle Černého vorla nedaleko Mince ležící, jak by nejdřívěji dobrej kupec na něj se vynašel, prodán býti a z trhových peněz dvě třetiny sirotku náležeti, pod tím pak užitky z něho vynacházející, po sražení kontribucích a jiného bezelstného vydání, tolikéž do dvouch třetin sirotku k ruce počítati se mají.
469 zlatých, 33 krejcarů, po smrti neb[ožtíka] pana Škréty přijato 177 zlatých, což by sice v jedné sumě na 11 426 zlatých, 33 krejcarů se vzta-
se vynašly, z nichž nápodobně dva díly pro sirotka vybraný jsou, totiž lit[era] A svatá Barbara, B tři zabité Danielky, C nedomalovaný Pyramus
A jakož nadepsaná paní Alžběta prv Škrétová, nyní Kleová, jakožto vlastní mateř často praveného sirotka Václava Božího Škréty tím
hovalo, odrazíce ale odtud funeralia
a Thysbe, velkej kus, D et E kon-
způsobem celou pozůstalost otcov-
a při tom potřebných nákladův 583 zlatých, 3 krejcarů, též oustní odkaz a nařízení neb[ožtíka] pana Škréty
terfekty starý císaře Maximiliána a Rudolfa, F ženská osoba, G starožitný konterfekt mužský, H abrys
skou pod svou správu a opatrování přijala, pročež také pro bezpečnost téhož sirotka v té příčině všechno
na voltář do kostela svatého Havla 300 zlatých, jako i co skrze ztrátu
na papíru podlepený, Snímání Syna Božího z Kříže, I Armenian s fajfků,
a všelijaké jmění své mohovité i nemohovité v nejlepším právním
ještě za živobytí jeho stalou na základích škodovati se, přijde 108 zlatých, neméně strany inventáře, též stravy
K konterfekt malého dítěte, L začatý mužský konterfekt, toliko hlava, M nedodělaný konterfekt mužský, N
způsobu zapisuje a hypotecíruje. Kteréžto instrumentum s povolením slavnýho magistrátu bez přítom-
a služby dětinské děvečky a jiných v příčině pozůstalosti a sirotka beze-
začatý obraz do oltáře, O začatý konterfekt ženský osoby, P konterfekt
nosti stran do knih měs[tských] vloženo býti může. Na potvrzení toho
lstných vydání 275 zlatých, což vše před pány komisaři v pořádným počtu specificírováno a adjustýro-
nějakýho mladýho pána, Q hlava mužská, R konterfekt duchovního pána, S konterfekt císařovny Eleo-
zpočátku jmenované strany vedle pánův komisařův vlastními rukami se podepsaly a sekrýty své přitiskly.
váno činí v jedné sumě 1267 zlatých, a tak zůstane čisté quantum k roz-
nory, T starodávný, ženská osoba, V konterfekt mužský v kyrysu, W
Actum ut supra. L. S. Maximilián Čečelický z Rozen-
dělení 10159 zlatých rýnských, 33 krejcarů, odkudž dvě třetiny sirotku
konterfekt ženské osoby, X mezek v rámě, Z šest konterfektů sprostě
waldu, commissarius
354 DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OEUVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA THE YOUNGER
174
The Old Town in Prague, 22 May 1693 A child named Josef was buried in the tomb by the altarpiece of Our Lady in the church of St Gallus. As it can be assumed from the boy’s age and the fact that the tomb in question was Škrétas’, the deceased child was Václav Jan of God, son of Karel Škréta the Younger, and the first name was recorded wrongly. A similar mistake occurred during the baptism of the son of Karel Škréta the Elder, Václav Bohumil, in 1653 when the father of the child was wrongly recorded as František Škréta. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika zemřelých (Register of Deaths), 1645–1731, sign. HV Z1, p. 49. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 47–48.
Josephus [!] Screta 6 ann[orum] sepult[us] in crypta[m] apud altare B[eatae] M[ariae] V[irginis] Neapolitanae. RT
175
The Old Town in Prague, 31 December 1695 Testament of Alžběta Kleová, born Rozová, formerly Škrétová. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber testamentorum 4, 1681–1706, sign. 3746, f. 276r–280r. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 17, 43; BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 11.
…duši mou, jak se od těla rozdělí, svrchovanýmu Pánu Bohu Stvořiteli mému, od kteréhož jsem ji dosáhla, zase pokorně odevzdávám … tělo mé aby do chrámu Páně svatého Havla dle náboženství římského katolického poctivě pochováno bylo … naři-
k prodeji přišel, po jednom stu zlatých rejnských … louka na Bráníce po mém otci … synu mému Václavovi Škrétovi, tehdáž na živě zůstávajícímu … i poněvadž nyní jsouce já v tomto kšaftovním způsobu bez dětí postavená…
zuji, aby za duši mou čtyry sta mší svatých se sloužilo a to takto: u sva-
Confirm[atum] 9. 4. 1699
tého Havla, kde tělo mé odpočívati bude, 220, u svatého Mikuláše v Starém Městě pražském 50, u svatého
[In the attached codicillus:] … svatému Haštalu v Starém Městě
Jakuba 50, u Matky Boží na Louži 30, u svatého Jindřicha 30 a u svatého
pražském odkazuji jeden obraz svatého Michala Archanjela a na oltář
Haštala 20 … za mýho univerzálního dědice všeho jmění mého mohovitého i nemohovitého, a načem by to koliv záleželo, ustanovuji a zři-
jedno sto zlatých, kterýžto oltář aby pan manžel podle jeho vůle sám postaviti dal… …Verunce Jonákové, rozené Jelenové
zuji urozeného a statečného vla-
… zlatý řetízek, na kterým jest erb
dyku pana Františka Theofila Cleo z Roudné … pana manžela mého nejmilejšího … čtyrem pozůstalým po neb[ožtíku] panu Jelenovi, býva-
škrétovský … panně Barboře Jelenové jeden holspantek s malejma diamanty, který po neb[ožtíkovi] panu Škrétovi panu manželi mém
lýmu nad královskými apelacími
pochází…
radě, paní a pannám dcerám totiž: paní Verunce nyní Jonákové a pannám Barušce, Jozičce a Kačence, jedné každé na památku odkazuji
RT
na škrétovským domě, když by též EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 355
IV. Documents on Students and Workshop Collaborators and Assistants of Karel Škréta
Samuel Rafael Globic of Bučín 176
The Old Town in Prague, 10 August 1656 The session of the Old Town painters’ guild considered admitting Samuel, son of the geodesist Samuel Globic of Bučín, as an apprentice of Karel Škréta for the period of five years. Jan Jiří Rovenský of Libouhory and the uncle of the future apprentice, Daniel Globic of Bučín are recorded as witnesses to the signing of the contract of apprenticeship. Archiv Národní galerie v Praze (Archives of the National Gallery in Prague), fund Pražská malířská bratrstva (Prague Painters’ Confraternities), file Kniha protokolů pražského malířského cechu z let 1600–1656 (The Book of Protocols of the Prague Painters’ Guild from between 1600 and 1656), Acquisition No. AA 1209. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 56–57; KUCHYNKA 1915, p. 44; HERAIN 1915, p. 60; NEUMANN 1974, p. 42; HALATA 1996, p. 189; ŠRONĚK 1997, p. 40; NEUMANN 2000, p. 152. RT
Jan Bartoloměj Klose 177
The New Town in Prague, 13 March 1669 Karel Škréta, as one of the witnesses, confirms that the marriage of Jan Bartoloměj Klose, held on 29 January 1669, followed proper Catholic ordinance. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka papírových listin (Collection of Documents on Paper), sign. AMP PPL IV – 2033b. Literature: PODLAHA 1916, p. 232; TOMAN 1993, p. 496; Radka Tibitanzlová, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.26, p. 606.
Ich Endesunderschriebene bek-
Bartholomae[us] Klose seiner ordent-
W[enzel] M[oritz] Salomon v[on]
hennen, das nachdem wir vor dem Ehrnvesten Herrn Joann Bartholomae Klose seiner Khunst ein
lichen ehrlichen Copulation, so bey Sankt Stephan dem Grössern in der König[lichen] Neuen Statt Prag den
Mahler freundlichen ersuchet worden, wir gerichten Ihme zu seiner
29. Januarii nechst verwichene sechzehen hundert acht und sechzigsten
Friedberg mp. Carl Screta Ssotnowsky von Zaworzicz mp. Hans Jacob Baunach, Burger, Han-
gewiesen Noturft, das derselbe dem catholischen Gebrauch nach seine Copulation und Hochzeits Ehren-
Jahr gehalten worden, persohnlich
tag ordentlich vollbracht habe, eine glauberwürdige Attestation erthei-
bey ihnen eingenemben sollen. Urhkund dessen unsere aigen Hand-
len. Und wir nun in seinem Begehren verwaigerlich nicht erscheinen khönnen. Alle Attestiren wir hie-
underschrift und Petschaft. Geben Prag den 13. Martii anno 1669. Adam Ludwig Kayl von Sternburg
mit der Wahrheit zuesteuer, das wir bey obgedachtes Herrn Joann
mp.
delßman mp. RT
beygewohnet [?] auch dieselbe nacher Haus beglaitet und das Mittagmahl
356 DOCUMENTS ON STUDENTS AND WORKSHOP COLLABORATORS AND ASSISTANTS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
178
The New Town in Prague, 26 March 1669 Casparus Macarius, the parish priest at St Henry in the New Town in Prague, issues the certificate of baptism for the painter Jan Bartoloměj Klose, who was baptized in accordance with Catholic ordinance on 26 September 1668 by the name Joannes Franciscus. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka papírových listin (Collection of Documents on Paper), sign. AMP PPL IV – 2033a. Literature: Andrea Rousová – Marcela Vondráčková, Karel Škréta ml. a škrétovská dílna, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, p. 425.
Ich Endeunderschriebener bekhene, das den 26. Septembris iüngst ver-
Sancti Henrici der König[lichen] Neuen Stat Prag der catholischen
Petschaft. Geben Prag den sechs und zwantzigsten Martii anno 1669.
schlossenen sechzehenhundert acht und sechzigsten Jahrs Herr Johann
Religion gemäß ordentlich taufen lassen und mit seinem Nahmen
Bartholomae Klosi der löb[lichen] Khunst ein Mahler, in der mir
Joannes Franciscus geheißen und genenner worden. Urkhund dessen
Casparus Macarius ad Sancti Henrici Neo Pragae parochus mp. RT
der Zeit anvetrauten Pfarrkirchen
mein eigene Handunderschrift und
179
Prague, 13 December 1677 Carl Christof Franz Hilscher, the representative of the family of Gallas, writes to František Ferdinand Gallas about meeting J. B. Klose who worked for Karel Škréta for some time. Státní oblastní archiv v Litoměřicích (pobočka Děčín) (State Regional Archives in Litoměřice [branch Děčín]), fund Historická sbírka (rodinný archiv) Clam-Gallasů (Historical Collection [Family Archives] of the Clam-Gallas Family), Frýdlant, (1238) 1529–1947, Inv. No. 1575/XXI/6, file Korespondence (Correspondence), box 449. Literature: Andrea Rousová – Marcela Vondráčková, Karel Škréta ml. a škrétovská dílna, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, p. 425.
Hoch und Wohlgebohrner Reichsgraf, Gnedig Hochgebietender Herr Herr Euer Hochgräf[lichen] Genaden khan
mir auß Gerat alles, was ehr mir daß Geringste manigsmahl hat vorgetregt zum ein Nathdarf, das ehr dach [!]
thut und nach Euer Hochgräflichen Genad[en] verlangen mich wieder laß, lase zur ale Stunden, wan Gräf-
nit gehorsamb mit diesen pahr [?] zu molestiren, weilen nun meine Zeit bey meinen Herrn nun hero lengst zum ein Eyde ist gelaufen und ich
vor allen einleiten, welche mir viel Zeügnus khenten geben, hat versprochen zu schenken und wollte mir jetzt und gehrn etwas zum eine
l[lichen] Genaden befehlen, neben
bey ihm nichts khan prosperiren, als
Nathdarf schaffen, was mir an Khlei-
thue ich gehorsambst Euer Hochgräf[lichen] Genaden zu wiesen, wofern mich nach die kurze Tag diesen Winter so netig nit hetten, als wolle ich
dung mangeln thuet, damit ich mit Euer Hochgräf[lichen] Genad[en] alezeit thuet molestiren, als khan ich bey ihm jetzt nicht bekommen, als
mich unterdeßen zum ein andern Mahler begeben. Die weil mein Herr
hab ich jetzt mit ihm gemacht, daß auf künftige Feuertag, was ehr mir
hat mit mir gemacht, als ich bin von Ihro Hochgräfl[ichen] Genad[en] wieder zu ihm khomen, als hat ehr mir
hat auß Gerath sol nach umb sonsten Arbeiten und nachdem thu ich Euer Hochgräf[lichen] Genad[en] gehor-
versprochen, das er mir wil ale Zeit etwas schenken auf Trunck und ich
sambst bitten, wofern mich nach nit brauchten, so wolle ich mich auf die
nie nichts empfangen hab, als aber jetzt und meine Zeit ist verfloßen und ich wolle wiesen, auf was für ein
Alte Stadt zum Schwartzen Han aufen Kholmarck zum ein guten Mahler begeben, welcher hat bey gottseeligen
Condition bey ihm weiter bin, als hat ehr mir viel Sachen ausgesetzt und
Screta zeitlang auch gearbeit und der mich gehrn auf ein Zeit aufnemen
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 357
khan ich mir etwas die Zeit etwas bey ihm verdienen, wie auch etwas nach Lernen, dan ehr nach sehr saubere Arbeit machen thuet und wan mich Euer Gräflichen Genad[en] verlangen, aber befehlen bin alezeit bereit aufgewarten. Als verhofe ich, daß mich in diesem Euer Hochgräf[lichen] Genad[en] nit verdencken. Zu dero hochen Genaden mich gehorsamblich empfehle. Euer Hochgräf[lichen] Genaden und verpleibe [!] schuldigst gehorsamber, Carel Christof Franciscus Hylsher mp. Prag dem 13. Decemb[er] a[nno] 1677. RT
180
The Old Town in Prague, 1679 The inventory of property issued after the death of painter J. B. Klose lists a large number of paintings which the painter was, beside other things, selling in his shop. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber inventariorum, 1666–1685, sign. 1177, f. 600r–601r. Literature: HOJDA 1985, pp. 42–62 (edition); HOJDA 1993, pp. 64, 68, 81, 93; SLAVÍČEK 2007, pp. 36, 124. RT
František Palinka 181
The Old Town in Prague, 1646–1656 Records in the guild book of the Old Town Painters’ confraternity inform about admitting František Palinka as the apprentice of Karel Škréta in 1646, about the end of his training and his release in 1653 as well as about the consequent contract of employment in Škréta’s workshop. The last record related to Palinka’s name is from 5 May 1656 when he was released by Škréta and left for Nuremberg. Archiv Národní galerie v Praze (Archives of the National Gallery in Prague), fund Pražská malířská bratrstva (Prague Painters’ Confraternities), file Kniha protokolů pražského malířského cechu z let 1600–1656 (The Book of Protocols of the Prague Painters’ Confraternity from between 1600 and 1656), Acquisition No. AA 1209. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 52–54; KUCHYNKA 1915, pp. 41, 44; HALATA 1996 (edition), pp. 151, 152, 159, 160, 166, 187, 191, 194; ŠRONĚK 1997, pp. 86–87. RT
182
(The Old Town in Prague), 13 April 1653 Karel Škréta admits the journeyman František Palinka, who apprenticed with him from 1 January 1646 to the end of December 1652, for the next three years as an employee of his workshop. Archiv Národní galerie v Praze (Archives of the National Gallery in Prague), fund Pražská malířská bratrstva (Prague Painters’ Confraternities), file Doklady o učebním poměru ze sbírky staroměstského malířského bratrstva (Documents on Apprenticeship from the Collection of the Old Town Painters’ Confraternity), 1580–1783, Acquisition Nos. AA 1216/I–50. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, pp. 52–54; BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, cat. no. VI; NEUMANN 1974, pp. 42, 116; HALATA 1996, pp. 152, 159, 160, 166, 187, 191, 194; ŠRONĚK 1997, pp. 86–87; Vít Vlnas, in: SLÁVA BAROKNÍ ČECHIE 2001 A, p. 441, cat. no. II/4.110 (bibliography); TIBITANZLOVÁ – BERANOVÁ 2009 (edition), pp. 72–75, sheet no. 20; Radka Tibitanzlová, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.20, p. 599. RT
358 DOCUMENTS ON STUDENTS AND WORKSHOP COLLABORATORS AND ASSISTANTS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
Ondřej Oktavián Petr of Košíkov 183
The Old Town in Prague, 12 August 1657 Ondřej Oktavián Petr of Košíkov marries Anna Lenaová in the church of St Gallus. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka matrik (Collection of Registers), church of St Gallus, file Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1652–1704, sign. HV O1, p. 552. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Copulati sun matrimonio servatis ab ecclesia quaescriptie dominus Andreas Petrus civis Antiq[uae] Urbis Prag[ensis] pictor cum honesta virgine Anna, derelicta post mortem
quiae defuncti Andreae Lenae, testes Bangel Chotoni et Victorino Francisco Ruuisdal, Clemens Fellerski. RT
184
The Old Town in Prague, 22 September – 12 October 1659 The Old Town city council pays Ondřej Petr for decorating work executed during the repair of the astronomical clock. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber certificationum, 1654–1662, sign. 1596, f. 104r, 106r, 108r. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Malíři od renovírování hodin na oučet 50 zlatých Pan purkmistr a páni radní Starého Města pražského ráčí při panu Fridrichovi Rašpovi, spoluradním a správci
Malířům certifikací na 40 zlatých …aby panu Andresovi Petrovi malíři od renovírování hodin rathauzských na oučet 40 zlatých rejnských … proti kvitanci odvedl a zapravil.
register obecních nařizovati, aby Andresovi Petrovi malíři za práci a renovírování hodin rathauzských 50 zlatých rejnských … proti kvitanci odvésti nepominul.
Ex consilio Antiquae Urbis Pragensis 6. oktob[ri] anno 1659.
Ex consilio Antiquae Urbis Pragensis 22. septembris anno 1659. Consule domino Paulo Constantino
…aby panu Andresovi Petrovi malíři od renovírování hodin rathauzských na další oučet 20 zlatých rejnských …
Fiala de Feygelfeld
proti kvitanci odvedl a zapravil.
Mikuláš František Turek z Sturmfeldu J[an] Hartung z Hartenfelsu M[atyáš] Max[milián] Macht
Ex consilio Antiquae urbis Pragensis 12. oktob[ri] anno 1659.
Malířům na 20 zlatých
RT
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 359
185
The Old Town in Prague, 1668 Dispute between painter Ondřej Petr and his neighbour, Václav Moric Salomon Feydeker of Feydlberg, in the matter of an unauthorized extension of the house to the detriment of the first. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber testimoniorum, 1664–1669, sign. 1077, f. 352r–369v. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 56; ŠRONĚK 1997, p. 88.
Svědomí ku potřebě pana Andresa Petra, měštěnína a malíře v Starém Městě praž[ském] proti panu Šalo-
pravil jsem stranám, aby těch slov tak zanechali a konsortům mým jsem řekl, abychom šli, vtom jsem z té
pohlavek přes tvář dal, až mu klobouk s hlavy spadl … … nikoliv pravda není, aby obžalo-
pohlavek dal, až mu klobouk spadl, na což pan Petr zdvíhajíce klobouk řekl, co je to za mé dobrodiní, to je pěkná
mounovi Feydekerovi z Feydlbergku. … Jest pravda, že jsem při té vej-
kuchyně, kde se oni hádali, do světnice šel a jak jsem tam vstoupil, sly-
vaný původovi toliko klobouk štrejchovati měl, nýbrž patrný pohlavek
věc.
chozi přítomen byl, když pan Andres Petr nám jisté od pana Feydekera
šel jsem plesknouti a obrátiv se, ptal jsem se konsortův mých, zdali jest ho udeřil a oni mi odpověděli, že udeřil
přes tvář jemu dal, může býti, že po tom pohlavku taky jemu klobouk štrejchoval, nebo mu s hlavy spadl.
Když pan Feydeker nejdřívěji panu Petrovi mluvil, že lže, a on jemu na to zaše řekl, že sám lže, tehdy mu
a viděl jsem, že pan Ondřej Petr klobouk v rukou měl a na hlavu svou jej
… viděl jsem, že ten pohlavek tak veliký byl, až jak náleží plasklo [!].
pan Feydeker na to pohlavek dal, až plasklo, jak náleží.
stavěl, pravíce, to pěkně, to pěkně. Jest pravda, že jsme potom všickni společně z toho domu pryč šli a tu věc velice při sobě rozvažovali, že toho pan Feydeker nikoliv učiniti neměl,
A klobouk původovi s hlavy spadl. … pravda jest, tak jakž se pamatuji, že obžalovaný pravil, zdaliž pan Eckhart přichází jako šestipanský ouředlník a nebo jako prokurátor
RT
neb jsme na mnozích vejchozích bývali a nikdá neviděli, aby soused souseda pěstmi traktýrovati měl. … jest pravda, že pan z Feydberku, když jemu původ ty slova “sám lžeš”
malířův, poněvadž jeho zastává.
řekl, témuž původovi nenadále silný
kulu doloženo) o klobouk zavadil, ale
vyzdvižené stavení vykazoval a pravil, že se to mimo jeho vůli tak dalece vyzdvihlo, poněvadž on pan Andres Petr jen 3 trámy jemu panu Feydekerovi dovolil, ten pak že 4 trámy položil a to stavení až pod samé Ondřeje Petra okno rozšířil. … Když pan Feydecker pravil, že mu pan Ondřej Petr to stavení tak dalece, jak se vynachází, stavěti povolil, odpověděl pan Ondřej, že pravda není. … Když jsem viděl, že by se tu k něčemu jinému schylovati mohlo,
Když pan Ondřej Petr na to pravil, však není pravda a jest lež, tehdy mu pan Feydeker nejen (jak v arti-
186
Prague, 29 April 1672 On the dispute between Ondřej Petr and his neighbour, Václav Moric Salomon Feydeker of Feydlberg, in the matter of erecting a new chimney. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber appelationum 3, 1655–1670, sign. 1030, f. 384v. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 56; ŠRONĚK 1997, p. 88.
O Václ[ava] Morice Salomona a Ondřeje Petra
úřadu vašeho šestipanského vynešeném oznámení poníženě žádá, nám suplikaci jeho skrze nejmilostivější
suplikaci jeho Salomona příležitě odsíláme, již vy dotčenému Oktaviánovi Petrovi k dání odpovědi ke
Slovutné a vzáctné poctivosti přátelé nám milí … Jeho císařská a krá-
reskript pod datum v Vídni 14. dne měsíce března jminulého 1671, nám
čtyrem týhodnům propůjčiti a nám potomně to obé k dalšímu povážení
lovská Milost král a pán, pán nás všech nejmilostivější v příčině Václava Morice Salomona, kterýž za
ale teprv 27. dne měsíce dubna léta přítomného 1672 dodaného, zase zpátkem odeslati ráčil s tím nejmi-
našemu odeslati nepominete. Dán na Hradě pražském dne 29. měsíce aprilis léta Páně 1672.
restituci in integrum contra lapsum fatalium apelationis v jistém mezi
lostivějším poručením, abychme túž suplikujícího žádost straně jeho
Jan František hrabě z Vrbna, vicepresident
ním z jedné a Ondřejem Oktaviánem Petrem, měštěnínem a malířem staropražským, z strany druhé
odporné k odpovědi v času právním propůjčeli a potom obého povážíce na to quod materialia zprávu svou
J[an] Václav Šrepl RT
vzniklém nedorozumění o vyzdvižení nového komínu a na to od
s připojeným dobrým zdáním nepomíjeli. Pročež vám nadjmenovanou
360 DOCUMENTS ON STUDENTS AND WORKSHOP COLLABORATORS AND ASSISTANTS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
187
The Old Town in Prague, 20 September 1672 Samuel Smicheus sells Ondřej Petr the desolated house At the Sadíleks for 30 Meissen three-scores. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka papírových listin (Collection of Documents on Paper), sign. AMP PPL IV – 10836. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Léta Páně 1672 dne 20. měsíce septembris mezi panem Samuelem
Olešínskýho a pana Fabiána Harovníka z Sferynu, měštěnína již praveného Starého Města pražského,
pražského i bez přítomnosti jeho na náklad kupujících vložena a vepsána býti mohla. Actum smlouvy trhové
obostranně [!] ležící a od starodávna U Sadílků řečený … panu Ondřejovi
léta a dne svrchupsaného.
Města pražského jakožto prodávajícím z jedné a panem Andresem
Oktaviánovi Petrovi a paní Anně manželům, dědicům a budoucím jich za sumu 30 kop míšeňských
Samuel Kryšpín Smichaeus, měš[těnín] Nového Města pražského mp.
Oktaviánem Petrem, měštěnínem královského Starého Města praž-
zcela a zouplna zaplacených prodal a mocí této smlouvy trhové dokonale
ského, kupujícím z strany druhé stala se a zavřená jest smlouva trhová dobrovolná a nezrušitedlná, jakž
prodává … Kterážto smlouva trhová netoliko od stran kontrahírujících, ale i také od pánův svědkův k tomu dožádaných … podpisem rukou vlastních i přitisknutými sekrýty jest utvrzena, dávajíce přitom prodávající plnou a dokonalou moc, aby nadepsaná smlouva trhová od kupujících manželův s povolením slavného magistrátu nadpřipomenutého Nového Města
Smichaeusem Jeho Milosti císařské královské komory české buchhalterie na Hradě praž[ském] rejtdinerem a měštěnínem královského Nového
následuje. Že jest nyní jmenovaný pan Samuel Smichaeus jedno pusté místečko, kdež někdy domek býval a ten temporum injuria[m], vzláště pak v nepřátelské švédské měst praž[ských] obležení k dokonalé ruině a rozboření přišel, mezi domy Víta
Dorota Smicheusová Andres Oktavián Petr, měšt[těnín] Starého Města pražského mp. Anna Petrová Jan Jaroslav Ctibor z Lew[enfeldu], měšt[ěnín] Starého Města pražského mp. k svědomí Fabián Václav Harovník z Sferinu, m[ěštěnín] Starého Města pražského mp. RT
188
The Old Town in Prague, 2 May 1673 The Old Town city council disburses Ondřej Petr the amount of 15 thalers for the portrait of Leopold I, executed for the local city hall. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber certificationum, 1668–1677, sign. 1598, f. 179. Literature: Andrea Rousová – Marcela Vondráčková, Karel Škréta ml. a škrétovská dílna, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, p. 424.
Berníku městskému na 15 tol[arů]
do místa radního Jeho Milosti císař-
za contrafay Jeho Milosti císařské Leopolda I. Pan p[urkmistr] a páni radní Sta-
ské Leopolda I. způsobený contrafay patnácte říšských tol[arů] panu Ondřejovi Petrovi malíři proti kvitanci
rého Města pražského ráčí při panu Rudolfovi Pelikánovi berníku měst-
odvésti hleděl. Ex cons[ilio] Antiquae Urbis Pragen-
ským nařizovati, aby on šestnácte zlatých rejnských z peněz pokutních, ostatek pak z starých restantův za ten
sis 2. maii anno 1673, consule domino Joanne Daniele Globitz á Bučina. RT
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 361
189
Bílina, 14 April 1674 Václav Burian, the scrivener from the city of Bílina, requests Ondřej Petr, as the superior of the painters’ guild, to return the letter of preservation issued for his relative – the painter František Burian. Archiv Národní galerie v Praze (Archives of the National Gallery in Prague), fund Pražská malířská bratrstva (Prague Painters’ Confraternities), file Korespondence staroměstského a malostranského malířského bratrstva (Correspondence of the Old Town and Lesser Town Painters’ Confraternities), 1592–1782, Acquisition No. AA 1218, file 24. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
Urozený a vzáctné poctivosti pane
malíř, který se u n[ebožtíka] pána [?] na Malé Straně v hlybokém [!] sklepě
malířského umění a kunstlířům zase vším dobrým odsluhovati a vedle bož-
Urozenému vladykovi a panu Andresovi Petrovi, měštěnínu a malíři
učil, i před jeho smrtí za vyučení dostal, zůstavil, že takový list jemu
ské ochrany zůstávám mému laskavému pánu k službám povolný.
v královském hlavním Starém Městě pražském, mému zvláště laskavému
zdržován nebude, však proti nějaké diskreci nejsme, abychom pány pány na truňk vína spendýrovati nejměli,
Václav Ignat[ius] Buryan, písař radní města Bíliny mp. Act[um] z Bíliny 14. aprili 1674.
pánu a příteli jmilému k d[odání]. Auf der Alten Stadt Prag gegen der
jmím při ouřadě zdejším, aby jemu list jeho zachovací, který v truh-
z kteréžto příčiny pane pěkně prosím, že nad žádost mou a ku potřebě
PS: nechť pán od Františka malíře, strejce mého 2 [říšské tolary] na truňk
Ancker zu ertragen.
lici jejich cechovní leží, zaše k naší potřebě vydán byl, rozmluvení činil a na tom zůstal, že když se u pána týž
mé dotčený list zachovací v pacquetu zaopatřený mně odeslati sobě nestíží, zakazuji se pánu i jiným pánům
vína za vděk přijíti sobě nestíží.
Jest takovej list témuž jeho strejci vydán 1674, 3. decem[bri]. RT
a příteli mně zvláště laskavý, vedle předvzkazování mých vždy ckny povolných služebností pánu v dobré paměti pozůstávati bude, kterak jsem s pánem o zelený čtvrtek z strany mého strejce, za kteréhož jsem ruko-
190
The Old Town in Prague, 25 May 1691 Ťhe Old Town Book of Pledges (liber additionum, Erberklärungsbuch) records the painter Ondřej Petr as deceased on 5 May 1691. Archiv hlavního města Prahy (Prague City Archives), Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), file Liber condictionum albus V, 1680–1700, sign. 2255, f. 198r. Literature: Apparently unpublished.
…Anna Maria Sybila, vdova po O[ndřeji] Petrovi z Košíkova… RT
191
s. l., late 18th century The painter Ondřej Petr is stated in the abstracts of Jan Quirin Jahn with the first mentions about the traded duel between Škréta and a painter-foreigner who the former reportedly killed in the duel. Archiv Národní galerie v Praze (Archives of the National Gallery in Prague), fund Jan Jakub Quirin Jahn, file Poznámky k umělcům (Notes on the Artists), Acquisition No. AA 1222/8. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 54.
Andreas Octavian Peter wurde auch der Lange Peter genannt und 1656
ein Seiten Altarblat im Geschmack des van Dyck zu sehen. Er lebte
auf der Königsstrasse, blieb und den 4. Sept[ember] bey Sankt Galli in der
den 4. julii in der Mahlerconfraternitaet einverleibt, auch in der Folge Oberältester. In der Sankt Nicolai-
unverheurathet. 1673 forderte er Carl Screta heraus, in welchen Zweykampf er vor des letztern Haus beym
Gruft beygesetzt wurde. Descamps, p. 175.
kirche der Altstadt Prag war ehedem
Schwarzen Hahn genant, jetzt N. 40
RT
362 DOCUMENTS ON STUDENTS AND WORKSHOP COLLABORATORS AND ASSISTANTS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
Müntz, ahn der Ecken beym Guldener
Jakub Karel Praxl 192
Prague, 26 February 1674 Jan Jáchym Slavata of Chlum and Košumberk enters into contract with Karel Škréta to admitting Jakub Karel Josef Praxl as an apprentice for the period from 26 February 1674 to 26 February 1678. Státní oblastní archiv Třeboň (pobočka Jindřichův Hradec) (State Regional Archives of the City of Třeboň [branch Jindřichův Hradec]), file RA Slavatů z Chlumu a Košumberka (Family Archives of the Family of Slavata of Chlum and Košumberk), Inv. No. 162, sign. III J 6a, box 48. Literature: NOVÁK 1917, pp. 16, 31; NEUMANN 2000, p. 152; SEKYRKA 2011, pp. 147–152.
Heündt dato den 26. Februarii anno 1674 ist zwischen dem Hoch und
Excellenz alles dasjenige, was er Jakob Carl Praxl in diesen vier Jahren
Wohlgebohrnen Herrn Herrn Johann Joachim des Heyligen Römischen
mahlen werde, zugehörig sein solle. Herentgegen und zum vierten ver-
Reichs Grafen Slawata von Chlum und Koschenberg, Regirern des Hau-
spricht mehr erwehnter Herr Screta ihme Jakob Carl Praxl in der Mahler Khunst treulich zu underweißen
ses Neuhausherrn auf Neuhaus, Teltsch, Neu Büstritz, Chlumetz, Platz, Serowitz, Roten Lhota, Mnich und Hainspach, der Römischen Kayserlichen Mayestät Rath würklichen Cammerer, Landrechts Beysitzer, obrister Hoflehen Richter, Königlicher Stadthalter und obrister Erb Mundshenkh in Königreich Beheimb etc. Ein ist und dan dem Edlen Resten und Khunstraicher Herrn Carolo Screta Burgern und Mahlern in der Alten Stadt Prag anderen Theils contrahirt und nachfolgender Verdings Contract geschlossen worden, als nemlichen und vors erste verdingen Ihro Hochgräflicher Excellenz Ihme Herrn Screta dem Jacob Carl Joseph Praxl als eine freyledige Persohn die Mahler Khunst zulehrnen auf vier Jahr lang, als von obernen-
und solle ihme Jakob Praxl diese vier Jahr hindurch nach die völlige Khost und Wohnung zu geben schuldig sein. Dessen zu wahrer Urkund und mehrer Bekraftigung seind dieses Contract zwey gleich lautende Exemplaria aufgericht, von beeden Theilen mit Handunterschrift und Petschaft verfertiget und jeden Theil deren eines zugestellt worden. Actum Prag die, mense et anno ut supra. L. S. Hans Joachim Slawata mp L. S. Carl Screta mp Den 26. Februar 1674 ich empfange fünfzig Gulden reinisch, bekenne mit dieser Schrift und Unterschrift, Carl Screta RT, TS
ten 26. Februarii 1674 bis 26. Februarii khünftigen anno 1678. Jahrs, der Gestalt, daß er Jacob Carl Praxl Ihme Herrn Screta unter wehrender dieser Zeith allen gehorsamb, wie es einem getreuen Lehrknaben gebühret, leisten solle, andertens wollen auch meher erwehnte Ihro Hochgräfliche Excellenz Ihme Herrn Screta unter wehnen der Zeit, vor die Lehr, Khost und Wohnung jährlichen Einhundert Gulden reinisch und zwahr jedesmahls ein Halb Jahr voran fünftzig Gulden reinisch bezahlen. Drittens so solle sich oft bemelter Jacob Carl Praxl mit Kleidung und allem, was zur Mallerey vonnöten, als Papier, Reiszeig, Tücher, Pensel, Farben und andern dergleichen Notdürfen zu versehen schuldig sein, jedoch der Gestalt, daß Ihro Hochgräfliche
DOCUMENT No. 192 Count Jan Jáchym of Slavata enters into contract with Karel Škréta to admitting Jakub Praxl as an apprentice; dated 26 February 1674. Prague, State Regional Archives of the City of Třeboň, branch Jindřichův Hradec, Archives of the Family of Slavata, Inv. No. 48 (photo: State Regional Archives of the City of Třeboň)
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 363
Daniel Albrecht Studensky 193
Prague, 22 March 1658 Karel Škréta is authorized by Marie Eleonora of Waldstein, born of Rottal, to admit Daniel Albrecht Studensky, who perhaps apprenticed with him before, for six months to his workshop. Ústav dějin umění Akademie věd ČR (Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), Oddělení dokumentace (Documentation Department), fund Jaromír Neumann – Karel Škréta, opisy archiválií (Duplicates of Archive Documents) (unclear original deposition of the source – not found). Literature: Andrea Rousová – Marcela Vondráčková, Karel Škréta ml. a škrétovská dílna, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, p. 425.
Dass ich von der Hoch und Wohlgeborenen Frauen Frauen Maria
werden 22. Septembris, anticipate fünfzig Gulden reinisch empfangen
Id est 50 Florin
Eleonora verwittibte Gräfin von Wallstein, geborene Gräfin von Rothal,
habe, bezeuge ich mit dieser meiner Handschrift und Unterschrift.
Rub.: Quittung pro 50 Florin wegen des
wegen bei mir in der Lehr habenden Daniel Studensky laut den Accorde
Geschehen zu Prag den 22. Martii anno 1658.
RT, TS
für ein halben Jahr, weliches angefangen den 22. Martii und sich enden
L. S. Carl Screta, Mahler in der Altstadt
Daniel Studensky
Jan Špindler the Younger 194
The Old Town in Prague, 15 October 1672 Karel Škréta issues the certificate of apprenticeship to Jan Špindler the Younger who became his apprentice on 1 June 1667 for five years. Archiv Národní galerie v Praze (Archives of the National Gallery in Prague), fund Pražská malířská bratrstva (Prague Painters’ Confraternities), file Výuční a propouštěcí listy staroměstského malířského bratrstva (Certificates of Apprenticeship and Letters of Discharge of the Old Town Painters’ Confraternity), 1595–1747, Acquisition Nos. AA 1216/I–65. Literature: BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, cat. no. VI; BERGNER – HERAIN 1910, p. 46 (edition), tab. XIX; HERAIN 1915, p. 61; VÝSTAVA OBRAZŮ KARLA ŠKRÉTY 1938, p. 23, cat. no. 29; NEUMANN 1974, p. 26; Tomáš Sekyrka, in: UMĚNÍ A MISTROVSTVÍ 1997, p. 56, cat. no. 1.20; TIBITANZLOVÁ – BERANOVÁ 2009, p. 85, sheet no. 26; Radka Tibitanzlová, in: STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010, cat. no. XVI.28, p. 608. RT
Jakub Tucz 195
The Old Town in Prague, 29 July 1656 The session of the Old Town painters’ guild considered admitting Jakub Tucz from the New Town in Prague as an apprentice of Karel Škréta. Archiv Národní galerie v Praze (Archives of the National Gallery in Prague), fund Pražská malířská bratrstva (Prague Painters’ Confraternities), file Kniha protokolů pražského malířského cechu z let 1600–1656 (The Book of Protocols of the Prague Painters’ Guild from between 1600 and 1656), Acquisition No. AA 1209. Literature: PAZAUREK 1889, p. 56; KUCHYNKA 1915, p. 44; HERAIN 1915, NEUMANN 1974, p. 42; HALATA 1996, p. 188 (edition); ŠRONĚK 1997, p. 122; NEUMANN 2000, p. 152. RT 364 DOCUMENTS ON STUDENTS AND WORKSHOP COLLABORATORS AND ASSISTANTS OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
Sources ôSMP, Liber testamentorum II, 1619–1658, sign. 2206.
Regni Boëmiae, In Neo-Civitate Pragensi Supra Zderas
Parish Office at St Stephen in the New
ôSMP, Liber testamentorum 4, 1681–1706, sign. 3746.
