300th anniversary of the birth of Brother Cyprian of the Red Monastery

€10 silver collector coin

Brother Cyprian was born Franz Ignác Jäschke on 28 July 1724 in Polkowice village in the Silesia region of Poland. He took his religious vows at the Camaldolese monastery in Zobor near Nitra around 1753  From there, in 1756, he moved to the Red Monastery (Červený Kláštor) in the Spiš district of what is now eastern Slovakia, where he remained until his death in 1775. It is believed that before joining the Camaldolese order, he spent some time at Italian monasteries, where he acquired knowledge in botany, plant taxonomy and herbalism. He also went to Wrocław, where he expanded his medical knowledge. At the Red Monastery, he worked as a healer and ran the monastery’s herbal dispensary. He treated not only his fellow brothers, but also people from the surrounding area. He established a monastery garden where he cultivated medicinal and ornamental plants as well as fruit trees. He prepared medicines, ointments and medicinal tinctures based on contemporary medical books and his own experience. Between 1766 and 1771 Brother Cyprian wrote what is now the oldest preserved herbal from the territory of Slovakia, a particularly valuable document in the history of botany, pharmacognosy, pharmaceutics and medicine. It contains important botanical texts and interesting facts about the medical treatments and remedies of the time, as well as about the life of the Camaldolese monks at the Red Monastery.