The Astronomical Clock & the Blinded Clockmaker

The Prague Astronomical Clock, located on the Old Town Hall in Prague, is a 1410 mechanical marvel created by Mikuláš of Kadaň and Jan Šíndel that tracks astronomical positions. Known locally as the Orloj, it features figures depicting medieval fears like Death, as well as a legend about a blinded clockmaker named Master Hanuš who cursed the mechanism. A hidden 18-page letter by sculptor Vojtěch Sucharda was discovered inside one statue in 2018.

Prague · from the walk “Whispers in the Cobblestones” · audio ~4 min · Generated

Staroměstské náměstí 1, Praha 1

Who built the Prague Astronomical Clock in 1410?

Look up at the southern wall of the Old Town Hall. That magnificent face of gold, blue, and black staring down at you... is over six hundred years old. The first recorded mention of this clock dates to the ninth of October, fourteen ten. It was created by the horologist Mikuláš of Kadaň and the Charles University professor of mathematics and astronomy, Jan Šíndel. Think about that. When this machine first began to tick, medieval Prague had no idea the Americas even existed... and yet this clock was already tracking the sun, the moon, and the zodiac across the sky.......... But the Orloj — that's what the Czechs call it — is not famous just for telling time. It's famous for a Curse.......... Here is how the legend goes, as told by the great Czech writer Álois Jirásek. Master Hanuš was chosen by the councilors of Prague to construct a unique time-measuring device. He did what was asked of him. But after he introduced his perfect machine, the councilors became worried... worried that the clockmaker could build a similar machine for another town. So one night, a group of men broke into the master's house and blinded him... with a piece of iron.......... Imagine it. The greatest clockmaker in Bohemia, plunged into total darkness as payment for his genius. The councilors wanted to ensure that their clock would Never be topped.......... But Hanuš knew every gear, every spring, every tooth of his creation... by touch. He made his way to the tower and threw himself into the mechanism, destroying the gears and ending his own life. In doing so, he cursed the clock. All who tried to fix it would either go insane... or die.......... Now here's the twist most people don't know. It is now known to be a historical mistake that Hanuš built the Orloj. The error, corrected by historian Zdeněk Horský, was due to an incorrect interpretation of records from the period. The mistaken assumption is probably connected with Hanuš's reconstruction of the Old Town Hall in the fourteen seventies. So the man in the legend may never have built the clock at all... but the story was so powerful, so perfectly dark, that Prague chose to keep telling it for five hundred years.......... And the clock? Look at the four figures flanking the dial. They represent the greatest fears of medieval Prague: Greed, Vanity, Pagan Invasion, and Death — the skeleton. When Death rings his bell every hour, the other figures shake their heads, declaring their unreadiness.......... One more secret. In twenty eighteen, during restoration, workers noticed the statue of Saint Thomas was lighter than the others. They knocked on it... and discovered it was hollow. An X-ray revealed a hidden metal case inside, containing an eighteen-page letter written by the sculptor Vojtěch Sucharda, who had re-created the figures after the clock was nearly destroyed during the Prague Uprising in nineteen forty-five. The message revealed his more extensive plans for the clock... which were never completed.......... So even now, over six centuries later, the Orloj still has secrets waiting to be found. And if you believe the old legend... the ghost of the blinded clockmaker is still in there somewhere, making sure no one ever fully masters his machine.