THE CHURCH OF OUR LADY VICTORIOUS AND ALTAR OF THE PRAGUE CHILD
JESUS
Rising above Carmelite Street, which runs between Ujezd and Mala Strana Square,
is the monumental facade of one of the earliest examples of Czech baroque, the
church of Our Lady Victorious. This is a reconstruction of the church of the
Holy Trinity built by German Lutherans in 1611-1615 on the model of the Santa
Trinit dei Monti in Rome. After the Battle of the White Mountain it was given
to the closed order of the Carmelites, who added their convent building. The
new consecration to Our Lady Victorious was meant to commemorate a miraculous
event reported from that battlefield, and it was the notorious Don Baltasar de
Maradas, an imperial general of Spanish origin, who financed the work
undertaken from 1636 to 1644 to erect the facade where the sanctuary had stood
before, whereas the tower which arose in 1669 was built to adjoin the new
sanctuary. The church has very fine early baroque interior decoration. The
altar in the so-called black-and-gold style is the work of Jan L. Scheiermann
and Marek Nonnenmacher, while the altar paintings are by Matej Zimprecht and
Jan Jiri Dietrich, beside that foremost Czech baroque artist Petr Brandl. At
a rococo side altar, in a glass case fashioned by Jan Packeny in 1741, is the
wax statue of the Prague Child Jesus, presented in 1628 by Polyxena of
Pernstejn, member of the Lobkovic family. The veneration in which this statue
has been held is evidenced by the great number of gifts offered, now contained
in the church treasury. Among these is a score of priceless vestments which
use to envelop the statue, of which the most precious was the gift of the
Empress Maria Theresa. Below the church there is a crypt where the remains of
the convent's nuns and benefactors lie, seemingly undisturbed.