Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (48 page)
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Authors: Peter Demetz
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David Gans, an expert historian, geographer, and astronomer, lived quietly in Prague, and among the many treatises published during his lifetime, his
Zemah David
(
A Branch of David
, 1592), a chronicle of the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds, and
Magen David
(
The Shield of David,
1612), a critical and illuminating panorama of astronomy past and present, are of particular importance and interest. The first describes in individual entries Jewish events from the creation until his own time and, in a second part, the corresponding events of Christian history; he relies on wide readings of Jewish authorities, German chroniclers, as well as Cosmas and his Czech followers. Prague, he assumes, was originally founded before Troy, and a Prague Jewish settlement existed at the time of the Second Temple; Libussa came much later and actually restored Prague to the Slav people. David Gans is an ardent local patriot; he praises Prague as a “great, splendid, and populous city”; as if cribbing from Cosmas, he proudly describes the Bohemian opulence of fish, pastures, and forests, and speaks in perhaps more modern terms about the precious minerals of the land and the healing waters of Karlsbad and Teplitz (he uses the German names). As astronomer, Gans combines his enthusiasm for Tycho Brahe’s and Kepler’s investigations—which he had witnessed at close range—with a good deal of reluctance to sacrifice Ptolemy’s grand view of the universe, which corresponds to Jewish tradition; when confronted with the new sciences emerging everywhere, he ultimately if grudgingly sympathizes with traditional options. His report about Tycho Brahe and his team at Benátky has the ring of authenticity, both in his feelings and in the precision of the description: “I was there among them in the rooms used as observatory, and I saw with my own eyes the marvelous work that was carried on there … there were three instruments, each operated by two scholars, who took the astronomical determination of the star at the very moment it passed the line of midnight.” It is the professional astronomer who understands the methodological detail; “each night they would observe each of the six planets in the same way, recording their position in longitude, in latitude, their height in the sky, and the approximate variations in their distance from the earth … . I had the privilege of being there three times, each time for a period of five consecutive days.”
Zemah David
(
A Branch of David
, 1592), a chronicle of the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds, and
Magen David
(
The Shield of David,
1612), a critical and illuminating panorama of astronomy past and present, are of particular importance and interest. The first describes in individual entries Jewish events from the creation until his own time and, in a second part, the corresponding events of Christian history; he relies on wide readings of Jewish authorities, German chroniclers, as well as Cosmas and his Czech followers. Prague, he assumes, was originally founded before Troy, and a Prague Jewish settlement existed at the time of the Second Temple; Libussa came much later and actually restored Prague to the Slav people. David Gans is an ardent local patriot; he praises Prague as a “great, splendid, and populous city”; as if cribbing from Cosmas, he proudly describes the Bohemian opulence of fish, pastures, and forests, and speaks in perhaps more modern terms about the precious minerals of the land and the healing waters of Karlsbad and Teplitz (he uses the German names). As astronomer, Gans combines his enthusiasm for Tycho Brahe’s and Kepler’s investigations—which he had witnessed at close range—with a good deal of reluctance to sacrifice Ptolemy’s grand view of the universe, which corresponds to Jewish tradition; when confronted with the new sciences emerging everywhere, he ultimately if grudgingly sympathizes with traditional options. His report about Tycho Brahe and his team at Benátky has the ring of authenticity, both in his feelings and in the precision of the description: “I was there among them in the rooms used as observatory, and I saw with my own eyes the marvelous work that was carried on there … there were three instruments, each operated by two scholars, who took the astronomical determination of the star at the very moment it passed the line of midnight.” It is the professional astronomer who understands the methodological detail; “each night they would observe each of the six planets in the same way, recording their position in longitude, in latitude, their height in the sky, and the approximate variations in their distance from the earth … . I had the privilege of being there three times, each time for a period of five consecutive days.”
