Nizozemští, vlámští a valonští obchodníci v rudolfinské Praze

The study is focused on the topic of immigration to pre-White Mountain (before 1620) Prague from the Netherlands, whose territory today lies in the states of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and partially (northern) France. Although the Dutch immigration in Prague was not numerically very extensive, it nevertheless represented a distinct socio-cultural and religiously specific group. Research up to now has focused primarily on the circle of artistic and intellectual elites of the Rudolphine court, where such important Flemish artists worked as, for example, the painter Bartholomaeus Spranger, the sculptor Adriaen de Vries, the engraver Aegidius Sadeler, or the music composer Philippe de Monte. Natives from Flanders, Wallonia, Brabant, and the Netherlands were also represented among courtiers, court officials, as well as among court craftsmen and merchants, and at the same time some settled as burghers in individual towns of Prague. The aim of the study is to describe, based on primary sources, the reasons and routes that brought specific natives from the Netherlands region to Prague and, on this basis, to characterise the more general causes and course of Dutch immigration. Considering that this was not a socio-economically homogeneous group, the focus is specifically on the group of traders, financiers, and artisans. The aim is therefore to characterise the motivations of Dutch immigrants for coming to the city, to describe their economic activity in Prague, and to try to evaluate their socio-economic and personal relationships established in the new milieu.