Pavel Aretin of Ehrefeld: A map between the defenestration and the Battle of White Mountain

The exhibition presents the life and work of Pavel Aretin of Ehrenfeld, whose map New and exact description of the Bohemian Kingdom (16,19, 1632, 1665, before 1747) was published just 400 years ago. The work shows for the first time the boundaries of 15 provincial regions with their Czech and German names. The scale of the map was already more detailed 1: 504 000 than at predecessors. Aretin also described many more residences, nearly 1 200. He added a local alphabetical index with coordinates in Czech miles on the edge of the map. Due to the war use of the map, very few copies were preserved. The original first edition is owned by National Archives, which kindly made available a copy of it. The next edition belongs to the Fund of the Map Collection of the Faculty of Science of Charles University. Regional Archives in Opava provided also a unique manuscript of Aretin´s map of Zábřeh manor (1623). Cartometric analyses were carried out on the maps. There was also made a unique model to search for locations from the Registry according to the instructions on the edge of the map. There will be also introduced sister maps from the British Library by W. P. Zimmermann or E. Sadeler but also derivatives mostly from Dutch atlases of the Map Collection of the Faculty of Science, Charles University. The exhibition will also include historical posters setting the work into the frame of the stormy Thirty Years´ War, starting with the defenestration (1618), over the Battle of White Mountain to the sack of Prague by Swedish in 1648. Visitors will be also able to see pictures of period measurements and measurement instruments and also authentic musketeers´ clothing with equipment. 

Accompanying events:

Guided tour, E. Novotná: June 26, 2019, July 24, 2019 from 2 p.m.

Lecture September 4, 2019: 2 p.m., lecture room Věž, Albertov 6, Prague 2, Z. Munzar: The beginning of the Thirty Years´ War in the context of European events (Military History Institute Prague).