Mgr. Ivo Purš, Ph.D.

Researcher at the Department of Early Modern Art.

Ivo Purš studied art history at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University (MA 1998) and received his Ph.D. from the same university. He has been employed with the IAH since 2001, specializing in visual art of Late Renaissance and Mannerism, alchemist iconography in the history of 16th-century culture and science, illustrations in pre-science and science literature of the 16th and 17th centuries, and historical book collections. Purš is an occasional journalist focusing on heritage conservation and art history. Between  2004 and 2018, he was an investigator of four different GAAV and GAČR grant projects.

Research outputs (selection):

Ivan Muchka – Ivo Purš – Jaroslava Hausenblasová – Sylva Dobalová, The Star. Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria and his Summer Palace in Prague, Praha 2017.

Ivo Purš – Martin Žemla (eds.), Divadlo věčné Moudrosti a teosofická alchymie Heinricha Khunratha. Praha 2017.

Ivo Purš – Vladimír Karpenko (eds.), Alchemy and Rudolf II. Exploring the Secrets of Nature in Central Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, Prague 2016.

Ivo Purš – Hedvika Kuchařová (eds.), Knihovna arcivévody Ferdinanda II. Tyrolského, vol. I and II, Praha 2015.

Ivo Purš, Perspective, vision and dream: notes on the plate "Oratory-Laboratory" in Heinrich Khunrath´s Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae, in: Tomáš Nejeschleba – Jiří Michalík (eds.), Latin Alchemical Literature of Czech Provenance, Olomouc 2015, pp. 50–89.

Ivo Purš, Jaroš Griemiller a jeho „růženná zahrada filozofská“. Zdroje, struktura a symbolika, in: Rosarium philosophorum 1578. Růženná zahrada filozofská / Jaroš Griemiller z Třebska. Praha 2015, pp. 249–349.

Ivo Purš, Alchemie, Astrologie und Naturerkenntnis im Umfeld der letzten Herren von Rosenberg, in: Martin Gaži – Jaroslav Pánek – Petr Pavelec (Hgg.), Die Rosenberger. Eine mitteleuropäische Magnatenfamilie, České Budějovice 2011, pp. 252–265.

Ivo Purš – Vladimír Karpenko, Die Alchemie und der Prager Hof Kaiser Rudolfs II., in: Petra Feuerstein-Herz – Stefan Laube (Hrsg.), Goldenes Wissen. Die Alchemie – Substanzen, Synthesen, Symbolik, Wiesbaden 2014, pp. 129–138.

Ivo Purš, Alchymie, astrologie a poznávání přírody v prostředí posledních pánů z Rožmberka, in: Martin Gaži – Jaroslav Pánek – Petr Pavelec (eds.), Rožmberkové. Rod českých velmožů a jeho cesta dějinami, České Budějovice 2011, pp. 286–293.

Ivo Purš – Milada Studničková, Kutnohorská iluminace, Kutná Hora 2010.

Ivo Purš, Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt, Pansophie und Alchemie, Acta Comeniana 18 (2004), pp. 43–90.

Current projects:

The Alchemical laboratorium in the Fine Arts (GA ČR, 19-02080S) - principal investigator