The treasure of the Clementinum

View of the Castle from the Clementinum

There was a heavy knock at the door. Pavel was kicked out of bed by his wife, who whispered loudly to answer the door and it better not be Vasek coming home from the hospudka again! Pavel muttered something about his wife as he stumbled through the kitchen and opened the door. There in the hallway were two men in heavy monks’ robes, the hoods up so their faces were only deep shadows. Pavel was somewhat surprised and rubbed his eyes a bit before making out a groggy “Hello?”

“Pavel Krumlov?” one of the men asked.

“Yes? Can I help you?”

The other man was holding a small, cloth pouch, made from the same material as the heavy robes. He held it out for him to take. Pavel took it—it was heavy and clinked. Gold. At least as much that he needed to pay back that lender he owed.

“What’s this?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“We have more.”

“Do you?”

“We have a job for you.”

Pavel naturally accepted the job, as his masonry business had gone somewhat downhill. The men refused to say where the job was, but rather took his wrist and led him into the hall, down the stairs, and into the street. “You’ll have to wear this,” said one of the men, holding a blindfold to him. After a short sigh, he put on the blindfold and they led him around the streets of Prague, over the river, in circles around buildings, back over the river, in circles, around this building, that building, up a hill, down a hill. He was completely lost by the time that he heard a door open and he was led down some steps into a cellar. From the cellar, there was a dark passage that led to chest after chest after chest. Jewels and glittering things were on the ground, the light from their torch picked up and scattered, making the floor itself almost look like a precious object.

“What is this?” asked Pavel.

“You will make a wall here, and it will appear as if the wall was always here. Do you understand?” one monk said. “The materials are all here. There are bricks, mortar, spades. If you need anything, you tell one of us and we will get it for you. When you're done, we'll take you back a different way.”

Pavel understood. This treasure was to be hidden. One monk remained behind to watch Pavel as he worked through the night. He slept on a cot through the day. When he woke, there was a different monk and he kept working and working until his wall was perfected.

When he came home, with several more sacks of gold, he told his wife what had happened. “Do you think you can find the place?” his wife asked. They searched again and were never able to realize that his commission was from the Jesuits of the Clementinum. 

A bit of history

In 1773, the Empress Maria Theresa told the Jesuits to pack their bags and go—thinking this was only a temporary departure, as they had a perfectly functional relationship with Charles’ University, they had allegedly decided to store many of their treasures in a secret room somewhere on the campus. Maria Theresa had designs for her own functions though and the property was never returned to the religious order. Which means there’s still a room full of gold somewhere in the Clementinum. 

Inside the Observatory tower with bookshelf/ladder

The building standing in the heart of the Prague Old Town was built by the Dominicans in 1556 and reconstructed and developed into a full-scale university by the Jesuits in 1653. The complex spans over 2 hectares, making it one of the largest building complexes in Europe. It was used by several famous astronomers, notably Tyco Brahe and Johannes Kepler. Brahe was key in keeping most of the scientific community of the time—meaning the Jesuits—against the heliocentric theory, while Kepler would advance the early Copernican ideas and correct them, adjusting the planetary orbits into off-center ellipses, which was the main failure of Copernicus. Then he also wrote several books expounding how Christianity and the Bible allowed for a heliocentric theory, and he never made the famous Galilean mistake of calling the pope an idiot in any of his tomes. Pope Urban VIII at the time interestingly supported the heliocentric theory, but didn’t support being called an idiot. And so the Inquisition goes its way.

The King's Road

The Clementinum now stands alongside the “King’s Road”, the path of coronation for the old Bohemian Kings, and is thus on the direct route to the Charles’ Bridge from Old Town Square. It works still as part of Charles’ University, containing an immense library, and it also functions as a museum—preserving the library wing where Kepler and Brahe once worked, in the form that they had left it. You can tour the library and observatory tower and you can sign up for the tours in the inner courtyard. Don’t worry, it’s okay to walk around the courtyards, even though guards might be eyeing you while you do so. 

View from the Clementinum

The tour lasts for about 30 minutes, is sold out quickly, and doesn’t really take reservations, which means you need to show up about 30 minutes before the tour and buy your tickets then. The price is a whopping 220 crowns, but the view from the top and the fact that you are looking into the library where Kepler was working certainly makes it worth it, especially if you’re only in Prague once.

water castles and ravagings

Blatna Castle

The goal of the weekend was to take my wife skiing at a beginner slope to help her learn. We wanted something not so far from Prague and something a little romantic, so the idea was to find a nice bed and breakfast, or castle as it goes, to stay in somewhere near a ski resort. The place I came up with was Kasperske Hori. My mistake, I’ll admit, was thinking that in the beginning of February, ski conditions should be pretty ripe. But then was the week long heat spell, a sort of savage Indian summer that reaped its way into the deep winter, with temperatures going past 40 all the way up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit (for non-Americans, read that as somewhere around 10-20 degrees Celsius). By the time we drove to South Bohemia, there was not a flake or patch of snow in sight, despite Kasperske Hori even having snow-making technology. When it’s that warm, it ceases to be even worth it trying to crank up those blowers. 

