In the everyday life of an early modern nobleman, contacts were a defining factor in his social status. Relationship networks were primarily formed through informal communication, during which various interest groups emerged, connected by certain common features. After the defeat of the Bohemian Revolt, many foreign military officers moved into the territory of Bohemia, seeing the defeated land as a suitable opportunity for their social advancement. This contribution focuses on reconstructing the relationship network of one such officer, namely the Spanish colonel Guillermo Verdugo, and attempts to provide an overview of his most important contacts during his process of settling in the Kingdom of Bohemia. Verdugo’s initial position required the establishment of functional social ties and contacts. Using Wolfgang Reinhard’s model, individual relationships can be categorized to better understand the motivations for their formation and functioning. Did Verdugo manage to gain useful contacts in Bohemia and integrate himself into the local nobility, or did he mainly rely on his companions from the imperial army? What was the functionality of these ties, and how could the connections between nobles in the new land be mutually beneficial? The analysis of the relationship network reveals which nobles he actively collaborated with, provides insights into their thinking, and demonstrates how crucial proper contacts were for the future of nobles in the post-White Mountain period.

One of the most significant political and social occasions in Baroque Moravia was the ceremonial installation of the newly-appointed Moravian provincial governor. In 1719 Franz Josef von Wallenstein, who otherwise resided mainly in Bohemia and who was connected to the Moravian milieu thanks to his possession of the Třebíč estate, became the new provincial governor for a short time. In view of the fact that Charles VI had chosen him as his representative in Moravia, he enjoyed extraordinary influence and position in the provincial community thanks to his function as governor. For this reason, the royal capital Brno – the seat of the tribunal – was also preparing to celebrate him as a distinguished personage, as was the tradition, by organising a festive fireworks display. However, in the end this was not realised, as Franz Josef von Wallenstein resigned from his position that same year. On the occasion of the celebrations for the new governor, a play, at least, was performed by students from the Brno Jesuit grammar school, entitled Moraviae Aquila. This production, employing numerous heraldic references and allusions to the merits of the Wallenstein family, was subsequently published in the form of a theatrical synopsis. It also included a list of the student actors, among whom we can find famous noble names, as well as descendants of tribunal officials and the city patriciate in general. The aforementioned nobles appeared in the production in appropriate roles corresponding to their class origins, in order to demonstrate the position of their own families and at the same time address the new Moravian provincial governor who was present in person, and who could subsequently become an important advocate or arbiter in the career of a certain nobleman or citizen with heraldic rights.

The present study deals with questions concerning the aristocratic court of the princely House of Liechtenstein in the Baroque period. In particular, it investigates the question of the origins, family connections, and possible family strategies of the courtiers and highest officials of Princes Charles Eusebius († 1684) and John Adam I of Liechtenstein († 1712). For the Liechtensteins’ courtiers and officials, there is as yet no complete database with the necessary genealogical and professional data. This text, however, provides for the first time a substantial amount of detailed personal data about these persons. The necessary information comes primarily from parish registers. The court of the Princes of Liechtenstein was a cosmopolitan community with courtiers of different linguistic (ethnic) origins. In addition to Italians, there were cooks from France and even a tympanist from England. The court also employed personal barbers and saddlers from France. A quite specific and also cosmopolitan group at the court of the Princes of Liechtenstein were the private tutors and preceptors of the little princes and princesses, namely the French governess and the German Hofmeisterin. The dancing teachers came from Germany and Italy, and finally from France. There were also music teachers at court from German-language backgrounds. In addition to music, emphasis was placed on foreign language teaching, which was provided by native speakers of Italian and French. The unifying language of the Liechtenstein residence was German. However, this is a very general term, and its native speakers certainly did not come from one geographical area. The courtiers included people from Prussia, Bavaria, the Tyrol or the Czech lands. The prince was very exacting in choosing his lackeys, who came from various places, including present-day Slovenia and Upper Hungary. Some members of the court and senior officials at the Valtice residence, on the other hand, came from nearby places such as Valtice and Lednice. However, Czech could often be heard in the princely residence.

As 16th-century Muscovy started returning to European policy using military expansion, diplomacy and propaganda, the question of renewing its communications with the Holy Roman Empire, the leading continental power, swiftly arose. To that end the tsars used every possible tool, including gifts to the emperors and their diplomats. However, Russian presents, gift-giving practices and rituals were strikingly different from those of their imperial counterparts, which offered new diplomatic possibilities to both tsars and emperors, although sometimes that difference impeded their communications, self-representation and foreign policy. This article sheds light on what gifts the Russians gave to the Austrian Habsburgs and their emissaries, how they were given, received and understood, how well they worked as diplomatic, cultural and self-representation tools and what they can tell us about the mutual images of the Russian and imperial elites.

