Prague National Library. Clementinum in Prague: The most beautiful library in the world

The history of the first public library in Prague is quite long, dating back to July 1, 1891. With the increase in the number of publications, the library had to move several times. By the beginning of the 20s of the 19th century, the library consisted of about 260 thousand volumes and expanded further. The premises no longer met the ever-increasing demands. In 1923, the Prague City Insurance Company was […]

History of the first public libraries in Prague is quite long, it is calculated from July 1, 1891. With the increase in the number of publications, the library had to move several times. By the beginning of the 20s of the 19th century, the library consisted of about 260 thousand volumes and expanded further. The premises no longer met the ever-increasing demands. In 1923, the Prague City Insurance Company decided to build a new building for the library. Construction began in 1925 according to the architect's design F. Royta, and ended in 1928. The old library building was destroyed, but in its place two underground lecture halls still exist to this day.

The design of the new building was made in accordance with the increasing requirements of the library. In addition to storage facilities and reading rooms, there is a cultural center with facilities for concerts, exhibitions and lectures.

The most interesting thing is that in the building municipal library The residence of the Mayor of Prague is located, it occupies approximately a fifth of the premises, in addition to the service apartment, the residence contains premises for official ceremonies and meetings. In the mid-90s of the last century, a global reconstruction was carried out in the library, and now municipal library (Městská knihovna) is a modern library complex providing any information service.

Mariánské náměstí 1, Prague 1, Czech Republic (entrance from Valentinská street)
mlp.cz

Take the metro to Staroměstská station

How can I save up to 20% on hotels?

It’s very simple - look not only on booking. I prefer the search engine RoomGuru. He searches for discounts simultaneously on Booking and on 70 other booking sites.

Having visited the beautiful Czech city of Prague, we naturally could not ignore such a historical landmark as the Klementinum. And we were attracted to Clementinum, first of all, by one of the most beautiful libraries in the world.

While still sitting at home and preparing for the trip, we looked at photographs of this baroque library hall, admired it, and we so wanted to see with our own eyes the most beautiful library in the world.

In this article we will talk about the Clementinum, our tour of the majestic structure, its library hall, the meridian hall and the Astronomical Tower. We will also share with you photographs, some of which were taken furtively, since taking pictures is prohibited in some halls of the Clementinum.

So,

Clementinum

The Clementinum is a large complex of Baroque buildings, most of which were built by the order of Jesuit monks who appeared in the Czech Republic in 1556, and had a Dominican monastic order located in this complex.

Initially, the Clementinum housed a Jesuit college and university. Over the years of its existence, the complex was built and expanded by many famous architects, artists and sculptors, until it acquired its current appearance in the late Baroque style.

The complex was destroyed to such an extent that currently the Clementinum is the second largest historical complex in Prague, after. We also visited Prague Castle, and it is very difficult to say unequivocally which of the complexes we liked better. They are so different and each is beautiful in its own way, so we advise every tourist who decides to visit Prague to visit the two largest historical complexes in Prague.

Clementinum is located in Prague's Stare Mesto quarter, at. One of the most beautiful buildings of the Clementinum - the Jesuit Church of the Savior - the Church of St. Salvator / Kostel Nejsvetejsiho Salvatora, the facade faces directly onto the square near Charles Bridge.

The Clementinum complex includes several churches and churches, the most beautiful of which, in our opinion, are the Church of St. Salvator itself and the Catholic Church of the Virgin Mary/Nanebevzeti Panny Marie, which is located on Karlova Street.

Along the same Karlova Street, you can get to the courtyards of the Clementinum, and from there go on an excursion to see the library and climb the astronomical tower, which offers magical views of the old town of Prague.

In addition to the main attractions, today the Clementinume buildings house a large number of offices and reading rooms, entry to which is strictly by permits and library/student cards. But this, naturally, was of little interest to us.

Having entered the courtyards of the Clementinum, we walked briskly straight towards our main goal - the astronomical tower. This is where the baroque library hall is located.

We approach the astronomy tower. The building is very large, so it was not possible to take a good photo among the narrow streets and courtyards of the Clementinum.

Here, below, at the entrance to the tower, there is a ticket office. You can get to the library only with a guided tour, which takes place every half hour, starting at 10:00.

Near the entrance and ticket office

A ticket for the excursion costs 220 CZK for adults and 140 CZK for students and children. At least that's what was written on the stand at the checkout.

220 CZK per person, a little expensive for us. But we have already gotten used to “surviving” in Prague. Since in Prague entrance is paid everywhere, even to churches and temples, when we approached the ticket office we were told that we had two student passes. Almost nowhere were they required to show student ID cards, so it was a breeze. In any case, it's worth a try. We did the same here, we came up and said two student tickets, for some reason they only charged us 240 crowns for two tickets. Well, okay, ours are better.

