Journey_from_Bohemia_to_the_Holy_Land,_by_way_of_Venice_and_the_Sea
Journey from Bohemia to the Holy Land, by way of Venice and the Sea
17th-century Czech travelogue of the Near East and Italy
Journey from Bohemia to the Holy Land, by way of Venice and the Sea is a travel book to Jerusalem written by Kryštof Harant, a Czech nobleman and published in 1608. The complete title transliterated into modern Czech is: Cesta z Království Českého do Benátek, odtud do země Svaté, země Judské a dále do Egypta, a potom na horu Oreb, Sinai a Sv. Kateřiny v Pusté Arábii (literally Journey from Bohemia to Venice, from here to the Holy Land, Judea and to Egypt, later to Oreb, Sinai and St. Catherine mountain in desert Arabia). The book is probably the first published account of the Near East by a Czech traveller.
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Kryštof Harant z Polžic a Bezdružic (1564–1621) was a renaissance man with a broad range of interests. In 1598 he went as a pilgrim to the Holy Land, returning at the beginning of the next year.
The book, written in Czech and richly illustrated (about 50 woodcuts by Harant), describes in two parts the travel and the details of visited lands. As a typical example of renaissance literature it mixes entertainment with knowledge and heavily references religion. Before the journey Harant studied all the available literature describing the region and frequently cites the others in his work. The book gives a very detailed description of religious places and their relation to Christianity, habits of natives and natural and man-made curiosities. It stayed popular for a long time and was published for the last time in the mid-19th century. In 1638 Harant's youngest brother, Jan Jiří, translated the text into German.