The subject of this study is a comparison of the symbolic messages of two festive court musical dramatic works. The first of these was performed in 1674 at the wedding of the Habsburg emperor Leopold I and his second wife Claudia Felicitas of Tyrol, and the second in 1723 at the Bohemian coronation of his son, Emperor Charles VI. The reason for the comparison of these two operas is the fact that both originated in times of an absence of male successors, when there was a real danger of the extinction of the Habsburg dynasty in the male line. The author believes that because of this fact, the two rulers abandoned the demonstration of strength and power and deliberately did not depict themselves on a symbolic level as gods of antiquity (Jupiter or Apollo) or as absolute rulers of the ancient Roman empire. On the contrary, the plot takes place in both operas in the period of the ancient Roman republic, which its citizens protect from enemy invasion. However, they can do this only through the intervention of the gods and the practice of virtues, not by force. The third common feature of both works is the rejection of offers of politically-motivated marriages between the Romans and enemy dynasties to maintain and protect the Roman state. Despite these common dynastic-political messages in both operas, each of the two monarchs presents a different solution to the unfavourable situation at a symbolic level: while Leopold I declares hope for the early arrival of male offspring, Charles VI, on the other hand, defends the Pragmatic Sanction.

This study deals with three visits by members of the Habsburg family to the South Moravian town of Mikulov (Nikolsburg) in the second half of the 17th century. In 1672 Emperor Leopold I and his wife Margaret Theresa stayed here; in 1676 Archduchess Eleonore Maria, after a planned visit by the Emperor and his second wife Claudia Felicitas had been cancelled the previous year, and in 1691 the Emperor with his third wife Eleonore Magdalena. For these important visits Mikulov constituted an attractive place to stay not only because of its strategic location on the route from Vienna to Brno (BrĂźnn), or because of the Habsburgs’ close ties with Dietrichstein, to whom the estate belonged, but above all because of the local pilgrimage tradition. All these visits were accompanied by lavish programmes of festivities. In the case of the imperial visits, musical-dramatic productions were also prepared. In 1672, the serenade Il nuovo Giardino delle Hesperidi was planned to be performed for the Empress’s name-day, and in 1691 the serenade Gli auguria veracemente interpretati, intended for the Emperor’s birthday, which made Mikulov the only Moravian town at that period to experience festivities of this kind.

The Stammbuch (book of friendship), as an object but also as an „active participant“ within numerous connections, played an integral part in building interpersonal relations (the concept of the causality of things) in the early modern period, becoming a peculiar social medium. An excellent example of one of the strands of this extensive social network were the educational contacts developed from the 16th century onwards between Basel and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The main purpose of this article, therefore, is to present the rich social network that linked these two distant state organisms in the seventeenth century, using the remarkable book of friendship of the Basel burgher Reinhard Wasserhun (1586-1652), who undertook a traditional trip through Europe between 1612 and 1618 during which he visited the less popular destinations of the time, namely Central Europe (mainly the Polish, Prussian, Czech and Moravian lands). His journey allowed for the creation of new personal social networks which also form part of the European Republic of Knowledge.

Historiography has tried to break, not without difficulties and, so far, with rather limited success, the centuries-old ”black legend” concerning Bona Sforza (1494–1557), Queen of Poland from 1518. One of the most long-lasting and distinct components of the Queen’s image is the assessment that she was a bad mother, overprotective and toxic toward her elder children, and distant and indifferent toward her younger daughters, as well as a bad mother-in-law. Bona was a significant part of what we would nowadays refer to as a blended family. After her marriage to Sigismund the Old, Bona Sforza became a mother to his daughters from his first marriage. She gave birth to five children of her own between 1519 and 1526. The King’s daughter by his lifelong, pre-marriage concubine, Katarzyna Telniczanka, was brought up at the royal court in Cracow; so was the daughter of Katarzyna and her husband. The son of the King and Katarzyna, Jan, Bishop of Vilnius, had a close relationship with the royal family, and Queen Bona even established friendly relations with her husband’s illegitimate son. Bona’s means of functioning within the blended family, so typical of her, along with other elements of the extensive model of queenship established by her in Poland for the first time, were later continued by her daughters. The example of Bona’s queenship and motherhood seems to indicate that the skill of functioning within a blended royal family could be a cultural and dynastic investment, as well as an asset that provided benefits.

Two letters from the surviving eighteenth-century correspondence between the polymath professor of history FrantiĹĄek AntonĂ­n SteinskĂ˝ in Prague and his friend, the merchant Joseph Donath in Philadelphia reveal an interesting episode in the transatlantic connections between Central Europe and North America. On the one hand, Donath’s scientific observations conducted on behalf of SteinskĂ˝ and his associates reveal the shared enlightened pursuits between both regions, while on the other hand, Donath’s scorn for the perceived political backwardness of his former compatriots reflect the widening divide ushered in by the Age of Revolutions. Alongside the first biographical accounts of both Donath and SteinskĂ˝ in English, this article presents for the first time a full transcription of two letters sent from Philadelphia to Prague in the 1790s. It explores the role of science and political discussion within their friendship across the Atlantic and contributes towards unearthing the wider interplay of interpersonal relationships between two different socio-political systems, namely a monarchy and republic.

The non-European objects in the interiors of aristocratic residences of the 17th and 18th centuries belong to a little investigated field of interest. For this reason, they provide a vast range of opportunities for researchers. The castle and palace inventories represent one of the possible archival sources that can be used for investigation of exotic objects. These sources allow researchers deeper insights into the mind and intellectual world of the owners and help them to answer questions concerning the exotic objects they had purchased for their castles.This paper is based on an in-depth investigation of eighty inventories on exotic food and delicatessen. The author of the paper describes the rooms in the castles and residences where these beverages were prepared and consumed, the manner, in which they were served, plus the variety of beverages. Furthermore, she focuses on topics such as the matter of representation, the aristocrat's taste in art and world of ideas.