Barbara Drake Boehm, Jiri Fajt, Eds.. Prague, the Crown of Bohemia, 1347-1437
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Barbara Drake Boehm, Jiri Fajt, eds.. Prague, the Crown of Bohemia, 1347-1437. Metropolitan Museum of Art Series. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. Illustrations. xiii + 366 pp. $65.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-300-11138-5. Reviewed by James Palmitessa Published on H-German (November, 2007) In the foreword to Prague the Crown of Bo‐ essays written by an international team of ten hemia 1347-1437, Philippe de Montebello, director scholars makes up the frst half of the book; the of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, notes catalogue entries by an expanded group of forty that "[s]ince the Velvet Revolution, not only chron‐ make up the second half. Together they make this iclers and poets but throngs of tourists fock to volume a scholarly tour-de-force that fulfills the Prague, to see its imposing castle, its soaring task Montebello sets. cathedral and mighty bridge. Still, many do not re‐ In the frst essay, an excellent introduction to alize how much of the city's fairytale skyline and the rest of the volume, Fajt describes Charles's how many of its treasures were created after family background and the formative years that Charles IV established his new European capital influenced his art patronage. Born in 1316, the on the banks of the Vltava (Moldau)" (p. vi). The son of John of Luxembourg and Elizabeth of the book is a companion volume to a landmark exhi‐ Bohemian royal house of P?emyslid, the future bition held in Prague and New York in 2005-6, co- King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor was organized with the Prague Castle Administration baptized under the name Wenceslas (Václav). At and curated by Barbara Drake Boehm of the mu‐ the age of seven he was sent to the French court seum and Ji?i Fajt, project director at the Geis‐ and changed his name to Charles in honor of his teswissenschaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und sponsor. Fajt writes that he was reared there in an Kultur Ostmitteleuropas in Leipzig. The exquisite, atmosphere of ceremonial piety, participating in large-format book includes hundreds of high- events at Sainte-Chapelle and St. Denis. "Perhaps quality photographs of paintings, drawings, sculp‐ [St. Denis's] famous treasury awakened his inter‐ ture, architecture, glasswork, textiles, and illumi‐ est in the classical and Byzantine past, which may nated books. Dozens of institutions and individu‐ help explain aspects of his [later] donations" (p. als in the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, the Vati‐ 4). In 1330, Charles was sent to northern Italy to can, Sweden, the United States, and nine other protect Luxembourg holdings, where he became countries contributed to the exhibition. A series of H-Net Reviews acquainted with its sophisticated art and urban gion the kind of Franco-Flemish nature study culture. After returning home, even before his fa‐ without which the further development of paint‐ ther turned over Bohemia to him in 1342, Charles ing at the imperial court and the birth of the por‐ expanded and renovated the royal castle, linking trait in central Europe are unthinkable" (p. 11). it to the adjacent All Saints Chapel, borrowing Around 1360, Master Theodoric decorated the from the example of Sainte-Chapelle. In 1344, Holy Cross Chapel with 130 panel paintings of Charles's former tutor, who had since become saints; holy relics were placed in the painting Pope Clement VI, elevated Prague to an archdio‐ frames and in a special niche of a wall. According cese, and Charles entrusted the construction of to Fajt, the newly decorated chapel, reminiscent the new St. Vitus Cathedral to French builder of lavishly decorated palaces of the Byzantine em‐ Matthias of Arras. After his royal coronation in peror in Constantinople, the papal chapel of Sanc‐ 1347, Charles IV took steps to solidify Bohemia's ta Sanctorum in the Lateran Palace in Rome, and position in the Empire; and from then on, accord‐ Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, "equated the idea of the ing to Fajt, "policy decisions were often linked to empire with the church triumphant" (p. 13). his increased activity as a patron, which was con‐ Boehm draws on Charles's writings and those centrated on transforming Prague into a splendid of contemporary chroniclers to examine his faith imperial capital" (p. 7). By the time Charles was and its impact on art patronage. She writes that crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1355, an "Impe‐ Charles expressed an appreciation for being rial style" began to emerge in the art of the Prague taught to read the hours during his education and court, which formed the basis of the distinctive followed this ritual throughout his life, although Bohemian variation on the International Gothic