Old Czech translations of Matthew of Cracow’s Dialogue (editio princeps)

The aim of the paper is to show the situation of the National Museum Library (NML) in the period of 1939–1945 based on archival documents. Central changes made by the Nazis affected people as well as their work in the NML. It was not possible to continue as before – some employees had been arrested or executed by the Gestapo. Nevertheless, the number of the NML staff increased as a result of the transfer of officials from the closed Ministry of War and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Two employees of German nationality joined the NML based on the new rules concerning the relations between Czechs and Germans in public services. The operation of the library came under the supervision of Professor Carl Wehmer, who planned a cataloguing reform, was in charge of the book collections and ensured their later evacuation. The plans for a new NML exhibition were cancelled and replaced by propagandistic exhibitions imported from Germany, such as Deutsche Größe. The Nazi ideologists planned to return the National Museum and its library to the original idea of the land museum. Also Emil Franzel, a former leading member of the German Social Democracy in Czechoslovakia, a later member of the Sudeten German Party and in 1940–1941 an official in the NML, followed the idea of a land museum in his book History of the National Museum Library (Prague 1942), the first monograph on the history of the NML.

The article points out the uniqueness of the personal book collection of the Czech poet, translator and theatre critic Hanuš Jelínek, one of the most prominent figures in Czech–French cultural relations. Based on the owner’s last will, it has been deposited in the National Library in Prague since 1951, when the book estate was handed over to the National Museum after the death of his wife, Božena Jelínková-Jirásková, an academic painter, and it also contains books that belonged to her. The book collection, which still awaits further research and is hardly known to the wider professional public, is a very valuable source on the life and work of Mr and Mrs Jelínek as well as an important source of information on the history of Czech-French cultural transfers and the cultural history of Europe in the first half of the 20th century.

The manuscript fragment in the collection of the National Museum Library in Prague under shelf mark 1 D a 3/52 is a sheet of paper with writing on both sides, containing two strata of inscriptions. The first stratum consists of accounting records, one of which is dated to 1356. That is also the terminus post quem for the other stratum of inscriptions, namely the musical notation of two liturgical plainchants in two-voice organ paraphrases. This involves the introit Salve, sancta parens and the Kyrie magne Deus. The discant is written in black mensural notation on a staff, while the tenor, which quotes the plainchant melody, is partially written in musical notation on the same staff, partially notated by letters for note names, and partially only indicated by syllables of text of the original plainchant. This notation documents the transition from practise without notation to the written notation of music for keyboard instruments, and it significantly supplements the material found in treatises from the milieu of the ars organisandi, which are available to us from fifteenth-century manuscripts.

The National Museum (NM) is preparing several temporary exhibitions in all of its buildings, along with preparing new permanent exhibitions in the New and Historical Buildings. All parts of the National Museum are incorporated in the preparation of new exhibitions, i.e. the Historical Museum, Natural History Museum, Czech Museum of Music, Náprstek Museum and the National Museum Library. In 2017, these exhibition projects are: Light and Life, Masaryk as a Phenomenon, and Indians. In 2018, the National Museum will present the Czech-Slovak / Slovak-Czech exhibition, which will reflect the 100th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, together with selected moments of Czechoslovakian history and the relationship of these two nations. 2019 could bring the opening of the grand Egyptology exposition Sun Kings and also new Natural history expositions. The remaining permanent expositions should be opened in 2020. The exhibitions in this period will likely recall some important anniversaries (1620, 1920). In future years, the renovation of the Czech Museum of Music and Náprstek Museum will take place.

Appendix A Review of The Palm Leaf Manuscripts of the YasodharĀVata In the National Museum Library, Colombo, and the British Museum Library, London was published in Yasodharā, the Wife of the Bōdhisattva on page 81.

The international exchange of publications has a long tradition in the National Museum. It is an important source of foreign scientific literature as well as a very useful way of distributing publications published by the National Museum and thus presenting its scientific results. The paper describes the situation and changes in this area in the period of 2011–2020. It summarises the main external influences and tendencies. It compares acquisitions by purchase and exchange. It describes the current goals of the international exchange of publications in the National Museum Library.

This study gives an overview of lute and guitar tablatures in the holdings of the National Museum (at the Czech Museum of Music and the National Museum Library), and it briefly characterizes them in the form of a catalogue. Since music from the Strahov and Lobkowicz collections, which also involve a rather large set of tablatures, has been returned to its original owners in restitution, the study provides up-to-date information about where this historical material is now kept. It reflects new knowledge and discoveries (lute tablature with the shelf mark KNM Nostic gg 412). The composers presented (e.g. G. P. Foscarini, P. Mutti, N. Vallet, Ch. Mouton, P. I. Jelínek, A. Dix, M. Galilei, J. Dowland, Ch. de Lespine, J. Regnart, S. L. Jacobides, J. Ch. Beyer and many others), living and working in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, are primarily Italian, French, German, and Czech, and with respect to social classes, they represent practically all of the environments where playing on plucked instruments was cultivated.

The paper deals with the role of the landscape in the shaping of the national identity in the final stage of the formation of the Czech modern nation. The topic is treated through the perspective of two pairs of Bohemian landscape features (Říp and Blaník Mountains, and the rivers Vltava and Elbe), both rich in symbolism. This concept was further highlighted by the travelling panel exhibition Story of Landscape at the Nation’s Service, which was held in the Lapidarium of the National Museum in the autumn of 2018. The present text is based on the research of literature and period sources (collection items) located in the National Museum Library and in the Historical Museum of the National Museum. The author presents the landscape as an important national symbol which has assumed this function through its relation to stories based on national history. The landscape is perceived here not only as a real (physical) environment, as a scene where a wide range of national and later tourist activities took place, but also as a symbolic space closely connected to the ideas of individuals within the national society.

