Milada Studničková (ed.)

Josef Krása: Mandevillův cestopis a jeho antické zdroje

The Classical roots of the illuminations created for the Czech translation of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville located in the British Library (Ms Additional 24189) are the subject of a study that is one of the never published texts that was written by Josef Krása and is part of a private family archive. To commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the death of this prominent Czech art historian, this study is being printed on the pages of this edition of the journal. The text was originally a lecture that was presented at a workshop titled ‘The Classical Tradition in Bohemian Art’, which was organised on 22–23 November 1982 at Wallenstein Riding School in Prague. The event was thematically connected to an exhibition of the same name at the Belvedere (August to October 1982) that the National Gallery organised to coincide with the 16th international EIRÉNÉ conference in Prague.  The remarkable London drawings, which were first dealt with in the context of Bohemian art by Otto Pächt, were the subject of a study Josef Krása wrote in the early 1980s to accompany the publication of a facsimile of the manuscript. It was published in 1983 in English and German (The Travels of Sir John Mandeville: A Manuscript in the British Library, New York, George Braziller, 1983; Die Reisen des Ritters John Mandeville, München, Prestel-Verlag, 1983). The text of the lecture is similar to an extent to his description of the illuminations in fol. 15r and 16r (The Travels, plate 19, 27).

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