One of the renowned events of the 1590s was the meeting of Emperor
Rudolf and Rabbi Judah Loew, and if it is not merely a useful fiction to enhance the Rabbi’s authority, it is more probable that it happened as David Gans reported in his chronicle rather than in the ceremonious and theatrical arrangement later described by Isaac Katz, the Maharal’s son-in-law. Gans greatly respected tradition and yet cherished evidence and experience; in a brief entry for February 13, 1592, he remarks that the emperor himself, “a just ruler, the source of good and light,” invited the Maharal to his residence “and received him most graciously.” The rabbi and the emperor conversed “face to face” as “a man speaks to his equal,” but after the interview they were both unwilling to divulge what they had been talking about. Such a meeting was not at all impossible; Emperors Maximilian I and Charles V had set precedents by personally discussing with Rabbi Jossel of Rosheim, an untiring defender of German Jews, “legal matters of mutual interest”; and, by 1592, Rudolf was still willing and able to welcome visiting scholars (his saturnine isolation commenced only after 1600); it has often been remarked that the scholarly Johannes Pistorius, later his father confessor, was an excellent Christian student of the Kabbalah in the tradition of Johannes Reuchlin. Isaac Katz, who assures us that he speaks as an eyewitness, sets the date of the interview a week later, on February 20, and tells us that the Maharal was allowed to speak only to a courtier, while the emperor listened behind a closed curtain; as far as the discussion was concerned, Katz speaks of
“nistarot,”
or secrets, which he promises to reveal later (he never did). By the time of the rabbi’s great-great-great-grandson, we hear that the Maharal wrote a number of magic incantations on amulets before setting out to see Rudolf; the story of a remarkable meeting, originally a sober report, has long since deteriorated into a gothic narrative with mystical allusions.
Rudolf and Rabbi Judah Loew, and if it is not merely a useful fiction to enhance the Rabbi’s authority, it is more probable that it happened as David Gans reported in his chronicle rather than in the ceremonious and theatrical arrangement later described by Isaac Katz, the Maharal’s son-in-law. Gans greatly respected tradition and yet cherished evidence and experience; in a brief entry for February 13, 1592, he remarks that the emperor himself, “a just ruler, the source of good and light,” invited the Maharal to his residence “and received him most graciously.” The rabbi and the emperor conversed “face to face” as “a man speaks to his equal,” but after the interview they were both unwilling to divulge what they had been talking about. Such a meeting was not at all impossible; Emperors Maximilian I and Charles V had set precedents by personally discussing with Rabbi Jossel of Rosheim, an untiring defender of German Jews, “legal matters of mutual interest”; and, by 1592, Rudolf was still willing and able to welcome visiting scholars (his saturnine isolation commenced only after 1600); it has often been remarked that the scholarly Johannes Pistorius, later his father confessor, was an excellent Christian student of the Kabbalah in the tradition of Johannes Reuchlin. Isaac Katz, who assures us that he speaks as an eyewitness, sets the date of the interview a week later, on February 20, and tells us that the Maharal was allowed to speak only to a courtier, while the emperor listened behind a closed curtain; as far as the discussion was concerned, Katz speaks of
“nistarot,”
or secrets, which he promises to reveal later (he never did). By the time of the rabbi’s great-great-great-grandson, we hear that the Maharal wrote a number of magic incantations on amulets before setting out to see Rudolf; the story of a remarkable meeting, originally a sober report, has long since deteriorated into a gothic narrative with mystical allusions.
The Jewish intellectual most openly sensitive to the new scientific thought of the Renaissance was Joseph Salomon Delmedigo, who spent his last years in Prague and was buried at the old cemetery in 1655. The inscription on his gravestone praises the many achievements of the “glorious rabbi, scholar, and philosopher, and one mighty among physicians.” His life symbolizes the all-embracing thirst for knowledge that fired Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike in the mid-seventeenth century, and his life was more restless and productive than most. Born on Crete to a family of renowned rabbis, he was admitted to the University of Padua when he was fifteen years old; among others, he worked with Galileo Galilei, who allowed the young Jewish student to observe the stars through his telescope, the favor never extended to Kepler. By 1613, Delmedigo returned
to Crete as a practicing physician, only to leave again, perhaps frustrated by an unhappy marriage or the island’s narrow world. He traveled most of his life, briefly settling in Cairo, Constantinople, Poland (where he was appointed private physician to Prince Radziwill), Hamburg, and Frankfurt; he probably arrived in Prague by the mid-1640s and died there ten years later. He was a rather controversial figure, disliked by the orthodox (possibly because of his friends among the Karaite groups opposed to the rabbinical tradition), and, being able to study and converse in eight languages, he felt inspired to widen the intellectual horizon of the Jewish communities; he was certainly not averse to disputing ideas with Arab and Christian colleagues. Preferring Plato to Aristotle, Copernicus to Ptolemy, a critical reader of the Kabbalah and an untiring author of thirty or forty scientific and philosophical books, he is said to be a forerunner of the Jewish Enlightenment. Emperor Rudolf, if he had had a chance to talk to him (he died as Delmedigo concluded his studies in Padua), would have found him a wide-ranging and tolerant partner in dialogue.
