Department of Neo-Latin Studies
Research Focus
The Department of Neo-Latin Studies focuses on the research of Latin culture, especially learning and literature, of early modern era, in the context of multilingual literary and book output of Czech provenance and central-European learning. This results in critical editions, analyses and interpretations of Neo-Latin works in the widest spectrum of genres. The department further concentrates on registering and digital processing of literary works of Czech provenance.
Current Projects
Team Projects
JOHANN PETER CERRONI AND THE HISTORIA LITTERARIA OF HIS AGE I (GA ČR P406/12/2254, 2012–2017, principal investigator: PhDr. Martin Svatoš, CSc.)
The aim of the project is to make accessible the Latin dictionary of writers from the Czech Kingdom Scriptores regni Boemiae, written by the Moravian collector and historian of the Age of Enlightenment Johann Peter Cerroni, and to put it into the context of thinking and writing about the history of learning (so-called historia litteraria) in Czech Lands of the epoch. Because Cerroni included writers in his dictionary regardless of their works’ language, the project requires a participation of specialists in Latin, German, Czech and Hebrew from several research institutions. The main part of the project consists in preparing a commented edition of Cerroni’s work (which has so far been hidden in a manuscript) supplemented with translated bio-bibliographical entries of the authors. The introductory part of the project is the collective monograph Historia litteraria v českých zemích od 17. do počátku 19. století [Historia Litteraria within the Bohemian Lands during the 18th and in the Beginning of the 19th Century], edited by Josef Förster, Ondřej Podavka and Martin Svatoš, published in 2016 at the publishing house Filosofia. It includes studies about J. P. Cerroni and his contemporaries who wrote down similar dictionaries of savants in the Czech Lands. These are analysed from the viewpoint of history of learning and history of literature. Apart from this monograph, partial studies are published in scholarly periodicals.
Collaborations on Projects Run by Other Institutions
FORMS OF HUMANISM IN THE LITERATURE OF THE CZECH LANDS (1469–1622). Supported by the Czech Science Foundation. Principal investigator: PhDr. Lucie Storchová, Ph.D., Institute of Philosophy of the CAS. Participants from the Department of the Neo-Latin Studies of the Centre for Classical Studies: Mgr. Marta Vaculínová, Ph.D., and Bc. Vojtěch Pelc.
ORIGINS OF MODERN LITERARY CRITICISM IN CZECH LANDS (1770–1805). Supported by the Czech Science Foundation. Principal investigator: PhDr. Dalibor Dobiáš, Ph.D., Institute of Czech Literature of the CAS. Participant from the Department of the Neo-Latin Studies of the Centre for Classical Studies: Mgr. Ondřej Podavka, Ph.D.
Individual Projects
The research of Latin literary output in the Czech lands from the 16th to the beginning of the 19th century is undertaken also on the basis of individual projects of the Department’s members who interpret, analyse and edit Neo-Latin prose and poetry of various genres. Current themes of research: humanistic poetry; travel diaries; cultural, educational and literary output of religious orders in Czech lands; historia litteraria; Baroque drama; Jesuit rhetoric; historiography; hymnal books; texts of music theory; alba amicorum in Early Modern era; correspondence of the Humanistic and Enlightenment era; and others. Results are presented in the form of printed studies about the individual genres and authors, or as critical editions and analyses of individual works, or eventually as conference papers.
IN PREPARATION:
Svatoš, Martin, Bohuslav Balbín SJ, Qvaesita oratoria (edition with a translation and an introductory study).
Förster, Josef, Korespondence Mikuláše Adaukta Voigta s Gelasiem Dobnerem [Correspondence of Nicolaus Adauctus Voigt with Gelasius Dobner] (edition with a translation and an introductory study).
Vaculínová, Marta, Deník Istvána Miskolciho [István Miskolci’s Diary] (edition, along with Prof. András Szabó and Dr. Susann El Kholi).
Podavka, Ondřej, Zdeněk Brtnický z Valdštejna – učený šlechtic a jeho deník z cest [Zdeněk Brtnický z Valdštejna – A Learned Noble and His Travel Diary] (monograph, due to appear in 2017 in the publishing house Vyšehrad).