Situati ab Anno Partae Salutis MDCXLII ad Annum
WIEN
Town in Prague
ôSMP, Liber testimoniorum albus, 1654–1660, sign. 1095.
usque MDCLXIII Complectens. […] A Fratre Severino
Literrae Annue provinciae Boemiae Societatis Jesu 1670–1674, Cod. 11963.
PRAGUE CITY ARCHIVES
ÖSTERREICHISCHE NATIONAL BIBLIOTHEK,
ôSMP, Liber testimoniorum 27, 1658–1664, sign. 1076.
a Sancta Anna Ordinis Eremit. Fratrum Discal.
ôSMP, Liber testimoniorum, 1664–1669, sign. 1077.
S. P. Augustini Sacerdote Professo (issued 1749), Inv.
Collection of Registers
ôSMP, Manuale dictorum, 1638–1641, sign. 1169.
No. 2452, manuscript 11 (formerly 3480 b).
MS, Kostel Panny Marie pod řetězem (church of the
ôSMP, Manuale dictorum, 1690–1693, sign. 1312.
Holy Virgin under the Chain), Matrika oddaných
ôSMP, Protocollum consilii, 1628, sign. 1296.
Liber sextus seu Continuatio Annalium
Historical Collection (Family Archives) of
(Register of Marriages), 1622–1745, sign. PMŘ N2 O2.
ôSMP, Protokol vejpovědí, přísah a relací (Protocol of
Excalceato-Augustiniani Nostri Asceterii Sub
the Clam-Gallas Family
MS, Kostel sv. Tomáše (church of St Thomas), Matrika
Testimonies, Oaths and Reports), 1658–1668, sign. 1247.
Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, et Patroni
Frýdlant, (1238) 1529–1947, Inv. No. 1575/XXI/6,
Regni Boëmiae Neo-Pragae Supra Zderas erecti ab
Korespondence (Correspondence), box 449.
anno partae Salutis M DCC XX V ad annum usque
Frýdlant, (1238) 1529–1947, Inv. No. 1963, 2192, Cat.
Liber memorabilium I, 1641–1706, Book No. 1, Inv. No. 1.
oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1632–1649, sign. TO N2 O2.
ARCHIVES OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY IN
STATE REGIONAL ARCHIVES IN LITOMĚŘICE (BRANCH DĚČÍN)
NMP, Kostel sv. Jindřicha (church of St Henry),
PRAGUE
M DCC L II., Inv. No. 2456, manuscript 15 (formerly
No. 549.
Matrika zemřelých (Register of Deaths), 1679–1699,
Jan Jakub Quirin Jahn
3480 f ).
Gallas Familienakten, Dluhy Antonína Gallase
sign. JCH Z6.
Výpisy k umělcům (Abstracts on the Artists),
NMP, Kostel sv. Štěpána (church of St Stephen),
Acquisition No. AA 1222/8.
(Debts of Antonín Gallas), 1661–1674, Inv. No. 1450, Bohemian Section of the Court Chamber
box 417.
year 1653, box 512.
Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1641–1663, sign. ŠT O1.
Prague Painters’ Confraternities
SMP, Kostel sv. Havla (church of St Gallus), Matrika
Korespondence staroměstského a malostranského
Chamber Books
STATE REGIONAL ARCHIVES IN PLZEŇ (BRANCH NEPOMUK)
narozených (Birth Register), 1652–1704, sign. HV N1.
malířského bratrstva (Correspondence of the Old Town
Kniha památná na spisy (The Memorial Record Book),
Family Archives of the Falknov Branch of
SMP, Kostel sv. Havla (church of St Gallus), Matrika
and Lesser Town Painters’ Confraternities), 1592–1782,
1665, Book No. 453.
the Nostitz-Rieneck Family, 1364–1945
oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1652–1704,
Acquisition No. AA 1218.
Kniha památná na spisy (The Memorial Record Book),
Úřední spisy českého místodržitelství (Official Records
sign. HV O1.
Akta o cechovním oltáři sv. Lukáše v Týnském chrámu
1666, 1667, Book No. 454.
of the Bohemian Governor’s Office) 1617–1721, Inv.
SMP, Kostel sv. Havla (church of St Gallus), Matrika
(Files on the Guild Altarpiece of St Lucas in the Týn
Registry 1643–1646, Book No. 445.
No. 34, sign. DD 4, box 6.
zemřelých (Register of Deaths), 1645–1731, sign. HV Z1.
church), 1650–1779, Acquisition No. AA 1220.
Registry 1653, Book No. 448. STATE REGIONAL ARCHIVES IN TŘEBOŇ
SMP, Kostel sv. Jakuba (church of St James), Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1632–1710,
NATIONAL MUSEUM ARCHIVES, PRAGUE
Religious Confraternities
(BRANCH JINDŘICHŮV HRADEC)
sign. JAK O1.
Collection F
Pamětnice dušičkového bratrstva při kapli sv. Barbory
Family Archives of the Czernin Family
SMP, Kostel sv. Jakuba (church of St James), Matrika
Inv. No. 169, Praha, Staré Město, věci obecní i soukromé
kostela sv. Mikuláše na Malé Straně (The Memorial
(Czernin Central Administration)
narozených (Birth Register), 1671–1707, sign. JAK N3.
(Prague, Old Town, Community and Private Matters),
Book of the All Souls’ Day Confraternity with the St
Lista der eingekhaufften Bielder, Černínská galerie
1645–1670, box 132.
Barbara Chapel of the St Nicolas church at Prague’s
(Czernin Galerie 166*–1799), box 761.
Lesser Town), box 133, sign. XVII/57.
Collection of Documents on Paper sign. AMP PPL V – 1008
NATIONAL ARCHIVES, PRAGUE
Family Archives of the Slavatas of Chlum
sign. AMP PPL IV – 2033a
Archives of the Czech Province of the
New Manipulation
and Košumberk
sign. AMP PPL IV – 2033b
Augustinian Order
sign. G 1/M/1, box 193.
Inv. No. 162, sign. III J 6a, box 48.
sign. AMP PPL IV – 6425
Diarium exitus Monasterii Pragensis S. Thomae Tem-
sign. K 1/4, box 290.
sign. AMP PPL IV – 10836
pore R. P. SS. Theol. Doct. et Magistri fratris Angelici de
sign. K 1/4, Inv. No. 1580, box 1055.
Tapparellis [1637–1665], Inv. No. 142, sign. IIc 7.
sign. R 56/1, box 745.
Archives of the City of Klatovy 1353–1945
sign. S 162/24, Inv. No. 3280, box 2251.
(1956)
Collection of Manuscripts
STATE REGIONAL ARCHIVES IN KLATOVY
Kniha trhová (The Book of Markets) 20, 1624–1648,
Summarium rerum memorabilium Conventus Micro-
sign. S 212/1, box 870.
Inv. No. 84, Kopiář listů odeslaných radou
sign. 2021. ôPříjem záduší t. a sv. Benedikta (Receipt
Pragensis S[anc]ti Thomae Apostoli Ordinis Fratrum
sign. S 212/2, box 985.
a purkmistrovským úřadem (Kniha copiarum) (The
of church funds at Týn and St Benedict), 1506–1614,
Eremitarum Sancti Patris Augustini […] a P. Theobaldo
sign. 1645. ôTýnské záduší (Týn church funds), Kniha
Gruber (issued 1756), manuscript No. 6, sign. Ia 5.
různých počtů za léta 1654–1663 (The Book of Various
Duplicate Book of Letters Sent by the Council and the Archives of the Redemptorist Order
Burgomaster’s Office [The Copiarum Book]) 1657–1662,
Diarium Residentiae in Sacro Monte … I, Inv. No. 105,
Evidence No. K 68.
Figures for the Period 1654–1663), sign. 1646.
Archives of the Prague Archbishopric
sign. P 5.
Inv. No. 85, Kopiář listů odeslaných radou
ôNMP, Kniha sirotčí čtvrti sv. Štěpána (The Book of the
Recepta 1708, V–VI, Inv. No. 3023, box 1001.
Synopsis historiae sacromontanae, sign. P 131.
a purkmistrovským úřadem (Kniha copiarum) (The
ôNMP, Liber appelationum 6, 1689–1695, sign. 1006.
Archives of Abolished Monasteries
Old Manipulation
Burgomaster’s Office [The Copiarum Book]) 1669–1681,
ôNMP,Libertestamentorum5,1666–1708,NMP,sign.4084.
Annales Monasterii S. Wenceslai Eremit[arum]
sign. H 199/5, Inv. No. 1399, box 926.
Evidence No. K 69.
ôSMP, Liber appelationum 2, 1594–1654, sign. 1029.
Discal[ceatorum] S[ancti] P[atris] Augustini ab Anno
Inv. No. 1986, sign. L 32/33, box 1291.
ôSMP, Liber appelationum 3, 1655–1670, sign. 1030.
1623 usque ad Annum 1659 (issued 1659), Inv. No. 2450,
Inv. No. 1580, sign. K 1/33, Smrt císařovny Marie,
ôSMP, Liber certificationum, 1654–1662, sign. 1596.
manuscript 9 (formerly 3479).
manželky Ferdinanda III. (Death of Empress Maria,
PREMONSTRATENSIANS AT STRAHOV
Wife of Ferdinand III), box 1053.
Collection of Manuscripts
Duplicate Book of Letters Sent by the Council and the
St Stephen Orphan’s Quarter), 1690–1767, sign. 2288.
ôSMP, Liber certificationum, 1668–1677, sign. 1598.
LIBRARY OF THE ROYAL CANONRY OF
ôSMP, Liber condictionum albusV, 1680–1700, sign. 2255.
Liber primus Annalium Nostri
sign. S 21/7/rok 1663, Inv. No. 3139, box 2109.
Jan Quirin Jahn: Aneckdoten zur
ôSMP, Liber contractuum albus, 1659–1733, sign. 4447.
Excalceato-Augustiniani Asceterii Sub Patrocinio
sign. S 21/7–1670, Inv. No. 3139, box 2109.
Lebensgeschichte berühmter Mahler und
ôSMP, Liber inventariorum, 1666–1685, sign. 1177.
Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, et Patroni Regni Boëmiae,
sign. S 162/24, Inv. No. 3280, box 2251.
Beurtheilung ihren Wercke, sign. DA II 7.
ôSMP, Liber inventariorum, 1680–1688, sign. 1178.
In Neo-Urbe Pragena Supra Zderas Situati Ab Anno
sign. S 162/25, Inv. No. 3280, box 2251.
ôSMP, Liber inventariorum, 1687–1702, sign. 1179.
partae Salutis MDCXXIII ad Annum usque MDCXLII
ôSMP, Liber inventariorum, 1702–1712, sign. 1180.
Complectens. […] A Fratre Severino a Sancta Anna
ôSMP, Liber obligationum No. 7, 1653–1674, sign. 2257.
Ordinis Eremit. Fratrum Discal. Sancti P. N. Augustini
REPUBLIC
DOCUMENTATION DEPARTMENT
ôSMP, Liber obligationum No. 8, 1668–1676, sign. 2258.
Sacerdote Professo (issued c. 1749), Inv. No. 2451,
Collection of Manuscripts and Old Prints
Jaromír Neumann
ôSMP, Liber obligationum No.11, 1678–1699, sign. 2261.
manuscript 10 (formerly 3480 a).
Johann Carl Rohn, Ianus Bifrons respectans praeteria,
Karel Škréta, opisy archiválií (Duplicates of Archive
asens praesentia prospiciens futuris seu Liber Archivi
Documents)
ôSMP, Liber obligationum caeruleus 5, 1691–1696
INSTITUTE OF ART HISTORY, ACADEMY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF THE CZECH
OF SCIENCES OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC,
/1709/, sign. 3601. ôSMP, Liber quietantiarum 2,
Liber secundus seu Continuatio Annalium
Primus Sanctae Crucis, sign. VII A 10 a.
1579–1650, sign. 2179. ôSMP, Liber renovationum – Kni-
Excalceato-Augustiniani Nostri Asceterii Sub
Annuae litterae provinciae Boemiae Societatis Jesu
Rudolf Kuchynka
ha obnov (The Book of Restorations), 1630–1678, sign. 70.
Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, ac Patroni
1671–1674, sign. XXIII C 105/8.
Karel Škréta, box RK 2
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 365
Literature and Editions of Sources BALBÍN 1665 Bohuslaus Balbinus, Diva Montis Sancti seu Origines et miracula magnae Dei hominumque Matris Mariae, in Sancto Monte Regni Bohemiae, ad Argentifodinas Przibramenses, quotidiana populi frequentia, et pietate, in statua sua mirabili, aditur, et colitur: V. libris comprehenda, Pragae 1665. BALBÍN 1666 A Bohuslav Balbín, Přepodiwná Matka Swato Horská Marya, W Zázracých a Milostech swých na Hoře Swaté nad Městem Přjbrami Hor Střjbrných den po dni wjc a wjc se stkwěgjcý […], Litomyšl 1666. BALBÍN 1666 B Bohuslaus Balbin, Verisimilia humaniorum disciplinarum seu Juducium privatum de omni litterarum (quas humaniores appellant) artificio quo in libello praecepta epistolarum […] proponitur. […], Pragae 1666. BALBÍN 1681 Bohuslaus Balbinus, Liber III. Decadis I. Miscellaneorum Historicorum Regni Bohemiae, Topographicus et Chorographicus, qui Fines et Terminos totius Bohemiae, tum ipsorum Districtuum figuras, Arces, Oppida, et Urbes […] continet, ac complectitur; Tum Opera Publica Bohemiae, Pontes, Basilicas et Templa Celebriora, Palatia, Coenobia, Aedificationes sumtuosas […], Pragae 1681. BALBÍN 1682 Bohuslaus Balbinus, Miscellanea Historica Regni Bohemiae Decadis I. Liber IV. Hagiographicus, seu Bohemia Sancta, Continens Sanctos et Beatos Bohemiae, Moraviae, Silesiae, Lusatiae, […], Pragae 1682. BALBÍN 1683 Bohuslaus Balbinus, Miscellanea Historica Bohemiae, Decadis I. Liber V. Parochialis et Sacerdotalis in duas divisus partes; quarum Prior Parochias omnes Veteris Bohemiae, per Decem Archidiaconatus recitat; […], Pragae 1683.
DOBALOVÁ 2004 Sylva Dobalová, Pašijový cyklus Karla Škréty: Mezi výtvarnou tradicí a jezuitskou spiritualitou, Praha 2004. DVORSKÝ 1966 Jiří Dvorský, Několik poznámek ke Škrétovým obrazům ze svatováclavského cyklu, Umění XI, 1966, pp. 305–306. FEJTOVÁ 1996 Olga Fejtová, Screta Carolus, Několik poznámek k obrazu Karla Škréty Svatý Václav, Listy filologické CXIX, 1996, pp. 171–172. HALATA 1996 Martin Halata (ed.), Kniha protokolů pražského malířského cechu z let 1600–1656, Praha 1996. HAUPT 1998 Herbert Haupt, Von der Leidenschaft zum Schönen. Fürst Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein (1611–1684), Wien – München – Weimar 1998 (VII, 727 s.) (= Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Fürstenhauses Liechtenstein; Vol. 2), Nr. 1736. HERAIN 1915 Karel Vladimír Herain, České malířství od doby rudolfinské do smrti Reinerovy. Příspěvky k dějinám jeho vnitřního vývoje v letech 1576–1743, Praha 1915. HOJDA 1985 Zdeněk Hojda, K využití pražských pozůstalostních inventářů pro výzkum výtvarné produkce a uměleckého života v 17. století, in: Doc. dr. Pavlu Preissovi, DrSc. k 60. narozeninám, unpublished typescript, 1985, Library of the National Gallery in Prague, sign. D 1565, pp. 42–62. HOJDA 1993 Zdeněk Hojda, Výtvarná díla v domech staroměstských měšťanů v letech 1627–1740 (Příspěvek k dějinám kultury barokní Prahy I), Pražský sborník historický 26, 1993, pp. 38–102.
BERÁNKOVÁ 2004 Maruška Beránková, Korespondence magistrátu města Klatov s malířem Karlem Škrétou, Sborník prací z historie a dějin umění 3, Klenová 2004, pp. 183– 185. BERGNER – HERAIN 1910 Pavel Bergner – Jan Herain, Karel Škréta (1610–1674). Příspěvek k ocenění jeho díla, Časopis Společnosti přátel starožitností českých XVIII, 1910, pp. 41-51. BREVIS RELATIO 1910 Brevis relatio arcis Pragensis cum Parva Parte a Suecis captae, et quid deinceps diebus ibidem et in tota civitate extraque notatu dignum utrinque contigerit, in: Alfred Jensen, Smärre Bidrag till det Trettioåriga krigets historia (1639–1648), Göteborg 1910, pp. 56–89.
HOJDA 1994 Zdeněk Hojda, Kulturní investice staroměstských měšťanů v letech 1627–1740 (Příspěvek k dějinám kultury barokní Prahy II), Pražský sborník historický 27, 1994, pp. 47–104. HOROVÁ 1995 Anděla Horová (ed.), Nová encyklopedie českého výtvarného umění, I, Praha 1995. KESNEROVÁ 1976 Gabriela Kesnerová, 100 starých českých kreseb z Grafické sbírky Národní galerie v Praze, Praha 1976. KILIÁN 2011 Jan Kilián, Škrétovy mělnické vinice, in: Lenka Stolárová (ed.), Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a Evropě, Praha 2011, pp. 161–165.
366 ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OUEVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
KONEČNÝ 2002 Lubomír Konečný, Bohuslav Balbín a emblematika, in: Idem, Mezi textem a obrazem. Miscellanea z historie emblematiky, Praha 2002, pp. 44–66. KOPEČEK 2009 Josef Kopeček, Karel Škréta na Svaté Hoře, in: Podbrdsko. Sborník Státního okresního archivu v Příbrami IX, 2009, pp. 164-175. KOŘÁN 1968 Ivo Kořán, Cyriacký klášter a chrám sv. Kříže Většího v baroku, Umění XVI, 1968, pp. 173–195. KOŘÁN 1987 Ivo Kořán, Vyšehradské inventáře mezi gotikou a barokem, Umění XXXV, 1987, pp. 540–547. KOTKOVÁ 2006 Olga Kotková (ed.), Albrecht Dürer, Růžencová slavnost 1506–2006 (exh. cat.), Praha 2006. KRAMÁŘ 1938 Vincenc Kramář (ed.), Karel Škréta, Výstava obrazů Karla Škréty (exh. cat.), Praha 1938. KROPÁČEK 1992 Jiří Kropáček, Výtvarné umění u Bohuslava Balbína, in: Zuzana Pokorná – Martin Svatoš (edd.), Bohuslav Balbín a kultura jeho doby v Čechách. Sborník z konference Památníku národního písemnictví, Praha 1992, pp. 111–121. KRUMMHOLZ 2005 Martin Krummholz, Obrazová sbírka Jana Václava Gallase, Umění LIII, 2005, pp. 273–285. KRUMMHOLZ 2007 Martin Krummholz (ed.), ClamGallasův palác. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. Architektura – výzdoba – život rezidence (exh. cat.), Praha 2007. KUCHYNKA 1915 Rudolf Kuchynka, Manual pražského pořádku malířského z let 1600–1656, Památky archeologické a místopisné XXVII, 1915, pp. 24–46. KUCHYNKA 1919 Rudolf Kuchynka, Fahrenschonovy výpisy z knih a listin staroměstského pořádku malířského, Památky archeologické a místopisné XXXI, 1919, pp. 14–24. MACHYTKA 1990 Lubor Machytka, Svatý Václav v pozdním díle Karla Škréty, Umění XXXVIII, 1990, pp. 206–228. MÁDL 2010 Martin Mádl, Kresba Stigmatizace sv. Františka z Assisi a Šternberská kaple v kostele pražských hybernů, in: Alena Volrábová (ed.), Ars linearis II. Grafika a kresba v českých zemích v evropských souvislostech, Praha 2010, pp. 58–65.
NEUMANN 1964 Jaromír Neumann, Obrazárna Pražského hradu, soubor vybraných děl (exh. cat.), Praha 1964. NEUMANN 1974 Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (exh. cat.), Praha 1974. NEUMANN 2000 Jaromír Neumann, Škrétové: Karel Škréta a jeho syn, Praha 2000. NEVÍMOVÁ 2004 Petra Nevímová, Funkce obrazu v umění jezuitského řádu, in: Milena Bartlová (ed.), Dějiny umění v české společnosti: otázky, problémy, výzvy. Příspěvky přednesené na Prvním sjezdu českých historiků umění, Praha 2004, pp. 107–115. NOVÁK 1917 Josef Novák, Slavatové a umění výtvarné, in: Památky archeologické XXIX, Praha 1917, pp. 17–36. NOVOTNÝ 1946 Antonín Novotný, Jak život Prahou šel (1576–1830), Praha 1946. OPOČENSKÝ 1910 Hanuš Opočenský, Dokumenty historicko-umělecké z archivu lovosického, Časopis společnosti přátel starožitností českých XVIII, Praha 1910, pp. 134–135. OULÍKOVÁ 2010 Petra Oulíková, Künstlerische Ausstattung von Altären und Kapellen der von Jesuiten betreuten Bruderschaften in Prag, in: Bohemia Jesuitica (1556–2006), Tomus 2, Petronilla Čemus (ed.), Praha 2010, pp. 1217–1238. OULÍKOVÁ 2011 Petra Oulíková, Poznámka k Pašijovému cyklu Karla Škréty, in: Lenka Stolárová (ed.), Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a Evropě, Praha 2011, pp. 39-47. OUTRATA 1986 Jan Jakub Outrata, Kostel Panny Marie před Týnem v Praze – architektonický vývoj ve středověku a současná oprava, in: Staletá Praha XVI. Památková péče v uplynulém desetiletí, Praha 1986, pp. 147–169. PAZAUREK 1889 Gustav Edmund pazaurek, Carl Screta (1610–1674). Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des XVII. Jahrhunderts, Prag 1889. PAŽOUT 1874 Julius Pažout, K dějinám oltáře sv. Lukáše v Týnském chrámu Pražském, Památky archeologické a místopisné IX, 1874, pp. 813–815. PODLAHA 1916 Antonín Podlaha, Materiálie k slovníku umělců a uměleckých řemeslníků v Čechách, Památky archeologické XXVIII, Praha 1916, pp. 215-257.
PODLAHA 1917 Antonín Podlaha, Materiálie k slovníku umělců a uměleckých řemeslníků v Čechách, Památky archeologické XXIX, Praha 1917, pp. 136–151, pp. 269–289. PODLAHA 1919 Antonín Podlaha, Materiálie k slovníku umělců a uměleckých řemeslníků v Čechách, Památky archeologické XXXI, Praha 1919, pp. 106– 116. POPELKA 1994 Liselotte Popelka, Castrum Doloris oder “Trauriger Schauplatz”: Untersuchungen zu Entstehung und Wesen ephemer Architektur, Wien 1994. PREISS 1955 Pavel Preiss, Škrétův oltářní obraz v Úštěku, Zprávy památkové péče 15, 1955, pp. 158–159. PREISS 1958 Pavel Preiss, Jan Quirin Jahn a český klasicismus, Sborník Národního muzea, Series A, Vol. 12, No. 3, 1958, pp. 121–180. PREISS 1979 Pavel Preiss, Barockzeichnung. Meisterwerke des böhmischen Barocks, Praha 1979. PREISS 2006 Pavel Preiss, Česká barokní kresba. Baroque Drawing in Bohemia, Praha 2006. PREISS 2008 Pavel Preiss, Patria mihi pro coelo est. Karel Maxmilián Lažanský, žák Bohuslava Balbína. Několik poznámek ke kulturnímu profilu barokního šlechtice, in: Ibid., Kořeny a letorosty výtvarné kultury baroka v Čechách, Praha 2008, pp. 153–175. PŘIBYL – STOLÁROVÁ Petr Přibyl – Lenka Stolárová, „K stále rostoucí slávě našeho pilného umělce“. Karel Škréta mezi Švýcarskem, říší a Itálií v zrcadle nově objevených pramenů, see chapter in this book, pp. 73–79.
SLAVÍČEK 1993 Lubomír Slavíček (ed.), Artis pictoriae amatores, Evropa v zrcadle barokního sběratelství (exh. cat.), Praha 1993. SLAVÍČEK 2005 Lubomír Slavíček, Pražský “cicerone” Jan Quirin Jahn, in: Jan Royt – Petra Nevímová (edd.), Album amicorum: sborník ku poctě prof. Mojmíra Horyny, Praha 2005, pp. 26–37. SLAVÍČEK 2007 Lubomír Slavíček, “Sobě, umění, přátelům”: kapitoly z dějin sběratelství v Čechách a na Moravě 1650–1939, Brno 2007. SLAVÍČEK 2008 Lubomír Slavíček, “Honest et eruditus civis et artifex”: umělecké a knižní sbírky vzdělaných měšťanských umělců 18. století (Brno, Moravská Třebová, Praha), in: Documenta Pragensia 27, Praha 2008, pp. 875–914. SMOLÍK 1882–1884 Josef Smolík, Památník Jindřicha Dobřikovského z Malejova, Památky archeologické a místopisné XII, 1882–1884, pp. 538–546. STOLÁROVÁ 2010 Lenka Stolárová, Karel Škréta a Záalpí, in: Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Doba a dílo (exh. cat.), Praha 2010, pp. 64–65. STOLÁROVÁ – VLNAS 2010 Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas (edd.), Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Doba a dílo (exh. cat.), Praha 2010, pp. 17–25. STOLÁROVÁ 2011 Lenka Stolárová, Škrétova léta vandrovní, in: Karel Škréta 1610-1674: Doba a dílo (in print). ŠÁMAL 1948 Jindřich Šámal, Dvě zprávy o činnosti Škrétově v klášteře bosých augustiniánů v Praze na Zderaze, Památky archeologické. Historie 43, 1948.
RYBIČKA 1869 Antonín Rybička Skutečský, Karel Škréta Šotnovský ze Závořic, Nástin rodoa životopisný, Praha 1869. SEKYRKA 1997 Tomáš Sekyrka (ed.), Umění a mistrovství: Pražská malířská bratrstva 1348–1783 (exh. cat.), Praha 1997. SEKYRKA 2011 Tomáš Sekyrka, Karel Škréta a jeho zákazníci ve světle archivních pramenů, in: Lenka Stolárová (ed.), Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a Evropě, Praha 2011, pp. 147–152. SKŘIVÁNEK 1980 František Skřivánek, Vývoj znaku Miseronů z Lisonu, Heraldika XIII, 1980, pp. 1–19, 33. SKŘIVÁNEK 1983 František Skřivánek, Genealogie Miseronů z Lisonu, vol. II., Heraldika a genealogie. Zpravodaj české heraldické a genealogické společnosti 16, 1983, no. 2, pp. 65–96.
ŠRONĚK 1996 Michal Šroněk, Kostel Panny Marie před Týnem, in: Pavel Vlček et al., Umělecké památky Prahy, Staré Město a Josefov, Praha 1996, pp. 100–109. ŠRONĚK 1997 Michal Šroněk, Pražští malíři 1600–1656, Mistři, tovaryši, učedníci a štolíři v Knize Staroměstského malířského cechu – Biografický slovník, Praha 1997. ŠRONĚK 2006 Michal Šroněk, Jan Jiří Heinsch, malíř barokní zbožnosti, Praha 2006. ŠŤOVÍČEK 2002 Ivan Šťovíček et al., Zásady vydávání novověkých historických pramenů z období od počátku 16. století do současnosti, Praha 2002. TIBITANZLOVÁ – BERANOVÁ 2009 Radka Tibitanzlová – Martina Beranová (eds.), “… so that he trained in the art of painting”, Křestní, výuční a zachovací listy z fondu Pražská malířská bratrstva, Praha 2009.
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 367
TIBITANZLOVÁ 2011 Radka Tibitanzlová, Karel Škréta – měšťan Starého Města pražského, in: Lenka Stolárová (ed.), Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a Evropě, Praha 2011, pp. 153–160. TOMAN I Prokop Toman, Nový slovník československých výtvarných umělců, Part I, Praha 1993. URBAN 1973 Stanislav Urban, Poslední řezáč z rodu Miseroniů. K životu a dílu Ferdinanda Eusebia Miseroniho, Umění XXI, 1973, pp. 515–527. VLNAS 1992 Vít Vlnas, Maxmilián Šlejnic jako mecenáš Karla Škréty (K vzájemným vztahům barokní historiografie a výtvarného umění), in: Zuzana Pokorná – Martin Svatoš (edd.), Bohuslav Balbín a kultura jeho doby v Čechách. Sborník z konference Památníku národního písemnictví, Praha 1992, p. 136–145. ZAP 1857 Karel Vladislav Zap, Inventář pozůstalosti po Karlu Škrétovi ze Závořic, Památky archeologické a místopisné II, 1857, pp. 325–328, 368. ZAPLETALOVÁ 2010 Jana Zapletalová, Karel Škréta: Notes from the Archives in Italy, Umění LVIII, 2010, pp. 152–158. ZVOLÁNKOVÁ 2007 Pavla Zvolánková, Jezuitský kostel Jména Ježíš v Telči (diss., Seminar of Art History, Masaryk University), Brno 2007.
Family Tree of Škréta Šotnovský of Závořice Markéta Krátká († 1564)
Mikuláš Vorličný of Vorličná
1581
Alžběta
Jindřich² † 1595
Václav Vorel
Anna † before 1587
Jan⁷ † 7 January 1650, Schaffhausen
Kundrat
Jindřich⁸ † after 1638, Poland
1593
JAN ŠKRÉTA¹ † 5 July 1587, Prague (St Nicolas, SMP)
Ludmila Molina Kaliště of Otrsfeld
Martin Behem of Bawenberg
Zuzana Langová of Hirschberg († 1608)
Kundrat Škréta³ † September 1613
9 July 1645 KAREL ŠKRÉTA Veronika * 1608–1611, Prague Grönbergerová (Our Lady before Týn) † 12 March 1686, Prague † 1 August 1674, Prague (St Henry) (St Gallus)
368 ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OUEVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
Anežka Vodolínská of Vodolín († before 1603)
Kateřina Nibšicová († 1625)
Pavel⁴
Eliška Šatná of Olivét
Kateřina Herkulesová of Morchendorf († after 1638)
Anežka † 1636, Prague
Jan Baptista Reymund
Ester
Kateřina
Dorota Kaliště of Otrsfeld
Daniel⁵ † after 1623, Danzig
Jiří⁶ † c. 1617, Prague
Judita of Altenberg
1 Jan Škréta, from Olešnice near Kunštát by origin, was awarded the rights of burgher of the Old Town in Prague in 1559. Škréta, a furrier, publican and wine trader by initial profession and later the official of the Týn church funds, was appointed the Old Town councillor in 1575. He owned several mills, vineyards and houses in Prague (At the Three Tails, At the Šmerhas’ and On the Hill in the Prague New Town). The ruler ennobled him to the rank of a country gentleman with the title Šotnovský of Závořice in 1570 and, ten years later, his coat-of-arms was amended. For Jan’s testament and inventory, see: Josef Teige, Základy starého místopisu Pražského I, Praha 1910, pp. 101–104. 2 Jindřich was awarded the rights of burgher of the Old Town in Prague in 1593. He held the position of tax revenue office scrivener from 1594.
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 369
Kateřina
Voršila Zvonařová of Cimperk
Ludmila
3 Kundrat was appointed junior draftsman of the Bohemian Chamber in 1600 and the “Buchhalter” (accounting councillor) for the same institution a year later. He purchased the house At the Black Deer in the Old Town in Prague in 1598. He also owned the houses At the Three Swallows, At the Paving and At the Stonecutters in the New Town in Prague, as well as a mill in Šerlínek, two vineyards at Špitálsko in Mezihoří near Libeň, a vineyard with a press below Mělník château and a house on the outskirts of the city of Mělník. 4 Pavel owned several houses in Kutná Hora and Prague. He was appointed scrivener of the Kutná Hora mint in 1604 where he also held the position of the coin official between 1608 and 1612. He was the master of the mint in Prague between 1619 and 1620 and was eventually in the service of Karel of Žerotín the Elder from 1631.
Ludvík Kordík
1601
Kašpar Luk of Bohuslavice
Anna
Johana
5 Daniel studied and graduated at Herborn in Hessen. After returning to Prague, he was successively employed as secretary of the Bohemian Chamber (from 1603), fidei defensor (the defender of faith) of the Lower Consistory and Utraquist Academy, and one of the Prague governors (from 1618). He owned the houses At the Chmels’ and houses on the Linhart Square (At the Anchor) and in Vladislavská Street. He and his wife fled to Danzig after the Battle of the White Mountain where Daniel held the position of secretary of the local city council. 6 Jiří, a physician by profession, owned the Šmerhas’ house. His widow, Voršila Zvonařová of Cimperk, litigated for his inheritance with his brothers for many years. 7 Jan lived in Germany (Bremen) from 1616 at the latest. He later settled in the Swiss city of Schaffhausen where he was active as
Václav Vincenc Písecký
1608
Jan Angel of Englsberg
a physician and also founded the branch of the family which is still there to now. His son Jindřich followed in his steps as a physician and was an outstanding pharmacologist. 8 Jindřich is recorded in 1626 in East Bohemia – in Zámrsk – where he wrote a French and Italian entry to the commonplace book of Jindřich Dobříkovský of Malejov who dwelled on the Žerotín estates in Brandýs nad Orlicí. Dobříkovský and Škréta later left for Poland where Škréta (along with his mother) procured his brother Karel in 1638 to seek the rendition of the family property in Bohemia in the name of the two. Dobřenský later reported that Jindřich’s heirs lived in Russia as late as in the early 20th century.
Family Tree of Škréta Šotnovský of Závořice 9 July 1645 KAREL ŠKRÉTA Veronika * 1608–1611, Prague Grönbergerová (Our Lady before Týn) † 12 March 1686, Prague † 1 August 1674, Prague (St Henry) (St Gallus)
Karel Škréta the Younger * cca 1650, Prague (St Gallus) † 2 January 1691, Prague (St Gallus)
Anna Kateřina¹² * 16 April 1680, Prague (St Gallus) † before 1691
Karel Rafael * 19 August 1681, Prague (St Gallus) † 11 October 1681, Prague (St Gallus)
2 June 1679
Alžběta Rosová⁹ † 1699, Prague
Mikuláš František¹² * 7 December 1682, Prague (St Gallus) † before 1691
370 ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OUEVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
Alžběta Dominika¹² * 5 August 1685, Prague (St James) † before 1691
Václav Bohumil¹¹ * 5 October 1653, Prague (St Gallus) † before 1677, Prague
Václav Jan of god * 9 March 1688, Prague (St James) † 22 May 1693, Prague, (St Gallus?)
Jiljí Jelen († 1685)
Veronika † 1717, Praha (St Nicolas)
20 February 1675
14 October 1685 Jan Karel Fridrich Fischer Veronika¹⁰ * 23 January 1657, Prague († 1704 ) (St Gallus) † before 1704, Prague
Daniel Elias Jonák
9 Alžběta Rosová, the daughter of the lawyer, appellate councillor and author of the Latinwritten grammar book of Czech, Václav Jan Rosa, married František Theofil Kleo of Roudná after the death of her first husband, Karel Škréta the Younger. Only four years later, she issued a testament according to which she wished to be buried in the church of St Gallus. However, no reports about either her death or her funeral survived in the relevant registers, but the possibility that she would have been laid to rest somewhere else than the family tomb is very low. Even Alžběta’s surviving husband Kleo of Roudná buried his nineteen-year old daughter Františka “in presbyterio in crypta scretiana” in 1727. 10 Veronika married Jiljí Jelen, the Juris Doctor and appellate councillor, in 1675 and probably had four daughters with him. After his
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 371
Kateřina Anna † 1724, Prague (St Martin in the Wall)
death, she married Jan Karel Fridrich Fischer, a registrar with the Office of Land Registers. According to the inventory issued after his death in 1704, there were several paintings by Škréta in his household. 11 Václav Bohumil and Antonín probably died young, but before 30 June 1677 at the latest when Karel the Younger and daughter Veronika are recorded as the only descendants of Karel Škréta in the Land Registers. 12 Anna Kateřina, Alžběta Dominika and Mikuláš František apparently died in their childhood because their names do not appear in the inventory issued after the death of Karel Škréta the Younger. Some of his children were not baptized in the church of St Gallus but at St James. The house At the Konrads (Registry No. 693), which was donated to Karel Škréta the Younger and his wife by his father-in-law,
Antonín¹¹ * 13 June 1659, Prague (St Gallus) † before 1677, Prague
Barbora married Hajnicová?
Václav Rosa, and where the family probably also lived, came under the latter parish. 13 Václav Jan of God is mentioned videlicet for the last time in his mother’s testament of 1695. The date of his death does not appear in the St Gallus registers. We, however, cannot exclude that he is identical with the child buried on 22 May 1693 at St Gallus under the name Josef Škréta. Considering the fact that there was no other Škréta family living in the St Gallus parish, that the age of the deceased child corresponds to the age of Václav Jan in the same period (about 6 years) and the child was moreover laid to rest in Škréta’s tomb, we can assume that his first name was recorded wrongly. A similar mistake occurred during the baptism of the son of Karel Škréta the Elder, Václav Bohumil, in 1653 when the father of the child was recorded as František Škréta instead of Karel.
Johanna
Note: The symbol of a dagger in the family tree of Škréta Šotnovský of Závořice does not inform about the date of death (which is unknown to us in most cases) but about the burial of the deceased person. The only exception is Karel Škréta the Younger whose dates of both death and burial were documented, and we thus state the date of death in the table.
The family tree was compiled according to information excerpted from the following:
Sources PRAGUE CITY ARCHIVES Parish Office of the Holy Trinity in the Spálená Street, Kniha nadací (The Book of Endowments), Inv. No. 18. Collection of Manuscripts: Liber inventariorum 1, New Town in Prague, 1659–1718, sign. 1196, f. 546. Liber testamentorum 4, Old Town in Prague, 1681–1706, sign. 3746, f. 276r–280r. Liber testamentorum 2, Old Town in Prague, 1619–1658, sign. 2206, f. 34r–36r. Příjem záduší t. a sv. Benedikta (Receipt of church funds at Týn and
St Benedict), 1506–1614, sign. 1645, f. 136r. Liber obligationum caeruleus 5, Old Town in Prague, 1691–1696 /1709/, sign. 3601, f. 110v–113v. Collection of Registers: St Gallus church, Matrika narozených (Birth Register), 1652–1704, sign. HV N1, pp. 13, 69, 95, 288, 298, 312. St Gallus church, Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1652–1704, sign. HV O1, pp. 629, 637. St Gallus church, Matrika zemřelých (Register of Deaths), 1645–1731, sign. HV Z1, pp. 20, 44, 49, 66, 205.
St James church, Matrika narozených (Birth Register), 1671–1707, sign. JAK N3, pp. 192, 222. St James church, Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1632–1710, sign. JAK O1, p. 30. St Henry church, Matrika zemřelých (Register of Deaths), 1679–1699, sign. JCH Z6, p. 176. Church of the Holy Virgin under the Chain, Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1622–1745, sign. PMŘ N2 O2, p. 120. St Thomas church, Matrika oddaných (Register of Marriages), 1632–1649, sign. TO N2 O2, fol. 18v.
Literature BERGNER – HERAIN 1910 pp. 8, 10, 11. NEUMANN 1974 pp. 14–17, 44–46, 48. NEUMANN 2000 pp. 12, 13, 15, 130, 133. PAZAUREK 1889 pp. 9–17, 20, 21, 42, 43, 46, 47. PODLAHA 1917 pp. 142, 287.
