Rudolf II and Prague : the imperial court and residential city as the cultural and spiritual heart of central Europe

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Rudolf II and Prague : the imperial court and residential city as the cultural and spiritual heart of central Europe

editors, Eliška Fučíková ... [et al.]

Prague Castle administration, 1997

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Includes index

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Description

Rudolf II of Hapsburg, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia and Hungary, was an extraordinary ruler, a monarch whose court occupied a central position in 16th-century Europe - yet he remained a shadowy and fugitive figure. The decades around 1600 saw sweeping cultural changes in Europe, with the waning of an old-world view and the beginnings of the 17th-century intellectual revolution. The author argues that the conflict which played itself out in the Hapsburg lands during these years was a political manifestation of the intellectual confrontation between the old guard and and their preoccupation with the mystical, spiritual and hermetic sciences, and the rise of a more rational and empirical view of the world. Rudolf, as the embodiment of the old philosophy, failed to grasp this profound shift in the prevailing climate of thought: Professor Evans argues that it was this failure which led to his eventual tragic downfall.

Table of Contents

  • The Hapsburgs, Bohemia and the Empire
  • the politics of Rudolf
  • the religions of Rudolf
  • the Hapsburgs, Bohemia and the humanist culture
  • Rudolf and the fine arts
  • Rudolf and the occult arts
  • Prague mannerism and the magic universe.

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