Mariánská topologie a Ornythologie
Marian topology and Ornythologie

Summary/Abstract: Jan Ignác Dlouhoveský (1638–1701) is the author of some forty works, mostly prayer books, the most important of which is the cycle, Ornythologia Mariana, dedicated to the Palladium of the Czech lands in Stará Boleslav. This cycle was evidently never completed. It was meant to comprise seven books containing the history of the Palladium, prayers, songs and other texts. Only the first and second volumes, Ager benedictionis (1670) and Zdoro-Slaviček (1671), have been preserved along with the title page of the third volume, Hrdlička (1673). In each book, pilgrims were guided by a symbolic bird — a lark, a (defiant) nightingale and a turtle-dove, and it was to be a dove, a swan, a swallow and a hen in subsequent works. This study focuses on the composition of the surviving books and the entire planned cycle, particularly on the literary creation of the “Marian Bohemia” space. The entire cycle is based on the central metaphor of a “blessed field” (Ager benedictionis), on which birds sing. Each of these represents a particular kind of space and timeframe (e.g. a type of landscape or a season of the year), their task being basically to subordinate all human time and space to the Stará Boleslav Virgin Mary and to present Bohemia as a holy Marian land. By cleverly developing the basic metaphor and emphasizing the natural and numerical symbolism, Dlouhoveský espouses what is known as conceptual poetics, with which he creates the mythical space of “Marian Bohemia”, in which verticality plays an important role (linking heaven and earth, history and Czech holy relics). This is a dynamic space, primarily thanks to the emphasis on the time element: pilgrimages. Another important feature of “Marian Bohemia” is its centralization. It is not defined by borders, but just by a central point — Stará Boleslav.

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