PODLAHA 1919 p. 114. RYBIČKA 1869 pp. 3–5, 9, 10, 18. SMOLÍK 1882–1884 p. 542. ZAPLETALOVÁ 2010 pp. 152–158.
Internet Sources accessed on 4 December 2010 http://www.stadtarchiv-schaffhausen.ch/Biographien/Biographien-HV/Wepfer_Johann_Jakob.pdf
Translated by Lucie Vidmar
372 ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE AND OUEVRE OF KAREL ŠKRÉTA
NATIONAL ARCHIVES Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), A. P. Šlechta: Doplňky k dosud známým zprávám o rodu Škrétů Šotnovských ze Závořic, Part I, sign. B 114. Sbírka genealogická Dobřenského (Collection of the Dobřenský Genealogy) [1841] – [1919], Škréta Šotnovský, Inv. No. 1062. INSTITUTE OF ART HISTORY, ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC, V.V.I Fund Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta – opisy archiválií (Duplicates of Archive Documents).
Reports on Karel Škréta in European Literature of 17th and 18th Centuries JOHANA BRONKOVÁ
1 The only hardly accessible text also exists in facsimile: Cornelis de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vry schilderconst (Lier 1661), Soest 1971. In 2009, the Gent University digitized the book on Googlebooks. Although profusely quoted, De Bie’s work has not been critically treated in detail yet. Let us mention at least the most fundamental bibliography: Gerard Lemmens, Introduction, in: Het Gulden Cabinet der Edel Vry Schilderconst, Soest 1971; Christiaan Schuckman, Cornelis de Bie (unpublished dissertation), Universiteit Utrecht 1984; idem, “Cornelis de Bie”, in: Jane Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art 4, London 1996, p. 38. 2 Facsimile of the first German edition: Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste, Nürnberg 1675–1679, ed. Christian Klemm, Nördlingen 1994. The project Sandrart.net (J. W. Goethe Universität in Frankfurt and Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence /Max-Planck-Institut/) was launched in 2009 with the aim of presenting the annotated German edition of Sandrart’s Teutsche Academie online. The pages of the project also offer an updated Sandrart’s bibliography. Let us mention here only the basic monograph by Christian Klemm (Joachim von Sandrart: Kunst-Werke und Lebens-Lauf, Berlin 1986) and a miscellany from the recent conference: Sybille EbertSchifferer – Cecilia Mazzetti di Pietralata (edd.), Joachim von Sandrart: ein europäischer Künstler und Theoretiker zwischen Italien und Deutschland, Akten des Internationalen Studientages der Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome 3–4 April 2006, München 2009. 3 J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie 1679 (see note 2), the sheet inserted between pages 356 and 357. 4 Artur Rudolf Peltzer (ed.), Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau–, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, München 1925. 5 Comp. Lucia Simonato, L’Academia nobilissimae artis pictoriae (1683) di Joachim von Sandrart: genesi e fortuna in Italia, Studi secenteschi 45, 2004, pp. 139–173.
Cornelis de Bie (1627–1711?), the first biographer who ever took notice of Karel Škréta, included a brief report about the Bohemian artist in his Het gulden cabinet van de edel vry schilderconst (Lier 1661) or, respectively, in its second volume dedicated to living artists.¹ De Bie probably received information about Škréta from one of his own compatriots who had encountered Škréta in Rome. It is the credit of this Lier notary and rhetorician that the Bohemian painter entered biographic literature as a member of the Bent society (Bentvueghels) under the cognomen Slach-sweert (Slagzwaard; Claymore in English) and as a painter of portraits and well-composed, both small- and large-dimensional paintings, enjoying a successful career in Prague. The length of De Bie’s individual biographies follows rather varied criteria. For example, the extent of the verses under Rembrandt’s and Bernini’s names roughly corresponds to the treatise on Škréta while the biography of De Bie’s native from South Netherlands, Françoise Duquesnoy, exceeds them many times. Škréta’s biography can be found among the Netherlandish artists and is preceded by those of Salomon Koninck (Amsterdam 1609 – Amsterdam 1656) and Justus van Egmond (Leiden 1601 – Antwerpen 1674) and followed by Leonaert Bramer (Delft 1596 – Delft 1674), one of the founding members of the Bentvueghels society. The second foundation stone of Škréta’s biographic tradition was laid by Joachim von Sandrart (1606–1688), more exactly by the German and Latin version of his monumental Teutsche Academie (or, respectively, II 1679, 1683).² In the relatively comprehensive biography of Škréta, Sandrart outlines the henceforth passed on itinerary of the artist’s Italian journey Venice – Bologna – Florence – Rome. These general stops, obligatory for wandering painters at that time, are added to by the factual date of Škréta’s arrival in Rome – the year 1634 when Sandrart still lived in the Eternal City. The biography is supplemented by the first list of places where Škréta’s works could be found, and bespeaks of the author’s familiarity with Prague topography, originating from the times of his local studies with Aegidius Sadeler. The prestigious place reserved to the Bohemian painter – i.e. between the biographies of Rembrandt and Schönfeld – is moreover sketched in by Škréta’s portrait, the copper engraving by Philipp Kilian, executed after the artist’s model.³ The print presents six artists: copper engraver and goldsmith Michel Leblond (Frankfurt am Main 1587 – Amsterdam 1656), copper engraver and painter Aegidius Sadeler (Antwerpen 1570 – Prague 1629), woodcarver Georg Petel (Weilheim 1590/93 – Augsburg 1633/34) and copper engraver Matthaeus Merian the Elder (Basel 1593 – Schwalbach/Taunus 1650), and finally, our painter as paired with the famed Rembrandt van Rijn (Leiden 1606 – Amsterdam 1669). The German original of Sandrart’s biographies remained the Central-European domain up until the publication of the Peltzer’s 1925 edition⁴ while the Roman world, if it knows Sandrart at all, keeps quoting from the Latin translation, executed by Christian Rhodi during the artist’s lifetime and under his supervision.⁵ EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 375
The 1704 Abecedario pittorico by Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi (1660–1727) exemplifies the shift in perceiving biographies: they were increasingly taking on the nature of an encyclopaedic compendium of knowledge, were freed of subjective criteria and laid new emphasis on the sources used. In the case of Škréta, it is the Latin version of Sandrart. The absence of other references proves that there was no living memory of the Bohemian painter in Italy. Abecedario received numerous supplementary re-editions during the 18th century (Bologna 1719, Venezia 1754, Napoli 1763, Firenze 1788) where Škréta’s entry remained unchanged. Abrégé de la vie des peintres, which Roger de Piles (1635–1709) was writing as a disclosed spy during his five-year imprisonment in The Hague and published it in Paris in 1699, however, does not contain Škréta’s name.⁶ Neither can it be found in the two following reeditions of the 18th-century French text (1715, 1767), the first of which was still revised by the artist.⁷ The lists of the oldest biographers of the Prague painter thus included Roger de Piles unjustly. “Carolus Screta” only appears in the German translation which came out one year after his death (1710) in Hamburg under the title Historie und Leben der berühmtesten europaeischen Mahler…verfertiget von de Piles. Similarly as in the case of some other German painters the editors added a chapter devoted to the Flemish and German schools in accordance with Sandrart. Škréta’s biography here is nothing but a slightly abbreviated version of his biography published in Teutsche Academie of 1679. Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719) does not provide any new information; he solely condenses De Bie’s entry and moreover totally omits Škréta in the index of names. Although he quotes Sandrart as one of his sources in the introduction to De groote Schouburgh, he apparently has no ambition to elaborate any further on Škréta’s biography. Houbraken, with his somewhat unclear stylistics, thus contributes to later misinterpretations; also because his ambiguous formulation allows for attributing Škréta’s nickname “Slazgwaard” to Baur. The mistake is then codified by the German translation of Houbraken, whose index states “Slagzwaart 220. S. Willem Bouwer”.⁸ The confusion is repeated by Hoogewerff up to the mid-20th century in the still fundamental publication devoted to Schilderbent,⁹ although Swillens – in the index of the new edition of Houbraken – correctly assigns the abovementioned nickname to “Carolus Screta”.¹⁰ The most recent and extensive interpretation of De groote Schouburgh by Hendrik J. Horn does not mention Škréta’s name in its almost one thousand pages a single time.¹¹ To the contrary, in Czech literature Jaromír Neumann elevates Houbraken to a source of primary information; undoubtedly due to the low accessibility of De Bie’s treatise which this doyen of Škréta research most probably did not have to hand.¹² Yet another biographer of our artist is the Dutch painter, author and satirist Jacob Campo Weyerman (1677–1747), who became renowned for, besides other things, challenging Houbraken’s statements and whose wit and sharp tongue took him as far as to a lifetime of imprisonment for calumny.¹³ Weyerman’s note about Škréta, however brief and dependent on De Bie’s account, is worth attention not only because it provides a relatively time-relevant interpretation of concepts used by the first biographer, i.e. it identifies De Bie’s term “ordonnantien” with history paintings and correctly attributes Škréta the nickname “Zlagzwaard”. The author’s aim here also is to eliminate De Bie’s ambiguities by modernizing his language, as is proved by as peculiar as artful and rhythmically improved adaptation of De Bie’s verses to a form which much better suits the Dutch of the first quarter of the 18th century.¹⁴ Weyerman probably assumes Škréta to be Netherlandish, and therefore clears up his entry from the remark about the more famous Baur who, as a German, has no place in his treatise. Jean Baptiste Descamps (1714–1791) does not bring any new findings about Škréta, either; he only translates De Bie to French, taking Weyerman’s elaborations into consideration. His only novelty is labelling the already abolished Bent society as “Bande Academique” and establishing Škréta’s cognomen in the Norman dialect, “Espadron”.¹⁵ In chronological order, there follow the notes by Bolognano Marcello Oretti (1714–1787), which survived only in manuscript form. The local patriotism of the author is, however, directly proportional to his mistakes and inaccuracies.¹⁶ Sandrart’s reference to Škréta’s journeying via Bologna sufficed Oretti to classify the Bohemian painter to the group of artists of the Bologna school.¹⁷ His account abounds in mistakes and misunderstandings, from a misspelled first name of Škréta and his alleged activity in the churches of Naples to the wrongly given year of the publication of the Latin translation of Sandrart’s treatise. 376 REPORTS ON KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE OF 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES
6 Roger de Piles, Abrégé de la vie des peintres, avec des reflexions sur leurs ouvrages, et un Traité du peintre parfait; De la connoissance des desseins; De l’utilité des estampe, Paris 1699. 7 Abregé de la vie des peintres: avec des réflexions sur leurs ouvrages, et un traité du peintre parfait; de la connoissance des desseins; de l’utilité des estampes, 2. éd., revue & corrigée par l’auteur; avec un abregé de sa vie, & plusieurs autres additions, Paris 1715. Abregé de la vie des peintres, avec des réflexions sur leurs ouvrages, nouvelle edition, considerablement augmenté, Amsterdam–Leipzig: Arkstee & Merkus 1767. 8 Arnold Houbraken’s Grosse Schouburgh der niederländischen Maler und Malerinner, ed. Alfred von Wurzbach (Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik de Mittelalters und der Renaissance, 8), Wien 1880, pp. 220, 463. 9 Godefrius Joannes Hoogewerff, De Bentvueghels, ’s-Gravenhage 1952, p. 133. 10 Pieter T. A. Swillens (ed.), De groote schouburgh der nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen door Arnold Houbraken, Maastricht 1943–1953, II (1944), p. 352. 11 Hendrik J. Horn, The Golden Age Revisited: Arnold Houbraken’s Great Theatre of Netherlandish Painters and Paintresses, Doornspijk 2000. 12 Comp. Jaromír Neumann, K italským začátkům Karla Škréty, Umění III, 1955, p. 322. 13 On Weyerman’s life and work, see Ton J. Broos, Tussen zwart en ultramarijn. De levens van schilders beschreven door Jacob Campo Weyerman (1677–1747), Amsterdam 1990. 14 Broos (see note 13) mentions Weyerman’s adaptation of verses dedicated to Škréta by De Bie on p. 95. He, however, deals solely with the linguistic aspect of the matter. Our painter still remains unrecognized and is only quoted as “Carolus Creeten” (also in the index on p. 366). Nevertheless, as seen in note 70 (p. 311), the author puts side by side the expressions used in Škréta’s biographies by De Bie (“ordonnantien”, “conterfeyten”), Houbraken (“pourtretten”) as well as Weyerman (“Historieschilder en Konterfyter”) in order to outline Weyerman’s style of working with texts. 15 The correct French spelling would be “Espadon”. 16 The index of artists including Oretti’s manuscript was published by Roberto Landi, Indice degli artisti compresi nell’opera manoscritta di Marcello Oretti “Notizie de Professori del dissegno”, L’Archiginnasio 78, 1983, pp. 103–198. Oretti’s “Paolo Screta” was introduced to the Czech public by Jana Zapletalová, Škréta, Sandrart, Oretti: poznámka ke Škrétovu působení v Itálii, Umění LVII, 2009, pp. 398–402. 17 Sandrart writes about Škéta’s journey from Venice to the south, stating that “driven by his desire for art, he left for Bologna and Florence and at these schools, too, he excellently developed on his own knowledge”. The sake of the text is probably nothing but rhetorical figures which can probably be best translated as “he did not pass Bologna and Florence unnoticed” or “he also became familiar with the contemporary art in the two towns”. Comp. J. Sandrart, Teutsche Academie 1679 (see note 2), p. 327; idem 1683, p. 323.
18 Jaromír Neumann, Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (exh. cat.), Praha 1974, p. 287; idem, Škrétové, Praha 2000, p. 157. 19 Gustav E. Pazaurek, Carl Screta (1610–1674). Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des XVII. Jahrhundertes, Prag 1889, p. 18, note 1; J. Neumann, Karel Škréta (see note 18), p. 287; J. Neumann, Škrétové (see note 18), pp. 9, 11, 157. 20 Pietro Zani, Enciclopedia metodica critico-ragionata delle belle arti, Parma 1821, vol. I, p. 16. Zani’s host was probably Francis Joseph Liebsteinsky of Kolowrat (c. 1750–1825), one of the founders of the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts. The Parma abbot writes that he had the opportunity to see Kolowrat’s collection of old prints and was enchanted by Parmigianino’s work which the Count purchased from the Venice art dealer, Giovanni Antonio Armano. (“Giunto a Praga mi trasferii dal Conte Kollovrat, gran conoscitore di stampe e profondo naturalista, a cui io era stato raccomandato. Egli mi ricolmo di cortesie, e mi fece vedere il celebre suo gabinetto. Ma la prescrittami strettezza di tempo mi tolse di poter osservare ed annotare a mio comodo. Ne ripassai non ostante alcuni portafogli, ed abbattutomi nell’opera del Parmigianino ne rimasi incantato Essa fu già del sig. Antonio Armano, e da questo ceduta al Conte Kollovrat fu aumentata sino al gradi in cui ora si trova. Parlerò altrove delle sue particolarità. Proseguii il mio viaggio per Dresda.”). 21 Ibid., pp. 16–17.
Although Füsslin’s Allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon, arranged in alphabetical order, explicitly refers to Descamps as the most modern authority, the author of Škréta’s entry is in fact also familiar with the previous biographers, with Cornelis de Bie in the lead. The thoroughly compiled overview of authors who had ever published portraits of the individual artists, included at the end of the volume, does not even miss Škréta’s portrait in Sandrart. The inventory of the Dresden gallery, issued by Johann August Lehninger, is complemented by a brief biography of Škréta and bespeaks of the knowledge of new biographic data published by Jan Quirin Jahn (1776). It lays emphasis on the painter’s journey to Dresden and lists it chronologically, i.e. after his return to Prague. Jaromír Neumann mistakenly attributed the inventory to Roger de Piles.¹⁸ He was apparently led astray by the introductory words of the title (Abrégé de la vie des peintres), because Pazaurek’s bibliographic search of the oldest literature on Škréta, from which he regularly departed, does not mention the name of the editor.¹⁹ Pietro Zani (1748–1821?) visited Prague in 1792, as he states in the introduction to his work, and was hosted by Count Kolowrat in the city. He, however, did not stay long and soon continued on his journey from Vienna to Dresden.²⁰ We do not know whether he had time to stop by some Prague works by Škréta – he probably encountered them in Dresden where, to the contrary, he stayed for a longer period of time.²¹ Zani systemizes all available reports about artists and arranges them in tables in the nineteen volumes of his Enciclopedia metodica critico-ragionata delle belle arti (Critically Arranged Methodical Encyclopaedia of Fine Art). But the critical character, proclaimed in the title, unfortunately gave way to the effort to arrive at maximum exhaustiveness. This is also why Zani, the abbot of Parma, is the only author whose work exactly reflects Oretti’s mistakes – he mentions as much as three artists named “Screta”. In the case of our painter he moreover refers to the name form “Créeten”, established by Descamps. The attributes ascribed to Škréta testify that the author also drew from the works by previous biographers. He, however, newly states the nickname “Raffaello della Boemia”. The entry on Škréta in Ticozzi’s 1830 Dictionary of Artists of All Nations (or, more precisely, Dictionary of Architects, Sculptors, Painters, Engravers in Wood and Stone, Minters of Medallions, Mosaicists, Jewelers of Niello, and Makers of Intarsio Work of All Nations) is a free reinterpretation of Descamps‘ eighty-year old record. It does not only testify to the apparent inertia in copying biographies but also to the geographic and mainly linguistic distance between the Roman and German worlds. Translated by Lucie Vidmar
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 377
Edition of Selected Documents
Cornelis de Bie, 1661 Het Gulden Cabinet vande Edele Vry Schilderconst, inhoudende den lof vande vermarste schilders, architecte, beldthowers ende plaetsnyders van dese eeuw, T’Antwerpen: Ian Meyssens 1661, p. 251.
Ten tijde van dien uytnemenden Schilder Willem Bouwer, die seer
Roomen voor fijnen bendt-naem het Slach-sweert, den welcken seer fraey
teghenwoordich tot Prage, daer hy in groot estime is ende dese vry
Die sy den Schilder schenckt, en mildelijcken geeft
fraey ende aerdich in verlichtery was, ghelijck in [he]t eerste deel
is in [he]t schilderen, ordonnantien, conterfeyten soo groot als cleyn, dat
Schilder-const noch daeghelijcks oeffent.
Ontdeckt, en siet maer aen de Const van Carel Creten
is verhaelt, heeft Carolus Creten met den selben Willem Bouwer
rijn const van veel Heeren des Landts werdt opghetrocken ende in groote
Die soeckt Picturas cracht en edelheyt te weten
Die wel het meeste van Pictur[a]s volmaecktheyt heeft.
ghewoont in Italien en creegh tot
weerden ghehouden woonende
Joachim von Sandrart, 1679 L’academia todesca della architectura, scultura & pittura oder Teutsche Academie der edlen Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste. Der teutschen Academie zweyter und letzter Haupt-Theil, Nürnberg: in Verlegung des Authoris 1679, III. Buch, XXII. Capitel, p. 327; Tafel OO. (after p. 356). [p. 326] CCLX. Carolo Screta, Mahler von Prag. Komt nach Venedig, Bolognen, Florenz, Rom und wieder auf Prag: Seine Werke.
[p. 327] CCLX. Carolo Screta, von Prag wurde in seiner Kindheit bey Zeiten in einem zierlichen Sitten- und Tugendwandel angeführet und daraufhin zu der edlen Mahlerkunst gezogen, dern gründliche Regeln er vermög einer ihme angebornen Arbeitsamkeit wol ergriffen und sich noch in früher Jugend ein schönes Lob darmit erworben. Weil nun
mehr und mehr wachsendem Ruhm unsers arbeitsamen Künstlers. Von dannen begab er sich durch noch immeranreitzende Kunstbegierde getrieben nach Bolognen und Florenz und mehrte auch auf diesen Kunstschulen merklich seine Wißenschaft, Anno 1634 kam er nach Rom und perfectionirte sich daselbst durch
niedern Standspersonen beliebt und geehrt gemacht. Seine schönen Werke alle zu erzehlen, würde die beliebte Kürze dieses Werks allzuviel erweitern, dernthalben melden wir nur, daß seine Werke meistens in großen Historien und Contrafäten bestanden, so bey den höchsten Potentaten selbiger Landen in
verlangt und wichtig schiene, ihm angedinget worden, so daß man wol sagen mag, es seye dieser discrete Screta der andere Apelles auf diesem Käyserlichen Musen-Parnass gewesen, aus deßen klugen Hirn die fürnehmste Conclusiones und Emblemata (dern auf dieser uralten Universität mehr als an andern Orten herfür kommen) entsproßen,
damals der Blutbegierige Mars aus seinem Vatterland die friedfärtige
Ämsigkeit und Fleiß dergestalt, daß er sich reich genug schätzte, wieder
großen Ehren gehalten werden, wie derselben sehr viele in Prag
weil seine kluge inventiones denen Kupferstechern zu allerhand
Musen und Künste verjaget, auch er eine größere Wißenschaft zu erlangen suchte, begab er sich in
in sein Vatterland Prag zuruck zu kehren und daselbst die Früchte seines Füllhorns auszuschütten. Als
bey S[ancti] Nicolai, auf der kleinen Seiten bey S[ankt] Thomas und S[ancti] Wenceslai, in der Neustadt
löblichen Ausbildungen jederzeit richtige Anleitung gegeben. Nach vieler Arbeit und löblich-verrichteten
Italien und hielte sich in Venedig etliche Jahre rühmlich und also
er daselbst von denen Anverwandten und Kunstliebenden bewillkommet
bey S[ankt] Stephan, in der Layenkirchen, zu S[ancti] Martini,
Lebens- und Tugendslauf ist er endlich im 60ten Jahr seines Alters in
auf daß er alles denkwürdige sich bästmöglichst zu Nutzen machte und nicht allein einen schönen
worden, fand er die edle Mahlkunst in einem tiefen Schlamm äußerster Verachtung stecken und gleichsam
Salvatoris, in der Jesuiten-Closter, desgleichen zu Königssaler Closter, in Plaßer Closter, zu Leiteritz in
Prag unter dem Lob- und Leidklang aller Kunstliebenden verschieden, und deßelben Contrafät zu seiner
Kunstschatz samlete, sondern auch von diesem Reichtum den
gar aus der Stadt verbannisiret, dannenhero bemühte er sich
der Bischofskirchen, zu S[ancti] Laurentii in Melnich und an
unsterblichen Gedächtnus in die Kupferblatte OO. gesetzet worden.
Kunstliebenden wieder allerhand schöne Bilder und beliebige Historien mittheilte und dieselbe
möglichst, dieselbe durch fürtrefliche Kunstwerke wieder zu erheben und den Schmutz von ihrem Gesichte
andern mehr Orten zu sehen, die alle gnugsame Zeugnus geben, daß unser Künstler nich allein ein
[after p. 356]¹
mit Ausbildung natürlicher Affecten, wolgezeichneten Inventionen, guter
abzuwaschen, wie er dann sie wieder auf ihre vorige Stelle gesetzet und
universaler Theoreticus, sondern auch ein wolerfahrner Practicus gewesen seye
CAROL SCRETA V[on] PRAG MAHLER I v[on] Sandrart del[ineavit], Philipp
Manier, künstlichen Erhebungen und herlichem Colorit zierte, dannenhero diese seine Stuck stark gesucht und
in Flor gebracht, sich selbsten aber durch seine schöne Qualitäten, Freundlichkeit und löblichen
und der Natur in allem rühmlichst nachgefolget habe. Wordurch er dann auch ein solches Lob erhalten,
Kilian s[culpsit]
reichlich bezahlet worden zu immer
Tugendwandel bey hohen und
daß alles, was von hoher Hand
378 REPORTS ON KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE OF 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES
Tafel OO.
1 Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste, Nürnberg 1675–1679, ed. Christian Klemm, Nördlingen 1994, Teutsche
Academie 1675, II, Buch 3., p. 364: print signed OO and quoted with an explanatory note next to the list of prints executed by Philipp Kilian: “Blatten AA. BB. CC. DD. GG. OO. enthaltene Teutsche Meistere, welche alle mit sich in das Buch eines großen
Lobs dieses berühmten Künstlers Namen ziehen, und der Ewigkeit einverleiben, zumal täglich derselben noch mehr in dieses Buch und auch sonst von seiner edlen Hand erwartet werden.”
Joachim von Sandrart, 1683 Academia nobilissimae artis pictoriae, Norimbergae: [Autor] 1683, Partis Secundae Liber III., Cap. XXII, pp. 323–324.
CCLX. CAROLUS SCRETA Pragensis, Postquam in aetate sua juvenili ad vitam educatus esset omni morum
exornabat, ut haecce illius opera
voto etiam eidem succedebat, et ita
saltem fuisse universalem, sed
ambiose efflagitarentur, numerato pro illis pretio satis splendido, in
quidem, ut ipse simul ob morum civilitatem virtutumque culturam
Practicum quoque peritissimum, qui naturam in omnibus secutus sit
probitate conspicuam, ad artem pictoriam dehinc applicabatur;
perpetuum famae artificis nostri laboriosissimi incrementum. Urgente autem perpetuo animum
omnigenam apud quoscunque omnium statuu[m] amorem mereretur et honorem eximium.
simplicissime, unde tanta quoque eidem laus enata fuit, ut quicquid ab optimatibus desideraretur, et
ejus anxioq[ue] ad ulteriora hujus artis desiderio Bononiam abibat
Prolixa omnium operum ejus enarratio studium brevitatis in hoc
majoris esset ponderis, ad ipsum deferretur. Quam ob causam
atq[ue] Florentiam, inq[ua] Academiis istorum locorum peritiam suam insigniter locupletabat. Anno
opere nimium quantum disturbaret, unde id saltem referimus, picturas ejus, historias plerumque fuisse
haud absrequis dicere posset, secretiorum haru[m] scientiarum possessorem Scretam, alterum in
arma e[x] patria ejus quicquid pacificum esset, adeoq[ue] Musas
autem 1634 ad nos Romam quoq[ue] veniebat, ibiq[ue] continuata laborum
megalographicas, et viventium icones, quae omnes apud illius
Caesareo hoc Musarum Parnasso fuisse Apellem, e[x] cujus cerebro
quoq[ue] et artes procul fugassent, ipse ad majorem quoque adspirans studii sui perfectionem, in Italiam discedens, Venetiis per aliquot annos laudabiliter ita degebat, ut omnia
sedulitate ad tantam properabat perfectionem, ut divitem se satis aestimaret, pro reditu in patria[m], in qua[m] copiae suae cornu effunderet. Exceptus autem ibidem ab agnatis
Provinciae primores magni fuerunt aestimatae, prout exempla illarum extant plurima Pragae in templo S[ancti] Nicolai, in latere minori in templo D[ivi] Thomae, S[ancti]
praecipuae conclusiones atqu[ue] emblemata, (qualia in antiquissima hac Universitate eduntur plura, quam ullis in locis aliis) pronasco solerent; cum argutissimae ejus
inibi memorabilia, quoad ejus fieri posset, in usum suum converteret, nec sibi tantum egregium artis colligeret thesaurum, sed ex his quoq[ue] opibus varias graphicophilis imagines, historiasq[ue] satis delectabiles communicaret, quas expresso undiq[ue] affectu naturali, inventione decore delineata, pingendi modo optimo, levatione artificiosa, et coloribus verissimis
et technophilis, nobilissimam artem nostram in extremo contemptae vilitatis barathoro demersam, et ex Urbe Pragensi quasi exulem reperiebat, unde manibus pedibusq[ue] in id intendebat, ut operibus eandem clarissimis iterum elevaret, detersaq[ue] e[x] vultu ipsius spurcitie isthac squalida, in pristinam restitueret sedem atq[ue] existimationem, quod pro
Wenceslai; in Neapoli ad D[divi] Stephani fanum, in templo Laicorum in aede S[ancti] Martini, Salvatoris, in Collegio Patrum Societatis Jesu, sic et in coenobio Königsalensi, item Plassensi, nec non Lauteritiae in templo episcopali, ad S[ancti] Laurentii Melniciani, pluribusq[ue] in locis aliis e[x] quibus omnibus sufficie[n]tissime apparet. Artificem nostrum non theoreticu[m]
inventiones chalcographis ad varias ansam sufficientem praeberent editiones. Peractis autem deniq[ue] laboribus plurimis, cursuq[ue] vitae virtutum que laudabiliter emenso, anno aetatis 60 Pragae ex hac vita discessit, dolentibus immensum technophilis omnibus, nos autem in immortalem nominis ejus memoriam iconem ejus tabula[m] nostra[m] O.O. exhibere voluimus.
cujus praecepta fundamentalia, vi innatae sibi laboriositatis tam profunde maxime bibebat, ut in tenera adhuc aetate magna tamen jam laude dignus judicaretur. Cum autem sanguinolenta Mavortis
Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi, 1704 Abecedario pittorico nel quale compendiosamente sono descritte le patrie, i maestri, ed i tempi, ne’quali fiorirono circa quattromila professori di pittura, di scultura, e d’architettura diviso in tre parti, Bologna: Costantino Pisarri 1704, p. 112.
Carlo Screta da Praga si fermò gran tempo in Venezia, poi in Roma, dove si portò, l’anno 1634. Indi alla Patria,² ed in ogni luogo diede
2 The first edition of 1704 contains a misprint: “Patica” instead of “Patria”, which is corrected in the following editions.
bellissimi saggi del suo alto sapere; d’anni 60 morì. Sandrart fol. 324.
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 379
Roger de Piles, German edition 1710 Historie und Leben der berühmtesten europaeischen Mahler, so sich durch ihre Kunst-Stücke bekand gemacht, samt einigen Réflexions darüber und Abbildung eines vollkommenen Mahlers, nach welcher die Mahlerey als einer Regul kann beurtheilet werden, wobey auch der Nutzen und Gebrauch der Kupferstücke und Erklärung der gebräuchlichen Mahler-Wörter, Hamburg: Benjamin Schiller 1710, pp. 620–623.
Carolus Screta Von Praag (sic!), lernete in seiner Jugend die gruendliche Regeln
wohlgezeichneten Inventionen, guter Manier, kunstlichen Erhebungen, und herrlichen
dieselbe durch fürtrefliche Kunstwerke zu erheben, wie er denn auch gethan, und selbige wieder
Kloster, im Plasser-Kloster, zu Leiteritz in der Bischofs-Kirchen, zu S[anc]t[i] Laurentii in Melnich,
der Mahlerey, vermöge des ihm angebohrenen Fleisses, sehr wo[h]
Colorit, zierte. Dannenhero dieseseine Stücke sehr gesuchet,
in grosse Flor brachte, sich selbste aber durch seine Schöne Qualitäten,
und anderen Orten mehr zu sehen, die alle genugsam Zeugnis geben,
l, und brachte sich noch in früher[e] Jugend ein schönes Lob damit zuwege, und weilen damals die
und reichlich bezahlet wurden. Von dannen begab er sich nach Bologna und Florenz, und mehrete
Freundlichkeit, und tugenhafften Wandel, bey hohen und niedrigen Standespersonen, beliebt und geehrt
daß dieser Künstler nicht allein ein universaler Theoreticus, sondern auch ein wolerfahrener Practicus
Künstler durch den Krieg verjaget wurden, er auch eine grössere
auch auf diesen Kunst-Schulen seine Wissenschaft mercklich.
gemacht. Seine Wercke haben meistens in
gewesen sey, und der Natur in allen rühmlichst nach gefolgt
Wissenschaft zu erlangen suchte, begab er sich nach Italien, und hielte sich in Venedig etliche Jahre
Anno 1634 kam er nach Rom, und perfectionierte sich daselbst durch seine Embsigkeit und Fleiß
grossen Historien und Contrefaiten bestanden, so von dene[n] hohen Potentaten selbiger Landen in
habe, wodurch er denn auch ein solches Lob erhalten, daß die grosse Herren alle wichtige und grosse
rühmlich und also auf, daß er alles denkwürdige bestmöglichst sich zu
dergestalt, daß er genug zu haben vermeinete, womit er in sein[en]
grossen Ehren gehalten worden, wie denn derselben sehr viel in
Gemählde bey ihm machen liessen, und haben seine Fluge Inventiones
Nutzen machte, und nicht allein einen Schatz von Künsten samelte, sondern auch von diesen Reichthum denen Kunstliebenden allerhand schöne Bilder und beliebige Historien miteilte, und dieselbe mit Ausbildung natürlicher Affecten,
Vaterland nach Praag kehren, und dieser seiner Früchte geniessen kon[n]te: Als er nun daselbsten ankam, fand er die edle Mahl-Kunst in auserster Verachtung stecken, und gleichsam gar verbamnisfiret, daher es sich möglichst bemühete,
Praag, bey S[anc]t[i] Nicolai, auf der kleinen Seiten bey S[ank]t Thomas und S[anc]t[i] Wenceslai, in der Neustadt bey S[ank]t Stephan, in der Läuen Kirchen, zu S[anc]t[i] Martini, Salvatoris, in dem Jesuiter Kloster, desgleichen zu Königs-Saaler
denen kupferstechern zu allerhand lieblichen Ausbildungen jederzeit richtige Anleitung gegeben. Er ist im 60sten Jahr seines Alters zu Praag gestorben.
Arnold Houbraken, 1719 De groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen, Amsterdam: vor den Auther 1719, II, p. 144.
Waar aan wy ook laten volgen Carolus Creten van Praeg. Deze heest met den vermaarden Willem
in Italien gewoont; hij schilderde pourtretten, en was in de Roomse bend bekent, met den bynaam
Bouwer, die zeer fraay, en geestig in Waterverwe schilderde, lang
Slagzwaart.
Jacop Campo Weyerman, 1729 De Levens-beschryvingen der Nederlandsche Konst-Schilders en Konst-Schilderessen, ’s-Gravenhage: Bocquet 1729, II, p. 217.
Karel Creeten
Kronykschryver, Kornelis de Bie,
Was ook een Tydgenoot van dat paar konstryke Broeders, een
aldus by ons verandert. Wie dat Picturas macht en
Knaap gedoopt het Zlagzwaard by de Roomsche Schilderbende, die een verdienstig Historieschilder
adel poogt te weeten, Die zy milddaaglyk haar Lievelingen geeft, Bezie de konst van Karel
en Konterfyter is geweest, volgens de getuygenis van den Lierschen
Creeten, Die geen gering gedeelt’ in hare gonsten heeft.
380 REPORTS ON KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE OF 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES
Jean Baptiste Descamps, 1753 La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois, avec des portraits gravés en taille-douce, une indication de leurs principaux ouvrages, et des réflections sur leurs différentes manieres, Paris: Jombert 1753–1764, II, p. 367.
Charles Créeten Créeten était contemporain et ami
en Italie sa maniere de peindre le Portrait et celle de composer
de Guillaume Bauer; ils voyagèrent et demeurerent ensemble à Rome.
l’Histoire. On l’engagea à retourner à Prague, li[e]u de sa naissance, où il
Créeten fut appellé par la Bande Académique, l’Espadron. On aimait
a joui d’une grande réputation. On ne sçait s’il y est mort, nien quel temps.
Marcello Oretti, after 1760 Notizie de professori del dissegno, cioè pittori, scultori ed architetti bolognesi e de’ forastieri di sua scuola raccolte ed in più tomi divise da Marcello Oretti bolognese Accademico dell’Instituto delle scienze di Bologna, Volume quinto. Bologna, Biblioteca comunale dell’Archiginnasio, B 127, f. 556. Jana Zapletalová (ed.), Škréta, Sandrart, Oretti: poznámka ke Škrétovu působení v Itálii, Umění LVII, 2009, pp. 400–401.
Paolo (!) Screta dipintore fiorì³ nel 1634. Era costui nativo della città
1634, replicò studi, ed indi ritornò in patria. Dipinse ritratti, e storie,
Salvadore, nel colleggio de Gesuiti, ed in altri luoghi. Si fece dunque
di Norimberga 1633 nel libro terzo e pagina 323 e ciò serva per memoria di
di Praga. Studiò con indefessa applicazione la pittura, in Venezia per varii anni, indi in Bologna acquistò maggior fondamento in quelle Accademie ove dimostrò il suo valore, passò a Roma l’anno
ammiransi varie opere in Praga nel tempio di S. Niccolò, in un laterale minore del tempio di S[an] Tommaso e di S[an] Wenceslao ed in Napoli, nella chiesa de laici a S[anto] Stefano, in S[an] Martino, e del
onore con avere fabricato per lode dell’arte e morì in Praga nell’anno sessantesimo della età sua con dispiacere di chi lo conosceva e ciò ricavasi dalla Accademia de Pittori di Gioacchino Sandraert, editione
Paolo Screta della scuola di Bologna. 3 Jana Zapletalová, Škréta, Sandrart, Oretti: poznámka ke Škrétovu působení v Itálii, Umění LVII, 2009, p. 401. The scholar transcribes this as “fuori” which, however, does not make any sense.
Johann Rudolf Füssli (ed.), 1763 Allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon, oder: Kurze Nachricht von dem Leben und den Werken der Mahler, Bildhauer, Baumeister, Kupferstecher, Kunstgiesser, Stahlschneider etc etc. Zürich: Heidegger 1763 I, p. 504, p. 765.
Screta (Carolus), war ein Zeitgenoß und Freund des Wilhelm Baur; sie reißten miteinander gen [sic] Rom, die Italiaener schaetzten seine Art Portraite zu mahlen, und seine Composition in historischen Gemaehlden sehr hoch, hernach kam
er aus Begehren seiner Mitburger in seine Vaterstadt Prag zuruecte, woselbst er auch in grossem Ansehen⁴ verstarb. Descamps D. 2. P. 365.⁵ [p. 765] Carolus Screta. P. [= Mahler] I. Sandrart. P. I. Tab. O. O.
4 Probably from “angesehen”. 5 We transliterate the text in the framework of the unified modification following the norms valid for the period prior to 1750, even though it was written more than a decade after this date. Ivan Šťovíček et al., Zásady vydávání novověkých historických pramenů z období od počátku 16. století do současnosti. Příprava
vědeckých edic dokumentů ze 16.–20. století pro potřeby historiografie, Praha 2002, p. 61.
Johann August Lehninger, 1782 Abrégé de la vie des peintres, dont les tableaux composent la Galerie electorale de Dresde. Avec le détail de tous les tableaux de cette collection et des eclaircissemens historiques sur ces chefs-d’oeuvres de la peinture, Dresde: Frères Walters 1782, pp. 258–259.
