Prague 1 – New Town, Jungmannovo nám. 753/18
FUNDRAIASING ORGAN CONCERT – 17.5.2019 / 19:30
More about the Church of Our Lady of the Snows
The Church of Our Lady of the Snows, the venue of a fundraising organ concert during the Prague Rotary Week, was founded by Emperor Charles IV in 1347 as a three-nave basilica and Coronation Church with a Carmelite Order shrine and monastery. Only a fragment of the original project, which would compete with St Vitus’ Cathedral and Cistercian Church at Zbraslav, was actually completed. During the Hussite Wars the edifice was badly damaged and left in disrepair after the order left the premises. After 1606 the unfinished, dilapidated compound was reconstructed by courtesy of its new occupants – the Barefoot Franciscan Friars, who inherited the ruins from Emperor Rudolph II. The collapsed Gothic vault was replaced by a Renaissance net vaulting with firmament paintings and the images of Virgin Mary, the Most Holy Trinity, and patron saints, and an entrance with a choir was added. The presbytery of the originally planned edifice serves as a church. The 31.5-metre church is one of the highest church buildings in Prague. The monastery was rebuilt in the Baroque style in the second half of the 17th century. Its interiors conceal many early Baroque artifacts. Chief among them, an early-Baroque column altar crowned by a monumental Calvary, i.e. sculptures of Jesus on the Cross, St John Baptist, and the Holy Virgin. It is the work from 1649-1651, crafted by an unknown woodcarver, and stands 29 metres tall. The lower altar painting, depicting the legend of the Church of Our Lady of the Snows (also known as Santa Maria Maggiore) in Rome, was created by Prague painter Antonín Stevens. The flor conceals many tombs of famous personalities, and other bodies were buried in a crypt underneath the presbytery. During a general reconstruction in 1900, a mosaic painting of Our Lady of the Snows by Viktor Foerster was installed above the renaissance entrance portal, added to an original Gothic rose-window in the façade. The entrance to the former churchyard was later adorned with the original (now sadly a copy) of an incomplete tympanum from the unfinished church portal. It is one of the most significant sculptures of advanced Czech Gothic period.
The Church of Our Lady of the Snows is part of the Prague Heritage Area, registered as a UNESCO-protected world heritage site.
