He lived through the Thirty Years' War which caused him some hardships as a Protestant which led him to leave Prague for Saxony then Italy.

He was born to a noble Protestant family that originally operated mills in South Bohemia, but moved to Kutna Hora, then Prague, where they occupied several official positions.

He eventually made his way to Italy, spent a few years in Venice studying the works of Veronese, Tintoretto and Titian, then went to Rome in 1634.

After about a year he went back to Saxony and finally returned to Prague in 1638, where he converted to Catholicism and sued to regain his property; possibly with the assistance of an influential Jesuit, as he had begun to accept commissions from that order.

The second is a comic opera, based on Svoboda's play, written in 1883 by Karel Bendl, to a libretto by Eliška Krásnohorská.