Leseprobe

171 as well as initiating symbolic structures outside of Prague Castle, culminating in the erection of a Marian column on the Old Town Square in 1650. A striking phenomenon of that period was the return of patronage by religious orders in Prague. The Premon- stratensian monastery of Strahov—which enjoyed a signifi- cant boost thanks to the translation of the bones of St Norbert from Magdeburg to Prague in 1627—commis- sioned artists to conduct the concomitant redecoration of the monastery, the church, and the newly built burial chapel of St Norbert, which was in the form of a two-storey tomb with an elaborate lattice and a large crown, with the aim of enhancing the order’s prestige (fig. 4). In the NewTown, the Monastery of the Discalced Augustinians, founded as recently as 1623, became an active artistic centre; in the 1630s and 1640s it employed numerous artists, including Karel Škréta, who painted the major part of his famous Wenceslas Cycle here, or Jan Jiří Bendl ( Johann Georg Bendl), who designed the pulpit that was personally admired by Ferdinand III in 1647. The religious orders depended on the favour of the aristocracy, which was behind most of the donations and endowments. In return for active Catholic patronage, they offered membership of religious fraternities, the opportunity for prestigious display, and an exclusive burial place. How- ever, the (re-)establishment of religious institutions was not only a physical intervention in the confessional topography of the Prague Towns; it also had an extraordinarily high sym- bolic significance there.The Catholic nobility was the essen- tial driving force behind Catholic patronage even outside Prague. As well as paying renewed attention to local Catho- lic traditions, manifested in the (re)construction of pilgrim- age sites on the estates belonging to the aristocracy, their patronage focused particularly on promoting the religious orders. This promotion consisted—as in Prague—not only in the restoration of existing religious communities and their buildings, but also in the foundation of new establishments. Particularly prominent among the new institutions were the Jesuit colleges, most of which were founded by the nobility; they were established with the overt intention of making them stand out in the urban environment. In the period before the Battle of White Mountain these were the colleges founded in Prague’s Old Town in 1555, Olomouc (Olmütz) in 1569, Brno (Brünn) in 1578, Český Krumlov (Böhmisch Krumau) in 1584, Chomutov (Komotau) in 1590 and Jindřichův Hradec (Neuhaus) in 1594; during the war, col- leges came into being in Jičín ( Jitschin) in 1622, Jihlava (Iglau) in 1624, Znojmo (Znaim) in 1624, Opava (Troppau) in 1625, Kutná Hora (Kuttenberg) in 1626, Cheb (Eger) in 1627, Prague’s New Town in 1628, Litoměřice (Leitmeritz) in 1628, Hradec Králové (Königgrätz) in 1632, Klatovy (Klattau) in 1637, Březnice (Bresnitz) in 1640 and Uherské Hradiště (Ungarisch Hradisch) in 1640; from 1625, this series also included the faculty building (Profesní dům) in the Lesser Town of Prague, as well as four Jesuit residences.19 However, the nobility also sought to enhance its prestige through secular patronage: the monumental dimen- sions of the Waldstein and Michna Palaces, for example, demonstrated the status of the new political and social elites and had a profound impact on the urban landscape of Prague.20 The patrons desiring to display their wealth FIG. 4 Daniel Wussin, Sacellum Divo Norberto , in: Vita, mors et translatio S. Norberti, Magdeburgensis archiepiscopi [ … ] Pragae 1671 , Prague, Národní knihovna, Oddělení rukopisů a starých tisků, shelf no. A VIII 47