XII. Charles Screta Né en 1619. [Il] ètudia la peinture en Italie et s’établit à Prague, où
e l’Electrise et des deux Princes ses fils. Ces portraits ont été gravés par Samuel Weishun. On ne trouve guère
cesse. Il avait une facilité singulaire à imiter les différentes manieres des grands peintres; cependant il
faisaient autrefois partie de ceux
il fut reçu dans la Confrérie des Peintres en 1644. De-là il se rendit
d’orné et de flatté dans ses ouvrages; cependant son dessein est toujours
s’attacha préférablement à celle du Guide. Bartholomé Klosse⁶ est
à Dresde, où il fut appellé pour peindre les portraits de l’Electeur
correct, qualité qu’il s’est acquise par une étude soigneuse des Antiques,
le meilleur de ses élèves; il mourut
déchaussés de St. Wenceslas à Prague. Actuellement il n’y en a que les copies, depuis que la Galerie
Jean George III., de M[a]d[amm]
d’après les quels il dessina sans
à Prague en 1674, agé de 70 ans. Les tableaux suivants de ce peintre
Electorale est ornée des originaux. Il y a ici de lui:
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 381
qu’on conservait dans la Bibliothéque du Couvent des Peres Augustins
No. 84. G. E. Portrait de Bernhard Witte, Commandeur de l’Ordre de Malthe; sur toile de 4 pieds ½ pouces de haut, 3 pieds 2 ½ pouces de large. þ 173. G. E. St. Mathieu; sur bois,
de 3 pieds 3 pouces de large, 2 pieds 6 pouces de haut. þ 174. G. E. St. Marc, avec le lion; sur bois, de la même grandeur. þ 175. G. E. St. Luc, avec le taureau;
sur bois, de la même grandeur. þ 176. G. E. St. Jean, avec l’aigle;
sur bois, de la même grandeur. þ 449. G. E. St. Grégoire affis, une
colombe sur son épaule, lisant dans un livre qu’il tient élevé. Sur bois, de 3 pieds 5 pouces de haut, 2 pieds 10 pouces de large.þ 450. G. E. St. Jérôme, demi-nu,
en action d’écrire; demi-figure. Sur bois, de 3 pieds 6 pouces de haut, 2 pieds 10 pouces large. þ 451. G. E. St. Paul, caracterisé
par son glaive, la doite élevée et l’autre posée sur le bord d’un livre. Sur toile, de 3 pieds 5 pouces de haut, 3 pieds de large. þ 452. G. E. St. Ambroise,
feuilletant un livre; sur bois, de 3 pieds 6 ½ pouces de haute, 2 pieds 10 pouces de large. þ 480. G. E. Buste de Moïse,
élevant les tables de la loi; sur bois, de 2 pieds de large, 1 pied 9 pouces de haut.
6 Jan Bartoloměj Klosse († 1679).
Pietro Zani, 1821 Enciclopedia metodica critico-ragionata delle belle arti dell’abate D. Pietro Zani Fidentino, Parma: Tipografia Ducale 1821, Vol. VII, p. 107; 1823, Vol. XVII, p. 182.
Vol. VII, p. 107 Crèeten Carlo, chiamato Espadron, Sereta, o Secreta, ed il Raffaello della Boemia PR. = Pittore – ritrattista P. = Pittore di storia tanto sacra, che profana D. = Disegnatore I. = Incisore di stampe a bulino, detto dai Tedeschi Kupferstechner Kunststecher
e Bassa Alemagna, formanti una sola scuola Merito: Cel. = celebre (bravissimo, celeberrimo, celebre, mediocre, molto mediocre) Nascita: 1611 Morte: 1674
ed anche Plattenscheneider Ted. = tedesco, qui sono compresi
f. (= fioriva) 1634 Screta Michele, P., Tedesco
tutti gli artefici dell’Alta
Vol. XVII, p. 182 Screta Paolo, P. PR., Tedesco,
Screta C = Crèeten
Stefano Ticozzi, 1830 Stefano Ticozzi, Dizionario degli architetti, scultori, pittori, intagliatori in rame ed in pietra, coniatori di medaglie, musaicisti, niellatori, intarsiatori d’ogni età e d’ogni nazione, Milano: Gaetano Schiepatti 1830, Vol. I, p. 375.
Creeten (Carlo) andò a Roma con Guglielmo Baver, ed ebba colà dalla banda accademica il soprannome di Espadron. Non tardò a farsi conoscere buon pittore non meno con piccoli quadri di storia che con somigliantissimi ritratti, ed
prevalse l’amor di patria, e non ebbe motivo di dolersi di esservi tornato; perocché non gli mancarono vantaggiose commissioni, né constanti dimostrazioni di stima per parte de’ suoi compatriotti. Fiorì alla metà del diciassettesimo secolo.
assai compiacevasi del soggiorno di Roma, dove conosceva di aver molto approfittato nell’arte. Pure 382 REPORTS ON KAREL ŠKRÉTA IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE OF 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES
The Historical Writings of Vilém Slavata of Chlum and Košumberk A Little Employed Source on Bohemian History of the First Half of the 17th Century ALENA RICHTEROVÁ
1 Josef Truhlář, Katalog českých rukopisů c. k. Veřejné a Universitní knihovny pražské, Praha 1906, p. 23, No. 59. 2 Alois Backer – Karl Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus 7, Bruxelles – Paris 1896, file 1843–1855. 3 Čeněk Zíbrt, Bibliografie české historie 4, Praha 1909, p. 216, No. 3812. 4 “Jezuité a Klementinum”, held between 24 April and 15 June 2006 in the Klementinum Gallery which had just opened at that time. The exhibition was accompanied by a publication with introductory essays and a catalogue of exhibits, entitled Jezuité a Klementinum (see also the separate English version, The Jesuits and the Clementinum), Alena Richterová – Ivana Čornejová (edd.), Praha 2006. 5 Let me give only a short selection: Josef Jireček, Přestoupení Viléma Slavaty k církvi katolické, Časopis katolického duchovenstva 3, 1862, pp. 401–435; Josef Dobiáš, Vilém Slavata, Časopis historický 1, 1881, pp. 267–309; 2, 1882, pp. 34–56; Josef Jireček, Leben des Obersten Hofkanzlers von Böhmen Wilhelm Grafen Slavata, Prag 1876; Petr Maťa, Oslavy jubilejního léta v Římě a česká šlechta, in: Jihočeský sborník historický 66, 1997, pp. 117–123; idem, Zrození tradice (slavatovské vyústění rožmberského a hradeckého odkazu), in: Václav Bůžek (ed.), Poslední páni z Hradce, České Budějovice 1998 (Opera historica 6, 1998), pp. 513–552; Thomas Winkelbauer, Fürst und Fürstendiener. Gundaker von Liechtenstein, ein österreichischer Aristokrat des konfessionellen Zeitlaters, Wien – München 1999, pp. 107–119; Petr Maťa, Svět české aristokracie (1500–1700), Praha 2004, pp. 547–549; idem, Von der Selbstapologie zur Apologie der Gegenreformation: Konversion und Glaubensvorstellungen des Oberstenkanzlers Wilhelm Slawata (1572–1652), in: Ute Lotz-Heumann – Jan-Friedrich Missfelder – Matthias Pohlig (edd.), Konversion und Konfession in der Frühen Neuzeit, Gütersloh 2007, pp. 287–322.
The Czech-written manuscripts held in the National Library of the Czech Republic include many valuable sources on Bohemian history but I will pay attention to only one of them in this essay. The spine of the manuscript with the signature XVII.B.12 reads The Story of Throwing Two Bohemian Counts out of the Prague Castle Windows [Příběh o vyhození dvouch hrabat českých z oken hradu pražskýho]. When Josef Truhlář was compiling the catalogue of the Klementinum manuscript collection,¹ he recognized it as a transcript of part of the work entitled The Historical Writings of Vilém Slavata [Historické spisování Viléma Slavaty] or, more particularly, part of its first volume describing the Prague defenestration and the second volume, featuring the events of 1611 and 1615 and the period between 1617 and 1619. The attached transsumta also include two other texts: a document about the election of Ferdinand II (f. 717v–729v) and, on f. 514v–55v, the Czech translation of the apologia of the Jesuit order, written by the distinguished German Jesuit Adam Tanner (1571–1632). Previous provenance of the Klementinum manuscript is unknown, and even though the volume bears the older signature “T. 26. In folio minori”, scholars have still not been able to identify its origin. The Tanner’s apology of the Society of Jesus was first published in print in 1618, first as written in Latin and then in a German translation.² Slavata, however, was probably writing this part of his most extensive work between 1638 and 1640, and the origination of the Klementinum manuscript can thus be dated to approximately the 1640s. And although Truhlář’s catalogue of Czech manuscripts was published as early as in 1906 and although Čeněk Zíbrt included notice of this manuscript as well as its other duplicates surviving in the Klementinum fund in his bibliography three years later,³ the volume in question has long been omitted, almost ignored by historians. It only received more attention due to the Czech version of the Tanner’s apology of the Society of Jesus. It also was one of the items on display at the spring 2006 exhibition “The Jesuits and the Clementinum”, organized in connection with the 450th anniversary of the Jesuits’ arrival in Bohemia.⁴ The preparatory works on the exhibition and the accompanying catalogue consequently awoke interest in other texts contained in this volume, and especially in the portrayal of the Prague Defenestration. For that matter, the latter text even captivated the ancient Klementinum librarians the most and made them therefore inscribe the binding of the entire volume with the above-mentioned title. The author of the considerably extensive work which became common under the more correct title The Historical Writings instead of the misrepresenting title Memoirs, used in the older partial edition, was Vilém Slavata of Chlum and Košumberk (1 December 1572 – 19 January 1652). The direct eyewitness of historical convulsions which in turn influenced developments in the whole of Europe has always enjoyed the considerable interest of historians and his life story was thus described in countless studies.⁵ I want to avoid repeating the facts so frequently mentioned, and will therefore focus on only one aspect in this EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 385
work: Slavata’s inconsistent personality which as if encompassed most of the contrasts of his era. The son of a poor noble family, where he received a rigorous upbringing in the spirit of the Czech Brethren, converted to Catholicism after staying with his Catholic relatives, the lords of Hradec to whom he also owed the financing of his Grand Tour to Italy. This step resulted in a substantial turn in his life: it allowed him to marry Lucie Otýlie, the sister of the last lord of Hradec, Jáchym Oldřich. The marriage was linked with Slavata’s extraordinary upswing on the social scale which elevated him to the rank of the richest Bohemian magnates, forever liberated him from financial troubles and brought him a prominent social position. He even came to rule the house of the Hradec lords after the death of his brother-in-law and intensively promoted the myth of the succession of the Hradec, Rožmberk and Slavata families.⁶ The conversion also opened the door for him to acquire distinguished positions. Although Slavata keeps assuring his father in the letters from that period that he would not actively aspire to any office in order to avoid accusations of careerist motivation linked with such a weighty step, he in no time attaches a postscript that he would do so only if these were offered to him.⁷ If we, however, consider his astonishing career in the clerical hierarchy, the offices were probably offered to him rather strongly: he was the Karlštejn burgrave between 1604 and 1611, was appointed court judge in 1611 and the supreme court judge several years later, was active as the head of the Bohemian Royal Chamber between 1612 and 1618 and, ten years later, finally achieved the ultimate goal, becoming imperial privy councillor in 1628.⁸ Apart from several other honorary degrees and offices, he held the most prestigious award, craved by the leading European aristocrats – the Order of the Golden Fleece. But he nevertheless felt underestimated towards the end of his life, especially with regard to the injuries suffered after he was unceremoniously flung from the Hradschin Castle window into the ditch below. As a convert, he as if again was proof of the well-known Czech proverb about the turncoats, because he always ranked among the advocates of the most rigid Catholic line and the supporters of the hardest sanctions for the Estates’ rebels. He, however, did not significantly participate in taking hold of and breaking up their confiscated properties during the post-White Mountain predation; Slavata only purchased Košumberk from the vast confiscates – contrary to many old Bohemian families who, without blushing, were unashamed enough to lay the foundations of their considerably extensive dominions during that very period. But he still took maximum advantage of every suitable opportunity to valorise his immaterial estates instead – the social status of his family. The real strength of his faith is proved by the fact that after his conversion he underwent eight-day exercises with the Jesuits every year. He devotedly believed in miracles, most probably under the influence of his own several experiences. This also may be why he fell for mysticism at the end of his life and found himself in tow of the charismatic visionary, Hieronymus Gladich SJ.⁹ Slavata also was a very conscientious and diligent officer, even keeping diary records about his activities with great preciseness from the beginning of his clerical career. He certainly approached the duties related to all the offices he held very responsibly, and many of his pleadings and written treatises as well as their duplicates which he made for himself survive.¹⁰ The disposition of a reliable officer is moreover rather soundly proven by Slavata’s ardent fondness for the written word although it was not just his own writing activities but mainly dictating or assigning parts of texts to copyists, proofreaders and the like. We will probably never be certain whether he was moved to do this by the irresistible urge to record everything that would otherwise be forgotten or not expressed strongly enough or, possibly, by the exorbitant sense of responsibility – even though Slavata himself often belittled his motivations of this kind in an effort to amuse and enlighten his friends.¹¹ All these possible motives seem to correspond with his promise given to the Jesuits in summer 1644 when the ten principles which would rule his future life also included to continue on the started historiography (“… in scribendo historiae iam ab aliquibus annis a me inceptae …”).¹² The earliest text written by Vilém Slavata is most probably The Notes from between 1601 and 1603 [Zápisky z let 1601 až 1603]. The manuscript – a result of the author’s dictation – is held in the Jindřichův Hradec archives and its edition was published by Antonín Rezek in 1887.¹³ A similar type of literary work, loosely following up on the earlier publication, is The Notes of Vilém Slavata from 1607, 1608, 1613–1615 [Zápisky Viléma Slavaty z let 1607, 1608, 1613–1615]. They are known from a manuscript treasured in the library of the Knights of the Cross with 386 THE HISTORICAL WRITINGS OF VILÉM SLAVATA OF CHLUM AND KOŠUMBERK
6 Václav Bůžek – Josef Hrdlička – Pavel Král – Zdeněk Vybíral, Věk urozených. Šlechta v českých zemích na prahu novověku, Praha–Litomyšl 2002, pp. 61–62. 7 František Teplý, Proč se stal Vilém Stavata z Chlumu a Košumberka z českého bratra katolíkem?, Sborník Historického kroužku 13, 1912, pp. 205–221; 14, pp. 25–41, 171–181, esp. p. 174. 8 František Palacký, Přehled současný nejvyšších důstojníků a úředníků zemských i dvorských v království Českém od nejstarších časů až do nynějška, Praha 1832, tables III and IV. 9 P. Maťa, Von der Selbstapologie (see note 5), p. 297, where the author also quotes from his earlier articles on the given subject. 10 His copybooks as well as other sources worth attention are part of the family documents held in the State Regional Archives of the City of Třeboň (hereinafter, SOA Třeboň), branch Jindřichův Hradec, fund Rodinný archiv Slavatové (Archives of the Slavata Family). The edition of the books of copies is currently in preparation by the Historical Institute of the Philosophical Faculty of the South-Bohemian University in České Budějovice. 11 Josef Jireček, Paměti nejvyššího kancléře Království českého Viléma hrabětě Slavaty, I, Praha 1866, p. 6. 12 P. Maťa, Von der Selbstapologie (see note 5), p. 297. 13 Zápisky Viléma Slavaty z let 1601–1603, Antonín Rezek (ed.), Praha 1887 (Rozpravy královské české společnosti nauk VII /2, No. 4). The manuscript is deposited in SOA Třeboň, branch Jindřichův Hradec, fund Rodinný archiv Slavatové (Archives of the Slavata Family).
14 A more recent duplicate, executed by the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, can be found in the Prague library of the same order under sign. XXI C 33. Jiří Pražák described it in his Katalog rukopisů křižovnické knihovny nyní deponovaných ve Státní knihovně ČSR, Praha 1980, pp. 96–97, Nos. 82 and 83. Rezek’s duplicate was available to Kamil Krofta in the early 20th century and it today forms part of Rezek’s inheritance. For the contents of the texts, see Kamil Krofta, Zápisky Viléma Slavaty o věcech moravských z l. 1607, 1608, 1613–1615, Český časopis historický 16, 1910, pp. 44–51; Jaroslav Čechura, Z moravského úřadování Viléma Slavaty, in: Luděk Březina – Jana Konvičná – Jan Zdichynec (edd.), Ve znamení zemí Koruny české. Sborník k šedesátým narozeninám prof. PhDr. Lenky Bobkové, CSc., Praha 2006, pp. 142–153; Zdeněk Vybíral, Autorita a moc v pamětech urozených, in: Václav Bůžek – Pavel Král (edd.), Paměť urozenosti, Praha 2007, pp. 119–133. 15 The National Archives, fund Řád kapucínů, manuscript No. 3325. For more on the subject, see Marie Tošnerová (ed.), Průvodce po rukopisných fondech v České republice, IV. Rukopisné fondy archivů v České republice, Praha 1998, p. 162. 16 The National Library of the Czech Republic, manuscript sign. XVII.D.35. The manuscript in question was described by J. Truhlář (see note 1), p. 63, No. 165. For more details on the contents of the manuscript, see Josef Polišenský, Viléma Slavaty relace o jednání v příčině knížectví Opavského 1614–1615. Příspěvek k poznání politického myšlení předbělohorských Čech, Slezský sborník 51, 1953, pp. 488–498. 17 Josef Salaba, Slavatova apologie jezuitů, Český časopis historický 4, 1898, pp. 324–332; Antonín Markus, Stavovské apologie z roku 1618, Český časopis historický 17, 1911, pp. 58–74, 200–217, 304–315, 421–435; Josef Hrdlička, Slavatova obrana jezuitského řádu a jeho představy o konfesijním uspořádání Čech z počátku 17. století, Folia Historica Bohemica 23, 2008, pp. 225–249. 18 SOA Třeboň, branch Jindřichův Hradec, Rodinný archiv Slavatové, Inv. No. 109, sign. III A 1, box 13, f. 213–323; on this, see J. Hrdlička, Slavatova obrana (see note 17), p. 233. 19 Jiří Plachý the Elder (1586–1655) abandoned his family name after joining the Jesuit order in 1604 and was thereinafter recorded under the adopted name Ferus. For more on this, see Anna Fechtnerová, Jiří Ferus and Jiří Plachý, in: Pavel R. Pokorný (ed.), Pocta Dr. Emmě Urbánkové. Spolupracovníci a přátelé k 70. narozeninám, Praha 1979, pp. 427–457. 20 The South-Bohemian Research Library in České Budějovice – Zlatá Koruna, Department of Manuscripts and Old Prints (historical funds), sign. I JH 3. The description of the manuscript can be found in: Bohumil Ryba, Soupisy rukopisů a starých tisků z fondu Státní vědecké knihovny v Českých Budějovicích 3, České Budějovice 1985, p. 250. For more details on this, see J. Hrdlička, Slavatova obrana (see note 17), pp. 231–233. 21 A. Markus, Stavovské apologie (see note 17), p. 233. 22 Slavata’s correspondence survived as part of the archive documents of the Slavata family archives; see SOA Třeboň, branch Jindřichův Hradec, Rodinný archiv Slavatové. The author of the present treatise drew solely on the notes from the foreword to the earlier edition of the first two books of The Historical Writings; see J. Jireček, Paměti nejvyššího kancléře (see note 11), pp. 5–6.
the Red Star, although the original 17th-century quarto manuscript is missing and its duplicate, in part corrected after the original, was made in the latter half of the 19th century. Even Antonín Rezek still worked with the original manuscript but he did not believe it to be Slavata’s autography. It, then, remains a mystery why Rezek’s duplicate is not identical with the text of the duplicate executed by the Knights.¹⁴ Nor is anything known about the circumstances of the origination of yet another surviving manuscript, The Memoirs of the Moravian Issues 1607–1616 (Paměti o věcech moravských 1607–1616), deposited as part of the archive documents of the Capuchin order.¹⁵ These latter notes are mainly dedicated to Slavata’s participation in the Moravian assemblies where he acted as the commissioner representing the emperor. The fact that Slavata along with other participants were authorised to negotiate in the matter of the Opava Duchy between 1614 and 1615 was probably linked with his abovementioned activity. Slavata issued a detailed, Czech-written report from the session, whose contemporary duplicate survived in the collection of manuscripts held in the Prague National Library.¹⁶ During 1622 and in the first six months of 1623, Slavata worked on a voluminous text entitled The Defence Plea of the Honourable Fathers of Societatis Jesu, i.e. the Society of Jesus, against the Decree of the Estates of the Bohemian Kingdom; Those who Call Themselves Utraquists [Obranní odpověď ctihodných otcův Societatis Jesu, to jest Tovaryšstva Ježíšového, proti obecnímu decretu stavův království Českého, těch, ježto se po obojí nazývají], it is the apologia of the Jesuit Order.¹⁷ Slavata’s original, Czech-written manuscript was deposited in the library of the Jesuit College in Jindřichův Hradec. It was transferred to the local library of the Franciscan monastery in the late 18th century, where it could still be found during the 1930s. All trace of it vanished during the troubled 1950s at the latest. The bulk of the archive documents on Slavata, however, also include two surviving Czech fragments of part of the first volume, personally corrected by Slavata sometime during the 1620s.¹⁸ Another contemporary transcript of the Czech version of The Defence Plea faced a similar fate as the original manuscript: it, too, was to be deposited in the library of the Franciscan monastery in Jindřichův Hradec; it, too, is missing, but there is still its conscientious duplicate, executed between 1914 and 1916 due to the unceasing effort of the Czernin archive keeper and historian, František Teplý. Slavata wished The Defence Plea to be translated into Latin and German. If the German version was indeed made, it is missing as well. The Latin translation, ascribed to the Jesuit Jiří Ferus-Plachý,¹⁹ is known from the manuscript originating from the second quarter of the 17th century, which arrived at the library in Zlatá Koruna from the library of the Jindřichův Hradec Franciscan monastery.²⁰ And although reports from the early 20th century mention yet another manuscript of the Latin version to be held in the library of the Prague Metropolitan Chapter, no evidence of it can be found in printed catalogues.²¹ The inspiration beyond the most extensive literary achievement by Slavata, i.e. his Historical Writings to which he devoted the last fifteen years of his life, was more than tangible. Visiting Regensburg in 1626 as a member of Emperor Ferdinand I’s entourage, he had the opportunity to encounter the treatise by Heinrich Matthias of Thurn. He simply could not disregard Thurn’s words advocating the Defenestration as a fair retaliation for breaching the preceding written agreements between the Utraquist Estates and the Catholics, and he thus decided to respond after discussing the matter with his friends, especially Jaroslav of Martinic and Heinrich of Kolowrat. He had enough sources at hand to draw on: his own notes and texts written right after the unfortunate event, the Martinic report, and the duplicates of the related vast correspondence. Slavata then provided the individual files of his dictated text with the detailed description of all the events and with many detours and duplicates of important documents to his friends, asking them to correct the possible mistakes, and afterwards engaged in their final editing. The work was therefore finished in 1640, resulting in two comprehensive volumes. Right after, Slavata became inspired by the idea of the Jesuit Jiří Ferus-Plachý as to the necessity to follow up with the Hájek Chronicle [Hájkova kronika].²² He himself thus took charge of not only substantiating the hereditability of the Bohemian royal throne but also writing the Bohemian history from the arrival of the Habsburgs to the Bohemian throne and later extended the subject to the history of Austrian and German lands and then also to events in other European countries. EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 387
He moreover continued sending the final files for correcting while many mentions about this are contained in his correspondence where we can also find frequent notes about how he obtained his sources: hand-written duplicates, printed treatises or just their excerpts.²³ In his letter to Jiří Ferus-Plachý of 22 February 1638, Slavata very favourably values the German Jesuit apologia, considering it substantial for his purposes. It is rather interesting that, according to its title, it is a work by Tanner whose Czech translation is part of our discussed manuscript (XVII.B.12). As the original plans continuously expanded, Slavata’s working method changed. While the third and the fourth books are still only commented compilations, he decided to turn the collected material, translated into Czech, into his own text from the fifth book on.²⁴ No wonder then that the entire treatise, on which Slavata worked almost to the end of his life, finally formed fourteen large volumes divided into 49 parts. The very many manuscripts in which the individual parts of The Historical Writings survived to our day seem to prove that they represented very popular reading up to the 18th century.²⁵ The original volumes of the Czech text, written on only the right side of the page, are today held in the archives of Jindřichův Hradec, although older literature states that the tenth book is missing (and was replaced by a duplicate in 1888) and the second book became part of the collection of Jan Peter Cerroni through Tomáš Pešina of Čechorod and Leopold Šeršník and is today deposited in the Moravian Archives in Brno.²⁶ Another most complete collection from the 17th century (Books I, II, III, VIII, IX, X) was in the possession of Tomáš Pešina of Čechorod and now forms part of the National Museum Library where moreover yet another bulk is held: the first eight books which, however, represent a more recent duplicate – from as late as the 1720s – that arrived at the museum library in 1846 from the inheritance of Professor Mikan.²⁷ Well-equipped in this respect also was the library of Tomáš Antonín Putzlacher, later acquired for the Prague Lobkowicz library from his inheritance.²⁸ The author of The Historical Writings wished his work to be translated into German. The German translation is solely known in the case of the first eight books while probably only the first two books or, eventually, the depiction of the Defenestration were translated into Latin. Among the first ones to use Slavata’s text as the source to older history were the Czech historians Bohuslav Balbín, Tomáš Pešina of Čechorod and Jan Beckovský. Most desired from the beginning of the publishing of the partial editions of texts from The Writings were the passages related to the Defenestration and the immediately preceding events, while the abbreviated passages came out as early as in 1820, 1845 and 1850.²⁹ Josef Jireček then took charge of compiling a more complete edition of selected parts. On the basis of the Jindřichův Hradec manuscript, Jireček published the portrayal of the Hungarian events during the reign of Ferdinand I in 1857 and, several years later (in 1866 and 1868), the edition of the first two books or, more precisely, two volumes under the slightly confusing title Memoirs finally came out within the series Monumenta historiae Bohemica thanks to his unceasing care.³⁰ The foreword to the first volume of the edition not only informs about the circumstances of the work’s origination but also provides an extensive regesta of all the other books of The Writings, regesta of notes on their writing from Slavata’s correspondence and the list of manuscripts known in that period: besides the manuscripts deposited in the central institutions (what is, today, the National Library of the Czech Republic, the National Museum Library and the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna), it mainly states the manuscripts held in private property at that time, most of which were successfully identified in the list of manuscripts known today (see Appendix 2). The modern edition of another part of the work – Slavata’s interpretation of the religious history in the Bohemian lands – was published only in the early 20th century.³¹ The portrayal of the causes and developments of the Prague Defenestration and the future fates of its three passive participants thus enjoyed the greatest interest from the very beginning. Its main asset lies in the fact that it is a compilation of their own reports recorded shortly after the events.³² Yet another substantial source besides the reports of the eyewitnesses is the portrayal in the Church History [Historie církevní], written by Pavel Skála of Zhoř and employing the reports of those who mainly participated in the events prior to the Defenestration.³³ Throwing three officials out of the Prague Castle windows represented such a scandalous affair at that time that it instantly became the “scoop” of all the contemporary communication media and media networks. It was then immediately 388 THE HISTORICAL WRITINGS OF VILÉM SLAVATA OF CHLUM AND KOŠUMBERK
23 Ibid., pp. 7–12. 24 A letter addressed to J. Ferus-Plachý and dated 22 October 1642; Ibid., p. 11. 25 I present the list of the hitherto discovered manuscripts of the Czech, German and Latin versions in Appendix 2. The list, however, in no way aspires at completeness because it could not depart from personal research of the relevant volumes but was instead exclusively issued on the basis of the tools available at the time of writing the present essay. 26 SOA Třeboň, branch Jindřichův Hradec, Rodinný archiv Slavatové, Inv. Nos. 84–97. See Marie Tošnerová (ed.), Průvodce po rukopisných fondech v České republice II. Rukopisné fondy archivů v České republice, Praha 1998, p. 188. The loss of the two volumes had already been reported by Josef Jireček, Paměti nejvyššího kancléře (see note 11), quoted below, p. 29. I am immensely grateful to Mrs Stanislava Nováková, the head of the Department of Funds and Collections, SOA Třeboň, branch Jindřichův Hradec, for providing me very detailed information on the preservation and structure of the individual files; see also Appendix 2 to the present essay. The second book is held in the Moravian Archives in Brno, G 12 – Collection Cerroni, sign. Cerr II 352. The description of the manuscript including the notes as to its provenance can be found in: Mojmír Švábenský, Cerroniho sbírka 13. stol.–1845, Brno 1973 (Inventories and Catalogues of the SOA Brno Funds, No. 26. G 12), p. 591, Inv. No. 468. 27 The National Museum Library, sign. III B 4. Collection Mikan is listed in the manuscript sign. I C 1 /1–8; its description is provided by František Michálek Bartoš, in: Soupis rukopisů Národního musea v Praze, Praha 1926, pp. 13–15, 115–116. 28 The National Library of the Czech Republic, the Lobkowicz library in Prague. The two volumes of the manuscript sign. XXIII.C.48 /1–2 contain the Czech version of Books I, II, III and VIII–X while the eight volumes of the manuscript sign. XXIII.C.31 /1–8 contain eight books of the German translation. Descriptions of the manuscripts are part of: Milada Svobodová, Rukopisy ze sbírek Tomáše Antonína Putzlachera, Michaela Schustera a dalších nešlechtických bibliofilů ve fondu pražské lobkowiczké knihovny v Národní knihovně České republiky, Praha 2011, records Nos. 30 and 18. 29 Josef Liboslav Ziegler, Zpráva hraběte Viléma Slavaty o tom, co se v kanceláři české na hradě pražském dne 23. máje 1618 ráno před vyhozením z okna královských místodržících dálo a promlouváno bylo, Dobroslav I, Vol. 3, 1820, pp. 53–101; Jakub B. Malý, Příspěvek k historii české sedmnáctého století, Časopis českého museum 19, 1845, pp. 190–212; idem, Příběhy Jaroslava z Martinic a Viléma Slavaty po jich vyhození z okna, Časopis českého museum 24, 1850, pp. 49–80. 30 Josef Jireček, Děje království uherského za panování Ferdinanda I. Svazek I. Od Leta 1526–1546, Viléma hraběte Slavaty z Chlumu a z Košumberka, vladaře domu Hradeckého, pána na Hradci Jindřichově, Stráži, Telči, Žirovnici a Mělnice, nejvyššího dědičného šenka království českého, císařův Ferdinanda II. a III. skutečného tejného rady a komorníka, rytíře Zlatého rouna, Vídeň 1857; idem, Paměti nejvyššího kancléře království českého Viléma hraběte Slavaty z Chlumu a Košmberka, vladaře domu Hradeckého, pána na Hradci Jindřichově, Stráži, Telči, Žirovnici a Mělnice, nejvyššího dědičného šenka království českého, císařův Ferdinanda II. a III. skutečného tejného rady a komorníka, rytíře Zlatého rouna (nar. 1. prosince 1572, zemř. 19. ledna 1652) od L. 1608 do 1619, Vol. I, 1608, 1618–1619, Part II, 1611, 1615, 1617–1619, Praha 1866 and 1868 (Staré paměti dějin českých. Monumenta historiae Bohemica, II, department III, Vols. 1–2). 31 Vilém Slavata z Chlumu a Košumberka, Přehled náboženských dějin českých, Hanuš Opočenský (ed.), Praha 1912. 32 Fridolin Macháček, Defenestrace pražská r. 1618, Český časopis historický 14, 1908, pp. 197–211, 297–311, 436–451. 33 Pavel Skála ze Zhoře, Pavla Skály ze Zhoře Historie česká 1–5, Karel Tieftrunk (ed.), Praha 1865–1870 (Monumenta historica Bohemiae, Vol. 2); Pavel Skála ze Zhoře, Historie česká od defenestrace k Bílé hoře, Josef Janáček (ed.), Praha 1984.
34 The survey of sources is stated by F. Macháček, Defenestrace (see note 32), pp. 197–211; his quotation of sources is, however, devaluated by the incomplete information as to the places of their deposition. 35 The original of the report, entitled “Ungefehrliche, doch wahrhafte Beschreibung, was am Montag, Erchtag und Mitwochen oder die drei Täg vor dem Fest Ascensionis mit dem königlichen Herren Statthaltern unnd thails aus dem Mittel der H. Stende sub utraque auf dem königlichen Prager Schloss in der behemischen Hofkanzlei sich verloffen und zugetragen hat anno 1618”, is today part of the family archives of the Lobkowicz family, held in the château Nelahozeves. The duplicate of the report reportedly survived in the collection of transcripts of the Prague National Archives; on this, see F. Macháček, Defenestrace (see note 32), p. 197. 36 Ibid., p. 198, where the author quotes the source without identifying it more closely. It cannot be excluded that this is an anonymous report, today deposited in SOA Třeboň, branch Jindřichův Hradec, box 18. I am very grateful to Mrs Stanislava Nováková from the Jindřichův Hradec archives for this information. 37 The treatise by František Mareš, Das Martinic’sche Geschichtswerk, Mitteilungen des Institus für österreichische Geschichstforschung, 1885, pp. 310–311, quotes the unfinished duplicate of the report, held in manuscript form in the Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Nr. 5056. It is deposited under the title “Wahrhafte und eigentliche Beschreibung alles dessen, so sich vor ind bey Heranstützung der Herren obersten Landoffizieren aus dem Prager Schloß im Jahre 1618 zugetragen, von einem, welcher allen und jeden personlich beygewohnt, aufgezeichnet worden ist”, as it was also published by Josef Antonín Riegger, Archiv für Geschichte und Statistik, insbesondere von Böhmen, II, Dresden 1793, pp. 498–537, and based on Putzlacher’s manuscript, today held in the National Library of the Czech Republic, sign. XXIII.C.5 /1, pag. 669–730. Its modern edition was published in: Miroslav Toegel et al. (edd.), Documenta bohemica bellum tricennale illustrantia, II, Praha 1972, pp. 42–51. Other manuscripts I state are, in the Prague National Library: the manuscript from the possession of František Martin Pelcl, later in the Děčín library of Thun-Hohensteins (current sign. XIX.A.35), and manuscript sign. XVII.A.35; in the Strahov library: manuscript sign. DH I 9, sign. DG III 43; in the National Museum Library: manuscripts sign. VI C 8, VI G 2, VIII A 18; in the Fürstenberg library at Křivoklát: manuscripts sign. I and 14, sign. II b 3, and most probably also in SOA Litoměřice, the Episcopal library of Emmanuel of Waldstein: manuscript sign. B I F 87. The escape was described on the basis of museum manuscripts as well as other sources by Miloslav Volf, Jaroslav Bořita z Martinic po defenestraci, Středočeský sborník historický 7, 1972, pp. 76–90. 38 F. Macháček, Defenestrace (see note 32), p. 201, quotes the original letter by Fabricius, today held in the Saxon State Archives (Dresden); he, however, does not identify the source in more detail. The duplicate of the report, executed by the care of Knight Jan Jeník of Bratřice after the duplicate held in the Lobkowicz archives in Roudnice, is in the manuscript of the National Museum Library, sign. IV G 13 /1, under the label “Bohemica I”. 39 The manuscript entitled “Vera et compendiosa relatio eorum, quae ante, in et post eiectionem ex fenestra cancelariae in regno Bohemiae duorum comitum Guilielmi Slavatae et Jaroslai a Martinicz, imperatoris ec regis Bohemiae Mathiae austriaci in dicto regno locum tenentium una cum secretario Philippo Fabricio ipsa vigilia ascensionis sive 23. mai Anni 1618 acciderunt” is held by SOA Třeboň, branch Jindřichův Hradec, Rodinný archiv Slavatové, box No. 18, Inv. No. 116. 40 J. Jireček, Paměti nejvyššího kancléře (see note 30), Vol. 2, pp. 99–114; see the manuscript from the National Library of the Czech Republic, sign. XVII.B.12 on f. 19r–39r. 41 Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 81–94, in the presently stated manuscript held by the National Library of the Czech Republic, sign. XVII.B.12 on f. 1r–18r. 42 Ibid., p. 9. 43 P. Martinus Santinus (c. 1577–1655 in Prague), P. Melchior Trevinius (c. 1553–1628 in Prague). For more biographical data, see Karl Fischer, Catalogus (generalis) provinciae Bohemiae (1623–1773) et Silesiae (1755–1733), München 1985 (reproduced typescript), pp. 137 and 167.
reflected in the reports issued by the envoys at the court, in the courtiers’ correspondence, the reports and correspondence of the Prague Jesuits as well as in the contemporary journalism³⁴ – although the historians have hitherto drawn only little from those reports, published in both written and printed newspapers. Naturally, the information provided by those who experienced the moments of mortal threat first-hand is of extraordinary value. We can hardly expect them to be impartial but, on the other hand, their bias can be rather eloquent. The reports are highly stylised, are products of personal partiality and the lapse of time, but they echo so many features of personal characters as to serve as clues to how variously each of the participants coped with the suffered trauma. Right after the incident, during his one-year involuntary sojourn in the palace of Polyxena of Lobkowicz, Vilém Slavata wrote the first record of what occurred between 21 and 23 May 1618, entitled “Ungefehrliche, doch wahrhafte Beschreibung …” and addressed it to his hostess’ husband, the Supreme Chancellor Zdeněk Popel of Lobkowicz.³⁵ The effort to promptly inform the competent officials about the course of events and to also compensate the still fresh impressions by describing the traumatic experience is clearly apparent from the unsettled flow of thoughts and the curtness of expression. A brief excerpt of Slavata’s report was the anonymous “Concise Description of Events which Occurred in Prague on 23 May 1618” [Krátké vypsání událostí dne 23. května 1618 v Praze se stalých],³⁶ which slightly modifies the part of the Supreme Burgrave, Adam of Sternberg. It thus seems that the writer most probably moved in the closest burgrave’s circles. The second direct participant of the Defenestration, Jaroslav Bořita of Martinic, began recording his experiences during his refuge in Bavaria where he fled soon after his rescue and concealed escape from the country. Martinic’s report, entitled “Wahrhafte und eigentliche Beschreibung…”, survived in numerous duplicates and its edition was compiled by Josef Antonín Riegger in 1793 from the manuscript which was at that time in the possession of Tomáš A. Putzlacher.³⁷ The portrayal by Martinic is much starchier in style and is considerably self-centred; the author, after all, was not an especially good observer. A brief description of the event was also provided by the secretary of the German expedition, the university master Filip Fabricius, via his letter most probably addressed to the Secretary of the Court Chamber, Mattias Arnoldino of Clarstein. It mainly revolves around the writer’s own experience, and a major part of the account was employed by Pavel Skála of Zhoř in his History [Historie]. The complete text of Fabricius’ report was then copied by Knight Jan Jeník of Bratřice to the manuscript which today forms part of the National Museum collections.³⁸ All the above-mentioned accounts were reflected by Vilém Slavata as soon as he returned to the subject after approximately two decades – first in his Czech-written report, known from the Latin translation entitled “Vera et compendiosa relatio…” and dated 1640³⁹ and, soon afterwards, in his Historical Writings. The latter treatise mentions the May 1618 events in two places. Slavata described all the negotiations preceding the critical act in its second book,⁴⁰ drawing from his own earlier texts. He then elaborated on the events that occurred in the course of and shortly after the Defenestration in the first book⁴¹ where he, surprisingly enough, mainly employed the text by Martinic who also probably knew the account of Fabricius. The structure of the present Klementinum manuscript (sign. XVII.B.12) varies from the other surviving manuscripts of The Historical Writings to a certain extent: it begins with the depiction of the course of the Defenestration – i.e. with the only excerpt from the first book. The author then directly continues with the portrayal of the preceding negotiations and then follows the structure of the second book. Remarkable among the inserted texts is especially the Tanner’s Jesuit apologia. Slavata was certainly very familiar with it and considered it substantial, which is also apparent from his correspondence of February 1638.⁴² The manuscript is executed in a single hand and probably after a hardly legible model because the writer’s frequent mistakes were additionally corrected by someone else. And while the scrivener was most likely fluent in Czech – although he seemed to struggle with declining the term “count” – he was obviously more troubled by the Italian and Latin. The inconsistency in writing the names of the Jesuits P. Martinus Santinus and P. Melchior Trevinius⁴³ testifies to the uncertainty of not only the writer but also the proof-reader. The Italian name of the field surgeon Petr Thomasoni is both inscribed and corrected mistakenly in the major part of the text, even though the proof-reader additionally included the EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 389
correct term “bonesetter” [barbíř] instead of the confusing “dyer” [barvíř] in all mentions about Thomasoni. As far as I can assume on the basis of the earlier edition,⁴⁴ however, the latter term was most probably also used in Slavata’s fair copy from Jindřichův Hradec. But the Klementinum wording is not totally identical with the one of the Jindřichův Hradec volume – the two very often vary in terminology and word order and some words or parts of sentences were left out. The events that occurred within the confines of the Office, in the Prague Castle ditch and on the Hradschin bulwarks on 23 May 1618 have been sufficiently documented almost minute by minute. We nevertheless cannot resist mixed feelings while reading the following text. Slavata included it in his Writings only two decades after the distressing experience, mainly taking over the texts written by his partner during that period. Since the historians have only little employed the Klementinum manuscript, I find it useful to present here the edition of the part of the text featuring the development of the Defenestration and the rescue of its leading protagonists. The description of the glints of fatal anxiety – which everyone in a similar situation would inevitably experience – is especially striking due to the thorough portrayal of the attire of the two main actors and mainly the very detailed picture of the luxurious hats and jewellery of which they were stripped before being flung from the window, let alone the unvoiced accusation that their adversaries thus intentionally enriched themselves. The depiction of the subsequent events then reflects considerable differences in the characters of the two leading protagonists, and Slavata eventually comes out a little better from the comparison. The menials carried Slavata to the Lobkowicz palace where he somewhat recovered from the concussion, caused by a serious head injury, with the help of the bonesetter Petr Thomasoni. He then confessed to the canon of the St Vitus chapter, Jan Ctibor Kotva of Freifeld, and sent a message to his wife, informing her that she had better not even try to get to him. The source, however, does not inform us at this point about things that followed shortly after; we only know that Slavata was forced to sign an extremely unfavourable waiver and to agree to his “house arrest” in the Lobkowicz palace which eventually stretched to almost a year. But he immediately began recording the entire affair even despite the arduous conditions and not only provided them in writing to the supreme chancellor but also adroitly delivered them to his adversary thanks to his wife’s contacts with the wife of Count Thurn. The second leading actor in the Defenestration cause, Martinic, reached the house of Polyxena of Lobkowicz unharmed, climbing up the cast ladder and getting inside through the window. He began confessing himself to the canon Kotva, but as soon as his personal confessor P. Santinus SJ arrived, he gave preference to him. Immediately afterwards, he began planning his conspiratorial escape from Prague with the help of the canon Kotva and the two Jesuits, P. Martinus Santinus and P. Melchior Trevinius. His first prudent step was obtaining the funds necessary to accomplish his goal, and he thus authorised Kotva to withdraw 300 ducats from his writing table. It is worth noticing that Martinic at the same time totally ignored the heavily injured Slavata lying in the adjacent room, arguing that some untrustworthy persons might recognize him. He then procured for himself the poorest rags possible from the domestics, and the bonesetter Thomasoni helped him turn into a vagabond whom even his own servants could not recognize. Clad in the degrading costume, Martinic arrived at his own palace in the early evening in the company of the bonesetter, although conspiracy confined him to the attic. He immediately summoned his wife, ordering her to leave her father’s house where she had sought refuge after receiving the news about the fate of her husband and to join him without delay. He then set off on foot as far as to the White Mountain, wearing the same disguise and being accompanied by the bonesetter and a servant, and hastily left the place in a borrowed modest carriage for his own village of Tuchlovice⁴⁵ and then via Plasy toward the Bavarian border. The future fates of the two leading actors of the Defenestration remained firmly tied to the events of the fateful 23 May, and the two certainly never forgot them. Translated by Lucie Vidmar
390 THE HISTORICAL WRITINGS OF VILÉM SLAVATA OF CHLUM AND KOŠUMBERK
44 Jireček’s edition of the Jindřichův Hradec manuscript states “dyer” [barvíř]. 45 A village situated approximately 6 km from the city of Nové Strašecí in Central Bohemia. See Antonín Profous – Jan Svoboda, Místní jména v Čechách: jejich vznik, původní význam a změny, Part 4, S–Ž, Praha 1957, p. 394. The village was in the possession of the Martinic family of Smečno from 1611.