Rare double-cover bindings in the collections of the National Museum Library Unlike contemporary embossed bindings, Gothic double-cover bindings are mostly undecorated, as priority was given to the binding’s useful function. Covered codexes were stored in a horizontal position and the wide overlaps on the front edge of the back panel were inserted between the front panel and the book block; after the fastening of the clasps, the parchment block was perfectly protected by this “packaging“ against the adverse effects of the surrounding environment. The originally Romanesque type of binding was used for larger format codexes and appeared practically throughout the Middle Ages, until the 16th century. In domestic literature, double-cover binding is wrongly included in the “shape and binding curiosities“ category; abroad, the terminology for describing and determining structural types of bindings with a secondary cover is not clear. During conservation research in the National Museum Library, a total of 45 Gothic double­-cover bindings was found in various states of preservation, from which we can determine a wide range of structural types and several methods of execution. A set of ten double-cover bindings published by Dr. Hamanová was expanded to include bindings from Augustinian monasteries

An investigation of German-language chapbooks issued by the printing workshop of Jan Spurný and his heirs – Kristina Spurná, Josef Janů (Kristina’s second husband), and their son Julius Janů – until the takeover of the printing company by the Czecho-Slavonic Joint-Stock Book-Printing Company (Českoslovanská akciová tiskárna) in 1911 has revealed only a low percentage of German publications. The chapbook collection held by the National Museum Library has been analysed in detail. In the course of this processing, the collection was divided into broadside ballads on the one hand and prayers and other non-song religious texts on the other. These two categories markedly differ in the proportion of German-language items, with a clear predominance in the non-song religious segment. Although the total number of chapbooks – forty-one – is too small to support categorical conclusions, it is possible to trace certain tendencies in the temporal distribution of the extant German output and in the modes of acquisition and to compare the thematic composition of Czech and German production of the printing workshop.

In the course of research on fragments from the National Museum Library, a large torso was discovered containing hitherto unknown organ tablatures from the early seventeenth century (shelf mark CZ-Pn 1 K 219). The author of the article reassemble the torso based on signatures and analyzed its content, which consists of intabulations of sacred compositions by leading Renaissance composers (e.g. Orlando di Lasso, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Jakob Handl-Gallus) as well as some lesser-known composers. On the basis of analysis, she then focused her attention on Silesia and the German-speaking milieu of northern Bohemia and Moravia, compared the tablature with similar sources from Czech and foreign collections, and placed it in the context of musical practice in the milieu of Lutheranism.

The survey of medieval book bindings in the National Museum Library has focused on a group of codices from Augustinian monasteries in Roudnice nad Labem, Sadská and Jaroměř. The research methodology is based on accurate terminology, form processing and photographic documentation of medieval bindings. When determining the origin of codices, attention is paid to the characteristic features of the bindings, which can be an indicator of provenance. The Roudnice codices can be identified based on the craftsmanship of the metal elements and their compositional concept. Roudnice bindings have been divided into several groups according to the shape and finish of the corner and central pieces. Similarity in bookbinding processing, decoration technique, the use of identical structural and typological elements and materials of the same quality distinguish the Roudnice codices from contemporary domestic bindings.

The National Museum Library contains the personal library of an outstanding Czech critic and modern art theorist, Karel Teige. From the 1920s, he was in touch with the founders and important representatives of modern art movements, mostly from France, whose relations and cooperation are i.a. demonstrated by the books donated to him. The article presents several dedications by André Breton, Tristan Tzara, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Le Corbusier and Salvador Dalí.

The collection of Hussite chronicles called Old Czech Annals contains more than thirty manuscripts some of which have been left out of the research spotlight. One of them is the Czech written text F (called “of Stockholm”) from the second half of the 15th century, currently stored under the signature G 10, no. 432 in the Moravian Municipal Archive in Brno, nevertheless, until 1878, it had been held in Stockholm as a spoil. The text F describes the course of events on the Czech territory from the years 1393 to 1453. Particular emphasis is laid on the events taking place during the Hussite revolution (after 1419) narrated, from the perspective of moderate Utraquism, by an anonymous Prague chronicler. Even though he, in his descriptions, consciously evades to include his evaluation of the events, striving for being an objective and impartial, unbiased observer, it is possible, at times, to read his attitude and opinion from his language rendering, which we instantiate with citations from the manuscript. A copy of the manuscript was acquired during its brief borrowing from Sweden to Prague in 1819 by Václav Hanka (1791–1861), a prominent representative of the Czech National Revival. The copy is stored in the National Museum Library, signature III F 9.

Libraries, archives and museums in tropical countries like Sri Lanka are at great risk to be infested by insect pests. These can damage especially celluloses-based and starch glue materials and objects like books, paper or traditional palm leave manuscripts. Besides beetles (Coleoptera, mainly Ptinidae), also termites (Isoptera) and silverfish (Zygentoma) are the most problematic pests infesting these collections across the island. We sampled the pests and their abundance in the National Museum Library in Colombo and found six different species of library pests: the termite Cryptotermes sp., two silverfish species Lepisma saccharinum, Ctenolepisma longicaudatum and three beetle species of Ptinidae: Lasioderma serricorne, Stegobium paniceum and Gastrallus laticollis. G. laticollis is a new species to the fauna of Sri Lanka, it is only known from Singapore. Its occurrence in Sri Lanka and the distribution of other species of the genera Gastrallus in Asia are discussed.