unfortunately no trace of any personal book col‐ style, which earlier Czech art historians referred lection survives. The most demonstrable aspect of to as "the Beautiful style" (krásný sloh). his spirituality was his devotion to saints and An important role in the development of the their relics. During his last visit to Paris in 1378 he Imperial style was played, according to Fajt, by acquired the relics of Christ's passion used in the Jan of St?eda, the director of Charles's chancellery decoration of the Bohemian crown of Wenceslas, and a well-known Bohemian supporter of Italian which Charles commissioned and was patterned humanism. St?eda provided new direction to after the crowns of both P?emyslid rulers and book illuminating workshops, seen in the Liber vi‐ French royalty. Other relics were donated to St. aticus, which, Fajt argues, displays command of Vitus Cathedral. Boehm comments that Prague's technical and artistic devices in Sienese art and reputation as a repository for relics was sur‐ set the standard for Bohemian manuscripts until passed only by that of Rome. the ffteenth century. In painting, the develop‐ In two later essays, Fajt and Robert Suckale ment of the Imperials can be seen in the renova‐ explore the influence of Charles IV's political al‐ tion of Karlstejn Castle, a hunting lodge of the liances on art. Within Bohemia, where the nobili‐ Luxembourgs a day's ride from the royal castle ty traditionally enjoyed widespread autonomy, (just as Vincennes was from Paris). During the Charles established close ties with the bishops, years 1356-57, the walls of the castle hall were who helped him gain administrative control of his painted with portraits of Charles's Luxembourg kingdom. He found a loyal ally in Arnošt of Pardu‐ and Brabantine ancestors by an artist identified bice, the frst Archbishop of Prague. Arnošt com‐ as Charles's frst painter, whom Fajt states was missioned a large number of important artistic probably Nicholas Wurmser from Strasbourg. Fajt projects, including choirbooks, manuscripts, and goes on to comment that "[t]he Master of the Lux‐ stained glass windows in monasteries and hospi‐ embourg genealogy ... brought to the Prague re‐ 2 H-Net Reviews tals. Among the few surviving works is a painting that more than seventy goldsmiths were active in of the Virgin and Child located today in Berlin's Prague; as well as numerous illuminators, scribes, Gemäldegalerie. Outside of Bohemia, Charles ar‐ and glass glazers for whom little information is ranged the marriage of his daughter to Casimir of available. She also suggests that while polishers of Cracow. Fajt and Suckale show how the art of Cra‐ semiprecious stones may not have been as nu‐ cow became indebted to Bohemian examples and merous in Prague as in Paris or Venice, Prague how a Bohemian orientation in Polish art contin‐ would have been viewed as an especially attrac‐ ued even after the Jagiellonian dynasty came to tive place to work, thanks to Charles's commis‐ power. The Luxembourgs also sought allies in sions for the intricate stone work at Karlstejn and Salzburg to isolate the Habsburgs and many ex‐ in St. Vitus Cathedral. amples of Bohemian influence can be found In describing the state of Prague Jewry, Vivian there. On the other hand, however, Luxembourg Mann notes that Jews lived in four different areas rivalry with the Bavarian Wittelsbachs did not of the city with the largest settlement around the stop them from borrowing from the art of the Altneuschul, the oldest extant synagogue in Eu‐ Wittelsbach court. rope. She also notes that Jewish property was con‐ Paul Crossley and Zoë Opa?i? provide a su‐ fiscated during the reign of John of Luxembourg, perb discussion on the New City as one of largest but when Charles IV came to power he reaffirmed urban foundation projects of the Middle Ages. an earlier charter of King Otakar (1254) that They highlight how the layout of streets, squares, granted Jews the right to self-government and of‐ churches, and monasteries in the New City and fered protection to them and their communal the new bridge between the Old and New Cities properties. Charles also awarded Jews their own were designed to complement the existing infra‐ community fag as acknowledgement of their ser‐ structure, to join these two communities and the vice to Prague. settlement around the Castle, both spatially and Boehm and Fajt also discuss the artistic legacy symbolically, into a new unified city. They place of Charles's IV son and successor, Wenceslas (Vá‐ these developments in a much broader historical clav) IV. They note that while his reign was context than earlier scholarship, noting the shift marked by political and religious turmoil, it also of power from the nearby Vyšehrad Hill to the witnessed the apogee of the "Beautiful Style" as Castle Hill in the ninth century and the work done work continued on the sculptural program of the in the city under John of Luxembourg.