Our tour started in 10 minutes. Together with us, there were about 10 more people who wanted to go on the excursion, among whom more than 50%, as it turned out, were Russian-speaking tourists. The excursion was held in English, so naturally, with our poor knowledge of English, we did not understand everything, but the main essence was clear.

The Clementinum tour begins

Entering the hall, we see an exhibition copy. We still don’t understand what it is)) But outwardly it resembles the mechanism of some kind of watch or something similar.

The pride of the hall "Visegrad Code", representing the cathedral collection of gospels and religious texts. The codex is written in Latin and is considered the most famous and valuable manuscript in the Czech Republic. The Visegrad Code was presumably compiled on the occasion of the coronation of the first Czech king, Vratislav II, in 1085 at Prague Castle, where it was presented to the king. Just imagine the historical value of this huge book, and the codex is indeed of considerable size.

In the foyer we see a beautiful door. This door leads to the hall of one of the most beautiful libraries in the world - the Baroque library hall/library of the Clementinum. This room is part of the National Library.

The guide opens the door and appears before us hall of one of the most beautiful libraries in the world. It is prohibited to take pictures in the hall; a guide and a camera on the ceiling are watching over this. We filmed secretly, hand-in-hand, on a phone, so there’s no point in talking about the quality of the pictures.

In the photo on the Internet, the hall looked quite impressive, but in reality it turned out to be not that big and rather narrow, but this in no way detracts from its wonderful atmosphere. The hall smells of old books and is dim.

You cannot enter the library hall itself or walk around it. You can only stand and look around the hall by the fence outside the door. As they explained to us, entry into the hall is prohibited to everyone except researchers and students with special passes. The fact is that the books collected in this room are very old and require special careful care. In total, the hall contains about 20,000 volumes of books, all of them are placed on tall shelves from floor to ceiling on both sides of the hall.

On the ceiling of the book room you can see an amazing fresco, which is divided into three parts. The first part of the fresco depicts Apollo seated on Mount Parnassus. In the middle part are the imaginary domes of the temple of wisdom. The third, climactic part of the fresco, the one closer to the entrance, depicts an angel with a torch of knowledge, hovering over Christ and calling “IPSUM AUDITE” (which translates as “Obey Him, listen to Him!”).

In the main part of the library hall there is a portrait of Emperor Joseph II, probably from 1783. And in the middle of the hall you can see several globes on display. These globes are of two types - geographical and astronomical. The largest and most famous, as well as the most beautiful globe, is the one located at the entrance. In addition, it depicts constellations. It's a shame that all these delights are not visible in the photographs. Yes, even if it were visible, photographs would still not convey what you experience and see when you are there.

We leave the baroque book hall and again move up the spiral staircase. Yes, by the way, you can take the elevator rather than take the stairs, but we didn’t use the elevator, the stairs are more interesting))

Rising higher, we find ourselves in Meridian Hall of the Clementinum

The name of the hall comes from the phrase “Prague Meridian”. There is twilight in this room.

The string, protected by a wooden cabinet, is on the floor. There is a small hole in the left wall, a camera obscura (from the Latin word camera obscura, which translates as dark room). Through this hole in the wall, sunlight enters the room. This beam gradually moves around the hall, and at the moment when it turns out to be cut by the meridian string, which on the floor, strictly in half, means that noon has come.

In past centuries, for a long time, this was the only way a signal was sent from the Clementinum indicating the onset of noon. Since 1842, the signal has been given using flags. The signal given in the form of a flag was most often followed by a cannon shot from the Bastion of St. Magdalene. Thus, the noon signal was given until 1928. The job of watching the beam at that time was responsible and required special attention and perseverance. This made her considered respected, because this was the only way many townspeople could know for sure whether it was noon.

In addition, the Meridian Hall contains two original wall quadrants, believed to be the work of Jan Klein. A quadrant is a device that was used to determine the zenith distances of luminaries.

Behind the meridian hall we go up the wooden stairs

And we find ourselves in a dark round room, at the very top Astronomical Tower of Clementinum. The Astronomy Tower was built in 1722. Its height from the very base to the observation deck is 52 meters. And the total height of the tower is 68 meters. When climbing to this very top, we climbed a total of 172 steps. At the very top of the tower is decorated with a sculpture of Atlas carrying the celestial sphere.

There are also several exhibits in this room.

The guide opens the doors and we find ourselves on observation deck of the Astronomical Tower. The bird's eye views of Prague are simply magical, red tiled roofs and narrow streets of old Prague are everywhere. We plunge into these views headlong, walk around the site and look, look...

The complex and courtyards of the Clementinum are clearly visible from above.

A couple of panoramic shots from the observation deck of the Astronomical Tower in the Clementinum

With this our excursion came to an end, we went down. The entire excursion takes 30 minutes, but our group was delayed for 45. Having gone down, another group was already eagerly awaiting our exit, ready to go on the excursion.

