Nález nejstarších funkčních měchů v České republice
The finding of the oldest working wedge-bellows in the Czech Republic

Summary/Abstract: During the restoration of the baroque organ of the St. Barbara church in Manětin (builtin 1721 by the organ builder Leopold Spiegel from Prague) one unexpected discovery wasdone: the two preserved wedge bellows are much older. After the dismantling, the old inscriptions appeared, being located on the inner sides of the top boards. The set of original pencil records is found in the right bellows. The earliest of them tells that the bellows were made already in 1530. Following original writings inform about the repairs – 1584 by Sebastian Hoffer, 1656 by Hieronymus Artmann and 1666 by Mathias Kohler and Hans Heinrich Mundt. In the second bellows, the glued paper sheet bears the report from 1666 recapitulating and partly widening the original inscriptions. Just the latest description on the repair realised in 1666, written probably by Matheus Kohler, brings the information about the location of the bellows – they were among the four of them placed at the organ in the Augustinian Church of St. Thomas in Prague. The name of Sebastian Hoffer seems to be quite new in the Czech or foreign organological writings. Other names of the organ builders are more or less known including the best renowned Hans Heinrich Mundt (the builder of the Tyn Church organ). Nevertheless, all the newly discovered information required some critical analysis. Its results call the Prague´s St. Thomas attribution of the bellows origin in question and also brings new information on some of the said organ builders. The finding in the Manětin bellows belongs to those unexpected and lucky ones. From now on we know a new name of the organ builder Sebastian Hoffer from the 16th C. The existence of the two renaissance wedge-bellows from 1530 in Manětin is also surprising. They represent the oldest working part of any pipe-organ in the Czech Republic.

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