Destruction of Harmful Book and Heavenly Protection of the Good Books

This narrative composition is a design for the ceiling painting in the library of the Benedictine monastery in Prague-Břevnov. The story develops from the centre of the composition, in which books are flying out from the cracked globe, and subsequently are taken to bookcases or carried to the fire by angels. The group of the figures of theological Virtues, with the dominating Justice, placed on the clouds on the right below the globe, is balanced on the opposite side by the personified Church in a papal tiara, judging the contents of the books. The composition cul - minates in the apocalyptic Lamb, which is also a symbol of the Divine Wisdom. The Břevnov monastery, devastated by repeated invasions of enemy armies during the war for the Austrian heritage (1740-1748), was being restored by the Abbot Benno Löbl between 1743 and 1745, but because of Reiner’s death (October 9, 1743) the fresco was not executed after all.