Edition of Selected Documents
My preparatory works on the text for the edition departed from the grammatical rules
syllables crossed-out by the proof-reader are in double slashed brackets: //…//.
for transcribing modern texts, as commonly employed in cataloguing modern manuscripts
The comparison of the present version with the earlier edition of the text, executed by
written in the Czech language. Several expressions in the original manuscript are given in humanist italic. The words in
Jireček on the basis of the original Jindřichův Hradec manuscript, exposed a considerable number of divergences between the two
question are not only Latin and Italian; there are also some Czech terms which the writer
versions. Making them completely available in the footnotes would disproportionately
wanted to emphasize. I therefore accentuate all these by italics in the text below. Wrongly recorded terms are left in the same
burden the text to such an extent that it would make it chaotic and non-transparent. I thus decided to only graphically emphasize
form as in the original, but are accompanied by a notice indicating the mistake: exclamation
the divergences between the two versions in bold. Parts of the text which were left out
mark in square brackets [!]. The words, syllables and letters added by the proof-reader are stated in simple slashed brackets: /…/, the words and
from the Klementinum manuscript but are stated in Jireček’s edition are in bold in square brackets: […].
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 391
National Library of the Czech Republic, manuscript sign. XVII.B.12 F. 1r
z Říčan a Pavel Kaplíř, mocí sáhli
Jak se to vyhození z okna dálo, co se při tom sběhlo.
a popadše jej za obě ruce tuze drželi a ačkoliv se oba hrabata nadáli, že je z kanceláře ven ze dveří snad do něja-
Předně nejni divu, že v Svaté Římské Říši, ve všech královstvích, knížetstvích, zemích, v celém křesťanstvu, tak mezi Turky a Tatary, i do kterýchkoliv míst se to doneslo a k vědomosti přišlo, za zlé to ujali a za neslušné a pokuty hodné býti soudili a vyklá-
kého arestu povedou, ale oni křicíce: „Nyní se k těmto náboženství našeho nepřátelům opravdově zachováme,“ vedli sou předce hrabě z Martinic přímo k oknu již otevřenému, z čehož on snadno znamenaje spůsob
dali, že osoby českého národu z vyšších 2 stavův, panského a rytířského, tak hanebného za paměti lidské
blízké smrti své, hlasitě jest [z] volal: „I poněvadž tu pro Boha, víru jeho svatou katolickou a J. M. Císa-
neslýchaného a v žádných kronikách světa tohoto se nenacházejícího
ře, vrchnost naší nejmilostivější, umříti mám, tedy rád všecko trpělivě
skutku [se] dopustili a dva J. M. Císaře jakožto krále českého, vrchnosti své nejmilostivější, pány místodržící
snésti a podstoupiti chci, jen za propůjčení mně brzy zpovědlníka mého, tak abych se mu nejprve z hříchův
a nejvyšší ouředníky zemské království českého z okna ukrutně do hlu-
mých vyznal, pro milosrdenství Boží velice žádám.“ Ale mnozí přítomní
bokého příkopu vyhoditi se opovážili. Což jsou v tom vysoce výsadním městě, kteréž od starodávna bylo, i ještě až posavaď přední Tribunal Justitiae,
obyvatelové, zvláště z vyšších stavův, nechtěvše jeho žádosti
F. 1v slove Královská kancelář česká, jest, tímto hanebným způsobem učinili, po svém a obšírném hrubě prudkém (beze vší uctivosti [a] šetrnosti) však [!] tu přítomným J. M. Císaře jakožto krále českého pánům místodržícím domlouvání a při tom svrchu psaných dvouch hrabat zlobivém dotýkání, anobrž přespříliš [všetečným,] bezprávním a nespravedlivým pro stálou věrnost [je]jich na smrt odsuzování, ačkoliv jsou hrabata zase jim na to ze vší střídmosti své náležitou odpověď dávali, to vše co
F. 2v povoliti, zase mu to v odpověď dali: „Ale právě hned tobě sem ještě ty šelmovský jezovity přivedeme!“ Nad čímž hrabě z Martinic, že zpovědlníka nikoliv obdržeti nemohl, velmi se zarmoutivše, nepominul jest ihned sobě sám v srdci svém Attritionem et Contri//t//tionem formirovati a hříchův svých srdečně želeti, takto se pobožně modliti „JESU FILI DEI VIVI, miserere mei, Mater Dei, memento mei, Ježíši synu Boha živého, smiluj se nade mnou, Matko Boží pamatuj na mne.“ V tom pak vejš dotčený osoby hraběte
vzláště tak hrubě těžkého těla, skoro nic neuškodil. Jakož pak od některých dobrých a hodnověrných pobožných lidí to za jisté praveno a vyznáno bylo, že jsou právě tehdáž, jdouce z Starého Města Pražského přes veliký most, s processi zpátkem zase do kostela, slove Matky Boží pod řetězem v Menším Městě Pražském, při tom ponejprve z okna kancelářského vyhozením Pannu v povětří
vrchnosti jich, tak skrze od žádného řád, právo a spravedlnost a počestnost milujícího, nikdá jim schváleno nebylo, nýbrž pokaždý původové těch hanebných skutkův a vůdcové ukrutných mordéřův vedle práva a spravedlivosti náležitě ztrestáni bejvali. Ale aby osoby stavův Království Českého, obzvláště pak z stavu panského a rytířského, takových vraže-
se vznášející, Nejblahoslavenější Pannu Marii rodičku Boží, kterak
dlných skutkův nad osobami z stavu panského a rytířského J. M. Císaře královskými místodržícími a nej-
jest ona, jakožto nejpřednější jeho Patrona, jej v tom pádu na svým roztaženým a jemu podloženým plášti
vyššími ouředníky zemskými téhož Království Českého, i k tomu vlastními svými krevními přátely, bratry,
v povětří zdržovati a tak i na zem tím lehčeji ne tak padnouti, jako
strejci a ujci tak vztekle se dopustiti měli, toho se žádný podobný příklad
sednouti nechati, a tak od jisté právě tu přítomné smrti vysvobodíce při živobytí a dobrém zdraví dobrotivě
nenachází. A tak slušně ti Čechové, kteří se toho dopustili, při všech jiných národích v zlou pověst jsou vešli a skrze ně také i jiní nevinní Čechové té zlé pověsti u mnohých nevinně a oučastna býti museli. A nejni divu, že jemu hraběti z Turnu, jakožto přednímu vůdci takové hanebnosti to zlé prohřešení jeho vyčítali a před oči kladli. Ta pak ohavná ukrutnost těch nekatolických
zachovati ráčila, dobře viděli. Cožkoliv sice on sám hrabě z Martinic tak dokonale nevěděl, však v tom se dobře pamatujíce, [že] ihned
F. 3v
z Martinic od země pozdvihly a jej v černým kanavačovým tupltykytou
jakž jen z okna vystrčený do povětří se dostal, právě v tom častém svatých jmen JESUS MARIA hlasitě vzývání, když jest ku Pánu Bohu silnou naději měl, že tu již dávno sobě vinšovanou mučedlnickou korunu zajistě tu již dosáhne, přišlo mu před oči, jakoby se to nejpěknější nebe otevřelo a jej do sebe mezi Svatý vyvolený k věčné radosti přijíti chtělo. Jakož pak i z těch, kteří jsou téhož hraběte z Martinic z okna vyhazovali, jedna osoba stavu panského (totiž pan Vol-
se koliv zlého jim nevinným od nich tak jízlivě přičítalo, z sebe podstatně a z gruntu pravdy odvozovali, i také
podšitým plášti a s rapírem a tulichem, však bez klobouku (kterýžto s pěknou zlatou, drahým kamením,
dřich ze Vchynic) slyšíce, jak jest se horlivě on pod milosrdnou ochranu Blahoslavené Panny Marie poroučel,
ještě je předce všelijakými zbraněmi svými až k smrti dobili, tak též podobně tito, vida, že hrabě z Martinic
proti tomu jich nepořádnému a právě barbarskýmu (ať nepíši vzteklé-
vše diamanty a rubíny, ozdobenou šňůrou, někdo jemu z ruky mocně
tyto rouhavý slova promluvil: „Uhlídáme, zdaliž mu co jeho Marijia spo-
při tom též zlým pádu na svém zdraví žádné škody nevzal, nicméně ne-
mu) processu, dostatečně protestírovali. Však v tom ukrutném zazlení svém na žádný řád a právo nic dbáti, aniž
vytrhl) po hlavě z okna ven do hlubiny zámeckého příkopu hanebně jsou vyhodily a když on tam dolů letíce ustavičně vždycky nejsvětější jména
může,“ a když to sám patrně z okna spatřil, že týž hrabě z Martinic živ a zdráv dole na zemi seděl, tehdy
přáli mu dalšího života, nýbrž předce ho docela usmrtiti usilovali a na něj ukrutně z ručnic stříleli.
JESUS MARIA po několikráte pořád
takto propověděl: „Přísahám Bohu, že jest mu Jeho Marijia spomohla.“
Hrabě Slavata pak věděvše, jak se s hrabětem z Martinic, věrným příte-
jedno za druhým silně vzýval, tak že musel aneb lehce jest na zem upadl, rovně jakoby se
A ačkoliv v kronice české se nachází, že někdy chasa obecní zbouřivše se v Městech Pražských, víceji než jed-
lem a milým tovaryšem jeho, zacházelo, z toho snadno se domejšleje, že ho tolik potká, nic jiného k tomu
nou měšťany radní osoby z rathouzu
neřekl, než toliko spjavše ruce vzhů-
z oken na plac a rynek vyházeli a tam rozličnými svými zbraněmi
ru pro Pána Boha a jeho Svaté milosrdenství žádal za dovolení sobě toho, aby se prve z hříchů svých zpovídati mohl, potom jakoukoliv smrt jemu
pravdě a spravedlivosti žádného místa dáti nechtějíc, s hroznou furií některé osoby z vyšších stavův sami se do nadepsaných dvouch hrabat
F. 2r nestoudně dali a na ně outok násilný
F. 3r
učinili. Nejprve pak na hrabě z Martinic čtyři osoby z stavu panského a jedna z rytířského, totiž Vilém
posadil, tak že mu z obzvláštní Pána Boha našeho, skrze nejplatnější Blahoslavené Panny Marie přímluvu
Starší z Lobkovic, Albrecht [ze] Smiřic, Voldřich ze Vchynic, Jan Litvín
šťastně obdržení milostivé ochrany, ten přehrozný pád na zdraví jeho,
F. 4r usmrtili [a zamordovali]. Však i to jak od tehdejší Nejmilostivější
392 THE HISTORICAL WRITINGS OF VILÉM SLAVATA OF CHLUM AND KOŠUMBERK
F. 4v obyvatelův z vyšších dvouch stavův království Českého tak hrubě se rozmohla, že jsou oni jináče nechtěli, než právě dotčeného zlého příkladu tehdejší bouřlivé hlůzy [!] pražské zouplna ve všem následovati. Neb jak oni na tom nepřestali, že jsou některé osoby radní z oken rathouzu na plac vyházeli, ale i vně dole na zemi
učiniti chtějí, že ji mile snésti chce, ale mnozí z nich křičeli:
F. 5r
F. 6r
„Nechceme my nyní ty šelmovský jesovity sem uvésti, dosti si se jim prve
spěti a třebas tu jak v Boží, tak i bližního svého službě a lásce spa-
zpovídal“. A tak ty osoby, které jsou nejprve hraběte z Martinic vyhodily,
sitedlně život svůj dokonati. Však obávajíce se, kdyby vstal a dolů šel,
jimž to Hendrych Mathes z Turnu, stoje za hrabě Slavatou, tyto německý slova řekl: „Edle Herrn, da
že by lidé z oken odevšad hledící jej spatřujíce, tím více ještě po jeho životě dychtěli a na něj stříleli. Protož
habt ihr [den] andern, Vzáctní páni, tuto máte druhého.“ Potom jsou též
naschvále [se] mnohem mdlejším býti, nežli jest byl, stavěl a jakoby již
hrabě Slavatu popadli a jej od země vyzdvihše s pláštěm a rapírem také z téhož okna po hlavě do příkopu vy-
právě k smrti pracoval, se vší mocí jest sebou od země vyhodil a tak se do toho příkopu i s pláštěm, rapírem
hodili. Kterýž při vyzdvižení v okně, znamenaje se svatým Křížem, v prsy
a tulichem dolů svalil a velmi těžce až k hraběti Slavatovi koulel. Tu se
své se udeřil a skroušeně řekl: „DEUS propitius esto mihi pecatori. Bože buď milostiv mně hříšnému.“ A když se
potom rukami silně na zemi zadržavše u něho zastavil, který[m]žto prudkým se vyhozením a tak daleko
pravou rukou zachytil a drobet téhož okna držel, tu jest od jednoho z nich
dolův koulením od rapíru a tulichu hrubě se potloukše, na levém boku
hruškou a neboližto knopkem [!] od tulichu v články prstův svých nemálo stlučen byl a tak nelítostivě předce
sobě jest velikou modřinu krví podešlou s nemalou bolestí spůsobil. Však jakžkoliv týž hrabě z Martinic,
dolů vyhozen. Klobouk jeho, na němž pěkný šmuk s zlatými růžemi diamanty obsazenými byl, v kanceláři zůstal, řetěz pak jeho zlatý i při něm také pěkný zlatý křížek černým šmelcem
nedavše sobě v té milosrdné lásce ničemuž překážeti, beze všeho strachu jest se vedle dotčeného hraběte Slavaty, jakožto starodávního pana ujce, švagra, kmotra a bratra svého, vždycky důvěrně a
ven z okna říkal, zase pobožně opakoval, totiž: „DEUS esto mihi propitius peccatori,“ applicirujíc těch 5 slov ku pěti ranám Krista Pána. Mezitím jsou někteří lidé, na větším díle panští služebníci a čeledínové (mezi nimižto také lesní myslivci a hejduci byli) z velikého paláce okolo navalili [!] nad tím příkopem, v němž ti dva nábožní páni jeden seděl a druhý mizerně ležel, rychle s chvátáním běželi a jakž ti z hůry a z oken paláce dolů hledící páni tuze volali a křičeli: „Střílejte na [je]jich kůži a zabte je do konce,“ tak ihned několik ran pořád z rozličných ručnic z obojí strany, jak z oken paláců, tak z těch naproti valům, dolů na ty oba pány se stalo, z nichž dvě na hrabě z Martinic přišly, jedna blízko hlavy po levé straně skrze obojek v spůsob okruží sbíraný a druhá nad levým ramenem skrze kanavačový plášť a pravě pod ním skrze piccatelie při černý aksamitový sukničce naskrze prošly a v tom každém kusu, jak v obojku tak i v plášti a v sukničce
po dvouch dosti velikých děr//ách// učinily, však dále skrze kabát karmazínový do konce nepřišly a tělu jeho nic nepoškodily, jakž toho nad dotčených obojku, suknice a plášti naschvále pro památku pilně schovaných, patrné znamení dosavaď zůstávají a zjevně ukazují, že ty obě strany [!] z velkých a silných dlouhých ručnic s hrubejmi opravdovejmi kulkami (a jakž zprávy docházely) od téhož Hendricha Matesa z Turnu myslivce a hejduka učiněné byly. Kterýžto však obouch ran hrabě
F. 6v
ozdobený z hrdla jeho při témž z okna vyhození strhli a tak roztržený v rukách svých zachovali. Týž hrabě Slavata pak, když tak z okna vyhozený již dolů letěl, právě v tom pádu hrubě o jednu kamennou římsu dolejšího okna hlavou zavadivše, sobě jest škodlivě túž hlavu svou až do kosti hluboko prorazil a tak na zem levým bokem, hlavou pak a tváří svou na kámen těžce padše,
velice milého, obzvláště pak toho mučedlnictví věrného tovaryše, na zem posadil a hned jemu hlavu v plášti jeho hrubě zavinutou, pěkně rozvinouce ven vyndal, kterýžto [!] po levé straně již otekla a v tváři i na oku (kterého ani otevříti nemohl) hrubě modrá a krví podběhlá, svrchu pak na lebce až do kosti hluboko proražena byla. Což uhlídaje hrabě z Martinic, ne bez velikého utrpení
hned od toho místa beze všeho se zastavení předce dále až do hlubiny příkopu mizerně se dolů koulel.
a politování, vyňavše z kapsy své facelet, ním jest pánu tu krev, která z té rány hlavy jeho dolu až do úst
Kterážto vejše potom naschvále změřena byvše, našlo se, že od okna až
prudce tekla a pána dusila, pilně všudy odtíral a měvše u sobě na témž
dolů na zem měříc přes 28 loket a od toho místa prvního padnutí předce až do hlubiny téhož příkopu, kde
facatelu [!] svém stříbrnou malou apatičku s rozličnými silnými balsámy, neboližto mastmi přivázanou,
jest se týž hrabě Slavata koulel a tam polomrtvý ležel, ještě přes 32 lokte,
z ní jest hbitě šlakový balsám vyndal a ním pána již v mdlobách ležícího
vše pražských, vynáší. Z té rány na hlavě hraběte Slavaty krev do úst mu tekla, tak že počínal hrabě chroptěti a se dusiti. Pan hrabě z Martinic,
pod nosem i na židovinách mazal a tak s pomocí Pána Boha jej zase vzkřísil a od blízkého zadušení šťastně vysvobodil i také mile napomínal,
ve] naskrze plášť s uděláním v něm dosti veliké díry, [trefila ho] v levé rameno a na rukávě jen karmazín něco málo natrhlo, však jej ani pod-
sedě na tom místě, kde padl a slyše
aby pán to těžké soužení trpělivě
šívku plátěnnou ani košile nepotrha-
to těžké hraběte Slavaty chroptěti a se dusiti, milosrdnou láskou hnut [jsa], resolviroval se jemu jakžpakkoliv ku pomoci při–
snášel a modlíce se s ním Pánu Bohu duši poroučel. Což jest hned učinil a tu předešlou svou modlitbu,
la. Nicméně předce to rameno (bez obzvláštní škody) drobet zranila,
kterou jest prve hned při vyhození se EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 393
od té doby vždycky na tom místě až dosavaď, bílý znamení zřetedlně se spatřuje. Když jest často psaný hrabě z Martinic tu ránu namále jen jako nějaké uštípnutí ucejtil a předce volně ramenem hejbal, hned jest sám jako nad tím ustrnulý, tomu božskému na své hříšné osobě patrnému zázraku, že jemu jak ten hrozný z tak vysoka do té hlubiny prudkej pád, tak i to všechno střílení a jedna malá ucítěná rána skoro nic neuškodila a na zdraví jeho nic neublížily, velice se podivil. Pročež myslí horlivou ku Pánu Bohu vzdychajíc srdečně takto zvolal: „ // Quae// Optime [!] Deus ita ne me inoccisibilem et quasi immortalem facis !“ Když jsou k těm oboum pánům někteří věrní služebníci jejich skrze zadní neboližto dolejší pod úřadem nejvyššího purgkrabství pražského zámeckou branou dolův do příkopu šli, tehdy ku překážce toho nemeškali jsou ihned protivníci jich tak na ně z obouchstranných oken hru–
F. 8v F. 7v
F. 5v
F. 7r
mazáním asi za tejden té rány, hned
bě stříleti a tím několik jich zpátkem zase odehnali, nepřestali jsou tolikéž někteří z oken vyhledající páni hlasem na své služebníky a jiné lidi, kteříž proti nim [a] na valích s ručnicemi a jinými zbraněmi pohotově stáli, tuze křičeti: „I běžte do příkopu předce k nim dolův a již jednou dobite [a usmrťte] je !“ Nadčež je jeden [z nich] myslivec aneb hejduk zase s křikem odpověděl: „Ej čert ví, kde jest dolů cesta. Já přísahám Bohu, že nevím jak a hned nemohu k nim dolův nijakž přijíti.“ V tom křiku byvše tu pan sekretář Filip Fabricius,
z Martinic (mimo samé jich uslyšení) jest neucejtil, ani o nich nic nevěděl, až po mnoha nedělích a v těch
který ihned po těch dvouch hrabatech z téhož okna do téhož příkopu vyhozen a na těle svém nejsa škodně
šatech svých náhodou je spatřil. Zatím pak s týmž hrabětem Slavatou
uražen, vida, že jest hrabě z Martinic již prostřelen a obávaje se také
v příkopě sedíce Pánu Bohu se věčně modlil. V tom přišla opět rána z nějaké dlouhé ručnice upřímo na hrabě
podobné rány, tiše jest od země vyvstal i sám z toho příkopu bez pláště a klobouku, upřímo k přívozu běžel.
z Martinic a projdouce kulka [nejpr-
Na cestě pak hned blízko zadní brány zámecké nahodil se jeden dobrý známý jeho, který mu rád vlastního svého pláště a klobouku zapůjčil. I davše se přes vodu, neboližto řeku Vltavu přeplaviti, do domu svého v Starém Městě
F. 9r F. 8r
Pražském ležícího pospíšil, kdež se
tak že z tý rány jedna aneb [nejvíce] dvě krůpěje krve vyšly a pro zhojení
málo zastavivše ihned sobě landkočího zjednal. Však nechtěl jest tu
hned sobě na vůz sednouti, a tak zjevně skrze město jeti, ale raději předce pěšky až do vsi N. půl míle od Prahy pěšky šel a landkočímu za sebou jeti kázal. Potom pak v té vsi hbitě na vůz vsedl a upřímo do Vídně odjel i po vystání na té cestě rozdílných nepříležitostí a nebezpečenství s pomoci Boží šťastně do Vídně přijel a tam o těch věcech všech příbězích pražských J. M. Císaři i jiným pánům rozprávěl. Ale hrabě z Martinic očekávaje tu předce v příkopě každého téměř okamžení na sebe jak z ručnice tak i šavlí, neb kordem smrtedlné rány, aneb posledního strachu již sobě sám (z veliké naděje obdržení té mučedlnické palmy) žádostivě vinšoval, aby jen brzy opravdové
pro ustavičné [na ně]střílení předce z věrné služebnosti a upřímné lásky tam do hlubiny toho příkopu šťastně beze škody k nim přišli. Ješto sice žádnej ani jedinkej ze všech nepřátel jich, kteří by jim dále na zdraví škoditi chtěli (bezpochyby z obzvláštního řízení a opatrování Božího) k nim tak dolův nižádnejm vymyšleným spůsobem přijíti nemohli. V tom jest hrabě z Martinic, spatřivše tu tak mnoho dobrých lidí, že hrabě [jimi dobře opatřen a od nich snadno z příkopu vynešen býti může, sám od sebe jest vyvstal a napomenouc je, aby hrabě Slavatu, hrubě] milého pana bratra a tovaryše jeho jakožto neduživého a větší pomoci potře-
hrabě z Martinic z toho hlubokého příkopu nahoru k domu paní Polyxeny Lobkovský, rozené z Pernštejna, nejvyšší paní kancléřový Království Českého a již kněžně z Lobkovic přišel, tu jest uhlídal jeden velký (bez pochyby z Její Milosti nařízení) oknem dolů až na zem spuštěný řebřík a hned po něm s dobrou nadepsaného pana Kotvy pomocí nahoru lezl a skrze to spodní okno do téhož domu beze škody přišel. Neb ačkoli mezi tím vždy předce rebelští nepřátelé stojíce z druhé strany proti tomu domu na valích hrozně stříleli a zvláště jeden z dlouhé ručnice naměřivší na hrabě z Martinic, právě když jest po řebříce nahoru
bujícího neopouštěli i také s ním se rozžehnavše, od něho jest odešel. A ačkoliv sice od toho prvního po vy-
//do horu// do okna lezl, třikráte pořád vytiskl a tak snadno, kdyžby obzvláštní ochrany Boží nebylo, jed-
Milosti horlivě poroučel, těmito čas-
hození z okna pádu svého do příkopu na zem žádného jest na těle škodlivé-
nou ranou téhož hrabě z Martinic i za ním pana Kotvu oba spolu trefiti
to opáčenými krátkými modlitbami: „In manus tuas Domine commendo Sp/iri/ tum me/um/.
ho ourazu nevzal, však poněvadž jest potom teprva tím dobrovolným, dále se do hlubiny toho příkopu k hraběti
a z toho řebříka dolů sraziti mohl. Však mocným Božským řízením pokaždý jemu táž ručnice zklamala
Slavatovi pro spo–
a nikdy žádný oheň vydati [a kulku vystřeliti] nechtěla. Potom hrabě
F. 10v
z Martinic
trefení i bez velikého a prodloužilého trápení do konce zabit byl, vždyckny jest stále duši svou Jeho Svaté Božské
F. 9v Redemisti me Domine DEUS veritatis.“ Též „MARIA, mater gratiae, Mater misericordiae, Tu nos ab hoste protege et hora mortis suscipe.“ Což podobně též hrabě Slavata očekávaje, zdaliž také na něj střelí, jest učinil a Pánu Bohu se těmi předešlými slovy svými pobožně modlil. V tom jest ho hrabě z Martinic nepomenul, pokudž může, aby vstanouce spolu s ním z toho místa odešli a salvírovati se hleděli. Ale on velice mdlej to dal za odpověď: „Ačkoliv rukami a nohami sice hejbati může,
F. 12r nemocným dělal, jakoby hned v některé hodině život svůj dokonati měl. Však jednomu dobrému katolickému člověku Petrovi Thomasovi [!], zemskému chirurgo předse jest, kde ho co bolí, vyjevil a ty své jak v botcích a na stehnách vodření, tak i tu na levém ramenu malou ranku svou ukázal i nějakým olejem pomazati dal. A poněvadž jest často psaný hrabě z Martinic již toho času v tom tak hrozným rumoru, potupený a potlučený, práva a spravedlnosti pravém poždvizení (!) a dokonalém zbouření, neposti[h]ly celé Prahy, ale hned pořád vší české země (neb jsou tehdáž tu v Praze skoro všichni obyvatelé celého království Českého, vzláště nekatolitští pod obojí, při tom nepořádném sjezdu svém byli a lid válečný jak prvé tejně, tak již i zjevně verbovali a najímali) svým déle v Praze aneb kdekoliv v zemi české zůstáním [i] tudy zajisté následující násilnou smrtí svou nic ku více k službě své a J. M. Císaři, vrchnosti své nejmilostivější, ani k dobrému vlasti své milé hrubě nešťastné prospěti a pomoci nemohl. Protož jest se ve jméno Pána Boha svého, nepoch/ybně/
však majíce hlavu hrabě potlučenou a zraněnou, že mu nejni možné
možení jemu od jisté (skrze zadušení) smrti prudkým svalením a tak nejvíce rapírem a tulichem se potlučením v bocích a na stehnech drobet sobě ublížil a nemoha pro bolest sám od sebe a na tak příkrej vrch dobře jíti, tehdy jest se jednomu věrnému služebníku svému za ruku vésti dal. A když jest mezi jinými také již tu v příkopě od velebného pana Jana Ctibora Kotvu z Freifeldu, prothonotarium apostolicum a hlavního kostela Sv. Víta na Hradě pražském kanovníka (kterýž nedávno před tím u téhož
ji pozdvihnouti a z toho místa se hnouti.“ Zatím pak mnozí protivníci jich radujíce se, některým osobám,
hraběte z Martinic děkanem Smetčanském a celého kraje slánského byl a potom proboštem litoměřickým
který tak potkali, tyto slova mluvili: „Již ty dva mrtví tam leží! Psi umrlí
učiněný, jemuž se také týž hrabě z Martinic, když na panství svém
nebudou více kousati.“ Ale nezdařilo se jim, tak jako tý obecní chase, aby ti páni hned po jejich vůli usmrceni
Smečanském bydlel, někdy zpovídal) k sobě na schválně jdoucího spatřil, a hned jest obejmouce ho s nemalou
byli, nýbrž oba dva i s třetím panem sekretářem samou předivnou
radostí takto nahlas promluvil: „Ej-
jako raději a více proto, kdyžby kdo tak k němu do komory přišel, aby ho
hle milosrdný Pán Bůh ráčí mně tuto zpovědlníka odsílati, vítejte a zdrávi buďte, můj vinšovaný a velice milej pane Kotvo.“ Kterýžto vzhledše na něj slza-
každý vidouce tak ležeti za mnohem nemocnějšího i k smrti nebezpečnějšího měl a držel, nežli jest v skutku byl. Jakož pak, když jsou k němu
výma očima, zase pěkně poděkoval
rozdílní potom osoby pod spůsobem
šaty, davše je sobě od rozdílných osob
a při tom volnost svou k službě jeho [zakazoval, i sám ho také tomu věrnému služebníkovi jeho]
navštívení jeho přišly, tehdy jest se jim (zvláště těm, který jest více za škodlivý špehýře nežli za upřivný (!) přátely svý poznal, ačkoliv [jest sice]
z čeládky zadní v témž domě sem i tam po kusích koupiti, na sebe jest oblékl a pro peníze jest poslal svrchu jmenovaného pana Kotvu s klíči od
F. 11r
takových nemnoho k sobě pouštěti
schreibtische do domu svého, kte-
vésti pomáhal. Jakž jest pak dotčený
dal) tak hrubě se
rýž vyňavše 300 dukátův jemu jest je
pomocí Boží živi zůstali a potom z moci týchž nepřátel svých do konce vysvobozeni byli.
F. 10r Jakož pak poslal jest brzy Pán Bůh týmž dvoum pánům několik věrných služebníků jich, i někteří jiní dobří a poctiví lidi ku pomoci, kteřížkoliv ač [!] ne bez velikého strachu
F. 11v v dočteném (!) domě, slove Perštejnským, do zadní komory čelední vešel a tu hned kleknouce počal se témuž panu prelátovi Kotvovi zpovídati. Že tak právě v tom mimo naději (bezpochyby i z obzvláštního řízení Božího) mnohéctihodný Pater Martinus Santinus Soc. JESU ordinární zpovědlník jeho k němu přišel do té komory, jakž ho hrabě z Martinic spatřil, ihned s pěknou svou panu Kotvovi učiněnou omluvou a s dobrým jeho spokojením znova se témuž Patri Sant[ino] skroušeně zpovídal a po přijaté absoluti některé modlitby vy//k//říkavše, na jedno prostý čelední lože se položil, ne tak proto, jakoby tak hrubě neduživý jsouce niakého (!) odpočinutí potřeboval,
394 THE HISTORICAL WRITINGS OF VILÉM SLAVATA OF CHLUM AND KOŠUMBERK
F. 12v z vnuknutí jeho Svatého, //pro// salvirovati, tak tu předivně a zázračně zachovalého zdravého života svého k dalším Pána Boha a choti jeho [církve] svaté katolické, též J. M. Císaře [a] krále a pána svého i celého slavného domu Rakouského, věrným a platnejm službám tak nakonec resolviroval, aby hned toho ještě dne z Prahy ven vyjel [a] tak furiae crudeli, neboližto vzteklosti a ukrutnosti nepřátel církve svaté záhy ustoupil. Však v tom jest se sice žádnému (kromě málo některým důvěrnějším přátelům a služebníkům svým domácím) nesvěřil, ale v slušné tejnosti dále jest sobě nadepsanému zemskému barb//v//íři Petrovi Thomasovi [!] netoliko bradu nízko ostříhati a ručnickým prachem smočeným očerniti, ale i tvář drobet pokáleti, k tomu též jakési ničemné a starý
přinesl a odvedl. Mezitím předpsaní věrní služebníci hrabětě Slavaty,
přitom však ustavičně Pánu Bohu se
i někteří jiní dobří lidi nad pánem lítost majíce, v tom příkopě
k ochraně duší i těl svých pobožnými modlitbami svejmi horlivě poroučeli. Tak zase, když jsou o jich zpátkem
F. 13r
odtažení zvěděli, z toho se nemálo potěšili a dotčené kněžně
vidouce, že pánu samému od sebe vstáti a odtud jinam jíti, ani po řeb-
F. 14r
říce do okna lézti (jako hrabě z Martinic učinil) nikoliv možné není,
za tu její moudrou a dobrotivou, právě mateřskou ochranu velice
nemeškali jsou pěkně pána od země vyzdvihnouti a tím příkopem okolo zjevně předce skrze vejš dotčenou
hrubě děkovali. A ačkoliv také jsou týchž obou hrabat obě paní man-
[zadní] bránu zámeckou nahoru přímo do domů kněžny z Lobkovic a do čelední světnice (právě při té komoře také čelední, v kterej milej a věrnej tovaryš a přítel jeho hrabě z Martinic ještě ležel) vnésti a tu jsou pana hrabě mdlého na nějaké tam ustlané modraci položili. Ten pak zemský barb//v//íř Petr Thomaso//vi// [!] uznavše toho velikou potřebu býti, jest neprodleně témuž hraběti Slavatovi žilou krev pustil, některý k posilnění [i] tranky dával píti a obzvláště tu na hlavě jeho ránu obvazoval, i sice jak se mu za nejlepší vidělo pána hojil a opatřil. Kterýžto hrabě Slavata drobet okřavše nepominul jest též vejš dotknutému panu kanovníku Kotvovi (neb o panu Paterovi Santinovi, že vedle světnice v komoře u hraběte z Martinic jest, tehdáž nic nevěděl) skroušeně se zpovídati i na to pobožně se Pánu Bohu modliti.
