Czech Open Information Project
VYSEHRAD
There is perhaps no other site in the country which is so thickly entwined with the web
of legends believed to relate to the very beginnings of Czech statehood as Vysehrad, the
rocky spur overhanging the Vltava where a Slav fortress arose in the loth century. The
earliest evidence for its existence dates from the third quarter, and by the end of that
century there were three religious buildings on the site, all of which have disappeared.
At that time Vysehrad was already the seat of the Czech princes of the House of
Premysl and the administrative centre of the land. It achieved its greatest development
under the rule of the first Czech king, Vratislav II, who founded the Vysehrad chapter
in 1070, the church of SS. Peter and Paul, the basilica of St. Maurice (only the
foundations survive) and the rotunda of St. Martin, which has been preserved in a
purist restoration of the 19th c. With the removal of princely authority to the Hradshin
the old seat of the Premysl kings declined in significance until the Emperor Charles IV
restored its role in a new ideology of the state by including Vysehrad, in the coronation
ceremony. Thus the procession was to start from Vysehrad, leaving by the Jerusalem
Gate, where the bark footware and the wallet traditionally said to have belonged to the
ploughman ancestor of the Premysl line were to be deposited for safe keeping. It was
also thanks to Charles that extensive building was undertaken at Vysehrad, so that the
number of sacred edifices rivalled even those of the Hradshin. First came the
reconstruction of the church of SS. Peter and Paul towards the end of the 14th c., a
triple-aisled pseudo-basilica with rectangular side-chapels fitted in between the
butresses. It was the Hussite wars which brought catastrophy to Vysehrad, since its
strategic importance made it several times the object of siege, and when at length it was
captured by the Prague military they destroyed it. The baroque period left its
characteristic mark on Vysehrad when alterations began in 1654 to make it into a
baroque citadel in accordance with the project of Conti and Priami. The Leopold Gate
dates from this time. The transformation of the capitular church followed at the
beginning of the 18th c. but then the baroque elements were banished during the purist
alterations effected by Josef Mocker in 1885 - 1887. Of its original interior furnishings
only an early 12th c. Romanesque sarcophagus remains. A "miraculous" painting on
wood of the Virgin Mary of Humility dated around 1360 an object of especial veneration
in the 17th and 18th c. - was a gift made to Vysehrad from the collection of the
Emperor Rudolph II. In the 1880s the idea was mooted of turning Vysehrad into a
national cemetery, called Slavin, where the foremost personalities of Czech culture and
science would be buried. The project was realised between 1889 and 1893 with Anton¡n
Wiehl as architect. Today some of the Vysehrad buildings are used for exhibitions and
social occasions.