Podavka, Ondřej, Vzájemná korespondence Jeana de Carro a Karla A. Vinařického 1829–1855 [Correspondence of Jean de Carro and Karel A. Vinařický 1829–1855] (translation).
Databases
Bohuslai Balbini Bohemia docta
Dictionary of Czech and Slovak book printers
LIMUP: Database of contents of Utraquist liturgical manuscripts from the 15th-16th century
Repertory of incunabula in Czech
Involvement in the Strategy AV21
Within the framework of the programme Memory in the Digital Age, we work on the following projects:
THE CORRESPONDENCE OF NICOLAUS ADAUCTUS VOIGT WITH GELASIUS DOBNER (investigator: Josef Förster)
The aim of this project of the Department of Neo-Latin Studies, supported by the programme “Memory in the Digital Age”, is a critical edition, equipped with a translation and an introductory study, of the correspondence (kept in the National Archive in Prague) of two key Czech scholars of the Enlightenment and early phase of the National Revival. The correspondence covers the period of fifteen years crucial for scholarly and revivalistic development of Voigt‘s personality. It is an important testimony to the creation of national self-consciousness and the development of Czech scholarly life in the last third of the 18th century. Against the background of the individual fates, it resonates with the crucial events of Czech scholarly life (academic disputes), problems which influenced the society as a whole (Josephine reforms, dissolution of monasteries) or evolving aesthetic standards, but also with everyday moments which are mentioned in every private correspondence and illustrate the correspondents’ personalities. The project will result in a printed publication (120 pp., black-and-white photo attachment) and a digital copy of the manuscript, accessible on the Centre’s website.
CREATING A CATALOGUE OF THE DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE CENTRE FOR CLASSICAL STUDIES (investigator: Josef Förster)
The digital photograph archive of the Centre specialises on contactless digitisation of the cultural heritage of the Czech Lands, especially of written sources created before 1800. For the twenty years of its existence, the archive created a rather extensive pictorial fund (hundreds of GBs, more than 500 items) which includes digital photographs of works of art, manuscripts and old prints (e. g., the Evangeliary of Zábrdovice, the Codex Franus, Comenius’ maps of Moravia, decorations of the rotunda in Znojmo and of the summer palace Hvězda, the Passion cycle in the St. Wenceslas Chapel in the St. Vitus Cathedral etc.). The aim of the project is to create an electronic database containing all the above mentioned material and accessible on the web pages of the Centre for Classical Studies.
Educational Activities
The Department cooperates with the Institute for Greek and Latin Studies at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University, Prague, in organising the PhD study programme Medieval Latin and Neo-Latin Studies. For more information click here.
Completed Projects and Selected Important Publications
DATABASES
A bibliography of Czech and Slovak printed books since the oldest times until the end of the 18th century. For more information click here.
BOOKS
Bobková-Valentová, Kateřina – Sládek, Miloš – Svatoš, Martin (eds.), Krátké věčného spasení upamatování. K životu a době jezuity Antonína Koniáše. Praha: Ústav pro českou literaturu AV ČR 2013, 196 pp. [A Short Commemoration of Eternal Redemption. On Life and Times of the Jesuit Antonín Koniáš].
Förster, Josef – Podavka, Ondřej – Svatoš, Martin (eds.), Historia litteraria v českých zemích od 17. do počátku 19. století. Praha: Filosofia 2016, 362 pp. [Historia Litteraria within the Bohemian Lands during the 18th and in the Beginning of the 19th Century].
Gallus Anonymus, Kronika a činy polských knížat a vládců, (trasl.) Josef Förster. Praha: Argo 2009, 168 pp. [Chronicle and Deeds of the Princes and Rulers of the Poles].
Johann Peter Cerroni, Scriptores Regni Bohemiae – Spisovatelé Království českého, tomus I., A–B, (eds.) Jana Ciglerová-Desenská – Josef Förster – Jan Kvapil – Jiří Matl – Václav Petrbok – Ondřej Podavka – Daniel Polakovič – Václav Pumprla – Martin Svatoš – Jiří Žůrek. Praha: Filosofia 2016, 498 pp. [Scriptores Regni Bohemiae – Writers from the Czech Kingdom, tomus I].