F. 13v V tom pak jest nenadále jedna silná troppa osob z vyšších stavův nekatolických pod obojí spolu [s] služebníky a čeládkou jich, vše na koních, před týž kněžny z Lobkovic dům s nemalým hurtem přijely na koních, z nichžto Hendrich Mates z Turnu a jiní přední toho pozdvižení a skutku ohavného původové hned jsou upřímo nahoru do kněžního
želky urozené paní, paní Lucia Otilia Slavatová, rozená z Hradce a na Hradci a paní Maria Eusebia z Martinic, rozená z Šternbergku, po dovědění se toho pánův manželův svých hrozného pádu a všelijakého předce trvajícího velikého smrti jich nebezpečenství, chtěly jsou rá//d//dy k nim hned na Hrad Pražský přijíti, [a povinně] tam je sobě manželsky opatrovati. Ale poněvadž se to jim nijakž dobře trefiti nemohlo, ani od nich samých, pánův manželův jich obouch k tomu žádným spůsobem povoliti [se] nechtělo, proto aby tudy od nich samých, v kterém místě zůstávají, hned tak brzy pronešeno [a] vyjeveno nebylo, tehdy každý dobrý a upřímné lásky manželské povědomý člověk sám při sobě zdravě souditi může, jakou jsou přehrozně velikou žalostí ty obě paní v srdci jich tehdáž snášely, když jsou proti žádostivé vůli své ku pánům manželům svým nejmilejším v tom jich těžkým a nebezpečným
F. 14v spůsobu postaveným nijakž přijíti nesměly a je uhlídati nemohly. Proto
a tovaryšem (mimo to oč [!] jsou sice sobě po služebnících svých vzkazovali) ještě dále a více něco mluvil a mile [se] rozžehnával: však viděvše
oblečeného a na tváři pokáleného,
při pánu některé osoby nemlčelivý,
b//v//íři na to, aby také s ním jeho služebníka a v barb//v//ířství učedlní-
kterýmž se on v tom důvěřiti nesmějí[ce], znáti dáti nechtěl, musel jest z potřeby (ač nerad) předce spěšně projíti. A jakž jest z té světnice,
F. 15r
pána svého vlastního nepoznavše tam pustiti nechtěl, až po dlouhém pečování, sotva jest se témuž bar-
ka tam vjíti nechal, pěknými slovy namluviti a naprositi dal, že jest teprva také pána svého neznámého do domu vpustil. A vejdouce tam oba, hned jest hrabě z Martinic napřed po
na palac (!) domu tohoto přišel, spatřivše tu vně dva mnohoctihodný
zadních velikých schodech
Patres Soc. JESU totiž, Patrem Melchiorem Trevinnium a Patrem Martinum San-
F. 16r
tin[um], když jest právě mimo ně šel, nemohl se zdržeti, aby je tak z prosta minouti měl, nýbrž z obzvláštní své k nim vždycky mající lásky jednoho z nich loktem ruky své drobet uhodil a tím vzláštním [!] slovíčkem a Dio jest jim valeditiroval. Potom pak z téhož domu hrabě z Martinic, skázavše dotčenému Petro Thomasovi [!], barb//v//íři zemskému drobet před sebou jíti, předce jest asi dvadceti kročejův za ním ulicí tou a tak vždy dále skrze celý Hrad Pražský a všechny brány zámecký i rozdílně již při nich všude osaženo varty (nebyvši nikdy od žádného poznán) šťastně až na Hradčany prošel. Tu rozmejšlejíce se, zdali by tak předce beze všeho paní manželkou svou se rozžehnati dále jíti i potom docela odejíti měl, přišlo mu na paměť, neb na mysl, že jest Kristus Pán [a spasitel náš], vstavše z mrtvých, hned se nejblahoslavenější Panně Marii rodičce Boží své k obzvláštnímu jejímu potěšení mile ukázal. A protož také jest se na
nahoru až pod krovy běžel a dotčeného Petra barb//v//íře pro paní manželku svou do jejího pokoje neboližto fraucimoru (nevědouce o tom, že doma nejní) poslal. A když jest od něho zprávu vzal, že pan Adam starší ze Šternbergku nejvyšší purgkrabě pražský, vlastní pan otec její, jakž jest o tom hanebném hraběte z Martinic, zetě a syna svého velice milého z okna vyhození dokonale zvěděl, hned jest pro tu paní manželku jeho, jakožto dceru svou hrubě milou s vozem a koňmi, tak aby ku pánu spěšně přijela a pán jí nesmírně zarmoucenou tím lépe u sebe těšiti mohl, naschválně odeslal a ona že hned ku panu otci svému poslušně jela a tam zůstávala, tehdy jest se téhož Petra Thomaso//i//ni dožádal, aby on spěšně do domu téhož nejvyššího pana purgkrabího sešel, tam paní hrabince z Martinic v tejnosti pošeptal, že již pan manžel její v domě svém děkuje Pánu Bohu, živý a zdravý jsouce, žádaje ji, aby chceli živého [ho] viděti, neprodleně k němu potichu přijela ! Což jest ihned ráda učinila a jen sama druhá přes Hradčanský plac pospíšíc k němu jest domů jen
však předce nepominuly jsou, jakž nejlépe mohly, jim tejně s věrným svým na ně manželským spomínáním a vzkazováním všelijaké posil-
F. 15v
nění a lékařství odsílati, kteréhož
než předce vedle něho tou malou uličkou okolo jdouce, z ní potom
F. 16v
zadními vraty do téhož domu svého vjíti chtíce, nad dotčeného před sebou jdoucího barb//v//íře Petra
hrubě mile spolu vítali a hrabě z Martinic ukázavše paní manželce své tu od prostřelení na levé ruce své
tom ustanovil a přes hradčanský plac upřímo k domu svému šel: však do něho předními vraty vjíti nechtěl,
upřímo pod krovy přišla.
pokoje běželi a tu kněžně z strany těch obouch hrabat velmi tuze domlouvali, ptajíce se na ně, kde
jsou však tíž páni manželé jich, jsouce bez toho sice od Pána Boha mnohem více posilněni, namále užívali. Nýbrž hrabě z Martinic dle
by se zdržovali a při tom žádajíce, poněvadž nepochybují, že kdežkoliv
své učiněné Resoluti pěkně se s dobrodincí svou, kněžnou z Lobkovic
Thomasoni jest zvolal a jemu ten oumysl svůj vyjevíce řekl, že se k paní
neškodnou ránu a na znamení, že i sice na celém těle svém dosti zdravý
v domě jejím ukryti jsou, protož aby jim hned vydáni byli. Kterážto dobrá kněžna uměla jest srdnatou a rozum-
rozžehnavše, ve jméno Boží okolo sedmý hodiny německý k večerně, ještě v bíle-světlém dni, vyšel jest
manželky své jen meličko zastaviti a jí zázrak Boží na sobě, že předivně živý a zdravý zůstává, ukázati chce,
i ještě čerstvý na nohách jest, schválně před ní skákajíc tři capreoli vysoký udělal, tak brzy zase jsou se, ačkoliv
nou odpovědí svou [je] pěkně z téhož domu svého odbýti, a hned zpátkem
tak škaredě převlečený z té čelední komory a vejdouce do setnice, v níž
protož aby na vrata zatloukl. Když jest pak několikráte na ně tloukl, po
přehořce, však předtrpělivě (oba se hned ve všem samé vůli Boží docela
zase vypraviti. Když jsou pak hrabě Slavata a hrabě z Martinic o příchodu té troppi k domu a [k] vyhledá-
jest hrabě Slavata zraněný a těžce nemocný ležel, ač by hned tu byl hrubě rád s pánem, jakožto svým
dosti dlouhé chvíli přijdouce vrátnej jen málo drobet vrata otevřel a Petra barb//v//íře sobě známého do domu
oddavše) spolu rozžehnali. A tak týž hrabě z Martinic ani dětem svým vlastním se neukázavše, však je (kte-
vání k smrti osob jich zvěděli, jakž sou se slušně toho nemálo ulekli,
dávným důvěrným a nejmilejším pánem ujcem, švagkrem, bratrem
[bez odporu] jest vpustil, ale za ním hrabě z Martinic tak škaredě
rýchž tehdáž osm živých bylo) dotčené manželce své, jakožto jich [všech]
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 395
Tu pak jsou se, ačkoliv krátce však
vlastní paní mateři in meliori forma poručivše, ve jméno Boží z domu svého předce tou zadní ulicí, dále mimo klášter kapucínský a potom strahovský až dosti daleko na Bílou horu s vejš psaným Petrem barb//v// ířem pěšky, bez obzvláštní bolesti
všecka města Pražská bez poznání a zajetí osoby své bezpečně neprojel. Protož mysl svou k Mnichovu do
totiž v svátek slavného na Nebe
Bavor obrátil, a i proto tam (však ne obyčejnou cestou) jeti docela se re-
řádu jeho cistercienského přijel. Však žádnému se tam krom samému opatu téhož kláštera,
vstoupení Krista Pána 24. maji, teprva k víčerou do kláštera Plaského
solviroval, že jest někdy pan otec jeho dobré a pamětihodné, pan Jaroslav Bořita z Martinic, J. M. Císaře radda
F. 18r
a komorník, hned z mládí v službě J. M. vzácné paměti Albrechta kní-
velebnému knězi Jiřímu Vasmuciusovi (který až dosavaď živý zůstává)
žete Bavorského (nynějšího Jeho M. knížete Maximiliána pana děda)
znáti nedal. Kterýžto pan opat jeho vhlídně k sobě přijal a [jest] přiví-
čený (poněvadž jest svých vlastních koní a vozu, proto aby skrze
F. 17v
F. 17r
nejprve za edlknoba a potom za komorníka byl, s tou nepochybnou
tal, i hned bez mnohého hluku do jednoho čistého pokoje tiše uvedl, a jemu i služebníkům jeho jísti a píti
ně poznán nebyl, užívati bezpečně nesměl) vsedl jest na ten kočárek
nadějí, že od téhož J. M. knížete MAXImiliana (již kurfiřta) též
a vzal na něj s sebou téhož Petra Thomasoni barb//v//íře a jednoho
od J.M. knížete Vilíma pana otce a J. M. knížete Albrechta, vlastního pana bratra jeho Milosti rád vidín
neb těžkosti došel a nalezše tam dva koně toliko s malým prostým a starým již spotřebovaným kočárem, slove koles, od svrchu dotčeného pana Jana Ctibora Kotvy sobě zapu-
služebníka svého čerstvého, pěšky při tom kočáru běžícího. Cestu pak svou, ač by nejraději byl do Vídně upřímo J. M. Císaři, králi a pánu svému nejmilostivějšímu vzal, však poněvadž se jest slušně obával, že ti pozdvižení nepřátelé, jakž se o odjezdu jeho doví, hned nejvíce na tuž vídeňskou cestu hádati [a za ním rychle na koních pošlíce, tudy jej všudy pilně hledati] budou, tak aby ho dostati, zajíti, zpátkem zase do Prahy přivésti, a tu dle své po smrti jeho nejvýš dychtící vů//l//ly ukrutně dobíti mohli, anby snad [ani] skrze
i klisnám obroku poručiti dal.
a pod dobrotivou Jich Milostí ochranu v tom pokojném katolickém městě Mnichově bezpečně se za některý čas, až do milostivé J. M. C. vůle pozdržeti moci bude. Když pak již od Prahy přes tři míle do jedné vsi své Tuchlovice řečené přijel, tu jest hned rychle ty dva koně z kočáru vypřáhnouti a je s poděkováním panu Kotvovi zase odeslati, jiný pak dobrý čtyři klisny ze dvoru svého vzíti a do toho starého kočáru zapřáhnouti dal: a tak tím spěšněji jedouce, šťastně jest na druhý den,
396 THE HISTORICAL WRITINGS OF VILÉM SLAVATA OF CHLUM AND KOŠUMBERK
Preliminary List of Hitherto Found Manuscripts CZECH VERSION Brno, Moravian Archives Fund G 12 – Collection Cerroni, Inv. No. 468, sign. Cerr II 352, Book 2 (Parts 7–10), after 1639 (provenance: Tomáš Pešina of Čechorod) Chyše, château, Library of the family of Lažanský of Buková sign. R 11, 6 volumes, 1693 (duplicate by Hans Altmann of Zámostí) Jindřichův Hradec, State Regional Archives Třeboň, Department Slavata Family Archives, Inv. Nos. 84–96, 13 volumes: Volume I (8 parts), Volume 2 (Parts 12, 13, 14 from Book 3; part of Parts 15 and 16 from Book 4), Volume 3 (Parts 11–14), Volumes 4–9, the missing Book 10 was replaced by its duplicate in 1888 (Parts 40–42, 49), Volume 11 (Parts 43 and 44), Volume 12 (Parts 44 and 45), Volume 13 (Parts 13 and 14), XVII¹ + 1888; Slavata Family Archives, Inv. No. 97, excerpts from Books 1 and 2, XVII¹ (provenance: Tomáš Pešina of Čechorod); Slavata Family Archives, supplements without Inv. No., Part 33 (heading „Titulové dvouch z okna vyhozených pánův, královských místodržících“) Křivoklát, state castle, Fürstenberg Library sign. I b 7, excerpts from Books 1 and 2 (beside others, Parts 1, 7, 8, 9, 10), XVIIex (provenance: Václav Felix Leopold Šmerovský of Lidkovice); sign. I b 8, excerpts from Books 1 and 2 (besides others, Parts 1, 8, 9, 10), XVIIex; sign. I b 16, 8 volumes, Books 1–8 (Parts 1–35), XVII² (provenance: Bedřich Dollenstein); sign. II b 6, excerpts from Books 1, 2 and 3 (beside others, Parts 1, 7, 11–14), XVIII¹ (provenance: Waldstein Library in Duchcov) Litoměřice, State Regional Archives Episcopal Library of Emmanuel of Waldstein: sign. BIF 92/1–8, 8 volumes, XVII.; sign. BIF 91, part of Book 1 (?), XVIIex
EDITION OF HISTORICAL SOURCES 397
Olomouc, Research Library sign. III 81, Book 2, 1783 Prague, Library of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic sign. 1 TC 2, 4 volumes, XVII¹ Prague, National Museum Library sign. I C 1, 8 volumes, Books 1–8, XVII¹ (provenance: Professor Mikan); sign. II B 5, 2 volumes, Books 1–2, XVII (provenance: Bedřich Dollenstein); sign. III B 4, 8 volumes, Books 1–3, 8–10, XVII (provenance: Tomáš Pešina of Čechorod); sign. III C 17, 2 volumes, Books 1–2, XVII (provenance: Knight Jan of Neuberk); sign. III C 28, XVII (provenance: JUDr. Eduard Langer, Broumov); sign. III C 29, XVII (provenance: Episcopal Seminar in Hradec Králové); sign. IV B 3, Books 1–2, XVII (provenance: Josef Novoveský); sign. V A 19, Books 1–2, XVII; sign. V C 7, Books 1–2, XVII (provenance: H. Soběslav Pinkas) Prague, National Library of the Czech Republic sign. XVII.B.12, part of Book 1, Book 2, 1640s; sign. XVII.B.26, part of Book 1, Book 2, XVII / XVIII; sign. XVII.D.29, part of Book 1, Book 2, XVIII (provenance: Library of the Plasy Monastery); Library of the Kinski Family, sign. F.VI.128 and F.VI.129, Books 1–2, XVII; Prague Lobkowicz Library, sign. XXIII.C.48 /1–2, 2 volumes, Books 1–3, 8–10, before 1796 (provenance: Tomáš Antonín Putzlacher); Library of the Teplá Monastery, sign. Teplá A 22, 7 volumes, Books 1–2, 4–8, XVII Prague, State Regional Archives Waldstein Family Archives, Inv. Nos. 242–253, Books 9–10, XVII; VS [Estate] Smečno, Inv. Nos. 122–129, Books 3–9, XVII¹ Prague, Strahov Library sign. DH I 24, part of Book 4 (Part 17), 1666–1983 (provenance: Bohuslav Balbín)
GERMAN VERSION Jindřichův Hradec, State Regional Archives Třeboň, Department Slavata Family Archives, supplements without Inv. No., 2 volumes, Book 2, part of Books 7 and 8, XVII Hradec Králové, Museum of East Bohemia sign. MS 96 and sign. MS 97, 2 volumes, XVIIIin Prague, National Library of the Czech Republic sign. XVI.C.12, Book 1 (Parts 1–6) and Book 2 (Parts 7–10), XVIImed ; Prague Lobkowicz Library, sign. XXIII.C.31/1–8, 8 volumes, Books 1–8, XVIImed + XVIIIex (provenance: Tomáš Antonín Putzlacher) LATIN VERSION Litoměřice, State Regional Archives Cistercians from Osek, Inv. No. 2793, part of Book 1, XVIIex / XVIIIin Prague, National Museum Library sign. VI G 5, part of Book 1, XVII / XVIII Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Cod. 14207, Books 1 and 2, XVIII Cod. 14214*, Latin excerpts with Czech quotes, 1659 (provenance: Jesuit college in Jindřichův Hradec)
398 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Selected Bibliography
399 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sources ARCHIVES OF THE CAPITAL OF PRAGUE Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), Kniha měšťanských práv 2, Nové Město pražské, 1657–1684, sign. 560. Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), Kniha rukojemství a obnov, Nové Město pražské, 1636–1678, sign. 97. Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), Liber conventionum I, Staré Město pražské, 1661–1769, sign. 4596. Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), Liber inventariorum 1687–1702, sign. 1179. Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), Liber obligationum caeruleus 5, 1691–1696 /1709/, sign. 3601. Sbírka rukopisů (Collection of Manuscripts), Manuale dictorum 1638–1641, sign. 1169. ARCHIVES OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY IN PRAGUE Fond J. Q. Jahn, Jan Jakub Quirin Jahn,
Uměleckohistorický popis Prahy, Malé Strany a Hradčan, s. d. [between 1767/69–1773], acq. no. AA 1222/3–8.
Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, inv. no. 2452, ms. 11 (formerly 3480 b). PRAGUE, THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC Annuae litterae provinciae Boemiae Societatis Jesu 1671–1674, sign. XXIII C 105/8.
BOLOGNA, PINACOTECA COMUNALE DELL’ARCHIGINNASIO Marcello Oresti, Notizie de’professori del disegno, cioè pittori, scultori, ms., sign. B 123–B 135/2. MUSEUM OF THE MLADÁ BOLESLAV REGION Archiv Matouše Konečného (Archives of Matouš Konečný), sign. A 3254 / Praha O–1607, f. 3r.
PRAGUE, THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES File Archiv zrušených klášterů (Archives of Abolished Monasteries), Annales Monasterii S. Wenceslai Eremit. Discal. S. P. Augustini ab Anno 1623 usque ad Annum 1659, inv. no. 2450, ms. 9. File Archiv zrušených klášterů (Archives ofAbolished Monasteries), Liber primus Annalium Nostri ExcalceatoAugustiniani Asceterii Sub Patrocinio Sancti Wenceslai Martyris, […] A Fratre Severino a Sancta Anna Ordinis Eremit. Fratrum Discal. Sancti P. N. Augustini Sacerdote Professo, written ca. 1749), inv. no. 2451, ms. 10 (formerly 3480 a). Fond Archiv zrušených klášterů (Archives of Abolished Monasteries), Liber secundus seu Continuatio Annalium ExcalceatoAugustiniani Nostri Asceterii Sub
SIBYLLE APPUHN-RADTKE Das Thesenblatt im Hochbarock: Studien zu einer graphischen Gattung am Beispiel der Werke Bartholomäus Kilians, Weißenhorn 1988. SIBYLLE APPUHN-RADTKE Visuelle Medien im Dienst der Gesellschaft Jesu. Johann Christoph Storer (1620–1671) als Maler der Katholischen Reform, Regensburg 2000. DANIEL ARASSE Le détail: pour une histoire rapprochée de la peinture, Paris 1992 (rev. 2008).
Swaté nad Městem Přjbrami Hor Střjbrných den po dni wjc a wjc se stkwěgjcý […], Litomyšl 1666. BOHUSLAV BALBÍN Rukověť humanitních disciplín = Verisimilia humaniorum disciplinarum, ed. Olga Spevak, Praha 2006. BOHUSLAUS BALBINUS Miscellanea Historica Bohemiae, Decadis I. Liber V., Pragae 1683. RUTH BALJÖHR Johann von Spillenberger, 1628–1677: ein Maler des Barock, Weißenhorn 2003.
MARKÉTA BAŠTOVÁ – TEREZIE CVACHOVÁ Loreta. Průvodce poutním místem, Praha 2001. SALVATORE BATTAGLIA Grande dizionario della lingua italiana XIX, Torino 1998. RŮŽENA BAŤKOVÁ (ed.) Umělecké památky Prahy. Nové Město, Vyšehrad, Vinohrady (Praha 1), Praha 1998. FRANS BAUDOUIN Rubens in Context: Selected Studies, Antwerpen 2005.
MARIANO ARMELLINI Le chiese di Roma dal secolo IV al XIX, Roma 1891. ALOIS BACKER – KARL SOMMERVOGEL Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus 7, Bruxelles – Paris 1896. GAUVIN ALEXANDER BAILEY – PAMELA M. JONES (edd.) Hope and Healing. Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague (1500–1800), Chicago 2005. BARBORA BALÁŽOVÁ (ed.) Generationen – Interpretationen – Konfrontationen, Bratislava 2007. BOHUSLAV BALBÍN Diva Montis Sancti: seu Origines & Miracula Magnae Dei Hominumque Matris Mariae, Quae In Sancto Monte Regni Bohemiae, ad Argentifodinas Przibramenses […] in Statua sua mirabili, aditur, & colitur […], Pragae 1665. BOHUSLAV BALBÍN Přepodiwná Matka Swato Horská Marya, W Zázracých a Milostech swých na Hoře
PAOLA BAROCCHI (ed.) Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento I, Bari 1960. PAOLA BAROCCHI (ed.) Trattati d’arte del cinquecento: Fra manierismo e controriforma II, Gilio – Paleotti – Aldovrandi, Bari 1961. LILIANA BARROERO „Il se rendit en Italie“. Artisti stranieri a Roma nel Seicento, in: Roma moderna e contemporanea I, 1993, pp. 13–34. MILENA BARTLOVÁ (ed.) Dějiny umění v české společnosti: otázky, problémy, výzvy. Příspěvky přednesené na Prvním sjezdu českých historiků umění, Praha 2004. MILENA BARTLOVÁ Naše, národní umění. Studie z dějepisu umění, Brno 2009. FRANTIŠEK MICHÁLEK BARTOŠ Soupis rukopisů Národního musea v Praze, Praha 1926.
FRANS BAUDOUIN Rubens pictor doctus, zijn bibliothek en zijn lectuur, in: Prosper Arents (ed.), De Bibliotheek van Pieter Pauwel Rubens: een reconstructie, Antwerpen 2001, pp. 47–87. BETTINA BAUMGÄRTEL Die Ohnmacht der Frauen: sublimer Affekt in der Historienmalerei des 18. Jahrhunderts, Kritische Berichte 18, 1990, no. 1, pp. 5–20. REINHOLD BAUMSTARK (ed.) Rom in Bayern. Kunst und Spiritualität der ersten Jesuiten (exh. cat.), München 1997. MICHAEL BAXANDALL Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of painting in Italy and the discovery of pictorial composition 1350–1450, Oxford 1971. NICASIUS BAXIUS Sanctus Thomas a Villanova, Cognomento Eleemosynarius, ArchiEpiscopus Ecclesiastes Imp. Caroli V. a Sanctissimo Papa Nostro Alexandro VII. Anno M.DC.LVIII. in Festo
ARCHIVIO STORICO DEL VICARIATO DI ROMA Sant’Andrea delle Fratte, sign. s. a., n. 38, 1634 S. Lorenzo in Lucina, 1634, sign. s. a., n. 134, f. 28. S. Maria del Popolo, sign. s. a., n. 65, 1633–1636. S.MariadelPopolo,sign.s.a.,n.65,1635.
PRAGUE, STRAHOV LIBRARY OF THE ROYAL CANONRY OF THE PREMONSTRATENSIANS Collection of manuscripts, Jan Jakub Quirin Jahn, Aneckdoten zur Lebensgeschichte berühmter Mahler und Beurtheilung ihrer Werke, late 18th century, sign. DA II 7. STATE REGIONAL ARCHIVES TŘEBOŇ Department Jindřichův Hradec, Rodinný archiv Slavatové (Archives of the Slavata Family), inv. no. 109, sign. III A 1, cart. 13. Department Jindřichův Hradec, Rodinný archiv Slavatové (Archives of the Slavata Family), inv. no. 84–97.
Literature and Sources CRISTINA ACIDINI LUCINAT Tadeo e Federico Zuccari: fratelli pittori del Cinquecento, Milan 1998. MAREK ADAMSKI – PIOTR ŁUKASZEWICZ – FRANZ WAGNER (edd.) Michael Willmann (1630–1706) (exh. cat.), Salzburg 1994 (Schriften des Salzburger Barockmuseums, sv. 19). SIGMUND GRAF ADELMANN – DOROTHEA DIEMER (edd.) Neue Beiträge zu Adriaen de Vries. Vorträge des Adriaen de Vries Symposiums vom 16. bis 18. April 2008 in Stadthagen und Bückeburg, Bielefeld 2008. BERNARD AIKEMA (ed.) Lucas Cranach: l’altro Rinascimento: Il „pictor doctus“ del Cinquecento tedesco, amico di Luther a Roma (exh. cat.), Roma 2010. GIOVANNI BATTISTA ALBERTI Discorso dell’origine delle accademie publiche, e private, e sopra l’impresa de gli Affidati di Pavia, Genova 1639. LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI Das Standbild. Die Malkunst. Grundlagen der Malerei = De statua. De pictura. Elementa picturae, edd. Oskar Bätschmann – Christoph Schäublin, Darmstadt 2000. LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI On Painting, ed. John R. Spencer, New Haven – London 1966. LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI On Painting, ed. Martin Kemp, London 1991.
401 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Omnium Sanctorum Fastis eorundem adscriptus, Monachii 1659. JULIAN BELL Five Hundred Self-Portraits, London 2000. GIOVANNI PIETRO BELLORI Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni, Roma 1672. GIOVANNI PIETRO BELLORI Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni, ed. Evelina Borea, Torino 1976. HANS BELTING Bild und Kult. Eine Geschichte des Bilder vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst, München 19912. DANIELE BENATI – ANTONIO PAOLUCCI (edd.) Guido Cagnacci: protagonista del Seicento tra Caravaggio e Reni (exh. cat.), Milano 2008. ALENA BERGEROVÁ – VLASTIMIL BERGER Příspěvek k svatováclavské tematice v díle Karla Škréty. Rentgenologický průzkum, Umění XXXVIII, 1990, pp. 228–230. PAVEL BERGNER – JAN HERAIN Karel Škréta (1610–1674). Příspěvek k ocenění jeho díla, Časopis Společnosti přátel starožitností českých XVIII, 1910, pp. 41–51. ANTONINO BERTOLOTTI Artisti belgi ed olandesi a Roma nei secoli XVI e XVII. Notize e documenti raccolti negli achivi romani, Firenze 1880. ANDRZEJ BETLEJ – JÓZEF SKRABSKI (edd.) Fides ars scientia. Studia dedykowane pamięci Księdza Kanonika Augustyna Mednisa, Tarnów 2008. JAN BIAŁOSTOCKI Books of Wisdom and Books of Vanity, in: In Memoriam J. G. van Gelder 1913–1980, Utrecht 1982, pp. 37–67. JAN BIAŁOSTOCKI L’antico: regola della natura nel Seicento, in: Il Classicismo. Medioevo. Rinascimento. Barocco, Atti del Colloquio Cesare Gnudi, Bologna 1993, pp. 259–265.
JAN BIAŁOSTOCKI The Doctus Artifex and the Library of the Artist in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries, in: De arte et libris: Festschrift Erasmus 1934–1984, Amsterdam 1984, pp. 11–22. JAN BIAŁOSTOCKI The Message of Images: Studies in the History of Art, Wien 1988. ILARIA BIANCCHI La politica dlle immagini nell’età della Controriforma: Gabrielle Paleotti teorico e committente (dissertation thesis), Bologna 2008. CORNELIS DE BIE Het gulden Cabinet vande edel vry schilder const, inhoudende den lof vande vermarste schilders, architecte, beldthowers ende plaetsnyders van dese eeuw, T’Antwerpen: Ian Meyssens 1661 (reprint Soest 1971). ROLF BIEDERMANN Die Zeichnungen des Johann Heinrich
402 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Schönfeld, in: Jahrbuch der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen in Baden-Würtemberg, Band 8, 1971, pp. 119–194. TOMÁŠ VÁCLAV BÍLEK Dějiny konfiskací v Čechách po r. 1618 I, II, Praha 1882, 1883. VOJTĚCH BIRNBAUM Původní průčelí kostela P. Marie Vítězné na Malé Straně, Památky archeologické 34, 1924–1925, pp. 219–221. VOJTĚCH BIRNBAUM – ANTONÍN MATĚJČEK – JOSEF SCHRÁNIL – ZDENĚK WIRTH Československé umění, Praha 1926. OLDŘICH JAKUB BLAŽÍČEK A KOL. Barok v Čechách. Výběr architektury, plastiky, malby a uměleckých řemesel, Praha 1973. OLDŘICH JAKUB BLAŽÍČEK Italské podněty a ohlasy v barokovém sochařství Čech, Umění XXVIII, 1980, pp. 493–503. OLDŘICH JAKUB BLAŽÍČEK Jan Jiří Bendl, pražský sochař časného baroka, Památky archeologické 40, 1937, pp. 55–91. OLDŘICH JAKUB BLAŽÍČEK Jan Jiří Bendl. Tři sta let od smrti zakladatele české barokové plastiky, Umění XXX, 1982, pp. 97–115. OLDŘICH JAKUB BLAŽÍČEK Jan Jiří Bendl. Výběr řezeb pražského sochaře raného baroku (exh. cat.), Praha 1982. OLDŘICH JAKUB BLAŽÍČEK Rokoko a konec baroku v Čechách, Praha 1948. OLDŘICH JAKUB BLAŽÍČEK Sochařství baroku v Čechách. Plastika 17. a 18. věku, Praha 1958. OLDŘICH JAKUB BLAŽÍČEK Umění baroku v Čechách, Praha 1971. OLDŘICH JAKUB BLAŽÍČEK – VÁCLAV HUSA Materiálie k dějinám barokního výtvarnictví v Čechách I, Ročenka Kruhu pro pěstování dějin umění za rok 1935, Praha 1936, pp. 59–81.
OLDŘICH JAKUB BLAŽÍČEK – VÁCLAV HUSA Materiálie k dějinám barokního výtvarnictví v Čechách II, Ročenka Kruhu pro pěstování dějin umění za rok 1936, Praha 1937, pp. 5–26. OLDŘICH JAKUB BLAŽÍČEK – PAVEL PREISS – DAGMAR HEJDOVÁ Kunst des Barock in Böhmen. Skulptur – Malerei – Kunsthandwerk – Bühnenbild (exh. cat.), Essen – Recklinghausen 1977. ANTHONY BLUNT Artistic Theory in Italy 1450–1600, Oxford 1994 (1st ed. 1962). HENNING BOCK – THOMAS W. GAEHTGENS (edd.) Holländische Genremalerei im 17. Jahrhundert: Symposium Berlin 1984, Berlin 1987 (Jahrbuch Preussischer Kulturbesitz/ Sonderband 4).
DIDIER BODART Les peintres des Pays-Bas méridionaux et de la principauté de Liège à Rome au XVIIème siècle, Bruxelles – Roma 1970. OLIVIER BONFAIT (ed.) Roma 1630. Il trionfo del pennello (exh. cat.), Milano 1994. OLIVIER BONFAIT ET AL. (edd.) Poussin et Rome, Paris 1996. RÉGINE BONNEFOIT Johann Wilhelm Baur (1607–1642). Ein Werbereiter der barocken Kunst in Deutschland, Tübingen – Berlin 1997. RICHARD BÖSEL Jesuitenarchitektur in Italien 1540–1772, Teil I. Die Baudenkmäler der Römischen und Neapolitanischen Ordensprovinz, Wien 1986. RICHARD BÖSEL – HERBERT KARNER Jesuitenarchitektur in Italien (1540–1773), Teil II., Die Baudenkmäler der mailandischen Ordensprovinz, Wien 2007. FRANCESCA BOTTACIN Tiberio Tinelli, Pittore e Cavaliere (1587–1639), Mariano del Friuli 2004. FRANCESCA BOTTACIN Tra Pittura e Poesia. Tiberio Tinelli e l’Accademia degli Incogniti, Studi veneziani NS XLI, 2001, pp. 247–258. GIOVANNI BOTTAR Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura ed architettura, S. Ticozzi (ed.), Milano, 1822. JACQUES BOUSQUET Recherches sur le séjour des peintres français a Rome au XVIIe siècle, Montpellier 1980. WOLFGANG BRASSAT Das Historienbild im Zeitalter der Eloquenz. Von Raffael bis Le Brun, Berlin 2003 (Studien aus dem Warburg-Haus 6). ANNA MARIA BRIZIO – MARCO ROSCI I quadroni di San Carlo del Duomo di Milano: La Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano nella ricorrenza del quarto centenario dell’ingresso in Milano dell’Arcivescovo Carlo Borromeo, Cardinale di Santa Prassede, Milano 1965.
BEKET BUKOVINSKÁ – LUBOMÍR SLAVÍČEK (edd.) Pictura verba cupit. Sborník příspěvků pro Lubomíra Konečného, Praha 2006. JOHN BURY El Greco’s Books, The Burlington Magazine CIXXX, 1987, pp. 388–391. BRUNO BUSHART Deutsche Malerei des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Königstein im Taunus 1967. KLAUS BUSSMANN – HEINZ SCHILLING (edd.) 1648. Krieg und Frieden in Europa (exh. cat.), Vol.. 2: Kunst und Kultur, München 1998. KLAUS BUSSMANN – HEINZ SCHILLING (edd.) War and Peace in Europe. Exhibition Catalogue; Essay Volume II. Art and Culture (exh. cat.), Münster 1998. VÁCLAV BŮŽEK – JOSEF HRDLIČKA – PAVEL KRÁL – ZDENĚK VYBÍRAL Věk urozených. Šlechta v českých zemích na prahu novověku, Praha – Litomyšl 2002. VÁCLAV BŮŽEK – PAVEL KRÁL (edd.) Paměť urozenosti, Praha 2007. IAN CAMPBEL (ed.) The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, Ancient Roman Topography and Architecture I, London 2004. DAVID CAST The Calumny of Apelles: A Study in Humanist Tradition, New Haven – London 1981. GIOVANNI BATTISTA DE’CAVALIERI Antiquarum statuarum Urbis Romae primus et secundus liber, s. l., s. d. [Roma post 1570/ante 1584]. CENNINO CENNINI Trattato della pittura. The Craftman’s Handbook. The italian „Il Libro Dell Arte“, translated by Daniel V. Thompson Jr., New York 1960. ANTHONY COLANTUONO Guido Reni’s Abduction of Helen. The Politics and Rhetoric of painting in seventeenthcentury Europe, Cambridge University Press 1997.
TON J. BROOS Tussen zwart en ultramarijn. De levens van schilders beschreven door Jacob Campo Weyerman (1677–1747), Amsterdam 1990. CELESTE BRUSATI Artifice and Illusion. The Art and Writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten, Chicago – London 1995. CORNELIS DE BRUYN Reizen van Cornelis de Bruyn door de vermaardste delen van Klein Azië, Delft 1698. LUDĚK BŘEZINA – JANA KONVIČNÁ –JAN ZDICHYNEC (edd.) Ve znamení zemí Koruny české. Sborník k šedesátým narozeninám prof. PhDr. Lenky Bobkové, CSc., Praha 2006. BEKET BUKOVINSKÁ – LUBOMÍR KONEČNÝ (edd.) München – Prag um 1600, Praha 2009 (Studia Rudolphina 9, Sonderheft).
GREGORIO COMANINI Il Figino, Mantova 1591. Conmemoración del 450 aniversario de la muerte de Santo Tomás de Villanueva, Valencia 2008. ELIZABETH CROPPER Bound theory and blind practice: Pietro Testa’s notes on painting and the „Liceo della pittura“, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 34, 1971, pp. 262–296. ELIZABETH CROPPER Ideal of painting: Pietro Testa’s Düsseldorf notebook, Princeton 1984. ELIZABETH CROPPPER Vincenzo Giustiniani’s Galleria. The Pygmalion Effect, in: Cassiano dal Pozzos Paper Museum, vol. I, Ivrea 1992, pp. 101–126. ELIZABETH CROPPER Virtue’s wintry reward: Pietro Testa’s
etchings of the Seasons, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 37, 1974, pp. 249–279. ELIZABETH CROPPER – CHARLES DEMPSEY Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and the Love of Painting, Princeton 1995. JIŘÍ ČAREK Z dějin staroměstských domů, Pražský sborník historický 19, Praha 1986, pp. 5–34. JAROSLAV ČECHURA – ZDENĚK HOJDA – MARTINA NOVOZÁMSKÁ Nájemníci na Starém Městě pražském roku 1608. Rekonstruovaná edice shořelého rkp. 324 z Archivu hl. m. Prahy podle opisu uloženého v Archivu Národního muzea, Praha 1997 (Documenta pragensia, monographia, vol. 3). KAREL ČERNÝ – JIŘÍ M. HAVLÍK Jezuité a mor, Praha 2008 (Knižnice Dějin a současnosti XXXIV). VÁCLAV ČERNÝ Až do předsíně nebes. Čtrnáct studií o baroku našem i cizím, Praha 1996. PETR ČORNEJ Vliv pobělohorských konfiskací na skladbu feudální třídy, in: Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Philosophica et Historica I. Studia historica 14, 1976, pp. 178–189. IVANA ČORNEJOVÁ – JIŘÍ KAŠE – JIŘÍ MIKULEC – VÍT VLNAS Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české VIII. 1618–1683, Praha – Litomyšl 2008. THOMAS DACOSTA KAUFMANN Court, Cloister & City. The Art and Culture of Central Europe 1450–1800, London 1995. THOMAS DACOSTA KAUFMANN The School of Prague. Painting at the Court of Rudolf II., Chicago – London 1988. FRANZ DAMBECK – JOSEF KROTTENTHALER Pfarr- und Wallfahrtskirche Neukirchen zum Hl. Blut, München – Zürich 1964, p. 12 (Kleine Kunstführer, vol. 728).
SILVIA DANESI SQUARZINA (ed.) Caravaggio e i Giustiniani. Toccar con mano una collezione del Seicento (exh. cat.), Milano 2001. SILVIA DANESI SQUARZINA The collections of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani. Part I: Documents for the History of Collecting, The Burlington Magazine CXXXIX, 1136, 1997, pp. 766–791. SILVIA DANESI SQUARZINA The collections of Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani. Part II, The Burlington Magazine CXL, 1139, 1998, pp. 102–118. SILVIA DANESI SQUARZINA (ed.) La collezione Giustiniani: inventari, Torino 2003. LADISLAV DANIEL (ed.) Benátčané. Malířství 17. a 18. století z českých a moravských sbírek (exh. cat.), Praha 1996.
403 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
LADISLAV DANIEL – JIŘÍ PELÁN – PIOTR SALWA – OLGA ŠPILAROVÁ (edd.) Italská renesance a baroko ve střední Evropě. Příspěvky z mezinárodní konference, Olomouc 17.–18. října 2003 / Renesans i barok włoski w Europie Środkowej. Materiały międzynarodowej konferencji, Ołomuniec 17–18 października 2003, Olomouc 2005. VINCENZO DANTI Il primo libro del trattato delle perfette proporzioni, Firenze 1567. Dějiny českého výtvarného umění II/1. Od počátků renesance do závěru baroka, Praha 1989. VLADIMÍR DENKSTEIN Václav Hollar: Kresby, Praha 1977. JEAN BAPTISTE DESCAMPS La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois, avec des portraits gravés en tailledouce, une indication de leurs principaux ouvrages, et des réflections sur leurs différentes manieres, Paris 1753–1764. HANS DICKEL Deutsche Zeichenbücher des Barock. Eine Studie zur Geschichte der Künstlerausbildung, Hildesheim – Zürich – New York 1987 (Studien zur Kunstgeschichte XLVIII). DOROTHEA DIEMER (rec.) „Adriaen de Vries: Neue Forschungen und eine bedeutende Ausstellung“, Kunstchronik 52, 1999, pp. 242–259. DOROTHEA DIEMER – HANS REICHLE Ein Modello für die Augsburger Zeughausgruppe und Werkstattfragen, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, Dritte Folge, vol. LVII, 2006, pp. 31–56. JAN DIVIŠ Pražská Loreta, Praha 1972. JOHANN GOTTFRIED DLABACŽ Allgemeines historisches Künstlerlexikon für Böhmen und zum Theil auch für Mähren I–III, Prag 1815. SYLVA DOBALOVÁ Pašijový cyklus Karla Škréty: Mezi výtvarnou tradicí a jezuitskou spiritualitou, Praha 2004. SYLVA DOBALOVÁ Poznámka k obrazu Karla Škréty z kostela sv. Vavřince v Pšovce, Občasník mělnický, 2005, May, pp. 16–18. JOSEF DOBIÁŠ, VILÉM SLAVATA Časopis historický, 1881, pp. 267–309; 2, 1882, pp. 34–56. JOSEF DOBROVSKÝ (ed.) Böhmische Litteratur auf das Jahr 1779, Prag 1779. LUDOVICO DOLCE Dialogo della pittura, Venezia 1557. WILLY DROST Barockmalerei in den germanischen Ländern, Wildpark – Potsdam 1926 (A. E. Brinkmann /ed./, Handbuch der Kunstwissenschaft). ALPHONSE DUFRESNOY De arte Graphica, Roger de Piles (ed.), Paris 1668.
