Page:The Story of Prague (1920).djvu/205

 end we find—opposite the North-Western Railway Station—the new civic museum that is far too little known to visitors. This building is quite a modern creation, and in its present state has only been opened to the public since 1898.

The first hall on the ground floor contains pre-historic remains, numerous objects in glass and majolica that belonged to old Prague. The second hall contains works in metal; particularly interesting are the Gothic doors of a house in the Václavské Namesti, with the arms of the old and the new towns. The third hall, devoted to ecclesiastical art, contains many objects of great interest from various churches; a Gothic predella, and a Gothic altar from the Castle Rabi deserve particular notice. In this hall also are many valuable memorials of Hus; in all these portraits, as, indeed, in all very ancient ones, he is represented as beardless. Hall four contains many memorials of old Prague. On the second floor we find in halls five and six a large collection of engravings that are of immense value to the student of history. Besides a large number of views of Prague at different periods, there is a valuable collection referring to the Thirty Years’ War. We see representations of the defenestration, the entry of Frederick of the Palatinate into Prague, the Battle of the White Mountain, and the executions on the market-place, as well as an almost complete collection of the portraits of the generals and statesmen of the Thirty Years’ War.

Also on the second floor is the armoury, which well deserves the attention of the visitor. In hall nine on this floor are flags, shields and coats of arms that belonged to the ancient guilds of Prague. An underground part of the museum contains the mucirna or torture-chamber, which gives a vivid impression of the ways of mediæval justice. The Gothic vaulting of 179