Church of Saint John of Nepomuk at Skalka

From Prague-wiki

The Church of Saint John of Nepomuk at Skalka (Kostel svatého Jana Nepomuckého na Skalce in Czech) is a Baroque church in the south part of the New Town. It was originally founded as a chapel at the vineyard Skalka in 1691 by Old Town citizen Kristian Florian Heger. Services were carried out by monks from the nearby monastery at Slovany. John of Nepomuk was at that time already honoured as a saint. In 1706 the brotherhood under the Virgin Mary patronage was established here in honour of John of Nepomuk. He was officially canonized in 1729. The brotherhood members decided to build a new spacious church because of the chapel’s small proportions. Kilián Ignác Dientzhofer was asked to prepare the project and a foundation stone was laid in 1730. The Baroque church was completed 8 years later.

[edit] Architecture

This single-aisle church of St John of Nepomuk has an octagonal floor plan. Two steeples, on both sides of the western face, are 35 metres high and are standing sideward. This gives the whole building an extraordinary dynamic character. The steeples’ mass is divided into two floor levels and the façade is elaborately decorated. The bell floors in the steeples are fitted with spaced semicircular windows, which are finished with spherically triangular straight cornices. The steeples have tall domes, whose lower parts have two cornice curves one above the other. On the very top of each tower are relatively mighty prismatic lanterns with decorative vases and crosses. A baroque snail stairway is running through the entire south steeple. The north steeple has three rooms divided by wooden ceilings. In the interior the most important artwork is the ceiling fresco of the Apotheosis of St John of Nepomuk from the year 1748 and a wooden model of a statue of St John – the stone original of which is today placed on the Charles Bridge. Two flights of open stairs run up to the front of the church, which is facing Vyšehradská Street. The stairs were completed in 1776 and its banisters are adorned with sculptures of the saints.