AMALIE DURAS Die Architektenfamilie Lurago, Prag 1933. MAX DVOŘÁK Briefe Kaiser Leopold I. an Wenzel Euseb Herzog in Schlesien, Archiv der Österreichischen Geschichte 80, 1893, pp. 459–514. MAX DVOŘÁK Geschichte des Raudnitzer Schlossbaues 1652–1684, Roudnice nad Labem 1873. JIŘÍ DVORSKÝ (ed.) Die Kunst am Hofe Rudolfs II., Hanau 1988. JANINA DZIK Franciszek Lekszycki, malarz religijny baroku, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska 1998. SYBILLE EBERT-SCHIFFERER – CECILIA MAZZETTI DI PIETRALATA (edd.) Joachim von Sandrart: ein europäischer Künstler und Theoretiker zwischen Italien und Deutschland. Akten des Internationalen Studientages der Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rom, 3.–4. April 2006, München 2009. FRANTIŠEK EKERT Posvátná místa král. hl. města Prahy. Dějiny a popsání chrámů, kaplí, posvátných soch, klášterů a jiných pomníků katolické víry a nábožnosti v hlavním městě království Českého I, II, Praha 1883, 1884 (reprint 1996). JAN A. EMMENS „Ay Rembrandt, maal cornelis stem“, Nederlands Kusthistorisch Jarboek 7, 1956, pp. 133–165. BARBARA ESCHENBURG Landschaft in der deutschen Malerei: vom späten Mittelalter bis heute, München 1987. ROBERT J. W. EVANS Vznik habsburské monarchie 1550–1700, Praha 2003. JIŘÍ FAJT – LUBOMÍR SRŠEŇ Lapidárium Národního muzea Praha. Průvodce stálou expozicí českého kamenosochařství 11. až 19. století v pavilónu Lapidária na Výstavišti v Praze, Praha 1993. MARCELLO FANTONI – LOUISA C. MATTHEW – SARA F. MATTHEWSGRIECO (edd.) The Art Market in Italy (15th–17th Centuries), Ferrara 2003. ANNA FECHTNEROVÁ Jiří Ferus a Jiří Plachý, in: Pavel R. Pokorný (ed.), Pocta Dr. Emmě Urbánkové. Spolupracovníci a přátelé k 70. narozeninám, Praha 1979, pp. 427–457. OLGA FEJTOVÁ – VÁCLAV LEDVINKA – JIŘÍ PEŠEK – VÍT VLNAS (edd.) Barokní Praha – Barokní Čechie 1620–1740. Sborník příspěvků z vědecké konference o fenoménu baroka v Čechách, Praha, Anežský klášter a Clam-Gallasův palác, 24.–27. září 2001, Praha 2004. ANDRÉ FÉLIBIEN Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellens peintres anciens et modernes, Paris 1666–1688 (3rd ed. Trevoux 1725).
VITTORIO DE FEO – VALENTINO MARTINELLI Andrea Pozzo, Milano 1996. KARL FEUCHTMAYR Der Fall Bendl, Das Münster 10, Hft. 9/10, 1957, pp. 319–335. PETR FIDLER Loggia mit Aussicht. Prolegomena zu einer Typologie, Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 40, 1987, pp. 83–101. KARL FISCHER Catalogus (generalis) provinciae Bohemiae (1623–1773) et Silesiae (1755–1733), München 1985. VICTORIA VON FLEMING – SEBASTIAN SCHÜTZE (edd.) Ars Natura adiuvans: Festschrift für Matthias Winner zum 11. März 1996, Mainz am Rhein 1996. JOSEF FORBELSKÝ Španělé, Říše a Čechy v 16. a 17. století, Praha 2006. ERIC FORSSMAN Dorisch, Ionisch, Korintisch, Stockholm 1961. HEINRICH GERHARD FRANZ Bauten und Baumeister der Barockzeit in Böhmen, Leipzig 1962. HEINRICH GERHARD FRANZ (ed.) Die Dientzenhofer. Barocke Baukunst in Bayern und Böhmen (exh. cat.), Rosenheim 1991. PAUL FRÉART DE CHANTELOU Viaggio del Cavalier Bernini in Francia, Palermo 1988. DAVID FREEDBERG A Source for Rubens’s Modello of the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin: a Case Study in the Response of Images, The Burlington Magazine CXX, 1978, pp. 432–441. ELIŠKA FUČÍKOVÁ (ed.) Prag um 1600: Kunst und Kultur am Hofe Rudolfs II. (exh. cat.), Essen – Wien – Freren 1988. ELIŠKA FUČÍKOVÁ Rudolfínská kresba, Praha 1986. ELIŠKA FUČÍKOVÁ (ed.) Tři francouzští kavalíři v rudolfínské Praze, Praha 1989. ELIŠKA FUČÍKOVÁ et al. (edd.) Rudolf II and Prague: The Court and the City (exh. cat.), Prague – London – Milano 1997. ELIŠKA FUČÍKOVÁ – JAMES M. BRADBURNE et ali. (edd.) Rudolf II. a Praha (exh. cat.), Praha 1997. ELIŠKA FUČÍKOVÁ – LADISLAV ČEPIČKA (edd.) Valdštejn. Albrecht z Valdštejna. Inter arma silent musae? (exh. cat.), Praha 2007. GIULIA FUSCONI (ed.) I Giustiniani e l’Antico (exh. cat.), Roma 2001. JOHANN RUDOLF FÜSSLI (ed.) Allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon, oder: Kurze Nachricht von dem Leben und den Werken der Mahler, Bildhauer, Baumeister, Kupferstecher,
Kunstgiesser, Stahlschneider etc etc., Zürich 1763. THOMAS W. GAEHTGENS – UWE FLECKNER (edd.) Historienmalerei, Berlin 1996 (Geschichte der klassischen Bildgattungen in Quellentexten und Kommentaren I). PETER GANZ – MARTIN GOSEBRUCH – NIKOLAUS MEIER – MARTIN WARNKE (edd.) Kunst und Kunsttheorie 1400–1900, Wiesbaden 1991. FABIOLA GIANCOTTI Per ragioni di salute. San Carlo Borromeo nel quarto centenario della canonizzazione 1610–2010, Milano 2010. SILVIA GINZBURG CARIGNANI Domenichino e Giovanni Battista Agucchi, in: Domenichino (1581–1641), Milano 1996, pp. 121–137. GIOVANNI PIETRO GIUSSANO Vita di S. Carlo Borromeo prete cardinale del titolo di Santa Prassede Arcivescovo Milano, Roma 1610. JOHAN VAN GOOL De nieuwe schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen II, Haag 1750–1751. LUIGI GRASSI Teorici e storia della critica d’arte. Parte seconda: l’eta moderna il Seicento, Roma 1973. MINA GRIGORI – RODOLFO MAFFEIS (edd.) Un altra belezza: Francesco Furini (exh. cat.), Firenze 2007. GÜNTHER GRUNDMANN Barockfresken in Breslau, Frankfurt am Main 1967 (Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler des deutschen Ostens, Reihe C, Schlesien, vol. 3). JUSTYNA GUZE Ksiąźka jako symbol treści intelektualnych w sztuce doby humanizmu: XV–XVI w., in: O ikonografii świeckiej doby humanizmu: Tematy – symbole – problemy, Warszawa 1977, pp. 159–243.
MARTIN HALATA (ed.) Kniha protokolů pražského malířského cechu z let 1600–1656, Praha 1996. JOANNES FLORIANUS HAMMERSCHMID Prodromus Gloriae Pragenae. Continens Urbium Pragenarum Fundationes […], Pragae 1723. FRANCIS HASKELL – NICHOLAS PENNY Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Scupture, 1500–1900, New Haven – London 1982. HERBERT HAUPT Von der Leidenschaft zum Schönen. Fürst Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein 1611–1684, Wien – München – Weimar 1998 (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Fürstenhauses Liechtenstein Band II/2). MICHÈLE-CAROLINE HECK Théorie et pratique de la peinture. Sandrart
404 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
et la Teutsche Academie, Paris 2006 (Passagen XV). MICHÈLE-CAROLINE HECK – FRÉDÉRIQUE LEMERLE – YVES PAUWELS (edd.) Téorie des arts et création artistique dans l’Europe du Nord du XVIe au début du XVIIIe siècle. Akten des internationalen Kolloquiums Lille 2000, Lille 2002. CHRISTIAN HECHT Katholische Bildertheologie im Zeitalter von Gegenreformation und Barock: Studien zu Traktaten von Johannes Molanus, Gabriele Paleotti und anderen Autoren, Berlin 1997. JITKA HELFERTOVÁ Castra doloris doby barokní v Čechách, Umění XXII, 1974, pp. 290– 308. EBERHARD HEMPEL Baroque art and Architecture in Central Europe. Germany / Austria / Switzerland / Hungary / Czechoslovakia / Poland, London 1965. JAN HERAIN Staroměstský rynk, Praha 1908. KAREL VLADIMÍR HERAIN České malířství od doby rudolfinské do smrti Reinerovy. Příspěvky k dějinám jeho vnitřního vývoje v letech 1576–1743, Praha 1915. KAREL VLADIMÍR HERAIN Karel Škréta Šotnovský ze Zavořic, Druhá příloha Českého slova ze dne 23. října 1910 (no. 242), pp. 17–18. HOWARD HIBBARD Maderno and Roman Architecture 1580–1630, London 1971. RYSZARD HOŁOWNIA – MATEUSZ KAPUSTKA (edd.) Nysa. Sztuka w dawnej stolicy księstwa biskupiego, Wrocław 2008. GODEFRIUS JOANNES HOOGEWERFF Bescheiden in Italie, Omtrent Nederlandsche Kunstenaars en Geleerden, ’s-Gravenhage 1913. GODEFRIDUS JOANNES HOOGEWERFF De bentvueghels, ’s-Gravenhage 1952 (Utrechtsche Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis 1).
GODEFRIUS JOANNES HOOGEWERFF Il conflitto fra la insigne Accademia di San Luca e la banda dei pittori neerlandesi, Archivio della Società romana di storia patria LVIII, 1935, pp. 189–203. GODEFRIUS JOANNES HOOGEWERFF Intorno al sepolcro di Bacco. Le feste degli artisti olandesi e fiamminghi a Roma nel Seicento, in: Roma. Rivista di studi e di vita romana II, 1924, pp. 119–128. GODEFRIUS JOANNES HOOGEWERFF Les fondations hospitalières et artistiques Belges à Rome, in: Les Fondations nationales dans la Rome potificale, Torino 1981, pp. 61–69 (Collection de l’École française de Rome 52).
GODEFRIUS JOANNES HOOGEWERFF Nederlandsche kunstennars te Rome (1600– 1725), ’s-Gravenhage 1942. SAMUEL DIRKSZ VAN HOOGSTRATEN Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst, Rotterdam 1678. HENDRIK J. HORN The Golden Age Revisited: Arnold Houbraken’s Great Theatre of Netherlandish Painters and Paintresses, Doornspijk 2000. ANDĚLA HOROVÁ (ed.) Nová encyklopedie českého výtvarného umění I, Praha 1995. MOJMÍR HORYNA Barokizace pasovského dómu – Luragovo dílo na rozhraní raného a vrcholného baroka a česká architektura kolem roku 1700, Umění LII, 2004, pp. 218–230. MOJMÍR HORYNA Kryštof Dientzenhofer (1655–1722), Praha 2005. MOJMÍR HORYNA Novostavby K. I. Dientzenhofera v kontextu okolní zástavby, Architektura ČSR 48, 1989, pp. 32–36. MIROSLAV HORYNA – ZDENĚK HOJDA – PAVEL ZAHRADNÍK et al. (edd.). Valdštejnský palác v Praze, Praha 2002. MOJMÍR HORYNA – JOSEF HÝZLER – LUBOŠ LANCINGER Světce u Tachova, bývalý pavlánský kostel. Stavebně-historický průzkum, SÚRPMO Praha 1975, ms. MOJMÍR HORYNA – PETRA OULÍKOVÁ Kostel Nejsvětějšího Salvátora a Vlašská kaple, Kostelní Vydří 2006. MOJMÍR HORYNA – PAVEL PREISS – PAVEL ZAHRADNÍK Černínský palác v Praze, Praha – Zblov 2001. ARNOLD HOUBRAKEN De groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen, Amsterdam, 1718–1721. ARNOLD HOUBRAKEN’S GROSSE SCHOUBURGH DER NIEDERLÄNDISCHEN MALER UND MALERINNER ed. Alfred von Wurzbach, Wien 1880 (Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik de Mittelalters und der Renaissance, 8). JOSEF HRDLIČKA Slavatova obrana jezuitského řádu a jeho představy o konfesijním uspořádání Čech z počátku 17. století, Folia Historica Bohemica 23, 2008, pp. 225–249. PETR HRUBÝ – MICHAELA HRUBÁ (edd.) Barokní umění v severozápadních Čechách, Ústí nad Labem 2003. ERICH HUBALA (ed.) Die Kunst des 17. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 1970 (Propyläen Kunstgeschichte, vol. 9). ERICH HUBALA Johann Michael Rottmayr, Wien 1981.
BOHDAN CHUDOBA – ZDENĚK KALISTA – JOSEF VAŠICA – JAN RACEK – ALBERT KUTAL, Baroko. Pět statí, Praha 1934. KAREL CHYTIL Pražská Venušina fontána od B. Wurzelbauera, Praha 1902. JOSEPH IMORDE (ed.) Barocke Inszenierung. Akten des Internationalen Forschungscolloquiums an der Technischen Universität Berlin, 20.–22. Juni 1996, Emsdetten 1999. JAN JAKUB QUIRIN JAHN Nachrichten von einigen böhmischern alten und neuen Malern und Künstlern, in: Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und der freyen Künste, Bd. 19, Stück 2, Leipzig 1776, pp. 320–332; Bd 20, Stück 2, Leipzig 1776, pp. 140–152. PABLO JIMENEZ Vztahy Španělska a Čech, jejich doklady v rudolfinské kultuře a umění (dissertation thesis FFUK), Praha 1996. HERMENEGILD JIREČEK Obnovené Právo a Zřízení zemské dědičného království českého, Codex Iuris Bohemici 5/2, Praha 1888. JOSEF JIREČEK Děje království uherského za panování Ferdinanda I. Svazek I. Od Leta 1526–1546, Viléma hraběte Slavaty z Chlumu a z Košumberka, vladaře domu Hradeckého, pána na Hradci Jindřichově, Stráži, Telči, Žirovnici a Mělnice, nejvyššího dědičného šenka království českého, císařův Ferdinanda II. a III. skutečného tejného rady a komorníka, rytíře Zlatého rouna, Vídeň 1857. JOSEF JIREČEK Leben des Obersten Hofkanzlers von Böhmen Wilhelm Grafen Slavata, Prag 1876. JOSEF JIREČEK Paměti nejvyššího kancléře království českého Viléma hraběte Slavaty z Chlumu a Košmberka, vladaře domu Hradeckého, pána na Hradci Jindřichově, Stráži, Telči, Žirovnici a Mělnice, nejvyššího dědičného šenka království českého, císařův Ferdinanda II. a III. skutečného tejného rady a komorníka, rytíře Zlatého rouna (nar. 1. prosince 1572, zemř. 19. ledna 1652) od L. 1608 do 1619, I. díl. 1608, 1618–1619, II. díl. 1611, 1615, 1617–1619, Praha 1866 a 1868 (Staré paměti dějin českých. Monumenta historiae bohemica, II, depart. III, vol. 1–2). JOSEF JIREČEK Přestoupení Viléma Slavaty k církvi katolické, Časopis katolického duchovenstva 3, 1862, pp. 401–435. MIROSLAVA KACETLOVÁ Autoportrét v českém barokním malířství (graduation thesis FFUK), Praha 2006. ZDENĚK KALISTA Česká barokní gotika a její žďárské ohnisko, Brno 1970. ZDENĚK KALISTA Humprecht Jan Černín jako mecenáš
a podporovatel umění v době své benátské ambasády (1660–1663), Památky archeologické 36, 1928–1930, pp. 53–78. MATEUSZ KAPUSTKA – ANDRZEJ KOZIEŁ – PIOTR OSZCZANOWSKI Op Nederlandse Manier. Inspiracje niderlandzkie w sztuce śląskiej XV–XVIII w. (exh. cat.), Legnica 2001, pp. 93–94. MARIUSZ KARPOWICZ Działalność artystyczna Michaelangela Palloniego w Polsce, Warszawa 1967. MARIUSZ KARPOWICZ Jerzy Eleuter Siemiginowski, malarz polskiego baroku, Wrocław – Warszawa – Kraków – Gdańsk 1974. MARIUSZ KARPOWICZ Paolo Pagani w Krakowie, Biuletyn Historii Sztuki 54, 1992, pp. 67–80. MARIUSZ KARPOWICZ Sztuka polska XVII. wieku, Warszawa 1975. FRANTIŠEK KAŠIČKA Nostický palác ve stavebním a historickém vývoji, 1999, ms. HANS-MARTIN KAULBACH – MAREN WAIKE – URSULA ZELLER (edd.) Johann Heinrich Schönfeld: Welt der Götter, Heiligen und Heldenmythen, Köln 2009. WOLFGANG KEMP (ed.) Der Betrachter ist im Bild. Kunstwissenschaft und Rezeptionsästhetik, Berlin 1992. WOLFGANG KEMP Disegno. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Begriffs zwischen 1547 und 1607, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft XIX, 1974, pp. 219–240. GABRIELA KESNEROVÁ Nová Pragensia Václava Hollara, Umění XXVIII, 1990, pp. 341–347. GABRIELA KESNEROVÁ – ANTHONY GRIFFITHS Václav Hollar: Kresby a grafické listy ze sbírek Britského muzea v Londýně a Národní galerie v Praze (exh. cat.), Praha 1983. GALINA KISLYKH Nemeckij, avstrijskij i švejcarskij risunok. Gosudarstvennyj Muzej Izobrazitel’nych Iskusstv imeni A. S. Puškina, Vol. I, XV–XVIII veka, Moskva 2009.
INGEBORG KLEKLER Die Handschriften der Württenbergischen Landesbibliothek Stuttgart III, Stammbücher bis 1625, Wiesbaden 1999. CHRISTIAN KLEMM Joachim von Sandrart: Kunst-Werke und Lebens-Lauf, Berlin 1986 (Jahresgabe des Deutschen Vereines für Kunstwissenschaft 1985/86). ULRIKE KNALL-BRSKOVSKY Italienische Quadraturisten in Österreich, Wien – Köln 1984. TOMÁŠ KNOZ Pobělohorské konfiskace. Moravský průběh, středoevropské souvislosti, obecné aspekty, Brno 2006. MARIE KOEFOED (ed.) Johann Wilhelm Baur 1607–1642. Maniérisme et baroque en Europe, Strasbourg 1998.
405 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
JOACHIM KÖHLER – RAINER BENDEL (edd.) Geschichte des christlichen Lebens im schlesischer Raum, t. 1, Münster 2002 (Religions- und Kulturgeschichte in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa, vol. 1). JOS KOLDEWEIJ Der gude sente Servas. De Servatiuslegende en de Servatiana: een onderzoek naar de beeldvorming rond een heilige in de middeleeuwen, Assen/Maastricht 1985 (Maaslandse Monografieën Groot Formaat 5). JOS KOLDEWEIJ Van Maastricht naar Mnisech. Karel Scrtea’s Servatius uit 1654, Antiek. Tijdschrift voor oude kunst en kunstnijverheid, 30:5, 1995, pp. 208–212. BJÖRN R. KOMMER (ed.) Adriaen de Vries 1556–1626, Augsburgs Glanz – Europas Ruhm (exh. cat.), Augsburg 2000. LUBOMÍR KONEČNÝ Esilio publico – Fridrich Falcký a Kašpar Bechteler, Umění XXXI, 1983, pp. 451–456. LUBOMÍR KONEČNÝ Karel Škréta a François Le Roy, S. J. neboli: Historie téměř detektivní, Bulletin of the National Gallery in Prague 10, 2001, pp. 87–92. LUBOMÍR KONEČNÝ Mezi textem a obrazem. Miscellanea z historie emblematiky, Praha 2002. LUBOMÍR KONEČNÝ Nochmals zu Laokoon des Adriaen de Vries für Albrecht von Waldstein, Studia Rudolphina 5, 2005, pp. 77–79. LUBOMÍR KONEČNÝ Škréta a Tempesta, Drahomíra a Proserpina, Opuscula Historiae Artium. Studia Minora facultatis philosophicae universitatis brunensis, F 45, 2001, pp. 79–82. JOSEF KOPEČEK Jan Jiří Bendl na Svaté Hoře, Podbrdsko XI, 2004, pp. 184–188. JOSEF KOPEČEK Karel Škréta na Svaté Hoře, Podbrdsko IX, 2002, pp. 164–175. JOSEF KOPEČEK Svatá hora, Kostelní Vydří 2006. MIROSLAV KORECKÝ Praha v barevném reliéfu, Praha 1975. IVO KOŘÁN Cyriacký klášter a chrám sv. Kříže Většího v baroku, Umění XVI, 1968, pp. 173–195. IVO KOŘÁN České řezbářství 1620–1650 a jeho společenské a historické předpoklady (unprinted graduation thesis FFUK), Praha 1957. IVO KOŘÁN Knihovna architekta Bonifáce Wolmuta, Umění VIII, 1960, pp. 522– 527. IVO KOŘÁN (rec.) Reprezentativní obraz baroka
v Čechách, Umění XXIX, 1981, pp. 465–469. IVO KOŘÁN Umění a umělci baroka v Hradci králové I. a II., Umění XIX, 1971, pp. 35–69, 136–189. VIKTOR KOTRBA Česká barokní gotika. Dílo Jana SantinihoAichla, Praha 1976. VIKTOR KOTRBA Georg neb Cajetan Bendl či Caspar Bechteler, Umění XXII, 1974, pp. 308–323. VIKTOR KOTRBA Původ a život architekta Jana Blažeje Santiniho-Aichela, Umění XVI, 1968, pp. 535–566. ANDRZEJ KOZIEŁ Michael Willmann’s Way to „the Heights of Art“ and His Early Drawings, Bulletin of the National Gallery in Prague 7–8, 1997–1998, pp. 54–66. ANDRZEJ KOZIEŁ (ed.) Opactwo Cystersów w Lubiążu i artyści, Wrocław 2008 (Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis, vol. 3012, Historia Sztuki, vol. 26). ANDRZEJ KOZIEŁ Rysunki Michaela Willmanna (1630–1706), Wrocław 2000 (Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis, vol. 2212, Historia Sztuki, vol. 14). ANDRZEJ KOZIEŁ – BEATA LEJMAN (edd.) Willmann i inni. Malarstwo, rysunek i grafiki na Śląsku i w krajach ościennych w XVII i XVIII wieku, Wrocław 2002. VINCENC KRAMÁŘ Karel Škréta, Salon, 1932, no. 2, pp. 6–7, no. 3, pp. 27–28. VINCENC KRAMÁŘ (ed.) Výstava obrazů Karla Škréty, Praha 1938. VINCENC KRAMÁŘ Z mladých let Karla Škréty. Jakubův příchod k Labanovi, Praha 1938 (Příspěvky k dějinám výtvarného umění 1).
VINCENC KRAMÁŘ Zpustošení chrámu sv. Víta, ed. Michal Šroněk, Praha 1998. MILOŠ VÁCLAV KRATOCHVÍL Čas hvězd a mandragor. Pražská léta Rudolfa II., Praha 1972. PETR KRATOCHVÍL (ed.) Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české – Architektura, Praha 2009. JARMILA KRČÁLOVÁ, Byl v našich zemích vůbec manýrismus, Výtvarné umění 19, 1969, pp. 68–85. JARMILA KRČÁLOVÁ Centrální stavby české renesance, Praha 1974. JARMILA KRČÁLOVÁ Das Oval in der Architektur des böhmischen Manierismus, Umění XXI, 1973, pp. 303–331. JARMILA KRČÁLOVÁ Die Garten Rudolf II., Leids
Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 1, 1982, pp. 149–160. JARMILA KRČÁLOVÁ Die rudolfinische Architektur, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 1, 1982, pp. 271–302. JARMILA KRČÁLOVÁ Giovanni Pieroni – architekt?, Umění XXXVI, 1988, pp. 511–542. JARMILA KRČÁLOVÁ Il Palladianesimo in Cecoslovacchia e l’influenza del Veneto sull’architettura ceca, Bollettino del Centro internazionale di studi di architektura „A. Palladio“ 6–2, 1964, pp. 89–110. JARMILA KRČÁLOVÁ Italští mistři Malé Strany na počátku 17. století, Umění XVIII, 1970, pp. 545– 581. JARMILA KRČÁLOVÁ Kostely české a moravské renesance. Příspěvek k typologii, Umění XXIX, 1981, pp. 1–37. JARMILA KRČÁLOVÁ La Toscana e l’architettura die Rodolfo II: Giovanni Gargiolli a Praga, in: Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell’Europa del ‚500. Atti del Convegno Internazionala di Studi III., Firenze 1983, pp. 1029–1051. JARMILA KRČÁLOVÁ Pietro Ferabosco und sein Schaffen im Königreich Böhmen, Ostbairische Grenzmarken 11, 1969, pp. 183–196. JARMILA KRČÁLOVÁ Poznámky k rudolfínské architektuře, Umění XXIII, 1975, pp. 499–526. GEORG KREIS – BEAT VON WARTBURG (edd.) Geschichte einer städtischen Gessellschaft, Basel 2000. THOMAS KREN Chi non vuol Baccho: Roeland van Laer’s Burlesque Painting about Dutch Artists in Rome, Simiolus 11, 1981, pp. 63–80.
LENZ KRISS-RETTENBERG (ed.) Wallfahrt kennt keine Grenzen, München 1984. ALOIS KROESS S. J. Geschichte der böhmischen Provinz der Gesellschaft Jesu, Wien 1910. KAMIL KROFTA Zápisky Viléma Slavaty o věcech moravských z l. 1607, 1608, 1613–1615, Český časopis historický 16, 1910, pp. 44– 51. JIŘÍ KROUPA (ed.) V zrcadle stínů. Morava v době baroka 1670– 1790 (exh. cat.), Brno – Rennes 2003. JIŘÍ KROUPA – MICHAELA ŠEFERISOVÁ LOUDOVÁ – LUBOMÍR KONEČNÝ (edd.) Orbis artium. K jubileu Lubomíra Slavíčka, Brno 2009 (Opera Universitatis Masarykianae Brunensis, Facultas Philosophica. Spisy Masarykovy
univerzity v Brně, Filozofická fakulta 382). IVO KRSEK – ZDENĚK KUDĚLKA – MILOŠ STEHLÍK – JOSEF VÁLKA Umění baroka na Moravě a ve Slezsku, Praha 1996. ANDREW LADIS (ed.) The Craft of Art. Originality and Industry in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque Workshop, Athens, Ga. 1995. LUBOŠ LANCINGER – MILAN PAVLÍK Kostel sv. Maří Magdaleny na Malé Straně v Praze a Francesco Caratti, Umění XIV, 1966, pp. 109–121. ROBERTO LANDI Indice degli artisti compresi nell’opera manoscritta di Marcello Oretti „Notizie de Professori del dissegno“, L’ Archiginnasio 78, 1983, pp. 103–198. LARS OLOF LARSSON Adriaen de Vries, Wien 1967. LARS OLOF LARSSON Adriaen de Vries v Praze, Umění XVI, 1968, pp. 255–295. LARS OLOF LARSSON European bronzes 1450–1700 (Swedish National Art Museums), Stockholm 1992. KONSTANZE LAUFER Anmerkungen zu den Salzburger Altargemälden Johann Heinrich Schönfelds, Barockberichte 16/17, 1998, pp. 23–29. HARTMUT LAUFHÜTTE (ed.) Künste und Natur in Diskursen der Frühen Neuzeit, Wiesbaden 2000 (Wolfenbütteler Arbeiten zur Barockforschung XXXV). MARILYN ARONBERG LAVIN (ed.) Il 60, Essays Honoring Irving Lavin on his Sixtieth Birthday, New York 1990, pp. 207–226. VÁCLAV LEDVINKA – JIŘÍ PEŠEK Praha, Praha 2000.
RENSSELAER W. LEE Ut pictura poesis. The Humanistic Theory of Painting, New York – London 1967. JOHANN AUGUST LEHNINGER Abrégé de la vie des peintres, dont les tableaux composent la Galerie electorale de Dresde. Avec le détail de tous les tableaux de cette collection et des eclaircissemens historiques sur ces chefsd’oeuvres de la peinture, Dresde: Frères Walters 1782. JAROSLAVA LENCOVÁ Na okraj prací Kašpara Bechtelera pro Pražský hrad, Umění XXII, 1974, pp. 548–553. JAROSLAVA LENCOVÁ Řezané dveře pozdní renesance a raného baroka v Praze, Umění XXVI, 1978, pp. 464–472. DAVID A. LEVINE – EKKERHARD MAI (edd.) I Bamboccianti, Niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock (exh. cat.), Milano 1991.
406 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
DOBROSLAV LÍBAL Dvě dávno zaniklá architektonická díla pražské renesance, Staletá Praha 8, 1977, pp. 267–273. DOBROSLAV LÍBAL – JAN MUK, Staré Město pražské, architektonický a urbanistický vývoj, Praha 1996. MICHAELA LÍČENÍKOVÁ Úloha architekta Nicola Sebregondiho ve službách vévody Albtrechta z Valdštejna, Zprávy památkové péče 58, 1998, pp. 1–16. HILDE LIETZMANN Die Deutsch-Lutherische Dreifaltigkeits, die spätere Ordenskirche Sta. Maria Victoria auf der Kleinen Seite zu Prag, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 40, 1977, pp. 205–226. DOROTHY LIMOUZE Aegidius Sadeler (1570–1629): Drawings, Prints and Art Theory (Ph.D. Dissertation), Princeton University 1990. DOROTHY LIMOUZE Umění rytiny na císařském dvoře v Praze, Grapheion 2, 1997, pp. 19–25. HUBERT LOCHER Raffael und das Altarbild der Renaissance. Die „Pala Baglioni“ als Kunstwerk im sakralen Kontext, Berlin 1994 (Acta humaniora. Schriften zur Kunstwissenschaft und Philosophie). VILÉM LORENC Příspěvek k místopisu starého Zderazu, Pražský sborník historický 3, 1966–1967, pp. 86–105. VILÉM LORENC – KAREL TŘÍSKA Černínský palác v Praze, Praha 1980. HELLMUT LORENZ (ed.) Geschichte der bildenden Künste in Österreich, Bd. 4: Barock, München – London – New York 1999. HUBERTUS LOSSOW Michael Willmann (1630–1706) – Meister der Barockmalerei, Würzburg 1994. WOLFGANG LOTZ Die ovalen Kirchenräume des Cinquecento, Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 7, 1955, pp. 7–98. UTE LOTZ-HEUMANN – JAN-FRIEDRICH MISSFELDER – MATTHIAS POHLIG (edd.) Konversion und Konfession in der Frühen Neuzeit, Gütersloh 2007. LÚKIANOS Pravdivé výmysly, Václav Bahník (transl.), Praha 1983. JAROSLAV MACEK – PETR MACEK – MOJMÍR HORYNA – PAVEL PREISS Oktavián Broggio 1670–1742 (exh. cat.), Litoměřice 1992. PETR MACEK – JAN BERÁNEK – PAVEL ZAHRADNÍK Bývalý klášter bosých augustiniánů v Pšovce u Mělníka, Průzkumy památek VIII, 2001, no. 2, pp. 7–37. PETR MACEK – PAVEL ZAHRADNÍK Zámecký areál v Zákupech, Průzkumy památek 3, 1996, pp. 3–34.
KAREL BOROMEJSKÝ MÁDL Výtvarné umění. Karel Škréta, Příloha Národních listů k číslu 278, 1910 (9. 10), p. 9. MARTIN MÁDL Distinguishing – similarities – style: Carpoforo and Giacomo Tencalla in Czech lands, Ars 40, 2007, pp. 225–236. MARTIN MÁDL Kresba Stigmatizace sv. Františka z Assisi a Šternberská kaple v kostele pražských hybernů, in: Ars linearis II, in print. DENIS MAHON Studies in Seicento Art and Theory, London 1947. FRIDOLIN MACHÁČEK Defenestrace pražská r. 1618, Český časopis historický XIV, 1908, pp. 197–211, 297–311, 436–451. EKKEHARD MAI – ANKE REPP-ECKERT (edd.) Triumph und Tod des Helden. Europäische Historienmalerei von Rubens bis Manet, Milano 1987. EMILE MÂLE L’art religieux après le Consile de Trente: etude sur l’iconographie de la fin du XVI siècle, du XVII, du XVIII siècle: Italie, France, Espagne, Flandres, Paris 1932. CARLO CESARE MALVASIA Felsina pittrice II, Bologna 1678. CARLO CESARE MALVASIA Felsina pittrice II, G. Zanotti (ed.), Bologna 1841. JAKUB B. MALÝ Příběhy Jaroslava z Martinic a Viléma Slavaty po jich vyhození z okna, Časopis českého musea 24, 1850, pp. 49– 80. JAKUB B. MALÝ Příspěvek k historii české sedmnáctého století, Časopis českého musea 19, pp. 190– 212. GIULIO MANCINI Considerazioni sulla Pittura I, ed. Adriana Marucchi, Roma 1956.
ADRIANA MARUCCHI – LUIGI SALERNO (edd.) Considerazioni sulla Pittura II, Roma 1957. JEAN MICHEL MASSING Du texte a l’image: La Calomnie d’Apelle et son iconographie, Strasbourg 1990. PETR MAŤA Oslavy jubilejního léta v Římě a česká šlechta, in: Jihočeský sborník historický 66, 1997, pp. 117–123. PETR MAŤA Svět české aristokracie (1500–1700), Praha 2004. PETR MAŤA Zrození tradice (slavatovské vyústění rožmberského a hradeckého odkazu), in: Václav Bůžek (ed.), Poslední páni z Hradce, České Budějovice 1998 (Opera historica 6, 1998), pp. 513–552. ANTONÍN MATĚJČEK Dějepis umění. Díl pátý. Umění Nového věku III., Praha 1932. ANTONÍN MATĚJČEK Galerie v Rudolfině, Praha 1913. ANTONÍN MATĚJČEK – JAROSLAV ŠÁMAL (edd.) Legendy o českých patronech v obrázkové knize ze XIV. století, Praha 1940. BOHUMIL MATĚJKA Přestavba a výzdoba chrámu sv. Tomáše při klášteře poustevníků řádu sv. Augustina na Menším Městě Pražském, Památky archaeologické a místopisné XVII, 1896, sl. 81–152. VILÉM MATHESIUS (red.) Co daly naše země Evropě a lidstvu. Od slovanských věrozvěstů k národnímu obrození, Praha 1939. JAROSLAV MATHON Pražské oltáře v ranním baroku, Umění (Štenc) XI, 1938, pp. 561–571. Die Matrikel der Universität Basel II 1532/33–1600/01, ed. Hans Georg Wackernagel, Basel 1962. Die Matrikel der Universität Basel III 1601/02–1665/66, ed. Hans Georg Wackernagel, Basel 1962.
KAREL VAN MANDER Den grondt der edel vry schilderkonst, Uitgegeven en van vertaling en commentaar voorzien door Hessel Miedema, Utrecht 1973. KAREL VAN MANDER Het schilder-boeck (facsimile van de eerste uitgave, Haarlem 1604), Utrecht 1969. FRANTIŠEK MAREŠ Das Martinic’sche Geschichtswerk, Mitteilungen des Institus für österreichische Geschichstforschung, 1885, pp. 310–311. GIOVANNI BATTISTA MARINO Dicerie sacre sulla Pittura, la Musica e il Cielo, Milano 1618. ANTONÍN MARKUS Stavovské apologie z roku 1618, Český časopis historický 17, 1911, pp. 58–74, 200–217, 304–315, 421–435.
FRANZ MATSCHE Gegenreformatorische Architekturpolitik. Casa-SantaKopien und Habsburger Loreto-Kult nach 1620, Jahrbuch für Volkskunde NF 1, 1978, pp. 80–118. EDUARD MAUR Problémy demografické struktury Čech v polovině 17. století, Český časopis historický XIX, 1971, pp. 830–870. JOSEF MAYER Architektonické dílo Jana Domenica de Barifis, Staletá Praha 5, 1971, pp. 199–209. ESTHER MEIER Joachim von Sandrarts „LebensLauf“: Dichtung oder Wahrheit?, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 31, 2004, pp. 205–239. PATRICIA MEILAMAN Titian and the Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice, Cambridge 2000.
JAROSLAVA MENDELOVÁ – PAVLA STÁTNÍKOVÁ (edd.) Život v barokní Praze 1620–1784. Seznam vystavených exponátů, Praha 2001. ANEŽKA MERHAUTOVÁ (ed.) Katedrála sv. Víta v Praze (K 650. výročí založení), Praha 1994. CYRIL MERHOUT O Malé Straně. Její stavební vývoj a dávný život, Praha 1956. MONICA MIATO L’Accademia degli Incogniti di Giovan Francesco Loredan, Venezia (1630–1661), Firenze 1998. SERGIUSZ MICHALSKI Der Laokoon und die Ringer des Adriaen de Vries im Garten des Prager Waldsteinpalastes: Symbole der Überwindung des böhmischen Aufstandes?, Studia Rudolphina 4, 2004, pp. 28–31. JIŘÍ MIKULEC 31. 7. 1627. Rekatolizace šlechty v Čechách. Čí je země, toho je i náboženství, Praha 2005. MELCHIOR MISSIRINI Memorie per servire alla storia della romana Accademia di S. Luca fino alla morte di Antonio Canova, Roma 1823. GIORGIO MOLLISI L’opera a fresco di Carpoforo Tencalla, in: Carpoforo Tencalla da Bissone. Pitura del Seicento fra Milano e l’Europa centrale (exh. cat.), Milano 2005, pp. 59–65. JAN MORÁVEK Giuseppe Mattei a „Nové stavení“ Pražského hradu 1638–44, Umění V, 1957, pp. 340–355. JAN MORÁVEK Stavba jezuitské rezidence ve Staré Boleslavi, Umění VI, 1958, pp. 376–401. JAN MORÁVEK – ZDENĚK WIRTH Valdštejnův Jičín, Umění (Štenc) VII, 1934, pp. 273–282, 447–466. JAN MORÁVEK – ZDENĚK WIRTH Valdštejnův Jičín, příspěvek k dějinám barokního stavitelství v Čechách, Praha 1946. JOHANN JOSEPH MORPER Das Czernin Palais in Prag, Prag 1940. KARL MÖSENEDER – GOSBERT SCHÜSSLER (edd.) Bedeutung in den Bildern. Festschrift für Jörg Traeger zum 60. Geburtstag, Regensburg 2002 (Regensburger Kulturleben I). FRANCESCO MOZZETI Educare per immagini. Gesti di carità e attivismo caritatevole, Venezia Cinquecento VIII, 1998, pp. 53–80. IVAN MUCHKA – KVĚTA KŘÍŽOVÁ Valdštejnský palác, Praha 1996. WERNER MÜLLER Von Guarini bis Balthasar Neumann, Petersberg 2002. VĚRA NAŇKOVÁ Architekt a stavitel Pavel Ignác Bayer – představy v literatuře a skutečnost, Umění XXII, 1974, pp. 224–261.
