PUBLICATION "The Story of Prague Castle"

For the opening of the permanent exhibition The Story of Prague Castle, a book has been published that fills the castle with the concrete individuals who, consciously or unconsciously, set in motion many historical events. The exhibition pieces include both seemingly ordinary and luxury items: combs, goblets and spoons, shoes and clothes, jewellery, funeral jewels, illuminated manuscripts, liturgical instruments, architectural fragments and many others. All of the objects conceal the forgotten stories of the materials and the crafts, as well as the stories of the people who made them and the people who used them.

Today, however, these 'eyewitnesses' are mute. They have no voice with which to speak. They are unable to describe the character, the opinions or the deeds of the duke, king, emperor, president or his wife, their relationship to the servants, the counsellors, courtiers and court artists. They cannot define the qualities or the lives of the church dignitaries - the bishops of St Vitus and the abbesses of St George. And so they wait patiently in storerooms for intermediaries to reveal their secrets.

These intermediaries are the specialists most qualified for the task: historians, archaeologists, architects, restorers and archivists. Each of them contributes in his or her own way to the diverse mosaic of stories collected in the publication. The book does not aspire to be an exhaustive textbook of the history of Prague Castle, but rather a fascinating testimony of the cultural and intellectual life there from prehistoric times up to the present. The individual accounts are further enhanced by the distinctive 'language' of photography.

Equipped with their own curiosity and imagination, it will be up to the readers to choose the paths on which they set out to discover the interconnections between the castle, Prague, the lands of the Bohemian Crown, Europe and more distant regions.

     

The publication is available for sale at the permanent exhibition ticket office - Czech version (924 CZK), English version (1124 CZK), we also offer the opportunity to buy these products COD on e-mail: pribeh.hradu@hrad.cz.

Collective of authors: Klára Benešovská, Milena Bravermanová, Gabriela Dubská, Jan Frolík, Eliška Fuèíková, Martin Halata, Petr Chotìbor, Milada Jonášová, Tomáš Kleisner, Marie Kostílková, Zdenìk Lukeš, Jana Maøíková-Kubková, Karel Otavský, Ivan Prokop Muchka, Tomáš Slavický, Marek Suchý, Kateøina Tomková
Editor: Pavlína Klazarová
Copy-editor: Milena Gillová
English translation: Kathleen Hayes
Photography: Lubomír Fuxa, Jaroslav Prokop etc
Graphic design: Robert V. Novák, Tereza Fantová