Doc. RNDr. Antonín Kučera, CSc.

English translation PhDr. Magdaléna Rysová, Ph.D. and Andrew Goodall, Ph.D.

After the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, won by Catholic Imperial forces, the Jesuits (members of the Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius of Loyola in the sixteenth century) sought to build a residence in Prague for the “professed” members of their order, i.e. for those who had completed their lengthy Jesuit formation, culminating in the profession of Four Vows. The professed formed a sort of elite of the Jesuit Order, from whose circles were elected higher Jesuit officials and missionaries, whose foreign missions would often take them overseas.

Protracted negotiations with the Prague’s Lesser Town councillors over what was to become the Professed House were finally brought to an end by Emperor Ferdinand II in 1625, who decided in favour of the Jesuit plans. The building plans remained a bone of contention between the Jesuits and the town council, the latter objecting mainly to the building’s ground plan and insisting on the right to keep the parish church and church towers. Prior to construction, the Jesuits had to redeem many houses located in the Lesser Town Square owned by the town, and the town council thereby was to make a substantial profit: the donation in 1628 of Duke Albrecht von Wallenstein for the construction of the Professed House went entirely toward this purchase of houses. Despite protests, the last twelve houses were redeemed in 1671. The Gothic Church of St. Nicholas (predecessor of today's Baroque St. Nicholas Church) passed into Jesuit hands. The rotunda of St. Wenceslas in the northern wing of the church, after reconstruction in 1628–1629, served as the parish church. In 1673, a permit to demolish the Gothic Church of St. Nicholas was issued. Building of the Professed House started in 1674 and was completed in 1690–1691; construction of the Baroque Church of St. Nicholas started later, in 1703, and was completed in 1752. Decoration of the church proceeded over subsequent years until the Jesuit order was abolished by Emperor Joseph II in 1773. The Jesuits had been obliged under the treaty with the town council to preserve the rotunda of St. Wenceslas in the form it had at the time of the 1628–1629 reconstruction, and furthermore to incorporate the rotunda into the new Baroque Professed House. However, defects in statics led to the rotunda being pulled down in 1683, and it was agreed to incorporate a new parish church of St. Wenceslas in the Professed House. This new church was situated in the northwest corner of the building with its own entrance, and was de facto separated from the Professed House.

Francesco Caratti, Giovanni Domenico Orsi de Orsini and Francesco Lurago were architects of the Professed House, while Christoph and Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer designed the Baroque St. Nicholas Church.

The notably austere character of the Professed House reflects the criticism Jesuits had faced after the building of the Clementinum, an ostentatious Baroque building in the Old Town, following the recommendation of senior Jesuit officials – especially the insistence of Superior General Gianpaolo Oliva – that excessive ornamentation be avoided. Nevertheless, this modesty was shortly to be abandoned after completion of the Professed House, as St. Nicolas Church was rebuilt in a flamboyant style. Thanks to its monumentality and the demanding architectural processes that underlay its creation, St. Nicolas Church is considered to be one of the artistically most significant Baroque buildings in Prague.

Remarkable is the location of the Jesuit library above the vault of the new parish church of St. Wenceslas. On the orders of Duke Albrecht of Wallenstein, the library of Renaissance polymath Heinrich Rantzau was later relocated here from his castle near Hamburg as war booty. This library was used by Tycho Brahe, to whom Heinrich Rantzau had given refuge after his expulsion from Denmark.

Remarkable is the location of the Jesuit library above the vault of the new parish church of St. Wenceslas. On the orders of Duke Albrecht of Wallenstein, the library of Renaissance polymath Heinrich Rantzau was later relocated here from his castle near Hamburg as war booty. This library was used by Tycho Brahe, to whom Heinrich Rantzau had given refuge after his expulsion from Denmark.

