Among the wide range of historical sources for mobility available for studies of pre-modern era, historians usually rely on travelogues, sets of letters, books of friendship and similar „ego-ducuments“, on travel accounts, and less frequently so far, when discussing a specific travel experience, on „pragmatic“ sources: maps, travel manuals and guide books and apodemics. This page will provide general typological oveview and present outcomes of advanced studies on selected groups of them analyzed during the current project: books of friendship, travel manuals and postal maps. 

Travel manuals

Sommaire description de la France... is a very rare travel manual in the Czech lands. It seems that Bohemian and Moravian aristocracy prefered manuals by Francesco Scotto, Ottavio Codogno, Giuseppe Miselli, Martin Zeiller and Giovanni Maria Vidari. These books provided travelers with lists of places organised in itineraries with distances among them. This way of capturing space for practical purposes proves to be more popular than mapping at least until the end of the 17th century. This book belonged to Johann Georg Joachim Slavata as shown by his signature on the title page.

Books of friendship

Books of friendship (alba amicora, Stammbücher) are manuscript books where text, coat of arms and images are combined. In the early modern era, they were kept by students and young noblemen on journeys, rarely kept longer, but understood precious pieces in family libraries and archives. They containi entries by travelers´ peers and teachers. While a coat of arm served as a signature, images were usually copies of those appearing in alba and handbooks of common proverbs or motta, scenes form Bible or Classics, rarely topographically true or authentic, but always carefully chosen to adress character, country of origin, family history of the owner or joint adventures. Therefore, the 16th- and 17th-century books of friendship are a big challenge for researchers who aim at decoding their complex nature. There are hounderts of them preserved in GLAM institutions in the Czech Republic and thoousends Europewide. Rarely they made their way also to North-American collections. This is the case of Humprecht Jan Czernin´s one.