407 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
VĚRA NAŇKOVÁ Barokní architektura v západních Čechách, Umění XXVIII, 1980, pp. 22– 53. VĚRA NAŇKOVÁ Giovanni Domenico Orsi de Orsini a Stará Boleslav, Umění XXX, 1982, pp. 181–183. VĚRA NAŇKOVÁ Kostel sv. Voršily v Praze. K problematice české barokní architektury kolem roku 1700, Sborník prací Filozofické fakulty Brněnské univerzity, F 30–31, 1986–87, pp. 33–39. VĚRA NAŇKOVÁ K typologii české sakrální architektury 17. století, Umění XXXIV, 1986, pp. 138–143. VĚRA NAŇKOVÁ – JAROSLAVA LENCOVÁ Barokní přestavba Lobkovického paláce, Umění XLIII, 1995, pp. 425–432. KAREL NAVRÁTIL Paměti hlavního kostela farního, fary a školy sv. Jindřicha a sv. Kunhuty v Novém Městě pražském, Praha 1869. JAROMÍR NEUMANN Aktuálnost českého baroku, Umění XXX, 1982, pp. 385–421. JAROMÍR NEUMANN Český barok, Praha 19742. JAROMÍR NEUMANN K italským začátkům Karla Škréty, Umění III, 1955, pp. 308–329. JAROMÍR NEUMANN Jan Kryštof Liška, Umění XV, 1967, pp. 135–176, 260–311. JAROMÍR NEUMANN Karel Škréta, Praha 1956. JAROMÍR NEUMANN Karel Škréta 1610–1674 (exh. cat.), Praha 1974. JAROMÍR NEUMANN Ke komposičním principům Škrétova svatováclavského cyklu, Výtvarné umění VI, 1956, pp. 162–168. JAROMÍR NEUMANN Malířství XVII. století v Čechách. Barokní realismus, Praha 1951 (České dějiny III). JAROMÍR NEUMANN Osobitost českého baroku, Umění LI, 2003, pp. 137–146. JAROMÍR NEUMANN Škrétové. Karel Škréta a jeho syn, Praha 2000. PETRA NEVÍMOVÁ La Capella Italiana della Citta Vecchia / Vlašská kaple, Praha 2005. PETRA NEVÍMOVÁ Výstavba a výzdoba Klementina v letech 1556–1773, (dissertation thesis FFUK) Praha 2001. JANA NIEDERMAIER Barocke Ambitenanlagen in Böhmen und Mähren, München 2009. FRANZ NIEHOFF (ed.) Mit Kalkül & Leidenschaft. Inszenierungen des Heiligen in der bayerischen Rokokomalerei,
Band I, Landshut 2003 (Schriften aus den Museen der Stadt Landshut 17). FRIEDRICH NOACK Das Deutschtum in Rom seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, Stuttgart 1927. ARNE NOVÁK Nové bádání o českém baroku slovesném, Naše věda 16, 1935, pp. 189–202. ARNE NOVÁK Praha barokní, Praha 1915. ANTONÍN NOVOTNÝ Jak život Prahou šel (1576–1830), Praha 1946. VLADIMÍR NOVOTNÝ Účast Jana Jiřího Bendla na výzdobě kostela sv. Salvátora v Praze, Památky archeologické XL, 1937, pp. 41–55. PELLEGRINO ANTONIO ORLANDI Abecedario pittorico nel quale compendiosamente sono descritte le patrie, i maestri, ed i tempi, ne’quali fiorirono circa quattromila professori di pittura, di scultura, e d’architettura diviso in tre parti, Bologna 1704. PETRA OULÍKOVÁ Klementinum: průvodce, Praha 2006. FRANTIŠEK PALACKÝ Přehled současný nejvyšších důstojníků a úředníků zemských i dvorských v království Českém od nejstarších časů až do nynějška, Praha 1832. ERWIN PANOFSKY Idea, contributo alla storia dell’estetica, Firenze 1952. THE PAPER MUSEUM OF CASSIANO DAL POZZO: a catalogue raisonné: drawings and prints in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, the British museum, the Institut de France and other collections, Francis Haskell – Jenifer Montagu (edd.), London 2001–2004. GIAMBATTISTA PASSERI Vite de’pittori, scultori ed architetti cha anno lavorato in Roma, Morti dal 1641 fino al 1673, Roma 1772. GUSTAV EDMUND PAZAUREK Carl Screta (1610–1674.) Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des XVII. Jahrhundertes, Prag 1889.
JOSEF PEKAŘ Postavy a problémy českých dějin. Výbor z díla, ed. Zdeněk Kutnar, Praha 19902. RICHARD PENNINGTON A descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Wenceslaus Hollar 1607–1677, Cambridge 1982. FRANÇOISE PERRIER Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum, Quae temporis dentem invidium evasere Urbis aeternae ruinis erepta, Typis aeneis abce commissa Perpetuae vene rationis monumentum, Roma 1638. JIŘÍ PEŠEK Měšťanská vzdělanost a kultura v předbělohorských Čechách 1547–1620 (Všední dny kulturního života), Praha 1993. JIŘÍ PEŠEK – VÁCLAV LEDVINKA Ponížení a odstrčení. Města versus poražení, Praha 1998 (Documenta pragensia XVI).
JAROSLAV PEŠINA (ed.) Sborník k sedmdesátinám Jana Květa, Praha 1965 (Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Philosophica et Historica 1). JAROSLAV PEŠINA Skupinový portrét v českém renesančním umění, Umění II, 1954, pp. 269–295. ULRICH PFISTERER – VALESKA VON ROSEN (edd.) Der Künstler als Kunstwerk: Selbstporträts vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, Stuttgart 2005. FRIEDRICH PIEL – JÖRG TRAEGER (edd.) Festschrift Wolfgang Braunfels, Tübingen 1977. ROGER DE PILES Abrégé de la vie des peintres, avec des reflexions sur leurs ouvrages, et un Traité du peintre parfait; De la connoissance des desseins; De l’utilité des estampe, Paris 1699. ROGER DE PILES Abregé de la vie des peintres : avec des réflexions sur leurs ouvrages, et un traité du peintre parfait ; de la connoissance des desseins ; de l’utilité des estampes, 2. éd., revue & corrigée par l’auteur; avec un abregé de sa vie, & plusieurs autres additions, Paris 1715. ROGER DE PILES Abregé de la vie des peintres, avec des réflexions sur leurs ouvrages, nouvelle edition, considerablement augmenté, Amsterdam – Leipzig 1767. ROGER DE PILES Historie und Leben der berühmtesten europaeischen Mahler, so sich durch ihre Kunst-Stücke bekand gemacht, samt einigen Réflexions darüber und Abbildung eines vollkommenen Mahlers, nach welcher die Mahlerey als einer Regul kann beurtheilet werden, wobey auch der Nutzen und Gebrauch der Kupferstücke und Erklärung der gebräuchlichen Mahler-Wörter, Hamburg 1710. HEINRICH F. PLETT Rhetoric and Renaissance Culture, Berlin 2004. ANTONÍN PODLAHA Materiálie k slovníku umělců a uměleckých řemeslníků v Čechách, Památky archeologické XXIX, 1917, pp. 136–151, 269–289. ANTONÍN PODLAHA Materiálie k slovníku umělců a uměleckých řemeslníků v Čechách, Památky archeologické 29, 1919, pp. 106–116. EMANUEL POCHE (ed.) Praha na úsvitu nových dějin (Čtvero knih o Praze), Praha 1988. EMANUEL POCHE Prahou krok za krokem, Praha 19852. EMANUEL POCHE (ed.) Umělecké památky Čech 2 (K/O), Praha 1978. EMANUEL POCHE – PAVEL PREISS Pražské paláce, Praha 1973.
ZUZANA POKORNÁ – MARTIN SVATOŠ (edd.) Bohuslav Balbín a kultura jeho doby v Čechách. Sborník z konference Památníku národního písemnictví, Praha 1992. JOSEF POLIŠENSKÝ Viléma Slavaty relace o jednání v příčině knížectví Opavského 1614– 1615. Příspěvek k poznání politického myšlení předbělohorských Čech, Slezský sborník 51, 1953, pp. 488–498. KAREL PORTEMAN Emblematic Exhibitions at the Brussels Jesuit College (1630–1685): A Study of the Commemorative Manuscripts (Royal Library, Brussels), Turnhout 1996. ROMAN PRAHL K počátkům a předpokladům dějin umění (František Lothar Ehemant), Umění LII, 2004, pp. 3–10. JIŘÍ PRAŽÁK Katalog rukopisů křižovnické knihovny nyní deponovaných ve Státní knihovně ČSR, Praha 1980. RUDOLF PREIMESBERGER Tragische Motive in Raffaels „Transfiguration“, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte L, 1987, pp. 89–115. PAVEL PREISS Antonín Matějček a barokní umění, in: Antonín Matějček (1889–1950), sborník příspěvků z konference pořádané ke 100letému výročí narození prof. Antonína Matějčka katedrou dějin umění FF UK v Praze, Ústavem pro teorii a dějiny umění ČSAV v Praze a Národní galerií v Praze 31. ledna 1989, Praha 1989, pp. 47–53. PAVEL PREISS Betrachtungen zu Karl Škrétas zeichnerischer Eigenart, Barockberichte XXXI, 2001 pp. 42–52. PAVEL PREISS Česká barokní kresba / Baroque drawing in Bohemia, Praha 2006.
GABRIELE RAIMONDO Gli agostiniani scalzi, Genova 1955. JIŘÍ RAK Vývoj utrakvistické organizace v době předbělohorské, Sborník archivních prací XXXI/1, 1981, pp. 179–204. ISABELLE DE RAMAIX Aegidius II. Sadeler, The Illustrated Bartsch 72.1, ed. John T. Spike, New York 1997. ISABELLE DE RAMAIX Les Sadeler: De damasquineur à graveur et marchand d’estampes. Quelques documents inédits, Le livre et l’estampe XXXV, 1989, no. 131, pp. 7–46. CARLO RIDOLFI Le Maraviglie dell’Arte, ovvero le Vite de gl’Illustri Pittori Veneti e dello Stato …, ed. Detlev von Hadeln, I, II, Berlin 1914, 1924 (original edition Venezia 1648). FRANTIŠEK LADISLAV RIEGER (red.) Slovník naučný II/1, Praha 1862. JOSEF ANTONÍN RIEGGER Archiv für Geschichte und Statistik, insbesondere von Böhmen II, Dresden 1793. PETER RIGETTI – JOHANN CHRISTOPH PANNISCH Historische Nachricht sowohl von der Errichtung der Wellischen Congregation unter dem Titel Mariae Himmelfahrt als auch des dazu gehörigen Hospitals B. V. Mariae Ad S. Carolum Borromaeum. Bey Gelegenheit dey feyerlichen Begängniß des zweyten Jahrhunderts von Errichtung ermeldter Congregation, Prag 1773. VÁCLAV RICHTER Stavební vývoj kostela sv. Salvatora v Klementinu, Památky archeologické 34, 1925, pp. 336–371. ALENA RICHTEROVÁ – IVANA ČORNEJOVÁ (edd.) Jezuité a Klementinum, Praha 2006. ALOIS RIEGEL Das Holländische Gruppenporträt (Textband), Wien 1931.
PAVEL PREISS Italští umělci v Praze. Renesance, Manýrismus, Baroko, Praha 1986. PAVEL PREISS Kořeny a letorosty výtvarné kultury baroka v Čechách, Praha 2008. ANTONÍN PROFOUS – JAN SVOBODA Místní jména v Čechách: jejich vznik, původní význam a změny, vol. 4. S–Ž, Praha 1957. VLADIMÍR PŘIBYL Baroko ve Slaném – Bývalý františkánský klášter s kostelem Nejsvětější Trojice, Slaný 1988. ORAZIO PUGLIESE (ed.) Venezia e la peste 1348/1797 (exh. cat.), Venezia 1980. KAREL PURKYNĚ Karel Skreta. Životopisný nástin, Kritická příloha k Národním listům 1, 1864, pp. 103–107. RŮŽENA POKORNÁ-PURKYŇOVÁ Život tří generací. Vzpomínky na velké Purkyně. Listy a články Karla Purkyně, Praha 1944, pp. 342–346.
CESARE RIPA Iconologia, Padova 1625. ELIO DE ROSA (ed.) Roma Sacra I., Napoli 1995. MARCO ROSCI Il Cerano [L’opera completa], Milano 2000. SERGIO ROSSI Idea e accademia. Studio sulle teorie artistiche di Federico Zuccaro. I. Disegno interno e esterno, Storia dell’arte XX, 1974, pp. 37–56. ZDENĚK ROTREKL Barokní fenomén v současnosti, Praha 1995. FRANÇOIS ROUSSET Traitte nouveau de l’hysterotomotokie ou enfantement caesarien|qui est extraction de l’enfant par incision laterale du ventre […], Paris 1581. JAN ROYT Úcta k Panně Marii a k českým zemským patronům v řádu Tovaryšstva Ježíšova v barokních Čechách, in: Petronilla Čemus (ed.),
408 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bohemia jesuitica 1556–2006, Tomus 2, Praha 2010, pp. 1279–1309. JAN ROYT (ed.) Svatý Václav v umění 17. a 18. století, Praha 1994. LAURIE RUBIN (ed.) Children of Mercury. The Education of Artists in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Providence 1984. UGO RUGGERI Pietro e Marco Liberi: pittori nella Venezia del Seicento, Rimini 1996. BOHUMIL RYBA Soupisy rukopisů a starých tisků z fondu Státní vědecké knihovny v českých Budějovicích 3, České Budějovice 1985. ANTONÍN RYBIČKA SKUTEČSKÝ Karel Škreta Šotnovský ze Závořic. Nástin rodo– a životopisný, Světozor 3, 1869, pp. 42–43, 50–51, 55–56, 63. VOJTĚCH SÁDLO Kostel sv. Františka u křižovníků na Starém Městě pražském, Ročenka Kruhu pro pěstování dějin umění za rok 1934, Praha 1935, pp. 44–67. JOSEF SALABA Slavatova apologie jezuitů, Český časopis historický IV, 1898, pp. 324–332. LUIGI SALERNO The Picture Gallery of Vincenzo Giustiniani I: Introduction, The Burlington Magazine CII, 1960, no. 682, pp. 21–27. LUIGI SALERNO The Picture Gallery of Vincenzo Giustiniani II, The Inventory, part I, The Burlington Magazine CII, 1960, no. 684, pp. 93–104. LUIGI SALERNO The Picture Gallery of Vincenzo Giustiniani III: The Inventory, part II, The Burlington Magazine CII, 1960, no. 685, pp. 135–148. JOACHIM VON SANDRART Academia nobilissimae artis pictoriae, Noribergae 1683.
JOACHIM VON SANDRART L’academia todesca della architectura, scultura & pittura oder Teutsche Academie der edlen Bau–, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste, Nürnberg 1675–1679. JOACHIM VON SANDRART LebensLauf und Kunst-Werke des Woledlen und Gestrengen Herrn Joachims von Sandrart auf Stockau, Hochfürstl. Pfalz-Neuburgischen Rahts, Nürnbergh 1675. JOACHIM VON SANDRART Scupturae Veteris Admiranda, sive delineatio vera perfectissimarum eminentissimarumque statuarum, una cum artis hujus nobilisimae Theoria, Norimberga 1680. JOACHIM VON SANDRART Teutsche Academie der Bau-, Bild und Mahlerey-Künste. Nürnberg 1675–1680. In ursprünglicher Form neu gedruckt mit einer Einleitung von Christian Klemm, Nördlingen 1994. Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau- ,
Bild-und Mahlerey-Künste. Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. Arthur Rudolf Peltzer, München 1925. MAMBRO SANTOS (ed.) Arcadie del Vero, Roma 2001. Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon. Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, München – Leipzig 1992 – . GIUSEPPE SCAVIZZI The controversy on images. From Calvin to Baronius, New York 1992. AURORA SCOTTI Opus italicum, unpublished ms. 2000. TATIANA SEDOVÁ (ed.) Sociálne vedy a humanistika očami mladých, Bratislava 2006. MAX SEIDEL (ed.) Europa und die Kunst Italiens. Internationaler Kongress zum hundertsjärigen Jubiläum des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florrenz. Florenz, 22.–27. September 1997, Venezia 2000. JOHN SHEARMAN Only Connect: Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance, Princeton 1992. ALFRED SCHÄDLER Eine unbekannte Kleinbronze von Georg Petel, in: Lech-Isar-Land 1994, pp. 182–187. JAROSLAUS SCHALLER Beschreibung der königl. Haupt- und Residenzstadt Prag sammt allen darinn befindlichen sehenswürdigen Merkwürdigkeiten, Zweyter Band. Die Kleinseite, oder das III. Hauptviertel der Stadt Prag, Prag 1795. JAROSLAUS SCHALLER Topographie des Königreichs Böhmen, Fünfter Theil, Leutmeritzer Kreis, Prag – Wien 1787. PETER SCHATBORN (ed.) Drawn to Warmth, 17th-century Dutch Artists in Italy (exh. cat.), Zwolle 2001. JOANNES SCHMIDL Historia Societatis Iesu provincie Bohemiae, Pragae 1749–1754.
FRITS SCHOLTEN (ed.) Adriaen de Vries (1556–1626), imperial sculptor (exh. cat.), Zwolle 1998. HENK VAN DE SCHOOR Bentvueghel Signatures in Santa Costanza in Rome, Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 38, 1976, pp. 77–86. JULIUS MAX SCHOTTKY Prag, wie es war und wie es ist, nach Aktenstücken und den besten Quellenschriften geschildert, Bd. I, II, Prag 1831, 1832. CHRISTIAAN SCHUCKMAN Cornelis de Bie (unpublished dissertation thesis), Universiteit Utrecht 1984. VINCY SCHWARZ (ed.) Město vidím veliké… Cizinci o Praze, Praha 1940. LUCIA SIMONATO L’Academia nobilissimae artis pictoriae (1683) di Joachim von Sandrart: genesi
e fortuna in Italia, Studi secenteschi 45, 2004, pp. 139–173. PAVEL SKÁLA ZE ZHOŘE Pavla Skály ze Zhoře Historie česká 1–5, ed. Karel Tieftrunk, Praha 1865–1870 (Monumenta historica Bohemiae, vol. 2). PAVEL SKÁLA ZE ZHOŘE Historie česká od defenestrace k Bílé hoře, ed. Josef Janáček, Praha 1984. PETR SKALICKÝ Vera effigies sv. Václava z někdejšího kostela sv. Václava na Malé Straně v Praze, Umění LVI, 2008, pp. 437–446. ANNA SKÝBOVÁ Obnovení pražského arcibiskupství v letech 1561–1562 a jeho vztah k pražské universitě, Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis VII/1, 1966, pp. 2–11. VILÉM SLAVATA Z CHLUMU A KOŠUMBERKA Přehled náboženských dějin českých, ed. Hanuš Opočenský, Praha 1912. MAURITSE SMEYERSE Jan van Eyck „Pictor Doctus“, Onze Alma Mater 45, 1991, pp. 305–333. PAUL SMITH – CAROLYN WILDE (edd.) A Companion to Art Theory, Oxford 2002. JOSEF SMOLÍK Památník Jindřicha Dobřikovského z Malejova, Památky archeologické a místopisné XII, 1882–1884, pp. 538–546. ANNA SOCHOROVÁ Jezdecký pomník sv. Václava od Jana Jiřího Bendla v Praze (Bc. thesis), Masarykova Univerzita Brno 2007. FRANCESCO SOLINAS (ed.) Cassiano dal Pozzo, Atti del seminario internazionale di studi, Napoli, 18 e 19 dic. 1987, Roma 1989. FRANCESCO SOLINAS (ed.) I segreti di un collezionista: le straordinarie raccolte di Cassiano dal Pozzo, 1588–1657 (exh. cat.), Roma 2001.
JOHANN GOTTFRIED SOMMER Das Königreich Böhmen II, Bunzlauer Kreis, Prag 1838. EUGENIO SONNINO Gli „stati delle anime“ a Roma dalle origini al secolo XVII: origini, consistenza, contenuti; con appendice sulle altre registrazioni parrocchiali, Roma 1977. STANISLAV SOUSEDÍK Filosofie v českých zemích mezi středověkem a osvícenstvím, Praha 1997. DONATELLA LIVIA SPARTI Le collezioni Dal Pozzo: storia di una famiglia e del suo museo nella Roma seicentesca, Modena 1992. RICHARD E. SPEAR Domenichino, New Haven – London 1982. JOHN R. SPENCER Ut rhetorica pictura: A Study in Quattrocento Theory of Painting, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 20, 1957, pp. 26–44.
409 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
LUBOMÍR SRŠEŇ Je proveditelná rekonstrukce mariánského sloupu na Staroměstském náměstí v Praze?, Zprávy památkové péče 59, 1999, no. 7, pp. 233–240. LUBOMÍR SRŠEŇ Sochařská výzdoba hlavního oltáře v kostele P. Marie Sněžné v Praze (unprinted graduation thesis), Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy v Praze 1973. OLDŘICH STEFAN Mluva pražské architektury, Praha 1956. OLDŘICH STEFAN O architektonickém útvaru Valdštejnské Loggie v Praze, Umění XI, 1938, pp. 319–325. OLDŘICH STEFAN Pozadí pražského baroku, in: Artuš Rektorys (red.), Kniha o Praze (Pražský almanach) 3, 1932, pp. 54–69, here p. 55. OLDŘICH STEFAN Pražské kostely, Praha 1936. BOŻENA STEINBORN Malarz Daniel Schultz. Gdańszczanin w służbie królów polskich, Warszawa 2004. HOLGER STEINEMANN Eine Bildtheorie zwischen Repräsentation und Wirkung: Kardinal Gabriele Paleottis Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane (1582) (dissertation thesis), Hildesheim 2006. LENKA STOLÁROVÁ (ed.) Karel Škréta a malířství 17. století v Čechách a Evropě, Praha 2011. LENKA STOLÁROVÁ – VÍT VLNAS (edd.) Karel Škréta 1610–1674. Doba a dílo (exh. cat.), Praha 2010. FAMIANO STRADA De Bello belgico, decas prima, ab axcessu Caroli V Imp. usque ad initia Praefecturae Alexandri Farnesii Parmae ac Placentiae Ducis An MDLXXVIII…, I, Romae 1632. CLAUDIO STRINATI – ALMAMARIA TANTILLO (edd.) Domenichino 1581–1641 (exh. cat.), Milano 1996. STRUČNÝ PRŮVODCE STÁTNÍ SBÍRKOU STARÉHO UMĚNÍ Praha 1938. CHRISTINA STRUNCK (ed.) Johann Paul Schor und die internationale Sprache des Barock: un regista del gran teatro del barocco, München 2008. DAVID SUMMERS The Judgement of Sense: Renaissance Naturalism and the Rise of Aesthetics, Cambridge 1990. MARTIN SVATOŠ Jiljí od sv. Jana Křtitele, Fridrich Bridel a jejich tázání Co člověk?, Literární archiv. Sborník Památníku národního písemnictví 27, 1994, pp. 117–157. MICHAL SVATOŠ (ed.) Dějiny Univerzity Karlovy I, 1347/48–1622, Praha 1995. MILADA SVOBODOVÁ Rukopisy ze sbírek Tomáše Antonína
Putzlachera, Michala Schustera a dalších nešlechtických bibliofilů ve fondu pražské lobkowiczké knihovny, Praha 2011. PIETER T. A. SWILLENS (ed.) De grotte Schouburgh der nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessendoor Arnold Houbraken. II. Díl, Maastricht 1943–1953. JAROSLAV ŠÁMAL Barokní cykly svatováclavské. Jejich význam v obraze sv. Václava (dissertation thesis FFUK), Praha 1945. EVA ŠMILAUEROVÁ Ze stavebních dějin zámku Tuchoměřice, Středočeský sborník historický 5, 1970, pp. 93–97. RENATA ŠPAČKOVÁ (ed.) Mělník-Pšovka. Sborník vydaný při příležitosti znovuvysvěcení kostela sv. Vavřince v Mělníku-Pšovce obnoveného po povodni roku 2002, Mělník 2004. IVAN ŠPERLING Die Prager Altararchitektur, Sborník prací Filosofické fakulty brněnské university, F 14–15, 1971, pp. 279–289. MICHAL ŠRONĚK Jan Jiří Heinsch. Malíř barokní zbožnosti (1647–1712) (exh. cat.), Praha 2006. MICHAL ŠRONĚK Pražské oltáře v době třicetileté války, Documenta Pragensia IX/II, 1991, pp. 439–447. MICHAL ŠRONĚK – JAROSLAVA HAUSENBLASOVÁ Gloria & Miseria. Praha v době třicetileté války, Praha 1998. VÁCLAV VILÉM ŠTECH Československé malířství a sochařství nové doby, Praha 1938–1939. IVAN ŠŤOVÍČEK et al. Zásady vydávání novověkých historických pramenů z období od počátku 16. století do současnosti. Příprava vědeckých edic dokumentů ze 16.–20. století pro potřeby historiografie, Praha 2002.
MOJMÍR ŠVÁBENSKÝ Cerroniho sbírka 13. stol.–1845, Brno 1973 (Inventáře a katalogy fondů SOA v Brně č. 26. G 12). ANDREAS TACKE Das tote Jahrhundert. Anmerkungen zur Forschung über die deutsche Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 51, 1997, pp. 43–70. JOSEF TEIGE Základy starého místopisu Pražského I, Praha 1910. FRANTIŠEK TEPLÝ Proč se stal Vilém Stavata z Chlumu a Košumberka z českého bratra katolíkem?, in: Sborník Historického kroužku 13, 1912, pp. 205–221. STEFANO TICOZZI Dizionario degli architetti, scultori, pittori, intagliatori in rame ed in pietra, coniatori di medaglie, musaicisti, niellatori, intarsiatori d’ogni età e d’ogni nazione, Milano: Gaetano Schiepatti 1830.
PIETER JACOBUS JOHANNES VAN THIEL (ed.) All the Paintings in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1976. WENDY THOMPSON „Pigmei pizzicano di Gigante“, The Encounter Between Netherlandish and Italian Artists in Seventeenth-Century Rome (diss. Johns Hopkins University), Michigan 1997. MIROSLAV TOEGEL ET AL. (edd.) Documenta bohemica bellum tricennale illustrantia II, Praha 1972. MILAN TOGNER Antonín Martin Lublinský 1636–1690, Olomouc 2004. MILAN TOGNER BaroknímalířstvívOlomouci, Olomouc 2008. MILAN TOGNER (ed.) Kroměříž Picture Gallery. Catalogue of the painting collection in the archbishop’s palace in Kroměříž, Kroměříž 1999. MARIE TOŠNEROVÁ (ed.) Průvodce po rukopisných fondech v České republice II. Rukopisné fondy archivů v České republice, Praha 1998. MARIE TOŠNEROVÁ (ed.) Průvodce po rukopisných fondech v České republice, IV. Rukopisné fondy archivů v České republice, Praha 1998. POMPILIO TOTTI Ritratto di Roma moderna, Roma: appresso Filippo de Rossi 1645. JOSEF TRUHLÁŘ Katalog českých rukopisů c. k. Veřejné a Universitní knihovny pražské, Praha 1906. JANE TURNER (ed.) The Dictionary of Art I–XXXIV, London – New York 1996. MAURICE VAES Les fondations hospitalières flamandes à Rome du XVe au XVIIIe siècle, Bulletin de l’institute historique belge de Rome I (1919), pp. 161–371. ŠTĚPÁN VÁCHA Der Herrscher auf dem Sakralbild zur Zeit der Gegenreformation und des Barock. Eine ikonologische Untersuchung zur herrscherlichen Repräsentation Kaiser Ferdinands II. in Böhmen, Prag 2009. VOJTĚCH VANĚK – JIŘÍ K. KROUPA (edd.) Kutná Hora v době baroka, Praha 2005 (Antuiqua Cuthna 1). BENEDETTO VARCHI Due lezzioni, Firenze 1549. GIORGIO VASARI Le vite de piu eccellenti, pittori, scultori ed architetti, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, vol. 7, Firenze 1881. PIERLUGI DE VECCHI Raffael, München 2002. THEA A. G. VIGNAU WILBERG – SCHUURMAN Die emblematische Elemente im Werke Joris Hoefnagels, Leiden 1969. MILADA VILÍMKOVÁ Bývalý klášter dominikánek při kostele sv. Anny, čp. 211–I, Stavebně-historický průzkum Prahy, Praha SÚRPMO 1962.
MILADA VILÍMKOVÁ Ke stavebnímu vývoji komplexu jezuitských budov na Malostranském náměstí, Umění XIX, 1971, pp. 304–313. MILADA VILÍMKOVÁ Kostel sv. Salvatora v Klementinu. Stavebně-historický průzkum Prahy, Praha SÚRPMO 1979, ms. MILADA VILÍMKOVÁ Stavitelé paláců a chrámů. Kryštof a Kilián Ignác Dientzenhoferové, Praha 1986. MILADA VILÍMKOVÁ Urbanistický vývoj území maltézské jurisdikce, in: Pražský sborník historický, 1966, pp. 72–85. MILADA VILÍMKOVÁ – FRANTIŠEK KAŠIČKA Křídlo Španělského sálu ve stavebním vývoji Pražského hradu, Památky a příroda 1976, pp. 385–391. Vita sancti Wenceslai, incipiens verbis „Ut annuncietur“, Antonín Podlaha (transl.), Praha 1917. PAVEL VLČEK „Dientzenhoferův skicář“ a česká architektura 1640–1670, Umění XXXVII, 1989, pp. 473–497. PAVEL VLČEK Francesco Caratti, Umění XXXII, 1984, pp. 1–22. PAVEL VLČEK (ed.) Encyklopedie architektů, stavitelů, kameníků a zedníků v Čechách, Praha 2004. PAVEL VLČEK Giovanni Domenico Orsi a bývalý kostel sv. Norberta v Praze, Umění XXXIV, 1986, pp. 416–433. PAVEL VLČEK Ilustrovaná encyklopedie českých zámků, Praha 1999. PAVEL VLČEK K účasti kameníků a sochařů na stavbě pražského opevnění v 17. století, Umění XXXIII, 1985, pp. 359–378. PAVEL VLČEK (ed.) Umělecké památky Prahy. Malá Strana, Praha 1999. PAVEL VLČEK (ed.) Umělecké památky Prahy. Staré Město, Josefov, Praha 1996. PAVEL VLČEK – ESTER HAVLOVÁ Praha 1610–1700. Kapitoly o architektuře raného baroka, Praha 1998. VÍT VLNAS (ed.) Sláva barokní Čechie. Stati o umění, kultuře a společnosti 17. a 18. století, Praha 2001. VÍT VLNAS (ed.) Sláva barokní Čechie. Umění, kultura a společnost 17. a 18. století (exh. cat.), Praha 2001. MILOSLAV VOLF Jaroslav Bořita z Martinic po defenestraci, Středočeský sborník historický 7, 1972, pp. 76–90. ALENA VOLRÁBOVÁ Německá kresba 1540–1650: Umění kresby
410 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
v německy mluvících zemích mezi renesancí a barokem (exh. cat.), Praha 2008. ALENA VOLRÁBOVÁ (ed.) Václav Hollar (1607–1677) a Evropa mezi životem a zmarem (exh. cat.), Praha 2007. JAKUB DE VORAGINE Legenda Aurea, Praha 1998. PETR VOREL Stříbro v evropském peněžním oběhu 16.– 17. století (1472–1717), Praha 2009. JIŘINA VYDROVÁ – EMA SEDLÁČKOVÁ (edd.) Výstava Umění v Čechách XVII. a XVIII. století. 1600–1800. Pražské baroko (exh. cat.), Praha 1938. JAROSLAV VYSTRČIL Syn rebelův. Kulturní obraz ze 17. století, Olomouc 2005. FRANZ WAGNER – BARBARA VON DER HEIDEN Wenig beachtete Meisterwercke der Barockmalerei in Salzburg, Barockberichte 8/9, 1994, pp. 306–311. RENATE WAGNER-RIEGER Die Baukunst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts in Österreich, Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 20, 1965, pp. 175–224. Wenceslaus Hollar: 1607–1677, Drawings Paintings and Etchings (exh. cat.), Manchester 1963. JACOP CAMPO WEYERMAN De Levens-beschryvingen der Nederlandsche Konst-Schilders en Konst-Schilderessen, ’s-Gravenhage, 1729. ROBERT WILLIAMS Art, Theory, and Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy: From Techne to Metatechne, Cambridge 1997. WIEBKE WINDORF Sakrale Historienmalerei in St. Peter in Rom. Faktizität und Fiktionalität in der Altarbildausstattung unter Papst Urban VIII. (1623–1644), Regensburg 2006.
THOMAS WINKELBAUER Fürst und Fürstendiener. Gundaker von Liechtenstein, ein österreichischer Aristokrat des konfessionellen Zeitalters, Wien – München 1999. ZDENĚK WIRTH (red.) Dějepis výtvarných umění v Československu, Praha 1935 (Československá vlastivěda 8). ARKADIUSZ WOJTYŁA „Cardinale langravio“ i „Conte savio“ – dygnitarze Rzeszy w barokowym Rzymie, Quart 2 (4), 2007, pp. 27–39. AUGUSTIN WOLF Fürst Wenzel Lobkowitz, Wien 1869. CHRISTIAN WOLTERS Die Bedeutung der Gemäldedurchleuchtung mit Röntgenstrahlen für die Kunstgeschichte: dargestellt an Beispielen aus der niederländischen und deutschen Malerei des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main 1938.
JOANNA WOODS-MARSDEN Renaissance Self-Portraiture: The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist, New Haven – London 1998. CASPARUS ZACHARIAS WUSSIN Dictionarium von dreyen Sprachen, Teutsch, Lateinisch, und Boehmisch, Prag 1700. FRANCES A. YATES The Art of Memory, London 1972. PIETRO ZANI Enciclopedia metodica critico-ragionata delle belle arti, Parma 1821. Zápisky Viléma Slavaty z let 1601–1603, ed. Antonín Rezek, Praha 1887 (Rozpravy královské české společnosti nauk VII/2, no. 4). JANA ZAPLETALOVÁ Karel Škréta: Notes from the archives from Italy, Umění LVIII, 2010, pp. 152–158. JANA ZAPLETALOVÁ Mezi Boloňou a Krakovem: život a dílo italského malíře Innocenza Montiho (1653–1710), Umění LIII, 2005, pp. 335–346. JANA ZAPLETALOVÁ Škréta, Sandrart, Oretti: poznámka ke Škrétovu působení v Itálii, Umění LVII, 2009, pp. 398–402. JANA ZAPLETALOVÁ Škrétové z italských archivů (in print). JOHANN HEINRICH ZEDLER (ed.), Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschaften und Künste XXXVI, Leipzig – Halle 1743. JOSEF LIBOSLAV ZIEGLER Zpráva hraběte Viléma Slavaty o tom, co se v kanceláři české na hradě pražském dne 23. máje 1618 ráno před vyhozením z okna královských místodržících dálo a promlouváno bylo, Dobroslav I, sv. 3, 1820, pp. 53–101. HENRICA M. ZIJLSTRA-ZWEENS Antieke karakterkoppen van Rubens, Hermeneus XLIX, 1977, 3, pp. 202–206. MIROSLAV ZIKA Luragova štukatérská dílna, Antonio a Tommaso Soldatti (graduation thesis FFUK), Praha 2002. MIROSLAV ZIKA Soldattiové a štukatérská družina Carlo Luraga (graduation thesis FFUK), Praha 1998. JÜRGEN ZIMMER Josephus Heinzius – architectus cum antiquis comparandus. Příspěvek k poznání rudolfinské architektury mezi léty 1590–1612, Umění XVII, 1969, pp. 217–246. PETRA SOPHIA ZIMMERMANN Die Architektur von Hans Vredemann de Vries. Entwicklung der Renaissancearchitektur in Mitteleuropa, München 2002. WILHELM ZOHNER Bartholomäus Steinle. Um 1580–1628/29. Bildhauer und „Director über den Kirchen zu Weilheim“, Weissenhorn 1993. MICHAELA ZRONKOVÁ Paměť o městě. Soběslav v měšťanských
pamětech 1632–1752 (unprinted graduation thesis), Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích 2007. FEDERICO ZUCCARO L’idea de‘ scultori, pittori e architetti, Torino 1607.
411 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
412 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
413 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
KAREL ŠKRÉTA 1610—1674 STUDIES AND DOCUMENTS The publication is issued within the research project Karel Škréta (1610–1674): His Work and His Era – CZ 0112 no. 02 06/07 0121 IP 112 MK – T. The project has received grants from Island, Liechtenstein and Norway within the framework of the Financial mechanism of the EEA. Editors of the publication Lenka Stolárová – Vít Vlnas Authors of studies and editors of archival sources Tomáš Berger Johana Bronková Sylva Dobalová Tomáš Hladík Mojmír Horyna Lubomír Konečný Michal Koziel Petr Přibyl Alena Richterová Andrea Rousová Tomáš Sekyrka Lenka Stolárová Radka Tibitanzlová Štěpán Vácha Vít Vlnas Alena Volrábová
Translation Joanne P. C. Domin Kateřina Hilská Evan W. Mellander Peter Stephens Lucie Vidmar Gita Zbavitelová
National Gallery in Prague – Aleš David National Gallery in Prague – Oto Palán National Library of the Czech Republic State District Archives Klatovy State Regional Archives in Třeboň Štěpán Vácha archives of authors
Editing Katarína Rybková
Graphic layout Pavel Zelenka, Erika Huptychová (studio Marvil)
Technical editing Kateřina Holečková Photographs Albertina Archives of the National Gallery in Prague Archives of the National Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam Musées de Strasbourg Grzegorz Zajączkowski Instytut Sztuki PAN, Warszawa Prague City Archives Prague City Museum Museum of Mladá Boleslav Region Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie Muzeum Narodowe we Wrocławiu National Gallery in Prague
Typesetting Ivana Minářová (studio Marvil) Picture editing Radek Typovský (Studio Marvil) Published by the National Gallery in Prague in 2011. © National Gallery in Prague, 2011 ISBN 978–80–7035–470–4 www.ngprague.cz