We only had to make some minor adjustments. As we set out, I decided that we should hit up some random towns that I hadn’t heard of before and see what views we could see, before hitting our final destination of the Schlosshotel Zdikov Zamek. We’ve already seen the mainstay of the region – Cesky Krumlov, and been there a number of times, so why not try something different and less touristic?

Blatna

Our first stop then was Blatna. The town dates back to somewhere in the 13th century as a chapterhouse town of the Knights Templar, though what’s left of the old town seems to be only a few streets with two quite nice walking arcades – it was burned down completely in the 1800s. From the two arcades, which are linked together by a huge tower and a church, you can walk down to the “water castle”. Blatna gets its name from the Czech word for “marsh”, and once you’re at the church with a view of the castle, you can see why. There is indeed a marsh surrounding the castle, with a beautiful walking trail going through the marsh, and plenty of places to jump around and find weird spots for a picnic. The castle itself, being once a chapterhouse of the Knights Templar, is home to many legends, including one about a Templar treasure being hidden either in the castle or somewhere nearby. It’s last renovation turned it into an English Gothic manor, so that the main tower looks something like an English cottage. The true beauty of the place though is the Rozmitalsky Palace, a decaying, falling apart manor that’s nearly as tall as the tower, with dark stones and beautifully huge windows and an amazing wood terrace that has a great view of the marsh and surrounding park. 

Rabi Castle

Our next stop was Rabi Castle, which is the largest castle ruins in the Czech Republic – and a place I admittedly had never heard of before. Construction at the castle began in the 13th century and it reached its full height in the 1500s. It was the site of some major battles during the Hussite rebellion, with the famous one-eyed Jan Zizka – after which the Zizkov district in Prague was named – taking the castle and losing his other eye there. For most of its tenure as a strategic place, it was held by the Rosemburg family, who also held the castle at Cesky Krumlov in the early years. During the 30 Years War, that terrible period when everyone was quite confused on German lands and much of the European kingdoms decided to traipse about and take advantage of the local Slavic ladies, the castle was ultimately destroyed by Ernst Graf von Mansfeld from Luxembourg, who changed sides more times than one hand can count. 

The entry of Rabi Castle

After Mansfeld’s ravaging, the Hapsburg emperor decided that Rabi didn’t need to be a castle anymore and that the place would be illegal to be repaired. Since then, it’s been left to the pickings of local villagers, with the limestone especially being useful in building houses. It became a local landmark in 1920, and has been something of a museum and site for medieval festivals ever since.

Unfortunately, when we were there, the castle was closed up for winter, with the locals, I assume, not realizing that there would be a purpose of having it open in what is usually a snow covered season. It’s now on our list of places to go back to though.

Kasperske Hori

The final stop before our own ravaging of a castle was the town of Kasperske Hori itself. Where we should have stopped for coffee was Susice, quite an established town that ran the length of the River Otava. If we do this trip again, that will be the next plan, as Kasperske Hori wasn’t that overwhelming of town, which is to say, it was a bit underwhelming. It has the ski resort, and it does have a beautiful main square, but that was about it. Though the cafe in that yellow building on the right has some great blueberry cake.

From Kasperske Hori, it was only a 10-minute drive, which brought us finally to Zdikov Zamek just as the sun was setting.

on suicidal parachutists and death by bridge

Charles Bridge on Navalis

On May 15 of every year thousands of Czechs gather to make the descent from St. Vitus in the castle, cross Charles Bridge, and finish at the opposite bank of the Vltava, where there’s an orchestra on a barge waiting to play. The event, called the Navalis, celebrates the life and martyrdom of St. John Nepomuk. Before the procession, there’s a festival at the castle where many Czechs are dressed in traditional, medieval looking clothes, and sing old Czech songs along with church music. What seems to be all the priests of Prague then rally the folk together, pass out palm branches and head down through Mala Strana, a brass band playing solemn religious music as a background to the procession. Watching the parade, I couldn’t quite tell if it was a celebration or a day of mourning - much like viewing the average sober Czech man, it’s hard to read the emotions. But after seeing one priest with a peasant kick back a couple of shots of what appeared to be Slivovitz - plum vodka - I decided that it must be a celebration.

