Czech Republic

Astronomical Clock

Astronomically Correct in Prague

In the Old Town Hall tower in the middle of Prague, Czech Republic, is a clock, the likes of which you have never seen. The tower houses a clock by master clockmaker Mikulas of Kadane (1410). The clock was improved upon by Master Hanus in 1490, producing the mechanical masterpiece you see today. Legend has it that Hanus was afterwards blinded so he could not duplicate the work elsewhere !

Four figures beside the clock represent 15th century Prague residents’ deepest civic anxieties: Vanity, Greed, Death and Pagan invasion.

On the hour (and a crowd will often gather to wait), Death rings a bell and inverts his hourglass while a parade of Apostles pass 2 windows, nodding solemnly to the crowd.

On the upper face a disc represents the world, known at the time, with Prague in the center. The gold sun traces a circle through the blue day zone, brown dusk zone, black disc of night and dawn zone in the east. From this the hours of sunrise and sunset can be read. A sun-arm points to the hour on a Roman-numeral ring. The outer ring, with Gothic numerals, reads traditional 24 -hour Bohemian time, counted from sunset. The moon also traces a path through the day and night zones on a moving ring. On the ring you can also see what houses of the Zodiac the sun and moon are in. Stellar time is also indicated by a little star at the end of the ring.

There is a calendar wheel beneath the clock with 12 seasonal scenes in praise of rural Bohemian life.

At the end of the Apostles’s progress a cock crows and the hour is rung. People disperse, to accumulate an hour later – for Death to ring it’s bell again.

Jan Hus in Prague

Jan Huss was burned as an heretic of his Reformist ideas (he preached against the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church) in 1415 after the Pope indicted the whole city of Prague. His statue dominates the Old Town Square as his mythic memory dominates Czech history. His burning at the stake launched a Nationalist rebellion. In 1420 Hussite forces defended Prague against a Crusade launched by Sigismund, the Holy Roman Emperor and from 1452 to 1471 George of Podebrady ruled as Bohemia’s only Hussite King.