Archduke Ferdinand II (1529-1595) was Regent of Bohemia for twenty years in the middle of the 16^th century. Born the second son of the future Emperor Ferdinand I and Anne of Bohemia, he was highly educated and a cultivated humanist who established a sophisticated court in Prague which embraced both the Habsburgs and the Czech nobility.

Caroline Cannon-Brookes is an art-historian, trained at the Courtauld Institute, and teaches at the University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education. She has led many tours to the Czech Republic to which she is a regular visitor.