to Crete as a practicing physician, only to leave again, perhaps frustrated by an unhappy marriage or the island’s narrow world. He traveled most of his life, briefly settling in Cairo, Constantinople, Poland (where he was appointed private physician to Prince Radziwill), Hamburg, and Frankfurt; he probably arrived in Prague by the mid-1640s and died there ten years later. He was a rather controversial figure, disliked by the orthodox (possibly because of his friends among the Karaite groups opposed to the rabbinical tradition), and, being able to study and converse in eight languages, he felt inspired to widen the intellectual horizon of the Jewish communities; he was certainly not averse to disputing ideas with Arab and Christian colleagues. Preferring Plato to Aristotle, Copernicus to Ptolemy, a critical reader of the Kabbalah and an untiring author of thirty or forty scientific and philosophical books, he is said to be a forerunner of the Jewish Enlightenment. Emperor Rudolf, if he had had a chance to talk to him (he died as Delmedigo concluded his studies in Padua), would have found him a wide-ranging and tolerant partner in dialogue.
Rudolf’s Prague was not an idyllic place of peace and quiet but, rather, a European metropolis of great splendor and much dirt, with hordes of foreign travelers, a few of them knowledgeable and many of them condescending (as today), boisterous soldiers and maidens raped, and a steadily rising rate of robberies and unsolved murders; the terms
bambitka
(handgun) and
banditi
made their appearance in spoken Czech. Fynes Moryson, an English traveler of cosmopolitan tastes, immediately noticed the terrible stench in the streets, penetrating enough “to put the Turks to flight,” as he wrote, and yet, in May or June, men wore little wreaths of roses on their hats and women garlands of flowers on their left shoulders, a French traveler noted. There was always something sensational going on; the arrival of a Persian or a Russian embassy (bringing thousands of precious furs, which Rudolf immediately sold abroad), or other foreign delegations of minor importance, cooling their heels as they waited for months for audiences. Elegant people always had a chance to go to Vladislav Hall at Hrad
any Castle, a kind of fair where luxury goods were sold and a corso was held: everybody who was anybody met everybody else to exchange political news and court gossip, or to flirt with the wellprotected daughters of better families who perambulated there, stiff-necked in their costly embroidery. It was always possible to find ready
money (putting up a good family name for collateral) and to buy the favors of willing women or minor jobs; the young officers who came to Prague from the Turkish front for a few days of rest and recreation were short-tempered, ready to draw at the slightest provocation, and willing to disturb the good sleep of the burghers with their nightly revels.
bambitka
(handgun) and
banditi
made their appearance in spoken Czech. Fynes Moryson, an English traveler of cosmopolitan tastes, immediately noticed the terrible stench in the streets, penetrating enough “to put the Turks to flight,” as he wrote, and yet, in May or June, men wore little wreaths of roses on their hats and women garlands of flowers on their left shoulders, a French traveler noted. There was always something sensational going on; the arrival of a Persian or a Russian embassy (bringing thousands of precious furs, which Rudolf immediately sold abroad), or other foreign delegations of minor importance, cooling their heels as they waited for months for audiences. Elegant people always had a chance to go to Vladislav Hall at Hrad
any Castle, a kind of fair where luxury goods were sold and a corso was held: everybody who was anybody met everybody else to exchange political news and court gossip, or to flirt with the wellprotected daughters of better families who perambulated there, stiff-necked in their costly embroidery. It was always possible to find readymoney (putting up a good family name for collateral) and to buy the favors of willing women or minor jobs; the young officers who came to Prague from the Turkish front for a few days of rest and recreation were short-tempered, ready to draw at the slightest provocation, and willing to disturb the good sleep of the burghers with their nightly revels.