The Professed House was substantially restored and modernized in the period 2000–2005. February 2004 saw the unique discovery of the remains of the rotunda of St. Wenceslas. The original purpose of the reconstruction was to return the buried area on the ground floor to a usable state, but during the removal of the backfills, the remains of Romanesque walls of the rotunda and a fragment of Romanesque ceramic tiled floor dating from the first half of the twelfth century were found. Preserved terracotta tiles of this type found in situ represent a highly significant discovery. According to historical records, the rotunda of St. Wenceslas was built in the eleventh century on the Lesser Town Square, but nothing seemed to have been preserved from it and historians had failed to find out exactly where it stood.

The decorator of the refectory was Joseph Kramolín, a lay member of the Jesuit Order. The paintings depict commonly treated biblical themes. The vertical walls and northern facade were used for presenting the Order; for example, the third pair from the north features Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Francis Xavier, and the Jesuit Martyrs of Japan are also depicted on the northern facade.

The decorator of the refectory was Joseph Kramolín, a lay member of the Jesuit Order. The paintings depict commonly treated biblical themes. The vertical walls and northern facade were used for presenting the Order; for example, the third pair from the north features Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Francis Xavier, and the Jesuit Martyrs of Japan are also depicted on the northern facade.

The main donor of the building of the Professed House and St. Nicholas Church was Václav, Count Liebsteinský of Kolowrat (1634–1659), without whose great generosity the construction would hardly have begun. His life briefly: Immediately after his birth, Václav was promised to God by his father, who wanted his son to become a member of the order of the Society of Jesus. The Rector of the Prague Jesuit College refused to accept him because he was from a noble and wealthy family. Count Václav asked Emperor Ferdinand III to allow him to donate his entire estate to the Jesuits, whereupon he was admitted to the Order: on October 22, 1650 he was admitted to the novitiate in Brno. He also studied philosophy in Olomouc and Prague. On September 24, 1654, Count Liebsteinský of Kolowrat renounced all property in favour of the Society of Jesus and decided to live in poverty. All the finances, amounting to 178,500 gulden, were assigned to the construction of St. Nicholas Church and the Professed House in Prague’s Lesser Town and to furnishing the Kolowrat tomb with a new tin coffin for Václav’s deceased father. In 1658, he began studying theology in Rome. He died of typhus on October 6, 1659 and was buried in the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola in Rome, under the Chapel of St. Alois Gonzaga. His name can be found in the gallery of famous Czech Jesuits in the refectory of the Clementinum in Prague. On the shield of the St. Nicholas Church in the Lesser Town, we find the emblem of the alleged patron of the building, František Karel, Count Kolowrat-Liebsteinský. The emblem of the real patron, Count Václav, is missing. He was so modest that he did not want his name to be associated with the building, and the coat of arms of his uncle, Count František Karel, was thus used on the facade after the completion of the building. Count Václav did not want to build a memorial to his name, but instead he let it be built Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam – To the Greater Glory of God. He became thereby an exemplar of High Baroque godliness, and is accordingly sometimes called the Bohemian St. Alois Gonzaga. A portrait of Count Václav Liebsteinský of Kolowrat was painted by Jan Jiří Heintsch, who was commissioned to produce thirty-four large paintings of prominent Czech personalities and heroes of the Society of Jesus for the refectory of the Clementinum. The town of Velvary and its museum kindly lent the painting to the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, and the painting now hangs in the refectory foyer on the first floor of the building for which he was so generous a patron.

Bibliografie:

Čiháková J., Müller M., Zpráva o nálezu rotundy sv. Václava na Malostranském náměstí v Praze. ZPP 2006/66, č. 2, str. 100–116

Čobanová A., Bývalý jezuitský Profesní dům, restaurátorská zpráva, 2006

Koláček J., Václav Kolowrat, Refugium Velehrad-Roma s.r.o., Velehrad 2000

Šolc M., Bývalý „profesní dům‟ Tovaryšstva Ježíšova na Malostranském náměstí, dnešní budova Matematicko-fyzikální fakulty Univerzity Karlovy. Pokroky matematiky, fyziky a astronomie, vol. 47 (2002), issue 3, pp. 243–250

http://iforum.cuni.cz/IFORUM-16136.html, Prostor na UK, Profesní dům na Malé Straně