De Moravie en Italie. Voyage universitaire et “Grand Tour” européen (1596-1602)

This book is the commented French translation of the daily diary kept in Latin between January 1597 and June 1602 by a young nobleman from Moravia (part of the then Bohemian Kingdom – now Czech Republic) visiting nine present-day countries (the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Austria and Italy) to perfect his education, learn the languages and understand the etiquette of the European aristocracy of the day, and to make acquaintances. The way young Lutheran Zdenek of Waldstein, related to the famous Wallenstein, travelled had something of both the university trip (he attended the universities of Strasbourg, Orléans and Siena, and a college in Verona without seeking to graduate from them) and the Grand Tour which was then beginning to develop and was later to become what we know of as tourism. His document not only lists the various courses he signed up for, making it a unique source of information for historians of education, but also all the teachers and fellow students that he met, all the countries he journeyed through including their monuments and curiosities. His social status enabled him to access prestigious functions among the Germanic nations at the universities of Orléans and Siena. It also enabled him to become acquainted with important historical figures such as Henri IV in France, the United Provinces’ stadtholder Maurice of Nassau, Queen Elizabeth I (to whom he would deliver two long laudatory speeches), cardinals Baronius and Bellarmin in Rome, and a multitude of scholars.

The story of the manuscript itself is quite unusual. It is now part of the Vatican Library collections because its author, upon returning to his homeland, became closely involved in the rebellion of the Bohemian states against the emperor in 1618. All his property was forfeited and he died in prison in 1623. When Sweden attacked the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years’ War, his library was taken to Stockholm. When the daughter of King Gustavus Adolphus, Christina, abdicated and converted to Catholicism in 1654, she finally settled in Rome taking with her part of the royal library. When she passed away in 1689, the library was left to the nephew of a cardinal and eventually to Pope Alexander VIII. This is why this document written by a heretic is now part of the Vatican institution.

This original investigation takes us back to a time when Europe was torn apart by religious wars, yet united in a common admiration for Antiquity and the belief in progress.