stars of the spanish sky in prague 

The Jesuits were invited to Prague from Spain by Emperor Ferdinand I of Habsburg to help him consolidate the position of the Catholic Church. The bohemian soul of Prague’s citizens, besides openness and creativity, was manifested in wilfulness and rebelliousness. They did not want to recognise the Emperor as their king because they were mostly Protestants and enthusiastic reformers. 

Inviting the Jesuits was a rather risky venture. The founder of the Order and Ferdinand’s almost compatriot, Ignatius of Loyola, a reformed nobleman from the Basque Country with a slightly debauched past and a crushed leg, had founded the Society of Jesus only 17 years earlier. Compared to the Franciscans or the Dominicans, who had a history of more than 300 years, they were mere toddlers. And yet, Ferdinand’s uncertain bet on a black horse worked out well.  

The first Jesuits appeared in Prague in April 1556. Like the Apostles, there were twelve of them and they settled in the Old Town, in the only habitable wing of the former Dominican monastery plundered by the Czech reform movement of the Hussites. Today it is known as the Clementinum, the second largest building complex in the city after Prague Castle, with the most beautiful library in the world. In later centuries, Albert Einstein would teach here and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would play here on several occasions.  

Just three months after their arrival, the Jesuits opened their first grammar school and academy in the Clementinum. A mere six years later, Ferdinand I granted them the right to award doctorate degrees, thus making it equal to a university. The Jesuits thrived in Prague, establishing schools on all levels, performing their famous Jesuit theatre promoting piety, providing spiritual services and working with diligence and focus on their mission – to bring Bohemia back into the fold of the Roman Catholic Church.  

The Jesuits survived three Czech sovereigns, but when the Czech king Ferdinand II of Styria restricted religious freedoms, it so enraged the Czech Protestant nobility that in 1618, a delegation of noblemen stormed Prague Castle and threw two royal governors and a scribe out the windows. This started the Thirty Years’ War and the Jesuits had to flee Prague. They returned two years later and, in addition to education, expanded their activities to the arts and sciences.  

Supreme literary works of the Czech Baroque were created in the Jesuit environment (the poems of Bedřich Bridel stand out), as well as phenomenal scientific works (e.g. the work of mathematician Jakub Kresa) or the patriotic defence of the Czech language by historian and philologist Bohuslav Balbín. They were equally intensively engaged in scientific research. The Jesuits also started regular meteorological measurements at the Clementinum college in the middle of the 18th century. From 1775 onwards, these records form an unbroken sequence, making them the longest continuous series of observations in Europe!  

Moreover, the Jesuits transformed the face of Prague. In addition to the monumental Clementinum college with the churches of St. Clement and St. Salvatore, the Astronomical Tower, the Mirror Chapel and the Summer Refectory, they left a number of other architectural monuments in Prague. Among the most important of these are the New Town Jesuit College with the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola on Karlovo náměsti Square, the Church of St. Nicholas in the Lesser Town, and Profesní dům (House for the Professed) in the Lesser Town, today a Charles University facility.   

In 1773, at the political instigation of the French Bourbons, the unstable Pope Clement XIV abolished the Jesuit order “forever and irrevocably”. It was only restored in 1814 by Pope Pius VII. In the Czech lands, the Jesuit brothers suffered the martyrdom of communist persecution, raids, internment, torture and imprisonment, but since the return of democracy in 1989, they are once again part of the spiritual atmosphere of Prague and our country.