Dr Suzanna Ivanic and her team launch Renaissance Prague Stories, www.renaissanceprague.co.uk. This web-based app reveals the city’s rich multicultural heritage, bringing past and present voices together.
“For many people, Prague is about the castle or the astronomical clock — these specific medieval and early modern monuments. But how can the visitor put them back together to understand the Renaissance city as a whole? This app is designed to help you navigate the city in a very specific and historical way.”
The app focuses on the fascinating stories of Renaissance Prague while leading users through many of the city’s most awe-inspiring sites. Using historical documents such as inventories of possessions, the team have painstakingly reconstructed the lives of some of Prague’s early 17th-century inhabitants, including the renowned astronomers Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe. Doing so was no small feat because ‘much of the tangible history that created Prague and this colourful era of the Renaissance is hidden in archives and in museums and dispersed collections around the world’, Dr Ivanic said. The team’s efforts give the app’s users the choice of seven different stories and routes to retrace the footsteps of Kepler and Brahe or a Swiss clockmaker in the court of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, a female English poet, a gem-cutter and others. Along each route, the app shows visitors historical artwork depicting events of the period such as markets and fairs as well as modern photos of the sites.
Read more about Renaissance Prague by project consultant, Dr Anna Parker in January’s issue of History Today.