ABSTRACT
STUDENTS OF the history and culture of Europe in the last decades of the sixteenth century and the first of the seventeenth know that there is a vastno-man's-land in the middle of this vital period. The character, the court, the interests, the influence of the Emperor Rudolf II have never been adequately studied. There has been muchspecialist literature in German and in Central European languages but no book of any weight or authority on the Emperor in English. So Rudolf, immured in self-chosen isolation in his palace inPrague, surrounded by the ‘wonder rooms’ which housed his immense collection of artistic treasures and curiosities, remains a mysterious figure of legend. Was he mad, as many havesupposed? And if not mad, what was the nature of that life of secret contemplation, what the motive springs of that vast curiosity, of that patronage which attracted to Prague alchemists,occultists, scientists, artists from all over Europe? And what did the imperial figure who encouraged all this rich and varied activity stand for in that confused age? What were his political aims,his religion, the ‘secret’ of his search for hidden wisdom?
