Klementinum will open to the public on Sunday

Prague - The Prague Klementinum will open to the public on Sunday. The baroque monument and current seat of the National Library (NK) is organizing an open house day, allowing people to freely explore, for example, the Baroque Library Hall, the Astronomical Tower, or the Mirror Chapel. CTK was informed about this by NK spokesperson Barbora Stýblová.
    The baroque monument of the former Jesuit college will be open from 10:00 to 15:00, but a limited number of visitors will be allowed. Guided tours will start every hour, last for two hours, and a maximum of 50 people can participate in each one.
    The library management will allow people to visit, for example, the Baroque Library Hall completed in 1727, the Astronomical Tower with a view of the historical center of Prague, or the 18th-century Mirror Chapel decorated with both artificial and real marble and a five-part ceiling fresco.
    The Klementinum was gradually built by the Jesuits as their college from 1556 to 1773. Notable figures who worked here include historian Bohuslav Balbín, mathematician and physicist Josef Stepling, Count František Josef Kinský, and Antonín Koniáš, a Jesuit missionary known as Father Koniáš.
    The National Library, which manages six million documents including 13,500 manuscripts, some of which date back to before our era, as well as more than 4,000 incunabula (books printed from the invention of the printing press until 1500), and over 200,000 prints from the 16th to 18th centuries, is located in the Klementinum.
    Currently, a reconstruction of the Klementinum is being planned. It will include the restoration of historical halls and more significant renovations, one of the five repair options proposes building a depository in one of the courtyards. Initially, the NK wanted to combine the renovation of its headquarters with the construction of a new building to resolve capacity issues. However, the plan for the new building is currently dead primarily for political reasons. Therefore, the library intends to expand the depository in Hostivař, where part of the operations and some depositories will be relocated.
    The NK has already announced a tender for the first phase of the Klementinum reconstruction. The value of the contract published in the public procurement information system is estimated at 400 million crowns. Among other things, the restoration will include the Mirror Chapel, the Baroque Hall, and the Astronomical and Clock Towers.