006-047 PRAGUE CHURCHES II 

With the number of its churches and with their artistic value Prague has ranged, since time immemorial, among the foremost cities of Europe. As early as in the Middle Ages Prague Castle numbered five, the castle of the Vyšehrad hill six, and the city itself more than forty churches. The number of the oldest Prague churches includes the so called rotundas, which were founded about 1,000 A. D., at the time of the culmination of the Romanesque style; they are characterized by semicircular arches, barrel vaults, and massive stone masonry. Churches dating from a later part of this period, the so called basilicas, were more monumental in character, a fact testified to by the the most valuable memorial of the period, the basilica of St. George in Prague Castle. 

In the reign of Charles IV a new style penetrated to Bohemia, viz. the Gothic style, characterized by high, pointed arches, complicated cross vaults, compound slender columns and everything creating the impression of deep space and reduction of massiveness. This period, too, left us many important architectural memorials, the most monumental of which is St. Vitus' Cathedral in Prague Castle. The period between the end of the 16th century and the end of the 18th century was influenced by the Baroque style, characterized by complex division of space, irregular lines, and sumptuous ostentatiousness. In the Baroque period several new churches were built in Prague, and a number of others was reconstructed, or at least decorated in this style. 

The last Prague churches, built at the beginning of the 20th century, reflect modern tendences of Czech architecture, They are buildings characterized by monumental loftiness and purposive simplicity of both the general architectural concept and interior decoration. The towers of its numerous churches lend Prague its unique character, expressed in the epithet of "the city of a hundred towers". 

Text to the photographs: 

1. St. Vitus' Cathedral in Prague Castle is the biggest church in Prague. It was founded in 1344 by Charles IV and built, at first, under the supervision of Matthias of Arras and subsequently of Peter Parléř. The last builder of the cathedral was Kamil Hilbert who completed its construction in 1929. 

2. St. Vitus' Cathedral is 124 m long, 60 m wide, and 33 m high. Its Gothic vault is supported by slender, high columns. Its aisles incorporate a number of chapels, the biggest of which is St. Wenceslas' Chapel. The triforium of the church is actually the first portrait gallery in Europe. 

3. The buttress system of St. Vitus' Cathedral illustrates the yearning of the mediaeval Gothic style for the symbolic lightness of church structures. 

4. The church of St. Jiljí in the Old Town of Prague, built between 1339 and 1371, was one of the most outstanding churches of its time. 

5. Six massive pillars divide the interior of St. Jiljí's into a nave and two aisles. The pillars are decorated with Corinthian capitals, the vault with the fresco paintings by V. V. Reiner. 

6. St. Peter's church in the New Town of Prague underwent several reconstructions. Originally it was a Romanesque-Gothic three-aisled basilica with two towers in its facade. 

7. The church of the Ascension of Charles the Great at Karlov was founded by Charles IV, its vault dating from the end of the 15th century. The church is richly decorated in Barogue style.