Abstract
The exhibition introduces the first separate detailed map of the Bohemian Kingdom, its derivatives and the time frame. It is called after a doctor and an owner of a printing office in Mladá Boleslav, Mikuláš Klaudyán.
Illustrated broadsheet, woodcut with a map is preserved in a single copy deposited in the State Regional Archives Litomerice. The map is oriented to the South.
These road maps were used with compass with small sundial. Noteworthy is especially the Czech terminology of the work understandable up to the present time.
Klaudyan map was known and spread mainly thanks to Sebastian Münster who had been publishing its scaled-down copy in many editions and language mutations of Cosmography since 1554. The original printing block was borrowed to Prague to print the Czech version of Cosmography, the biggest book of the period, translated by Zikmund of Púchov.
It was printed at John of Kosoř in Kosoř in 1554. A Bologna engraver Bolognino Zalteri published a reproduced map of Bohemia with North orientation and engraved it on copper in Venice around 1566.
This copy is very unique and it was achieved to obtain approval from the British National Library to make it public at the exhibition. A cartographer and a Catholic priest František Jakub Jindřich Krejbich also reproduced a scaled-down map as an attachment to the Chronicle of the Church History by Bílejovský after 1817.
He also created a remarkable manuscript copy. A watercolour from the 16th century from Rychnov nad Kněžnou castle and an oil painting from the 17th century deposited in the collection of the National Museum belong among rarities.
In the 20th century it was published as a facsimile, firstly in the Geographical Institution of Charles University and later also by many other institutions. Nowadays a professional research of Klaudyan map is carried out at the Geographical section of Charles University and therefore modern cartometric analysis will be also introduced.
The exhibition will be accompanied by commented tours (11. 7. , 22. 8. , 19. 9., 17. 10., always at 2 p.m.), lectures, video-projections and programmes for children within the Prague Museum Night (9. 6. ) and A Week of Geography (19. - 23. 11. ). It is a travelling exhibition.