Alois Kroess SJ, Geschichte der Böhmischen Provinz der Gesellschaft Jesu. III. Die Zeit von 1657 bis zur Aufhebung der Gesellschaft Jesu im Jahre 1773, (eds.) Petr Kolář – Martin Svatoš. Olomouc: Refugium Velehrad – Roma 2012, 1384 pp.
Pumprla, Václav, Knihopisný slovník českých, slovenských a cizích autorů 16.–18. století. Praha: Kabinet pro klasická studia, Filosofický ústav Akademie věd České republiky 2010, 1320 pp. [Bibliographic Handbook of Czech, Slovak and Foreign Authors of 16th-18th century].
Žůrek, Jiří, Graduale Bohemorum. Proprium sanctorum. Praha: Krystal OP 2011, 702 pp.
STUDIES
Förster, Josef, „Hanswurst před branami Tróje. Pohled na dramatické dílo Johanna Christiana Aloise Mickla“, in: Divadelní revue 2014, 25, 2, pp. 18–39 [“Hanswurst in Front of the Gates of Troy. A View on Johann Christian Alois Mickl’s Dramatic Work“].
Förster, Josef, „A Czech Contribution to the Theme of Mautitian in Neo-Latin Drama“, in: Humanistica Lovaniensia 65, 2016, pp. 367–381.
Podavka, Ondřej, „Z korespondence Bohuslava Balbína s Aloisem Hackenschmidtem z let 1664–1667“, in: Václav Chroust – Zdeňka Buršíková – Karel Viták (eds.), Dělám to k větší slávě Boží a chvále vlasti. Bohuslav Balbín a jeho doba. Barokní jezuitské Klatovy 2014 – sborník příspěvků, Klatovy 2014, pp. 92–114 [“Selections of Correspondence between Bohuslav Balbin and Alois Hackenschmidt between 1664-1667“].
Podavka, Ondřej, „Památník Zdeňka Brtnického z Valdštejna z let 1591–1600“, in: Folia historica Bohemica 29, 1, 2014, pp. 103–132 [“Album of Zdeněk Brtnický of Waldstein from 1591–1600“].
Podavka, Ondřej, „Encyklopedie těšínských učenců Leopolda Jana Šeršníka“, in: Opera historica 16, 2015, 2, pp. 228–246 [“The Encyclopaedia of Teschen Scholars by Leopold Jan Šeršník“].
Podavka, Ondřej, „Leopoldus Ioannes Scherschnik, De doctis Reginae-Hradecensibus commentarius ad Doctissimum Virum Stanislaum Wydra. Komentovaná edice“, in: Listy filologické 139, 2016, 1–2, pp. 167–188 [“Leopoldus Ioannes Scherschnik. De doctis Reginae-Hradecensibus commentarius ad doctissimum virum Stanislaum Wydra. A commented edition”].
Svatoš, Martin, „Úvod do kapitoly: Literatura a rétorika jesuitů / Einleitung in das Kapitel: Literatur und Rhetorik der Jesuiten“, in: Petronilla Cemus (eds.), Bohemia Jesuitica 1556–2006. Praha: Karolinum, 2010, pp. 777–791.
Svatoš, Martin, „Magnoald Ziegelbauer OSB jako interpres Regiae voluntatis (Ziegelbauerův výklad koncepce vzdělání šlechtické mládeže v Tereziánské koleji v Praze)“, in: Anežka Baďurová – Kamil Boldan – Andrea Jelínková – Marta Vaculínová (eds.), Humanismus v rozmanitosti pohledů. Farrago festiva Iosepho Hejnic nonagenario oblata. Praha: Knihovna AV ČR, 2014, pp. 77–101 [“Magnoald Ziegelbauer OSB as interpres Regiae voluntatis (Ziegelbauer’s Interpretation of the Concept of the Nobility Youth’s Education within the Collegium Theresianum in Prague)“].
Žůrek, Jiří, „Utrakvistický sanktorál v českých graduálech 16. století“, in: Listy filologické 136, 2013, pp. 315–341 [“Utraquist Sanctoral in the Czech Graduals of 16th century“].
Žůrek, Jiří, „František Faustin Procházka’s Approach to the History of Learning“, in: Listy filologické 138, 2015, 3–4, pp. 325–340.
