Abstract
The chapter deals with the reception of works by the Spanish Jesuit of Austrian origin and prolific religious writer Juan Eusebio Nieremberg (1595-1658) in the Czech lands of the 17th century. It features editions of his works and their Latin, German, and Czech translations printed in Bohemia and Moravia as well as Czech translations in manuscript.
By this, the author shows that Nieremberg's books were edited, translated, and probably also read more widely than was previously known. The Czech retrospective bibliography Knihopis lists only two printed translations: Pravidlo a spůsob, jak kdo má přítomnost Boží před očíma míti (published 1644 and reissued as Praesentia Dei, to jest Přítomnost Boží in 1647) by Jiří Plachý-Ferus and Život a zázrakové svatého Izidora sedláka (printed 1673 and 1674?) translated by an anonymous Jesuit in Madrid and published by Jan Ignác Dlouhoveský.
In addition, the anonymous Krátký vejtah života svatého Františka Borgia (1671) and probably other anonymous works (e.g. Život Alphonsa Rodriquez 1665) may be based on works by Nieremberg. The unpublished translation of Vida del dichoso y venerable Padre Marcelo Francisco Mastrilli by Felix Kadlinský has been lost, but there are manuscript translations of three other works: O klanění v duchu a v pravdě with the addition of O stálosti a setrvání v ctnostech (1667) and O rozdílnosti mezi časným a věčným (1668).
They were created in Madrid by the monogramist I. K., SJ, who is very probably identical to the anonymous translator of Život a zázrakové svatého Izidora sedláka.
This so far unknown translator has tentatively been identified as Jan (Ioannes) Krafft, SJ (1619-1687), the companion of Jan (Joannes) Hetzer, SJ (1617-1677), who between 1663 and 1670 was the confessor to Count Franciscus Eusebius of Pötting and Persing, the Austrian ambassador to the royal court in Madrid. Although all of these translations are in some respect connected to the Society of Jesus, only some of them belong directly to the Jesuit translation project of disseminating religious literature by and about the Societas in vemacular languages.
Others were either published by a secular priest or may not have been intended for publication in print at all.