Prague Castle
Czech Open Information Project
PRAGUE CASTLE
Along the eastern edge of a long spur reaching from the northern shoulder of the Petrin
Hill to the Opys slope there has evolved through a span of one thousand years the
monumental complex of sacred and ceremonial as well as residential buildings, together
with their fortifications, which constitutes Prague Castle. In the course of this period the
outline of the castle, as seen from the Old Town, went through several transformations
before achieving that harmonious balance between, on the one hand, the horizontal lines
of the civic buildings, the extensive rooms and wings of the former Czech chancelleries,
the Vladislav Hall, the capitular church of All Saints and the former Rozmberk and
Lobkovic palaces, and on the other the vertical thrust of the main tower of St. Vitus
Cathedral. The early history of Prague Castle reaches back into the middle of the 9th c.
when it became the seat of the reigning dynasty of the Premyslids. Around the year 875
Prince Borivoj founded a rectangular church of the Virgin on the site of the present
wing separating the first and second courtyards. His son Vratislav began the
construction, some time before 921 , of the church of St. George, forerunner to the
Ottonian basilica which is still to be seen, and around 930 Prince Vaclav raised the two-
storied rotunda of St. Vitus which had four hemispherical apses. The castle underwent
extensive transformations under the rule of Prince Vratislav II, who was raised to royal
dignity in 1085, and of Sobeslav I in the 12th century. Beside powerful stone
fortifications with towers, such as the surviving Black Tower, and many turrets, the
castle area saw the rise of numerous buildings, both sacred and secular, such as the
stone palace of the princes, the bishop's palace with its St. Maurice chapel and the
reconstructed basilica of St. George. During the rule of Premysl Otakar II the royal
palace was enlarged and the fortified area increased. Abandoned after a fire and left to
its fate by John of Luxemburg, the castle underwent a grandiose reconstruction at the
hands of Charles IV. In 1344, jointly with his father, he laid the foundation stone of a
new cathedral, calling on the services of the French architect Matthew of Arras, who
was succeeded after his death by the young Peter Parler in 1356. Among other
foundations in the castle area of this period are the private imperial church of All Saints
and an enhanced royal palace. After Charles IV's death Vaclav IV moved away from the
castle and took up residence in the Old Town, nevertheless work on the cathedral
proceeded. During the Hussite wars the castle suflered some damage, but its glory was
renewed under Vladislav Jagellon, who began the splendid Vladislav Hall (architect
Benedict Ried) before 1493, the earliest structure in Bohemia to include Renaissance
features. The Renaissance culture of the Habsburg court, which occupied the Czech
throne from 1526, is reflected in the castle grounds primarily in the Belvedere of Paolo
della Stella and the Tennis Court of Bonif c Wohlmut. The terrible fire of 1541 caused
serious damage to the majority of the castle buildings but it flourished anew under the
emperors Rudolph II and Matthew. It was the latter who, in 1614, erected the
monumental gateway linking
the first and second courtyards, while Rudolph's contribution was to enrich the state
apartments of his Prague residence with the works of the foremost European artists,
many of whom were engaged by the Prague Court, such as Bartholomew Spranger,
Hans von Aachen, Adriaen de Vries and others. Many of these works disappeared from
the castle interiors during and after the Thirty Years' War, when the seat of former
Czech kings fell into decay since none of the Habsburg monarchs lived there except for a
short period in 1848 when it was occupied by Ferdinand the Good after his abdication.
Little work was carried out at the castle during the baroque period apart from the
Riding School built by Jean B. Mathey in 1694-1698. From 1753 to 1775 the castle
buildings were restyled, by decision of Maria Theresa, by the court architect of Vienna,
Nicola Paccassi, in the late baroque and early classicist manner. The function of the
castle was further downgraded by the decision of the emperor Joseph II that it should
house the administrative offices of the army. In the second half of the 19th c. work was
taken up again towards completion of the cathedral. Not until after 1918, when it
became the residence of the Presidents of the Czechoslovak Republic, did the ancient
seat of Bohemian kings flourish anew. For this purpose renovation of both the interior
and the exterior of the castle complex was undertaken by Josef PleŸnik and Otto
Rottmayer. Today all the buildings constituting Prague Castle are administered by the
Chancery of the President of the Czech Republic.
