Concert halls

CLEMENTINUM

The Clementinum was built after the Thirty-Years' War in Czech lands by jesuits as a counterbalance of Charles University. It is, after Prague Castle, the biggest complex of buildings in the city. It spreads out on the site of original thirty two houses, seven courts, three churches, two streets, two gardens, a monastery and other grounds. Originally it functioned as the residence of the Jesuit Order, a student college and a library. Since 1752 an observatory and a meteorological station continuously measuring air temperature, atmospheric pressure and precipitation have been operating in the Clementinum. The station is the third oldest in the world and its results have been used even nowadays.
The oldest part of the Clementinum is the two-storeyed wing facing the Křižovnická Street which was started by C. Luragho in 1653. Inside the wing,behind the finely carved Early Baroque doors, there are corridors with ceiling paintings depicting the legend of SS. Ignatius and Francis Xavier. In the first courtyard, to the left behind the main portal of the Clementinum, there stands the statue called Prague Student, the work of Josef Max from 1848, placed here in 1863 to commemorate the students taking part in the defence of Prague against the Swedes in 1648. Also the Italian Chapel in Karlova Street , which was built for the needs of Italians residing in Prague, ranks among the oldest parts. It is connected with the eastern end of the presbytery of St. Saviour's church founded in 1578-81. Above the chapel's portal there lies a rectangular porticus by F. M. Kaňka which connects the entrance to the chapel with the main portal of the third church of the Clementinum consecrated to St.Clement. This church dated 1711-15 overwhelms with the expensiveness of its interior. Today it serves the needs of the Greek-Catholic Church.
In the last period of the construction of the Clementinum in the first half of the 18th century the so-called Chapel of Mirrors and above it the baroque hall of the library pervading two floors of the building originated. In the northern wing of the Clementinum there are halls decorated in the Rococo style. In the southern wing there are the headquarters of the library which houses more than 2 000 000 volumes including five thousand medieval manuscripts. In 1924-29 the Clementinum was adapted to serve modern library purposes after a plan by L.Machoň. The carriage way from the fifth courtyard brings us to the Mariánské Square. This tract was built up after a plan by F. M. Kaňka in the 1720s.
The Chapel of Mirrors - was built for the Marian Congregation probably after a design of architect F. M. Kaňka or Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer in 1724. Bernard Spinetti decorated the expensive interior by stucco work in which the mirrors are inserted that gave the chapel its name. The ceiling paintings from the life of Virgin Mary were created by Jan Hiebl. The ceiling mirrors are originals probably from 1725, the wall mirrors are just replicas of originals and were made during the reconstruction of the chapel in 1980. The walls are decorated by four oil paintings of the Czech Baroque painter Václav Vavřinec Reiner, all of them after 1725. The organ on the choir dates from 1732 and was built by the jesuit Tomáš Schwarz. This organ was removed from the chapel in 1783 and returned as late as 1971. Another organ built in the torso of the altar is allegedly the work of Jan Ondřej Niederle and dates from the latter part of the 18th century. In the Clementinum it was installed in the 2nd part of the 20th century. The chapel was abolished 1784 and again reopened in 1816. Since 1936 it has been serving mostly for classical music concerts.