We followed the crowd and made our way to Charles Bridge. There the crowd stopped and what must have been a priest mumbled a lot of stuff in Czech over loudspeakers. All I could make out were the words “parachutist” and “10 minutes” as those are pretty similar in every language. It also makes clear sense to celebrate the commemoration of a man who was killed by being thrown off a bridge. My wife kept asking me what we were waiting for and I kept repeating, “Parachutist! 10 minutes!” as though that should really mean anything in context of the bridge and the expected concert on boats.

Parachutists coming in!

Then people started looking up. The parachutists had arrived! There were about 5 of them, with what appeared to be some sort of rockets firing sparks out of their feet. The first one swung himself into a spiral, falling ever faster and was coming quite close to the bridge. There was a gasp from the crowd as people were sure he was in for it. At the last moment, he hurtled himself under the bridge, came out on the other side, and landed safely in the Vltava - though I don’t know how safe it is to be in that murky brown water.

After the parachutists finished their presentation, the boat orchestra started up, playing old classical music across the water. With all the people in medieval dress and the huge towers and churches surrounding, it had the ability to transport one across time as though you were standing in that spot 300 years before. Except for all the purple lights around the orchestra, the spotlight, and the motorboat of drunk, shouting tourists. But for all that, it was exactly like 300 years before.

There we were at the foot of the statue of St. John Nepomuk, near a plaque with his cross - which had five stars and marked the exact spot where he was de-bridged - listening to Mozart. St. John Nepomuk met his end there much earlier than just three hundred years ago. It was arguably back in 1393 when he was thrown over the edge of Charles Bridge to meet his watery demise. Probably not the first to die in that way and certainly not the last, he was though the most famous in the long list of Czechs getting killed by being thrown off of things - castles, bridges, windows, etc. You can’t have a famous Czech death without someone being thrown off of something or out of somewhere.

St. John Nepomuk was the confessor to the Queen of Bohemia, wife to King Wenceslas IV - who is not to be confused with the Good King Wenceslas I of Christmas carol fame. The bad one, Wenceslas, the Fourth of His Name, King of Romans and Germans and Bohemia, son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, was not a popular king. His hold on the Iron Crown was shaky, as - in a nearly Game of Thrones style drama - he was intermittently at war with the Swabian League, a group of nobility that took offense at his ascendance and reassertion of imperial authority.

Constantly being harassed by those he considered clear underlings, it perhaps comes as no surprise that he was a paranoid and jealous man, which is what led him to his conflict with St. John Nepomuk. It’s not known which wife of Wenceslas was the possibly unfaithful one - the one who mysteriously died at the age of 23 or the other who was mysteriously gored to death by a deer - but whichever, according to the Chronica regum Romanorum, one of them was possibly flirting a bit too much with her hand servants. When the king approached Magister Jan, as he was called back then, he demanded to know her Confessions, saying something like, “You must tell me! I am the king!” To which Magister Jan famously replied, “Only the one who rules properly deserves the name of king.”

Too good a fate is never in store for someone who says that to a king.

Magister Jan then made his way through the Prague Torture Museum, after which he was unceremoniously dumped into the river, blood, guts, and all.

Of course, this bit more romantic version of his death surfaced a few hundred years after his death. Earlier histories note St. John’s support of the Roman Pope, while Wenceslas preferred the Avignon Pope (and who wouldn’t, the guy was called the Anti-Pope!). John confirmed a supporter of the Roman Pope as the head of the Abbey of Kladruby, which possessed vast lands in Western Bohemia, including the primary trade route to the Imperial City of Regensburg. Meanwhile King Wenceslas wanted to turn the abbey into a cathedral, thereby being able to herald imperial authority over it and its lands. This latter story, of a struggle of power between Church and State, is probably the truer one, but isn’t as fun.

Whichever the case concerning his death, St. John Nepomuk was beatified on May 31, 1721 and finally canonized on March 19, 1729, though the first statue to be placed commemorating the saint was put up on the bridge in 1683 and the May 15 festivities started in 1715. He was made saint due to his protection of the Sacrament of Confession and can be recognized by the halo with the five stars, a cross, and an angel with a finger over his mouth, telling John to keep quiet about the Queen’s affairs. St. John Nepomuk is also the protector saint against drowning and flooding, the latter which he appears to not be so good at, since the Vltava rises up and destroys much of Prague every 10 years or so. He’s also the patron of bridges, communication, and Venetian gondoliers, as well as being a patron of the City of Venice. 

The concert on the Vltava

And that all was what I was considering while looking down at the purple tinted orchestra playing Cosi fan tutte, with hundreds - perhaps thousands - of palm leaf bearing Czechs crowded in on the stones of Charles Bridge.