Cheap flights →

The capital of the Czech Republic, Prague, has a wide variety of attractions and places that every tourist needs to visit. One of these treasures of Prague is the Clementinum - a whole group of buildings in the Baroque style, in ancient times it housed the Jesuit College, and now it houses the National Library of the Czech Republic. All buildings of the complex are located on a huge territory, and this complex is considered the second largest in terms of area after Prague Castle.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Clementinum complex in Prague was considered a Dominican monastery, but during the period of hostilities, the monks’ home was quite destroyed, and all the buildings were in a dilapidated state for a long time.

In the mid-sixteenth century, the monastery building came into the possession of the Jesuits. Architect Wohlmut began work on the complex. Under his leadership, the monastery building expanded, with the addition of additional premises, the area of ​​the complex was also expanded. Designers from the province followed the exact instructions of the Roman generals, represented by the leading architect Karl Lurago.

Reconstruction of the complex continued until the order was dissolved at the end of the eighteenth century. The complex now has a large number of rooms for conducting lessons, a library, a theater studio, and even a printing house, which for two hundred years was the only one in the Czech Republic. At the end of the eighteenth century, all the buildings were in the possession of the archbishop's seminarians, and all the buildings were converted from the Baroque style to the early classicism style.

The entire ensemble consists of a series of closed two-story buildings with five courtyards. The main advantages of the Clementinum are: the astronomical and clock tower, as well as the structure of the printing house. Also be sure to look at the baroque-style sundial and the fountain-reservoir.

The interior of the classrooms is done in a restrained style, but the public places that promote faith are decorated with various types of artistic creativity. All rooms have remarkably preserved their original appearance.

One of the main parts of the ensemble is the Church of the Holy Savior, as well as a valuable shrine of the Jesuits. The most significant details in the church are considered to be the painting “four parts of the world” and the central altar. The interior is very beautifully decorated with sculptures and decorative elements. All members of the Jesuit order were buried in the church crypt.

The Cathedral of St. Clement was designed by the architects Luargo and Kanka. It has a strict façade, but the interior design is very beautiful. Paintings depicting scenes from the life of Clementius, painted by Gibel, divide the ceiling into four parts, the central altar is made of marble. The carved elements of Brown, the paintings of Brundle and others look very beautiful. The iconostasis was changed at the end of the twentieth century, ten pillars are considered a symbol of the apostles with the royal doors, the New and Old Testaments. But it doesn’t look very nice against the background of the overall interior. Now the church is considered an active Greek Catholic Church.

The most beautiful library in Prague today

Nowadays, the Clementinum complex houses the world-famous National Library, which at the beginning of the twentieth century underwent significant reconstruction; the most valuable books and manuscripts are stored here.

If you have a desire, then climb the Astronomical Tower, it is 68 meters high, when you climb to the very top, you will be able to look at the delightful old Prague from above. There is an elevator inside the tower that will take you to the height of the third floor. To get to the observation deck, you need to climb 87 very winding steps. But when you do it, you won't regret it.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Hall of Mirrors was built, it was created by the famous Prague architect, German by birth, Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer. The Hall of Mirrors was so named because mirrors were built into the stucco moldings and walls.

It is noteworthy that this hall houses two organ instruments, an amazing phenomenon - the acoustic sounds are simply amazing. And these organs can play at the same time.

And it is clear that such acoustics should be used; concert programs are held in this hall, where classical music is played, and wedding celebrations are also celebrated here (this hall can accommodate up to 150 people).

In order to visit the mirror chapel, you must register in advance.

The Meridian Room was named after the Prague meridian, which is shown as a stretched arrow on the floor. There is a small hole in the wall and the sun's rays, falling through it, cross the arrow at astronomical noon. Today in this room you can look at the exhibition of astronomical instruments of past centuries.

Address on the map

The Clementinum in Prague has several entrances:

The first entrance is located at the following address: Karlova 1, Prague

The second entrance is located at the following address: Mariánské nám. 5, Prague

The third entrance is located at the following address: Křižovnická 190, Prague - you cannot temporarily enter through this entrance.

How to get there

You can get to Clementinum by taking bus number 194, which stops at the Mariánské náměstí stop. Also nearby is the Staroměstská station (green line A) and a tram stop, where trams numbers 1, 2, 17, 18, 25 and 93 go; you need to go to the Clementinum stop.

Opening hours

Clementinum was closed in January 2017 for reconstruction, presumably for two years. Only the Mirror Hall is open to the public, where concert programs are held.

• January-March: from 10:00 to 16:00;
• April-October: from 10:00 to 20:00;
• November-December: from 10:00 to 18:00.

