The Prague Loreto

Loreta or the Prague Loreto is a remarkable complex of buildings in Hradčany consisting of a cloister, the church of the Lord’s Birth, a Holy Hut and clock tower with a world famous chime. It is a large pilgrimage destination, established more than 300 years ago.The Prague Loreto is an artistic and historical monument, as well as a Baroque pilgrimage site the renown of which in the city can perhaps be compared only with that of the wonder-working statue of the Infant of Prague. Construction of the Prague Loreto Santa Casa began on 3 June 1626, at the instigation of Baroness Benigna Katharina von Lobkowitz. The Loreto arose gradually over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries; the interiors were partly renovated in the 19th century; and in the 1950s and 1960s, a new treasury was built, accessible to the public.The pilgrimage site is conceived as a self-contained complex of buildings around a central Santa Casa, with an oblong, two-storey arcade courtyard (unlike the Italian Loreto, where the Casa is inside the pilgrimage church). The present-day Church of the Nativity of Our Lord and the two chapels were only shallow alcoves with altars in the original design from the 1660s. As the renown of the Loreto grew, the number of visitors increased and it was necessary to enlarge the liturgical spaces of the pilgrimage site. Thus, gradually (by the end of the 17th century) the larger oblong chapels were built in the corners of the courtyard; subsequently, both chapels on the transversal axis were enlarged and the Chapel of the Nativity of Our Lord reconstructed in several phases into a more spacious church.

Church

Christoph Dientzenhofer began the two-phase reconstruction of the church and designed the western façade of the entire complex, which was finished, after his death in 1722, by his son Kilián Ignác, with minor alterations. (The latter is also the author of the design of the terrace with balustrades in front of the façade.) In 1735, Christoph’s stepson, J. G. Aichbauer, finished the final reconstruction of the church, financed (as was most of the interior decoration) by Countess Maria Margarethe Waldstein, née Czernin von Chudenice.The church was consecrated on 7 June 1737, but work on the interior continued until the end of 1738. The principal altar is decorated with an alleged replica of a Renaissance painting of the Adoration (perhaps from the circle of F. Lippi), with a wrought rocaille frame and sculptures of SS Joseph, Joachim, God the Father and the angels, by M. Schönherr (1701-1743). The two side altars of St Felicissimus and St Marcia, with the large reliquary display cases, are located in the chancel. The side altars in the nave have superb Rococo paintings of St Apollonia and St Agatha, by Anton Kern (1709-1747), supplemented at the sides by equally impressive sculptural pairs of cherubs by Richard Prachner.

Santa Casa

The conceptual and actual centre of the complex is the vera effigies, the ‘true form’, of the Italian model (in the Baroque account, the ‘sacrum’ of a cult object was transferred through its external form). The history of the entire pilgrimage site began with the laying of the foundation stone of the house on 3 June 1626. The first patron and founder was Benigna Katharine von Lobkowitz; she chose an Italian in Vienna, G. B. Orsi (died 1641) as the architect of the Casa. The Prague Archbishop, Cardinal Ernst Adalbert Count von Harrach, consecrated the building on 25 March 1631. Originally, the outer walls of the house were decorated only with paintings; it was not until the 1660s and 1670s that the relief panelling of the walls in stucco, made, for the most part, by the Italian G. B. Cometa (1620-1687), was built at the expense of Countess Elizabeth Apollonia Kolowrat. The iconographic program of the decoration (consistently derived from the Italian model) includes reliefs from the life of the Virgin Mary, with an emphasis on the childhood of Christ (the cycle begins on the northern side, turned towards the Chapel of St Francis, and continues counter-clockwise): northern wall – the Nativity of Our Lady, the Betrothal of Our Lady; western wall – the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary visiting St Elizabeth and the Holy Family at the registry in Bethlehem; southern wall – the Nativity of Our Lord, the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Adoration of the Magi; eastern wall – the Death of Our Lady and the Translation of the Holy House from Nazareth to Europe. The relief bays are separated by niches with sculptures of the Old Testament prophets (in the lower storey) and the pagan Sibyls (in the upper storey) – that is, those who foretold the birth of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.The interior is divided into two parts in a traditional manner by a silver (partly wooden) grille partition, with an altar in front. In the smaller space the wonder-working statue of Our Lady of Loreto is situated; made of linden wood, it copies the no-longer extant original made of cedar wood, including the darkening of the original material in the incarnadine parts. The sculpture rests in a rich, wrought silver frame from 1671, with the coat-of-arms of the donor, Countess Elizabeth Apollonia Kolowrat, née Tilly. Most of the objects in the Santa Casa (the reliquaries, obelisks, candlesticks, lamps and liturgical instruments) date from the 17th century. F. Kunz made the artificial fragments of frescoes on the rustic brick masonry of the house. 

http://www.loreta.cz/en/

Strahov Monastery

Strahov Monastery 

(Czech: Strahovský klášter) is a Premonstratensian abbey founded in 1149 by Bishop Jindřich Zdík, Bishop John of Prague, and Duke Vladislav II. It is located in Strahov, Prague, Czech Republic.

