HERBARIA AND HERBALS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AGRICULTURE KAČINA

HERBARIA AND HERBALS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AGRICULTURE – – KAČINA

Part of the Kačina chateau, built in 1806–1824 as a representative residence of Count Jan Rudolf Chotek (1748–1824), is a large library of his family amounting to over 40,000 volumes. It covers a range of sciences from the sixteenth century until the mid-twentieth century but, overall, the largest part is dedicated to agriculture, economy, and the natural sciences.

One of the oldest printed herbals in the Chotek library is Mattioli’s herbal, in particular its Czech translation by Adam Huber of Riesenpach published in 1596. The library also includes a hand-painted and hand-coloured herbal by an unknown author who was inspired by the famous botanical treatise Icones plantarum medicinalium by Joseph Jakob Plenck (1735–1807), Austrian physician, pharmacologist, and one of the pioneers of modern dermatology.

The Chotek library also keeps a school herbarium of Bianca Thun-Hohenstein (1868–1908), a daughter of Karolína Chotek (1846–1933). This small herbarium is a valuable testimony of the education of young noble women – it shows what areas of knowledge were included. According to surviving records, the Chotek library also used to include a herbarium created most likely by Jan Rudolf Chotek and later supplemented by his descendants. Nowadays, part of the herbarium is kept in the National Museum, whose collections also include the herbarium of Josef Peyl, the head gardener of Kačina who worked here when the chateau was managed by Jindřich Chotek (1802–1864).

The Chotek library includes one unique artifact: a well-known lithograph depicting Ferdinand Maria Chotek (1781–1836), the fourth archbishop of Olomouc and son of Jan Rudolf Chotek, the builder of Kačina. This lithograph is set in a gilded circle decorated by dried flowers, forming not only an aesthetically impressive and unusual portrait but also an interesting source for current research into botany and cultural history.