Later writers like to indulge in spectral stories about the magic of Rudolf’s Prague, but the first modern Prague prose novel in any language tells us about petty street crime and funny picaresque characters who develop a good sense for the realities of contemporary society, high and low. In 1617, the Augsburg writer Nikolaus Ulenhart’s
Wondrous Tale of Isaac Winckelfelder and Jobst von der Schneid
was published, and though it was shown later to be a German adaptation of Cervantes’s
Novela de Rinconete y Cortadillo
(written in 1613), Ulenhart knew his Prague topography well, carefully listened to spoken German, Czech, and Rotwelsch, or “thieves’ Latin,” and it would be impossible to dispute his authenticity. He writes of two young men, one the son of a Calvinist, the other from an Anabaptist family, who roam the countryside and try to make a meager living by thievery and playing with marked cards. After they tell each other their miserable autobiographies, with almost Spanish
grandeza,
they rob a foolish German and a friendly Italian and enter the big city with great hope and some initial success (they cut the purse of an Augustinian monk buying provisions for the monastery of St. Thomas in the Minor Town). Yet they are observed, in flagrante delicto, by a Czech colleague who warns the freelancing country bumpkins (his flawless Czech is incorporated into the German prose text) that thieving in Prague is “not only prohibited” but “outright dangerous,” if you do not join the professional guild. He brings them to see the renowned Zuckerbastl (“Sugar Cake”), who runs the guild of the underworld with competence and energy; he anticipates the London beggar king in John Gay’s
Beggar’s Opera
and Brecht’s
Threepenny Opera
. Zuckerbastl welcomes the two heartily and immediately notices that, though young, they are masters of practical experience. At the ensuing Sunday dinner, Isaac and Jobst meet other guild members, including assorted Italian rogues, a few whores with golden hearts and exposed breasts, and Maruška, a former madam who has taken to the Catholic religion and puts up ex-voto candles in all the churches, especially at Anežka’s nunnery, and they all mightily cope with a heavy Czech Sunday meal of goose, calves’ liver, and
Kolatschen
. Zuckerbastl explains the laws of the organization, praises the self-policing of crime because conflicts with the (paid off) town authorities can be avoided, and suggests that everybody share his profits with the organization. Isaac and
Jobst are formally accepted as full-fledged members, do not have to serve as apprentices, and are assigned an excellent district to work, running from Hrad
any Square and the archbishop’s palace to Strahov cloister and down the hill. They could not have done better, and it is unsurprising that they are ready to settle in hospitable Prague to avoid being hanged, at least for a while.
Wondrous Tale of Isaac Winckelfelder and Jobst von der Schneid
was published, and though it was shown later to be a German adaptation of Cervantes’s
Novela de Rinconete y Cortadillo
(written in 1613), Ulenhart knew his Prague topography well, carefully listened to spoken German, Czech, and Rotwelsch, or “thieves’ Latin,” and it would be impossible to dispute his authenticity. He writes of two young men, one the son of a Calvinist, the other from an Anabaptist family, who roam the countryside and try to make a meager living by thievery and playing with marked cards. After they tell each other their miserable autobiographies, with almost Spanish
grandeza,
they rob a foolish German and a friendly Italian and enter the big city with great hope and some initial success (they cut the purse of an Augustinian monk buying provisions for the monastery of St. Thomas in the Minor Town). Yet they are observed, in flagrante delicto, by a Czech colleague who warns the freelancing country bumpkins (his flawless Czech is incorporated into the German prose text) that thieving in Prague is “not only prohibited” but “outright dangerous,” if you do not join the professional guild. He brings them to see the renowned Zuckerbastl (“Sugar Cake”), who runs the guild of the underworld with competence and energy; he anticipates the London beggar king in John Gay’s
Beggar’s Opera
and Brecht’s
Threepenny Opera
. Zuckerbastl welcomes the two heartily and immediately notices that, though young, they are masters of practical experience. At the ensuing Sunday dinner, Isaac and Jobst meet other guild members, including assorted Italian rogues, a few whores with golden hearts and exposed breasts, and Maruška, a former madam who has taken to the Catholic religion and puts up ex-voto candles in all the churches, especially at Anežka’s nunnery, and they all mightily cope with a heavy Czech Sunday meal of goose, calves’ liver, and
Kolatschen