From 10:00 every half hour there are guided tours (in Czech and English, there are also booklets in Russian) accompanied by a guide. The duration of the entire excursion is 45 minutes.

Cost of visit

In order to visit the Clementinum, you must pay the entrance fee:

• A full price ticket will cost 220 CZK;
• For a family consisting of one or two adults and up to three children, the entrance ticket costs 500 CZK;
• For children aged eight to eighteen years old, admission costs 140 CZK;
• Entrance to the Clementinum is free for students and disabled people;
• For children under seven years of age admission is free.

Official site

All necessary information is provided on the Clementinum website.

Prague is rich in a wide variety of attractions and places that you, as a guest of the Czech capital, simply must visit. But today we will talk about the Clementinum - a whole complex of Baroque buildings that once housed a Jesuit college and now houses the National Library of the Czech Republic. The complex is spread over a huge area and is the second largest after Prague Castle.

It includes several public buildings dating back to the 18th century:

• • Mirror Chapel (built in 1724)
  • Mathematical Museum (erected in 1752)

• Astronomical Observatory (1722)
• University Library (1727)
• The weather station, which was the first in Central Europe, was opened in 1751. Since 1775, temperature measurements have been taken here daily; Here the great scientist Kepler discovered the laws of planetary motion.

Outstanding masters of the Habsburg Baroque worked on the design of each building: Frantisek Kanka, Kilian Dinzinghofer, and Carlo Lurago.

The name “Clementinum” is most closely associated with the name of St. Clement (Clement), in whose honor a chapel was erected on this site in the 11th century. The Dominican Order soon built its monastery near it.

Clementinum in the 16th century

In the 16th century, the Jesuit order became increasingly influential. Already in 1552 in Prague they built the Jesuit College (by the end of the 17th century it had become one of the largest centers for training Jesuits in the world). In the same century, the Jesuits tried to strengthen the Catholic faith by arriving at the monastery of St. Clement. As the importance and wealth of the order increased, so did the importance of the Clementinum, which soon became a real competitor to the Carolinum, considered the core of the legendary Charles University.

17th century in the history of the complex

Despite the fact that in the first third of the 17th century the Jesuits were expelled from Carolinum and Clementinum, they successfully returned here in 1620 to prove their power and influence with renewed vigor. Upon their return, they moved the priceless library of Charles University to the Clementinum.

The influence and wealth of the Jesuits allowed them to purchase land around the Clementinum, gradually erecting new buildings and planting gardens on it. As a result, 2 gardens and 30 buildings, including churches, became part of the complex, which was designed in the Baroque style. During Classicism, the buildings were enlarged and modernized.

Library in Baroque style

The Baroque library, created here in 1722, has not been altered and reflects the structure of libraries of that time. It is considered one of the most beautifully decorated rooms in the entire complex. The hall, where hundreds of thousands of valuable books are stored, is decorated with frescoes by master Joseph Dibel, which depict Art and Science. The paintings placed on the dome of the library represent the Temple of Wisdom.

If you look over the windows, you can see images of famous Jesuits in the triangles. The center of the hall is decorated with huge globes.

• Clementinum was once recognized as the third largest Jesuit college in the world;
• One of the Jesuits, Conias, burned about 30,000 volumes of “heretical publications” here;
• During the Revolution of 1848, the complex served as a fortress for students;
• There is a version that after, on the instructions of the Pope, the Jesuit Order was dissolved in 1773, the Jesuits walled up their wealth in one of the cellars of the Clementinum;
• The Jesuits brought only one book with them to Prague. During the reconstruction of the library, this figure was increased to 20 thousand copies.
• In 2005, Clementinum was included in the Memory of the World register.

The capital of the Czech Republic, Prague, is home to one of the most stunning libraries in the world: the Clementinum Library. The beautiful Baroque building was first opened in 1722. The Clementinum was once known as the third largest Jesuit college in the world.

Today the library occupies a huge area of ​​20,000 square meters and stores more than 22,000 rare books. When you step inside, it's not hard to see why this is one of the most beautiful libraries in the world. Amazing frescoes even cover the ceiling, and even the smallest detail of the interior is pure art. The frescoes on the ceiling were painted by Jan Hybl, who depicted allegorical motifs of education and portraits of Jesuit saints - patrons of the university and famous representatives of this order.


In addition to its unique interior, the library is rightfully proud of the rarest historical book collection. A small part of it was provided to Google for scanning, and is now available in the Google Books service to an even larger audience.






In fact, the Clementinum is a historical complex of buildings in Prague. Until recently it included the National University and the Technical Libraries, as well as the City Library. The Technical Library and the Municipal Library have been moved to the Prague National Technical Library since 2009. It is now used as the National Library of the Czech Republic. In 2005, the Czech National Library received the UNESCO JIKJI (Memory of the World) prize.