Alchymie a Rudolf II: Hledání tajemství přírody ve střední Evropě v 16. a 17. století, ed. Ivo Purš and Vladimír Karpenko Rožmberkové: Rod českých velmožů a jeho cesta dějinami, ed. Jaroslav Pánek et al.

Abstract

2011 brought quatercentenary commemorations in the Czech Republic of two events, both of which have long been invested with special significance as betokening the end of an era of cultural openness and plurality, and the onset of war and national decline. In May 1611 King Rudolf, still Holy Roman Emperor but with only a shadow of authority in the Reich, was finally divested of his Bohemian crown in favour of his Vienna-based brother, Matthias, who had long coveted it and allied himself with opposition forces in the country to secure it. Thus concluded an era when Bohemia had, for better or worse, been at the heart of a multinational Habsburg structure of power and patronage. In November 1611 Petr Vok, last lord of Rožmberk (or, in the German spelling, Rosenberg), died, and with him the wealthiest and most powerful Bohemian family of the previous two hundred and more years was...