Church of St. Nicolas
* * *the Baroque cathedral which dominates Malá Strana
Significant photo
Fotogalerie
Info text
St. Nicolas Church on Malá Strana is the most well-known specimen of Prague’s Baroque architecture. The church was planned as part of the Jesuits’ complex on Malá Strana. Construction began in 1703 and took place in several stages under the guidance of the premier Prague architects. Based on the plan of Christoph Dientzenhofer, the initial phase saw the church’s façade and the nave with a wreath of chapels erected. The monumental tripartite façade with a main entrance and two side ones is a remarkable example of Baroque’s dynamism. The inner architecture of the church works off of the principle of advancing geometrics. After the death of the cathedral’s first builder in 1722, construction was continued by Dientzenhofer’s son, Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer, who finished the traverse nave. The silhouette
of St. Nicolas Church has come to be associated with the skyline of Malá Strana, given the church’s substantial size.
The cathedral measures 40m wide, 60m long and the copula measures 70m high. At the time of the construction, many wondered if the thin bell-tower alongside the copula would fall, thus the building of the church was quite a daring step.
The interior is dominated by ceiling frescoes depicting the life of the cathedral’s patron saint, St. Nicolas, as painted by Johann Lukas Kracker. The most famous masters of the Baroque worked together on the cathedral’s decoration, including the painters Karel Škréta and Franz Xaver Palko and the sculptor Ignaz Platzer. The cathedral’s organ dates from the mid-18th century and was played by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart during his stay in Prague.
Kontaktní informace
| Ulice | Malostranské náměstí | Město | Praha 1 |
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