Koniáš and the Burned Books

The notorious Antonín Koniáš died in the Klementinum college in 1760. Born in Prague in 1691, he entered the Jesuit order in 1708 and was afterwards a missionary throughout Bohemia. Everywhere he preached that people should bring him their Czech books: the sound ones he returned, the faulty ones he corrected, and the heretical ones he burned — some sixty thousand Czech books, it is said. He lies in the Jesuit crypt in the middle of the nave of Saint Saviour's church, where Bohuslav Balbín is buried too.