Katarínka was a Franciscan monastery and church dating back to the early 17th century, located deep in the forests of the Little Carpathian Mountains in western Slovakia. The church was dedicated to Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and that is where the nickname of the place Katarínka comes from.
First Gothic chapel was made of stone on the site in the late 1400s. The monastery was established in 1618 when count Krištof Erdödy, the domain owner, issued the foundation document establishing a Franciscan monastery on this site. In 1645 St Catherine’s monastery was plundered and set on fire during an armed rebellion of the Hungarian nobility. In 1663 monastery was attacked again first by the Turks, later on by emperor’s army. The soldiers killed noblemen who were seeking refuge from persecution at St Catherine’s. In 1683 another raid carried out on the monastery by the troops of Imrich Tököly.
In 1701 Juraj and Krištof II Erdödi issued a deed of gift of 500 ducats for the church’s maintenance. In the 18th century numerous donors also gave large gifts to the monastery. Families of noble origin built their crypts on this site (e.g.Erdödi, Apponyi, Labšanskí). In 1786 Joseph II Emperor’s decree abolished St Catherine’s monastery as “useless”, together with 738 monasteries in the empire, which did not take care of the poor or educate the youth and in 1787 it was transferred to state control. Valuable equipment and inventory were step by step moved to surrounding churches and monasteries, many of these were spontaneously stolen or lost forever.
References:The Clementinum is a historic complex of buildings in Prague. Until recently the complex hosted the National, University and Technical libraries, the City Library also being located nearby on Mariánské Náměstí. The Technical library and the Municipal library have moved to the Prague National Technical Library at Technická 6 since 2009. It is currently in use as the National Library of the Czech Republic.
Its history dates from the existence of a chapel dedicated to Saint Clement in the 11th century. A Dominican monastery was founded in the medieval period, which was transformed in 1556 to a Jesuit college. In 1622 the Jesuits transferred the library of Charles University to the Klementinum, and the college was merged with the University in 1654. The Jesuits remained until 1773, when the Klementinum was established as an observatory, library, and university by the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria.