Prague, May 4 (CTK) – The Golden Bull of 1356 issued by Charles IV (1316-1378), King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, which was a sort of statute book valid until the end of the empire in 1806, will be displayed exceptionally for one week in Prague in May, National Gallery director Jiri Fajt said on Wednesday.
The document will be part of an exhibition the gallery together with German partners has prepared on the occasion of Charles IV’s 700th birth anniversary.
The exhibition to be inaugurated on May 15 will offer about 200 rare exhibits, most of which will be displayed in the Czech Republic for the first time.
The large Czech-Bavarian exhibition will focus not only on the themes traditionally connected with Charles IV, but it will also present his personality, his supporters and opponents’ opinions of him, period arts as well as Jewish pogroms during his reign.
Not too many personal items of Charles IV have been preserved to date. The exhibition will, for instance, offer fragments of his funeral garment. The crown with which Charles IV was crowned the Roman King in Aachen will return to the territory of Bohemia after 667 years.
The exhibition will also feature the stormy discussions about new fashion which Charles and his first wife, Blanche of Valois, brought to Prague from Paris as well as a revolution in time measurement which accompanied Charles’s period.
The Jewish pogroms will be remembered by the Market Privilege issued by Charles IV to the German town of Nuremberg, in which he allowed Jewish houses to be pulled down and which triggered an extensive pogrom, and a part of the Jewish treasure from the Old Synagogue in Erfurt, Germany.
The exhibition will last until September 25. It will then move to Germany.
