What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 4 February 2024.

Bernard Bolzano was born in Prague in 1781. His father was an Italian-born arts dealer, while his mother came from a German-speaking family which had arrived in Prague from Austria around 1700.

Graduating from the Piarist gymnasium in 1796, he then studied mathematics and philosophy, switching to theology in 1800.

He was ordained as a priest in 1805, and graduated from Charles University as a doctor of philosophy ten days later. Later that year, he would become professor of philosophy of religion at the University. He also started preaching there, becoming popular in this role.

He was also responsible for this, which I’m not even going to dare to interpret and/or reduce to one tweet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolzano%E2%80%93Weierstrass_theorem

Before this all starts to sound a bit too much like a nauseating ‘Is there anything I can’t do?!’ LinkedIn profile, two books published by Bolzano in this time were banned the Catholic Church.

Emperor Francis I banned Bolzano from teaching in 1819, on the grounds that he was too liberal for the Viennese authorities.

Bolzano lived in seclusion after this, devoting himself to scientific research and also recuperating from various illnesses; a trial conducted by the church against him would drag on until 1825.

Bolzano moved back to Prague in 1842 (specifically to Celetná), and worked as a secretary for the Royal Czech Society of Sciences.

He died of tuberculosis in 1848 and is buried at Olšany Cemetery.

Bolzanova, to the left of the train station, is pretty short, with only one block of houses – but the most distinctive structure in the street isn’t a house.

Pavel Janak – who built the frankly mind-blowing Palác Adria (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/14/prague-1-day-106-narodni-national/) – was probably responsible for this Cubist kiosk. I say ‘probably’ because people generally think it’s his work, but a list that Janak made of his works doesn’t mention it.

Is it being used now? I don’t think it is but am happy to stand corrected. In any case, it used to be an exchange office not so long ago (like Prague doesn’t have enough of those), and also had an unauthorised ATM added to it (because ditto).