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Throughout the Middle Ages, the Czech town of Dvur Kralove occupied an important and prestigious position. The town formed part of the Czech queen's dowry, as its name, which roughly translates as 'Queen's settlement', would suggest. With the disappearance of a Czech royal family, however, things went a bit quiet for Dvur Kralove. In modern times, the town has been most famous for its Christmas-decoration factory, and its zoo. But Dvur Kralove has also played host to one of the stranger and more gruesome episodes of modern Czech history - though

Exhibitions like this one are once in a lifetime: the loan of a famous Bohemian tome officially known as the Codex Gigas (but also as the Devil's Bible) to Prague. According to historians, the book, one of the largest medieval manuscripts in the world (almost a metre tall and half a metre wide), was completed some time in the 13th century at a Bendectine monastery in east Bohemia. The tome, once considered to be the eighth wonder of the world, is the oldest Czech chronicle written in Latin. Despite its devilish moniker, the Codex is by no means

The life of Arnost Lustig (81) is like an excursion through modern Czech history. The internationally renowned author of novels such as Dita Saxova, A Prayer for Katherine Horowitz and Lovely Green Eyes spent three years in Nazi camps, joined the Communist Party and left his homeland in 1968. In this week's edition of Arts, Arnost Lustig talks to us about his eventful life.

The story of Faust, the doctor who makes a pact with the devil in his pursuit of knowledge, has captured the imagination of some of the great Czech dramatists. In 1985, Vaclav Havel tackled the legend in his play Temptation, or Pokouseni, as it is known in Czech. Just under a decade later, animator Jan Svankmajer tried his hand at the story, producing a grotesque feature-film called Lekce Faust.

One of the emerging Czech singers-songwriters of the new generation, Xavier Baumaxa is entering the Czech mainstream with his new album Retrofutro. Highly acclaimed by critics and increasingly popular with Czech audiences, Xavier Baumaxa is our guest in this week's Arts.

Summer in Prague means one thing - letni kino, or open-air cinema. The season starts in early June, and goes right on until mid-September. In this period, Prague residents and tourists alike are treated to the gamut of films, from Apocalypto right through to Zodiac.

A large retrospective exhibition of the works by Jan Zrzavy is currently being held at Prague's Waldstein Riding School. Although his work attracts large crowds of Czech art lovers, Zrzavy's reputation does not seem to extend beyond the Czech borders. In this week's Arts, we look at why Jan Zrzavy, one of the country's best-known Modernist painters, has yet to be rediscovered abroad.

Prague has been particularly generous to art enthusiasts this summer, with a number of exhibitions ranging from the Abstract painters František Kupka and Piet Mondrian at Museum Kampa to the Modernist Emil Filla at Prague Castle and contemporary Czech art at the City Gallery. But one of the greatest treats at the moment for Czech art lovers is a large retrospective of works by the great Jan Zrzavy at the Czech Senate.

Over the last ten years, Czech sculptor Cestmir Suska has become something of a hit in the US. His larger-than-life and painstakingly geometrical sculptures have been showered with awards, amongst them a prestigious Pollock-Krasner scholarship. The artist himself has twice been invited to live and work in the States, first in Utica, upstate New York, and then Vermont. Both invitations he happily accepted.

Czech-born Zuzana Brejcha is an Austrian filmmaker whose latest project "Gypsy Tears"( Romane Apsa)was screened at a Prague art cinema this week. The two-hour+ documentary was Brejcha's first outing as a director - after 25 years in editing - and she admits her project had a far greater impact on her life than she ever expected. Gypsy Tears is a complex portrait of several Romany families living in an extremely poor settlement in eastern Slovakia, where living conditions leave much to be desired.