Exhibit of the Month - November 2022

November 9 - December 13, 2022 Ante-room to the General reading Room (gate A), open Monday to Saturday 9 am - 7 pm (see opening hours of the NL)
Admission 20 CZK (free for the NL readers)

Flora Boëmica iconibus illustrata
Prague, printer Antonín Hladký, 1793–1794

NL Prague 16 AA 29/2

The famous Prague garden, popularly called Kanálka, situated behind the Horse Gate in Prague Walls, was built by Spanish Count Josef Emanuel Canal de Malabaila (1745–1826). It was located among the today´s National Museum, a part of Rieger Gardens and Vinohradská Street. In its time, it was considered one of the most important Czech gardens and at the same time the intellectual centre of Prague. Even Emperor Franz I visited it.

For several years, the Kanálka garden was managed by Franz Willibald Schmidt (1764–1796), a Czech botanist and extraordinary professor of botany at Prague University. In addition to a comprehensive atlas of Czech flora, called Flora Boëmica inchoata, he also created a unique work here, two self-hand illustrated copies of the same inventory. He gave one copy of the illustrated work to his employer the Count of Canal; the other copy was acquired by his close friend Karel Rafael Ungar (1744–1807), a notable Klementinum librarian, for the then Public and University Library. The work rightfully deserves to be called „one of the most beautiful natural science books in our library,“ as wrote about it in 1957 Dr. Emma Urbánková, a long-time employee of the Manuscripts and Early Printed Books Department of the National Library of the CR.