Ceiling fresco of the New Mathematical Hall

The fresco entitled "Allegory of the Knowledge of the World" is located in the new Mathematics Hall. Here, playful cherubs symbolize art on the left side and exact sciences in the middle and on the right. Of the arts, music, architecture, painting, sculpture and poetry are depicted. In the background, below the accurately pictured Klementinum Astronomical Tower, cherubs play with symbols of arithmetic, geometry, perspective, mechanics, optics, astronomy and geography. Around the cherub bearing the inscription "SAPIENTISSIMI OPUS" or "Work of the Wisest", the Brunovian-Descartesian universe is depicted: many stars with planets and comets circling around them. The depiction of this model of the universe shows the liberal and open attitude of the Jesuits towards new knowledge, since Giordano Bruno was burned by the Inquisition in 1600 for a similar model of the universe. Source: OULÍKOVÁ, Petra. Klementinum. 1. vydání. Praha: Národní knihovna České republiky, 2019