. Zuckerbastl explains the laws of the organization, praises the self-policing of crime because conflicts with the (paid off) town authorities can be avoided, and suggests that everybody share his profits with the organization. Isaac and
Jobst are formally accepted as full-fledged members, do not have to serve as apprentices, and are assigned an excellent district to work, running from Hrad
any Square and the archbishop’s palace to Strahov cloister and down the hill. They could not have done better, and it is unsurprising that they are ready to settle in hospitable Prague to avoid being hanged, at least for a while.In 1655 a rich chapter in Prague’s chronicle of scandals and crime was written, in his
journal de ma vie,
by François Bassompierre, field marshal of France. He had been kept for twelve years at the Bastille upon the order of Cardinal Richelieu and had ample time to recall his youthful adventures (some readers of his memoirs believed he talked too much). He was a twenty-four-year-old officer returning from the Hungarian front when he arrived for the carnival in Prague to dance and to seek command of a cavalry regiment, and though he stayed only a few weeks, from the end of January to the beginning of April 1604, he did not miss much. It was well known that he was greatly favored by Christian Hermann Baron Russwurm, war hero and commander in chief of the imperial troops fighting the sultan; and immediately the two officers, the older and the young one, attended the right parties and dances, and more. They were happily welcomed at the noble house of the V
esovec family (unmarried daughters again), the skirt chaser Russwurm cast an experienced eye on Esther, eighteen years old and already a widow, and young Bassompierre fell in love, or so he said, with Sybilla (her name was really Sabina but he never had a good memory for names). Yet elegant and fine feelings did not prevent the two chevaliers, immediately after the Vfesovec party, from seeking out, together with a Czech footman as translator, a certain New Town innkeeper who had promised to deliver to them two young girls, both virgins still, for a hundred ducats each. They found the innkeeper in his back room, sitting with his two daughters, who were doing needlework, but when they announced that they had brought the money and wanted the girls, the innkeeper declared he had never agreed to such a deal; Russwurm quickly drew his dagger and held it up to the father’s throat, telling Bassompierre to start in on the astonished girls. The young officer answered that he was not willing to rape a girl, and in the presence of the father, at that; Russwurm ordered him to change places with him. The innkeeper, emboldened by anger, opened the window and screamed murder, neighborhood crowds gathered, and the officers had to beat a quick retreat, holding their daggers against the father’s wide dark cloak, using him as a hostage to reach the street and their carriage. But there
the innkeeper screamed again, the crowd began pelting the two intruders with stones, Russwurm was hit in the kidneys, and Bassompierre had to take him to the carriage. The next day, the emperor himself, from a secret window, watched them playing tennis at the new sports hall at Hrad
any Castle.
journal de ma vie,
by François Bassompierre, field marshal of France. He had been kept for twelve years at the Bastille upon the order of Cardinal Richelieu and had ample time to recall his youthful adventures (some readers of his memoirs believed he talked too much). He was a twenty-four-year-old officer returning from the Hungarian front when he arrived for the carnival in Prague to dance and to seek command of a cavalry regiment, and though he stayed only a few weeks, from the end of January to the beginning of April 1604, he did not miss much. It was well known that he was greatly favored by Christian Hermann Baron Russwurm, war hero and commander in chief of the imperial troops fighting the sultan; and immediately the two officers, the older and the young one, attended the right parties and dances, and more. They were happily welcomed at the noble house of the V
esovec family (unmarried daughters again), the skirt chaser Russwurm cast an experienced eye on Esther, eighteen years old and already a widow, and young Bassompierre fell in love, or so he said, with Sybilla (her name was really Sabina but he never had a good memory for names). Yet elegant and fine feelings did not prevent the two chevaliers, immediately after the Vfesovec party, from seeking out, together with a Czech footman as translator, a certain New Town innkeeper who had promised to deliver to them two young girls, both virgins still, for a hundred ducats each. They found the innkeeper in his back room, sitting with his two daughters, who were doing needlework, but when they announced that they had brought the money and wanted the girls, the