Fashioning Fire From Pebbles

The History of Gem Cutting in the Czech Republic

19th Century Bracelet featuring Bohemian Garnets. Photo by Justin K Prim

The story of Czech gem cutting is deeply connected with the story of Bohemian garnet mining and the localities that provide them. It’s an old story, stretching back to the Renaissance, yet still living and breathing as new cutters are being trained today in the Bohemian faceting style. It’s a story that is linked to the great lapidary dynasties of Italy and the German gem cutting center of Idar-Oberstein. Let us now enter the world of the Bohemian Paradise…

Garnet has been mined in the Bohemian kingdom since the time of Celts. Jewelry with Czech garnets has been found in the settlements of Germans tribes as far back as the 6th century, but this is not where our story begins. Jumping forward about a millennia, during the time of the Renaissance, an eccentric ruler is about to change the history of the Czech garnet forever.

Emperor Rudolf II

In 1598, Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor, the Archduke of Austria, and the King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia gave the order to start mining, cutting, and exporting Bohemian garnets. Rudolf II is an interesting character in European history, worthy of his own article, so I’ll briefly set the scenario.

Rudolf II moved his court from Vienna to Prague in 1583. He was a very unusual ruler who seemed to be more interested in philosophy than being an emperor. He surrounded himself with a court full of inspiring and talented artists, alchemists, astrologers, philosophers, and of course jewelers and gem cutters. During his reign, Rudolf acquired such a huge collection (the Kunstammer) of curiosities, art, minerals, and jewelry that he had an additional wing of Prague castle built to display them. He invited many notable people to live and work in his court but for our interests, his two most important guests were Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt, a Belgian physician, astronomer, alchemist, and proto-gemologist, and Ottavio Miseroni, a lapidary from one of the most well known gem cutting families in Milan, Italy.

Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt

Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt

Aside from being Rudolf’s personal physician, Anselmus de Boodt was also in charge of the royal mineral collection. de Boodt was perfect for this task as he had previously travelled through Europe exploring different mining sites and analyzing and recording the local geology. Anselmus eventually published a book, Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia in 1609, which is famous today as being one of the first scientifically oriented books on gemstones. In his manuscript, de Boodt gathered together the best scientific knowledge of his era. His position in Rudolf’s court gave him the perfect opportunity to study many prize-worthy specimens first-hand.

In his lapidary book, Anslmus is the first to use the phrase which “Granati Bohemici” or as we know them today, Bohemian Garnets. He speaks about their occurrences, the mining process, and the techniques used for cutting them. He also includes some wonderful images that show us exactly what type of machines they were using to cut the local gemstones.

from Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia, 1609 (Restored and Animated by Justin K Prim)

To get an idea of how this early gem cutting machine works, de Boodt’s Latin description helps a lot: “For carving a gem’s facets, they use a wooden wheel, from which a wooden handle sticks up vertically. Through a rope, the wooden wheel moves a tin wheel, on which water mixed with emery powder is sprinkled. Not far from the tin wheel, a stick of wood is erected which carries a ‘quadrant,' an instrument most ideal for the faceting of gems, or leveling and carving of stones.”

de Boodt’s image is one of the first representations in history of a hand cranked machine that can be operated by a single cutter, though he doesn’t tell us anything about where the machine originates from. In one of the earliest written reports on Bohemian garnet cutting (from one of the town’s books in Rovensko pod Troskami in 1599), it mentions Tadeáš Mendik, who carried garnets to Nuremberg for lapidary work in the same year. It also says he brought back a table with a horizontal cutting wheel, a novelty for the local region at that time. In an 18th century German book, we learn that the quadrant is said to have been the invention of a Frenchman by the name of Claudius de la Croix (or von Cruez) who lived in Nuremberg in the 1590s.

This is interesting because we don’t have any visual evidence for a hand cranked cutting machine from Germany in this era. The closest evidence I have found is from 40 years older and comes from Adam Lonitzer who was working in Frankfurt, 210 km west of Nuremburg. In the woodcut image we can see a lapidary cutting a gemstone on a horizontal wheel set into a table. There is no indication of a hand crank system but the machine might have been simplified for the purposes of illustration.

from Kreuterbuch, Adam Lonicer, 1557 (Digitally Restored and Colored by Justin K Prim)

Ottavio Miseroni

Dionysio Miseroni, Son of Ottavio

When Rudolph invited Ottavio and his family to become his resident gem cutters, the Miseroni name was already famous in Milan. The Miseroni dynasty can be traced back to 1460 when Francesco Miseroni is listed in the guild register of Milan as a goldsmith and Ottavio’s father was employed by Rudolf’s father, Maximilian II. The international reputation of the Miseroni workshop started with Gasparo Miseroni, the grandson of Francesco, who worked together with his brother Girolamo.

At a time of intense international competition between the European courts, Dukes, Princes, and Emperors tried to lure lapidary artisans to their courts to set up workshops. Philip II of Spain hired Gasparo Miseroni in 1582 to assist in the decoration of the new palaces and churches. Ferdinando I de’ Medici set up the Opifico delle Pietre Dure (Workshop of Precious Stones) in Florence, based on Milanese expertise.

Rudolf II was able to persuade Gasparo’s other nephew, Ottavio and some of his brothers to come to Prague in 1598. He completed his lapidary team later in the year with the addition of Cosimo and Giovanni Castrucci, also from Milan. Ottavio was to be the leader of Rudolf’s new gem cutting project and manage his workshops, centered around his largest workshop, The Imperial Mill.

The Imperial Mill

The Imperial Mill is located in Bubeneč, Prague, at the end of the Royal Park. At the beginning of the 13th century, the land under the mill was being used as a farm by The Convent of Saint George. The original mill was built in 1395 and one of the later landowners used it as a saw mill. At that time, the village where the mill stood was not part of Prague. Rudolf’s predecessor, Maximillian II, Holy Roman Emperor, had wanted to buy the mill, but was unsuccessful. The mill became royal property around 1584, when it was given as a gift to Rudolph II as an expression of gratitude for moving his imperial court from Vienna to Prague. Rudolph II grew so fond of the place that he had it renovated and improved upon.

The Imperial Mill in 1857 When The Water Still Flowed “Císařský mlýn v Bubenči” by Ferdinand Lepié, Museum of the City of Prague

The architect for the Mill was Giovanni Aostalli and it’s been proposed that the inspiration for the Mill’s appearance came from the engraving of the design for the Château Verneuil by Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau. When they renovated the old mill to become a grand gem cutting workshop, they added a square reservoir, connected by a columned passageway with a stone grotto. Evidently, the Imperial Mill was not only meant to be functional, but also beautiful. Rudolf would have been able to watch the whole mill operation from a gardened alcove on a small man-made island, now known as the Imperial Island.