MEMORIAL OF PROKOP DIVIŠ IN PŘÍMĚTICE The memorial is a symbolic reminder of the life and work of a monk from the Premonstratensian Order, a scholar in the field of electricity and inventor of the lighting conductor, Prokop Diviš. Prokop Diviš (real name Václav Divíšek) was born on 26 March 1698 in Žamberk, Bohemia. From 1716 to 1719 he studied at the Jesuit Latin School in Znojmo, provided for by the famous Premonstratensian Monastery in Louka (Klosterbruck) near Znojmo where he made his monastic promise and received his monastic name Prokop. As a Premonstratesian, he studied philosophy and theology in the monastery school where in 1726 he was ordained as a priest and between 1729 and 1735 he taught philosophy subjects at the same school. On the basis of the successful defence of his dissertation work, the University in Salzburg pronounced him a doctor of theology in 1733. In the same year he became a sub-prior of the monastery in Louka and in 1736 he started to work at the parish in Přímětice near Znojmo. He stayed there until 1741 when on 7 April the abbot from Louka monastery Anton Nolbek constituted him a prior of the monastery. When Znojmo was occupied by the Prussian army in spring 1742, he paid a high ransom for the interned abbot to the Prussians and he became disfavoured because of that. Probably for this reason he was sent back to the parish in Přímětice in the same year. There he stayed to the end of his life (he died on 21 December 1765) and there he also started his exploration period. The parish administration first turned Diviš’s attention to hydro-technical work. Between 1742 and 1744 he constructed several water ducts here. Then he started to be interested in construction of musical instruments in connection with the monastic musical culture. This period peaked with construction of an original cabinet musical instrument with metal strings, called "Denis d´Or”, the existence of which is definitely confirmed as of 1753. The instrument imitated the sound of various musical instruments. After 1748, under influence of the fashion of that time, Diviš started experimenting with electricity. In his experiments he used friction electricity and Leyden jars of his own production and he was able to work successfully with basic electrostatic phenomena. On one occasion he even demonstrated them at the Imperial Court in Vienna. The news about the death of the St Petersburg professor Georg Wilhelm Richmann who was killed in 1753 by lighting during his experiment measuring electrical field intensity in atmosphere brought Diviš to his interest in atmospheric electricity and to his decision to build a “weather machine” in Přímětice. Its basis was a 15 (later 41.5 m) high pole with a horizontally placed iron cross the ends of which were crossed perpendicularly with shorter iron bars. On the resulting 12 ends he fitted 12 metal boxes with iron filings through which 400 sharp spikes were protruding. The whole construction was connected with earth in a conductible way using three chains. Under the influence of the ideas of that time, Diviš understood function of metal boxes and Leyden jars where the electricity “sucked” from the air was supposed to gather. It should prevent lightning discharges and occurrence of storms as such. Although the function which Diviš attributed to his “weather machine” differed significantly from the principle of the lightning conductor, objectively it was a lighting conductor in its structure. It was raised for the first time in June 1754 and then when in summer 1759 it was considered to be the cause of a big drought, the monastery in Louka had it removed. The second construction was placed by Diviš after 1761 on the tower of Přímětice church. Another area of Diviš’s scientific interest was influence of electricity on living organisms and the connected galvanism which he had studied intensively starting from 1754. During his research work, Diviš was in close contact with the representatives of the current science, a professor of mathematics and physics at Vienna university Joseph Franz, a professor of experimental physics at Prague university Jan Antonín Scrinci, Leonhard Euler, a professor of medical faculty of Prague university Jan Křtitel Boháč etc. He knew also the experiments of Benjamin Franklin. He generalized his findings in the theoretical work Magia naturalis (Natural Magic) which was published in German translation in 1765 in Tübingen and in 1768 in Frankfurt upon Main and influenced significantly the circle of German pietistic philosophers and evangelist theologians around Friedrich Christoph Oetinger. The author of the memorial design was Brno architect Bohuslav Fuchs. The lighting conductor replica was made in the apprentice school of Brno Zbrojovka company according to the plan which was prepared from the period description of Diviš’s “weather machine” by the expert on the life and work of Prokop Diviš - Dr Ing. Vladimír Sach. A bust of P. Diviš by professor Vincenc Makovský from 1936 was replaced with a cast-iron copy in 1948 which was restored in 1998 by the Technical Museum in Brno. The relief in the interior of the memorial symbolizing taming of the lighting was made by the Brno sculptor František Hořava in 1941. The memorial was opened for the public for the first time on 28 June 1936. The memorial was reinstalled by the South Moravian Museum in Znojmo on occasion of the 300th anniversary of Diviš’s birth in 1998. The exhibits document the life and work of P. Diviš and celebrations of his anniversary in Znojmo and Přímětice from 1898 to 1998. MEMORIAL OF PROKOP DIVIŠ IN PŘÍMĚTICE Památník P.Diviše Památník P.Diviše Památník P.Diviše Památník P.Diviše Premonstratensian priest, natural scientist, researcher in the field of physics (especially electricity) and lightning conductor designer PROKOP DIVIŠ, by his own name Václav Divíšek, was born on 26 March 1698 in Helvíkovice near Žamberk. Memorial of Prokop Diviš at the Church of St. Margaret, Znojmo-Přímětice Open: seasonally | by appointment Tel: +420 736 465 085