St. Vitus Cathedral
The Saint Vitus Cathedral in Prague is a Roman Catholic cathedral built in the Gothic style. It is the biggest and most important church in the country, being the seat of the Archbishop of Prague. Located within the Prague Castle, the cathedral, containing the tombs of Bohemian Kings, was built mid-14th century on the site of an early romanesque rotunda and a later Romanesque basilica.
Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners
One of the patrons was King Charles IV of Bohemia and later Holy Roman Emperor. He intended the new cathedral as a coronation church, family crypt and treasury for precious kingdom relics, as well as a place of pilgrimage for patron saint Wenceslaus, founder of the original rotunda.
The cathedral's first master builder was Matthias of Arras. He designed the overall layout of the building as an import of French Gothic architecture, through its slender verticality the three-nave basilica supported on the side by flying buttresses, the short transept, the five-bayed choir and the decagon apse, with arcades, ambulatory and radiating chapels.
After Matthias early death, construction was undertaken by young Peter Parler, architect of the Charles' Bridge. He built a sacristy to the north of the choir and a chapel on the south. He added his bold and innovative design, best illustrated by the vaults of the choir. They are net-vaults, with double diagonal ribs crossing, as opposed to the traditional single ones.
Parler treated architecture as sculpture, according to his training, which is shown by his design of pillars, with classic bell-shaped columns, undulating clear-story walls, the ingenious dome vault of the St Wenceslaus chapel, also decorated with semi-precious stones and paintings, the window tracery or the tracery of the buttresses. Also particularly beautiful are the busts on the triforium, representing faces of the royal family, Prague bishops, saints and the two master builders.
After Parler died, his two sons continues the construction. Their work includes the gorgeous gold mosaic portal at the tower and the south transept.
The southwest corner of the chapel houses the Crown Chamber with the Bohemian Coronation Jewels.
The Hussite War damaged the cathedral and interrupted construction. The building was finished under King Vladislav Jagiellon, by Renaissance-Gothic architect Benedict Ried, who added the obviously different baroque spire surmounting the south tower and the great organ in the transept.
Among the restoration artists, noteworthy are the famous Czech Art Nouveau painter Alfons Mucha, who decorated the stained glass windows, as well as Frantisek Kysela, who designed the Rose Window.