innkeeper declared he had never agreed to such a deal; Russwurm quickly drew his dagger and held it up to the father’s throat, telling Bassompierre to start in on the astonished girls. The young officer answered that he was not willing to rape a girl, and in the presence of the father, at that; Russwurm ordered him to change places with him. The innkeeper, emboldened by anger, opened the window and screamed murder, neighborhood crowds gathered, and the officers had to beat a quick retreat, holding their daggers against the father’s wide dark cloak, using him as a hostage to reach the street and their carriage. But therethe innkeeper screamed again, the crowd began pelting the two intruders with stones, Russwurm was hit in the kidneys, and Bassompierre had to take him to the carriage. The next day, the emperor himself, from a secret window, watched them playing tennis at the new sports hall at Hrad
any Castle.The rise and fall of Generalissimo Russwurm was one of the grand affairs of Rudolf’s monarchy, and it is difficult to recount his story in an orderly way. Baron Russwurm, born a Saxon Protestant in 1565, as a soldier had a deserved reputation for recklessness and cruelty, but he was also a brave commander and an efficient organizer of his troops, and the emperor visibly liked him, much to the chagrin of his fellow officers; Rudolf also feared him, being suspicious of his potential power. The imperial army was run by German-speaking commanders, in council represented by Russwurm, and by an Italian group, including Giorgio Basta and Count Barbiano de Belgioioso, well favored, in turn, by Rudolf’s brother Matthias (despite the fact that Belgioioso’s soldiers had so terrorized the local populations of Slovakia and Hungary, whether Catholic or Protestant, that in 1604 they rose in armed revolt against the army). The Italians concocted various accusations against Russwurm, but the charges were dismissed in Prague; when Russwurm, after taking Buda from the Turks, was directed to head a commission to investigate Belgioioso’s actions, the Italians agreed that he had to go.
The conspiracy against him deserves the attention of a Jacobean play-wright, with the Italians as villains in their appropriate places, the fatal chiaroscuro of narrow Prague streets of the Minor Town, and the emperor isolated in his chambers. Enter one Giacomo Furlani, a Milanese living in Prague who wants to eat his cake and have it too (an inappropriate image). Furlani knows that General Belgioioso’s brother Francesco, who lives in splendor in Prague, is sought by the Milanese authorities, who have put a price of thousands of ducats on him, alive or dead, because he has abducted a lawyer’s wife. Furlani conceives a brilliant plan to have quick-temered Russwurm kill Francesco and be accused of murder; Furlani will deliver the dead Belgioioso to Milan and receive the tracker’s reward. With the help of the willing Italian party, Furlani spreads the rumor, possibly not far from the truth, that the Prague Belgioioso has been responsible for all the false accusations against the generalissimo reaching the court and then, at the right moment, tips off Russwurm that Belgioioso and his entourage are lying in wait to ambush him in a narrow street in the Minor Town (Belgioioso is on hand to serenade a young woman). Russwurm falls into the trap, rushes there with his men, but in the inevitable
fight Belgioioso proves to be the better swordsman and wounds Russwurm gravely; Furlani, afraid of losing his precious quarry, fires three pistol shots and kills Belgioioso with a bullet through the head. A court-martial is immediately convened; Furlani is arrested, jailed, sentenced to death, and quartered; the war hero Russwurm is accused of murder and also sentenced to death (it is said that the Spanish party handsomely pays off Rudolf’s servants and butlers not to allow anybody with a good word for him into the emperor’s presence). The place of the execution is ruled to be the Old Town Hall, and though Russwurm pleads for a public execution, the judges insist on the letter of the sentence.
fight Belgioioso proves to be the better swordsman and wounds Russwurm gravely; Furlani, afraid of losing his precious quarry, fires three pistol shots and kills Belgioioso with a bullet through the head. A court-martial is immediately convened; Furlani is arrested, jailed, sentenced to death, and quartered; the war hero Russwurm is accused of murder and also sentenced to death (it is said that the Spanish party handsomely pays off Rudolf’s servants and butlers not to allow anybody with a good word for him into the emperor’s presence). The place of the execution is ruled to be the Old Town Hall, and though Russwurm pleads for a public execution, the judges insist on the letter of the sentence.
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