The book - like the illustration on its cover - shows that the ancient institution of the papacy was, even in the recent past, a refuge and protection from the storms of the modern world for some, while for others it represented an outdated institution hindering progress. This tension is expressed in a distinctive artistic shorthand in the reproduced illumination of the Prague Benedictines for the feast of St. Peter and Paul from 1904: "the ship of the church" is steered by Peter's successor Pius X, who is, however, attacked by a symbolic fleet of hostile vessels: proud rationalism, the French Revolution, the contemporary secular power, Martin Luther, the Freemasons, and even a little devil reading from the liberal Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse... Both extreme positions, however, evolved significantly in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, mutually influencing each other, and even in the Czech lands, they served as specific cultural codes, which still have an impact today. The so-called ultramontanism was indeed an important phenomenon in the process of creating modern European societies. It was a manifestation of the considerable influence of the Roman Pope even "beyond the mountains" (ultra montes, that is, beyond the Alps). The book systematically analyzes the image of the pope in the local Czech and German linguistic environment, both in Catholic...