The founding of a monastery

After his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1138 the bishop of Olomouc Jindřich Zdík took hold of the idea of founding a monastery of regular canons in Prague, having the support of the bishops of Prague and the Duke of Bohemia Soběslav I and after his death, Vladislav II. After his first unsuccessful attempt to found a Czech variant of the canons' order at the place called Strahov in 1140, an invitation was issued to the Premonstratensians whose first representatives arrived from Steinfeld in the Rhine valley (Germany). Thus a monastery originated which has inscribed itself in the Czech political, cultural and religious history for all time.The religious began to build their monastery first of wood, as well as a Romanesque basilica as the center of all spiritual events in Strahov. The building was gradually completed and the construction of the monastery stone buildings continued in order to replace the provisional wooden living quarters with permanent stone. In 1258 the monastery was heavily damaged by fire and later renewed.

During the Hussite Wars 

The monastery continued functioning until the period of the Hussite movement when it was attacked and plundered by the citizens of Prague in 1420. Books, articles of worship and furnishings of both the church and the convent were burned. Although the building did not sustain great damage from the architectural viewpoint, the monastery took a long time to recover from this disaster. The period of the Hussite wars, the years of the reign of George of Poděbrady and the time up to the end of the 16th century meant vegetation rather than life for the monastery. During that time endeavours were made once again to renew the original monastery and life in it, but that did not prove any successful.It was not until the arrival of the abbot Jan Lohelius that a turn came about. This cleric, originally of Teplá Abbey, became the abbot of Strahov in 1586 and all his abilities were devoted to the renewal of Strahov. He tried to raise the spiritual life of the monastery and, as a visitator circarie, also of the Premonstratensian order as a whole in Bohemia, he also devoted attention to the material aspect of things. He reconstructed the church, renewed the abbey buildings, established workshops, built a new dormitory and refectory and had the monastery gardens newly laid out. He regained many of the monastery estates and thus built up material base of the monastery, so necessary for its maintenance and further development. Proof of his enormous endeavours and untiring activity also lies in the fact that already in 1594 a twelve-member community of religious could live in the monastery.

During the Thirty Years' War

In 1612 Jan Lohelius became the archbishop of Prague, his work at Strahov then being continued by the new abbot, Kašpar Questenberg. He continued in the expensive work started by Lohelius, completed the lower cloisters and prelature and even erected a new building in the form of St. Elizabeth's Hospital as well as out-buildings and a brewery. Furthermore, he founded the Norbertine seminary in the New Town, which was intended for the theological studies of members of the order. All this was achieved during the Thirty Years' War, when Kašpar Questenberg himself was forced by the violence to flee from Prague. The financial account of the costs incurred by his building activities amounted to about 100,000 tolars, which at that time was a very repectable sum for any building work. In this respect Kašpar Questenberg could calmly compete with such builders as his contemporary Albrecht of Wallenstein. One of the biggest events in the history of the Premonstratensian order, namely the transfer of the remains of St. Norbert, the founder of the order, from Magdeburg took place under Questenberg's abbacy. This came about in 1627, and since then the remains of the saintly founder have laid at rest in the abbey church. During Questenberg's time the Church of St. Roch was also completed. Originally it was a votive church whose construction was started by the Emperor Rudolph II in 1602 as an expression of thanks for the end of the plague in 1599. After numerous changes of fortune the church was completed, including its interior, by 1630.When Kašpar Questenberg died in 1640 his successor was Kryšpin Fuk, who continued in his work. Moreover, he gained renown for himself through his participation in the making of the river Vltava navigable in the sector called St. John's Rapids (Svatojánské proudy). During his period the abbey was plundered by Swedish troops towards the end of the Thirty Years' War. The church and the library were looted. After the departure of the Swedes, Kryšpin Fuk had the damaged abbey repaired again, his work being continued by the Abbots Ameluxen, Sutor and Franck. The last-mentioned had the prelature reconstructed and a new St. Elizabeth's Hospital built, because the original one built by Kašpar Questenberg was demolished during the construction of Baroque fortifications in Prague.

The Theological Hall

In 1670 Jeroným Hirnheim, a philosopher and theologian became the abbot of Strahov. His greatest work, which has survived to the present days, was the building of the new library, so-called Theological Hall (Teologický sál) completed in 1679. During the 17th and the early 18th century other abbots continued in the reconstruction of the monastery. They also cared for the church, which was repaired and decorated several times during the given period. The monastery experienced other great building activity namely after the assault of French and Bavarian troops in 1742, when whole Prague was bombarded and seriously damaged. After this destruction of the monastery the abbot organized building works again in the course of which the church was rebuilt along with the monastery area.

The Philosophical Hall

In 1779 Václav Mayer occupied the abbot's throne and was the last to carry out great building activities. His most outstanding work was the building of the new library, now in Classical style. Today it is called the Philosophical Hall (Filosofický sál). This work brought the extensive building activity at Strahov Monastery to an end and the following generations of abbots devoted their attention merely to minor architectural repairs, all under the influence of contemporary fashion, and to maintenance of the area as a whole. The monastery survived in this way until 1950, when it was taken over by the communist regime, the religious being interned and placed in civil employment, very few of them being able to work in the clerical administration as priests of the diocese. The monastery was subjected to thorough archeological research and transformed into the Memorial of National Literature. In the course of the said archeological research the long since forgotten Romanesque form of the monastery was revealed and reconstructed in a sensitive way.

After the Velvet Revolution

After the shackles of communism were thrown off in 1989 the monastery was returned to the Premonstratesian order, which began to realize a costly reconstruction of the building. By 1994 the church had been restored, a new technical network constructed, the Strahov picture gallery newly built and the Strahov library renewed. Other architectural restorations were also carried out. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strahov_Monastery