Vimperk - the town of book printing
The name Winterberg (Winter Mountain) may have originally referred to a place where snow lay for a long time - winters here still tend to be really long.
But there is also a connection with the Bavarian monastery of Windberg, whose leaders founded the still existing settlement of Klášterec south of Vimperk.
The town originated as a colonization settlement, over which Purkart of Janovice built in the years 1251-1260 castle. In 1423, the settlement was burned down by the Hussites, and in 1479, King Vladislav Jagellonsky made it a town. The historic core of the city is a urban conservation area. One of the nicest houses, which is also the oldest, is called U Jelena. It dates from 1425 and has a picture of a deer transitioning into a sculpture on its facade.
The historic district lies on a rocky promontory above the Volyňka, which today flows more like a stream but historically protected the town from the south. The centre consists of the aforementioned heavily sloping large square (Svobody Square) with the town hall, the town tower and the Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, a network of streets around Pivovarská Street and the town park. The bell tower stands alone between two rows of houses; it was built around 1500 and is decorated with two modern bells: the Maria Hilf bell from 2010 and the Innocent bell, three years younger, named after the patron saint of the town, St. Innocent. In the church, in the right side chapel, there is a glass coffin with the remains of this saint who was martyred in the 4th century AD. The relics were acquired by the parish of Vimpera in a complicated way thanks to Jan Squor, a native of Vimpera. The deed of donation was drawn up in Rome and the relics were ceremoniously transported here in 1768.
Another animal sign is the house U Slona, where one of the most prominent natives, the printer Johann Steinbrener, was born. Vimperk was probably the second Czech town after Plzeň where books were printed. The tradition of printing was continued in the 19th century by Steinbrener's printing house. Two of its Latin prints are exhibited in the museum at the chateau.
The printing tradition is nowadays presented in a modern way: you can follow the traces of book production in the escape game for adults and children, which is located in the Old Town Hall on Vimperk Square.
Vimperk is called the gateway to Sumava and also the town of the Golden Trail. In 2004, the town opened a mini-museum of the Golden Trail and its Vimperk branch in a newly reconstructed townhouse on the square, along which salt was transported from Passau to Bohemia on the rattling carriages of merchant caravans or in the noses of soumars.
Additional information
People and personalities
- Johannes Alacraw (15th century - 1492) - a native of Passau in Vimperk printed three books in 1484 and the town became the second Czech town after Pilsen to know the smell of printing inks. He was a pioneer in the field of printing, but the craft was not yet domesticated, and it did not reappear in Vimperk until the 19th century in connection with Jan Steinbrener.
- Jan Steinbrener (1835-1909) - a successful businessman, but also an enterprising economist and philanthropist, but mainly a printer, in whose workshop prayer books, bibles and calendars were mainly created.
Our tip
Czech crystal is not native to northern Bohemia, but was born here in the south, in Helbas Hut, where Michael Müller first created glass resembling rock crystal. The region had an abundance of quartzite and limestone, and the rich forests also provided wood for heating the furnaces, so glassmaking spread widely. A replica of Müller's goblet can be seen in the museum located in the Vimperk castle.
Do you know that...
...the famous Šumava herbal wine, which successfully replaced foreign aperitifs in the times of socialism, was produced in Mykoprodukta in Vimperk until 1993? It has not yet been possible to restore the former glory of this once popular wine.