'The treasury was first founded by Catherine of Lobkovic, and was enriched by gifts of members of almost all the great Bohemian families. A crucifix, the gift of Cardinal Harrach, and a monstrance--said to contain 6580 diamonds--a foundation of Countess Kolovrat, are amongst the most interesting objects. The treasury contains also a very fine picture of the Madonna and Child, attributed in the catalogue to Albrecht Dürer, and said to have formed part of Rudolph collection.[47] It is more probably a work of Adrian of Utrecht.'
The monastery was founded somewhat later, and the Church of St. Mary was built in 1661, and greatly enlarged by Countess Margaret of Waldstein in 1718.
On the right bank of the Vltava in the Vysehrad Street is the Emaus Monastery and Church of the Benedictines. It was founded in 1347 by Charles IV. to take the place of the ancient Slavic monastery of St. Prokop on the Sazava,[48] where the Greek or Slavic ritual, which in Bohemia is more ancient than that of Rome, had been used. Charles had obtained the consent of Pope Clement VI. for his new foundation principally by stating that there were in Bohemia many dissidents and unbelieving men who, when the Gospel was expounded and preached to them in Latin, did not heed it, but who might be guided to the Christian faith by men of their own race. This foundation, as Palacky tells us, was, next to the University, the one that interested King Charles most. On his summons many Slavic monks from Croatia, Dalmatia and Bosnia assembled in the new monastery. Charles obtained for them the right of using the Slavonic language for their ecclesiastical functions, and employing the Cyrillic alphabet. The monastery possessed a valuable collection of MSS.
that has been long dispersed. Its greatest treasure was an ancient Slavic MS. containing the evangel, which had once belonged to St. Prokop, the first abbot of the Sazava Monastery, and was traditionally reported to have been written by him. This valuable MS. was brought to France and--by one of history's little ironies--became the _texte du sacre_ used at the coronations of the Kings of France.[49]
During the Hussite Wars the church and monastery were in the hands of the Utraquists, but it was restored to the Roman Catholics towards the end of the sixteenth century. We read that in 1592 riots near this church occurred, because the abbot had allowed his labourers to work on the 6th of July, which was then still a day sacred to the memory of John Hus.