Southern Bohemia’s Mecca of Alchemists

Under Vilém of Rožmberk, the old castle of the Vítkovci became the most important alchemical centre after Prague. The Rožmberk ruler liked to boast that he had spent more on alchemy than Emperor Rudolf II, approximately eight million florins. Sincere and learned experimenters alternated with accomplished charlatans, as Březan documents in many passages of the Rožmberk Chronicle. Among those working here was Antonín Michal of Ebersbach, later imprisoned by Petr Vok in the castle gate, where he died. His stone tomb from 1593 survives in the Minorite monastery cloister. In Krumlov he owned house no. 77 on Široká Street, distinguished by a fine stone portal in Saxon Renaissance style. Others included Kryštof of Hirschberg, Jeremiáš Waldener of Greippelstein, and the Czech alchemists Bavor Rodovský of Hustiřany and Václav Lavín of Ottenfeld. See Třeboň. Doctor Václav Lavín, later styled of Ottenfeld, is identical with Vinceslas Lavinius de Moravie, author of the celebrated Traité du ciel terrestre, Treatise on the Earthly Heaven, often cited in French sources. He was personal physician to the last Rožmberks and conducted experiments for Vilém. He received the title of Ottenfeld in 1578. He gained his alchemical knowledge while studying in France with J. Fernel and D. Zachaire, from whom he supposedly also obtained a tincture, though it is unknown whether he performed a transmutation. In Prague he met Michał Sędziwój. With the lawyer Jan Kapr of Kaprštejn, he worked in the laboratory of Ludvík Korálek of Těšín, a wealthy Old Town patrician. He worked for the Rožmberks with another Prague burgher, Martin Kluger, who also had access to the imperial laboratory at Hradčany. Březan’s chronicle first records him at Krumlov Castle in 1595.