VLADIMIR VOJIR - Texts - THE STORY OF JULIO CAESARE MADNESS

TREATMENT

Rudolf II and his period are rather well "mapped" in history, literature and audio-visual media. Much less known is the fate of his illegitimate son, Don Julio Caesare, a person interesting from both historical and psychiatric point of view.

Rudolf II had never married but he had many mistresses and illegitimate children. His only permanent and long time mistress though, was Catherine Strada, a beautiful and educated Italian, the daughter of his antiquarian, who happened to own also a brothel in Prague. She gave the Emperor Rudolf II three daughters and three sons.

His first-born son, named Julio Caesare, the marquis d´Austria, was born about 1586 in Prague. First symptoms of a mental illness became apparent early in his youth. He led a profligate life and was such a disgrace for his father that the Emperor had no other choice but to expel him out of Prague to a castle in Cesky Krumlov, although he was under age. There his disease - schizophrenia with deviant tendencies to sadism, masochism and necrophilia - fully developed. Don Julio wandered around, getting drunk, provoking fights in pubs, and raping daughters and wives of Krumlov residents. Later he killed his favourite mistress Marketa Pichler, a daughter of the local surgeon, mutilated the body (cut off her ears and gouged her eyes) and then he raped her in front of his servants.

don Julio murdering his mistress

Marketa Pichler

(Adolf Liebscher)

His guardians had been frightened to inform the Emperor but the rumours of horrors happening in Krumlov finally reached him. Rudolf II then immediately sent there doctor Mingonius who tried to reproof the young man, and also used a traditional medieval method - letting his blood. Nothing helped although, his disease was getting worse, manifesting itself in full scale. Rudolf ordered him to be kept in strict isolation and no-body but his guardians can see him. Stark naked don Julio was sitting hours on end in a barred window of the Krumlov castle, his prison, sometimes not moving at all, with an insane grimace, in some catatonic stupor, sometimes unintelligibly yelling and gesticulating at passers-by. He stopped washing, kept refusing food and ever more often be-came subjected to strokes of fury breaking everything around. He masturbated intensively, got progressively weaker, mutilated itself and rubbed his blood and faeces over himself.

According to uncorroborated testimonies, Rudolf II gave the direct order, through Vaclav Budovec from Budov (later executed too), to execute his son as a tyrant and murderer. The execution was carried out by doctor Jesenius. He let the unfortunate young man bleed in a bath.

There is another, historically more reliable version, that don Julio died of the aspiration pneumonia, when an infection full of pus had perforated in his larynx. The son of Rudolf II died June 25, 1609 in the age of approximately 23 years.

Collection of all existing original written documents and consultations with historians (Prof. Janacek unfortunately passed away) and psychiatrists is very important for the realization of the documentary. There is also the question of a sufficient picture material. It is necessary to differentiate sensitively and objectively between reliable facts and transferred, mediated testimonies. This does not mean, of course, that the program should not mention hypotheses that have not been sufficiently substantiated or even disproved. Certainly it would be very attractive to enrich the documentary by dramatic sequences enacted and filmed at the Krumlov Castle.

The documentary should not deal only with the person of don Julio but also cover and elucidate interesting fates of other Rudolf's children, siblings of this lunatic, the sexual life of Rudolf II, his relationships with women in general. And, last but not least, his own complicated mental malady, which is very difficult to diagnose but undoubtedly directly affected behaviour of this Roman-German Emperor and Czech King.

REVIEW
Here are my lay notes after the first perfunctory viewing.
Overall, I guess, an above-average documentary. Thanks to its director, Mr. Bonek.
NEGATIVES
There is a tautology in the name itself. Are there any children who are not children of their parents? But it could be some intent, design, unintelligible only to me.
There is maybe a little tiny bit slow and long (to catch viewer attention) opening.
On the contrary, the comment is sometimes too fast, communicating hastily even unnecessary detail, maybe in an effort to correct inaccuracies of historians, which is not the purpose of a TV documentary. (I would generally see a certain "geniality" in its ability to express a strong thought in brief.
Minor factual inaccuracies, e.g. we cannot know the exact age of this bastard, if the year of his birth has not been certain. Adherence to purely "objective", historically proven (discovered) facts, perhaps also a certain lack of courage to show in an adequate form hypotheses (rumours) unsubstantiated or even were disproved, but objectively non the less existing, such as Rudolf's command to let his son execute by Jesenius.
In acted sequences I would appreciate a night scene with Julio's silhouette in barred window (easy to do, I think) after the murder, as an ominous (static story-wise but tension increasing) intermezzo with a portent of the fatal, irreversible and tragic end.
A little more picture repeating to increase the space for the comment dealing with Julio's sister.
POSITIVES
Succession of figures, i.e. Julio, then his sister (chronologically), although originally I had thought (wrongly) that the opposite would be better for dramatic gradation.
There is very well selected music - for my taste.
Hints of an "implicit dialectics": leading of a "counterpoint" of two individual and seemingly entirely antithetical personalities; (just for completeness I would welcome some Julio's altruistic act, certainly there had been some, only was not recorded, and a small peccadillo or weakness of his virtuous sister). Further, a "synthetic" generalization in the final commentary: the empirical first-plan paradox - the good in history is forgotten, the bad remembered, and also the element of "dialectical necessity" and randomness in genetics - no parents can ever be sure that their children...
There is very good camera.
There is absence of "talking heads" i.e. contemporary historians. They have omitted it/do not want to know about it anyway (a gap in Rudolf's era), and the whole affair has been given more attention by psychiatrists.

Prague Castle (1606)
(Filip van den Bosche - Jan Wechter)
Rudolf II.
(Hans von Aachen
between 1606 - 1608)
Rudolf II. ve společnosti učenců
(Vaclav Brozik 1883)
kuplířská scéna
(Hans von Aachen
between 1605 - 1610)
zámek v Českém Krumlově
(barokní veduta)
taneční mánie
(středověká rytina)
Vaclav Budovec z Budova
(1551 - 1621 executed)
prof. Jan Jesensky (Jessenius)
(1566 - 1621 executed)
renesanční komnata na zámku
v Českém Krumlově
konvent minoritů v Českém Krumlově
poslední útočiště dona Julia Cesara
i jeho oběti Markéty Pichlerové