Zdar nad Sazavou

Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk on Zelena hora Hill

Submitters: Cistercian monastery in Sedlec - the Abbot Jindrich Snopek

The big admirer of the martyr John of Nepomuk, the abbot of the Zdar monastery Vaclav Vejmluva, had considered commemoration of the intended Saint's martyrdom since his instalment. That is why he approached to ideological specification of a new shrine, symbolically situated on a hill above the monastery, right after opening his grave in March 1719 and declaration of the miraculous reviviscence of soft tissue considered as the Nepomucky's tongue. The hill was named Zelena hora (Green Hill) according to the martyr's birthplace. The architect Jan Santini Aichl also understood the miracle of an intact tongue fundamentally - as a God's suggestion. During a few months, he designed a project of a pilgrimage church for Vejmluva. For Santini, this project was an absolute culmination of his work and an expression of his personal message and heritage. Twelve masons were first paid during the construction on the 13^th August 1719 and the church was festively consecrated three years later, on the 27^th September 1722. Nevertheless, the construction and artistic work in Zelena hora did not finish herewith by far. Henceforth, the work with the construction of cloisters with five chapels and five gates continued. The project worked out both in conception and in detail was completed after Santini's death (7^th December 1723) led thoroughly by the Abbot Vejmluva. After all, the cloister ground plan had been surveyed based on circular proportions already in the year 1719, including walling of its foundations. According to the then customs, the foundations were earthed and left under the ground until the time of the construction. Both personalities were concerned with the intention to commemorate the Saint John of Nepomuk by building a pilgrimage church for a longer time. The main element was the invention of a star in the middle of stars as the then preachers said. The basic ground plan on a five-pointed star shape symbolizes not only the five martyr's blows of the Christ but the five chapels in the cloister also symbolize the five stars appeared above the place of John of Nepomuk's martyrdom. The whole structure of the church was created following the particularly detailed symbolism, both from the mathematical and the symbolically descriptive point of view. The construction of the church itself can be described not only as an enclosed building but on the contrary as an illuminated space surrounded with the permeating shapes. The perfectly central balancing of the church as well as the whole pilgrimage premises was in the first construction phase, that is to say before the devastating fires, topped with five pile steles situated above the roofs of the cloister chapels. The fascinating outside of the church - that unfortunately was not reconstructed in the original Santini's design - was a compositional crown of the wide region, situated on the top of a marked hill above the monastery itself. Today, the exterior of the church is deforested and its appearance comes back to the original Santini's idea. The absolutely unique character and originality of Santini's approach to the architecture as well as the purity of all architectural and stylistic elements was unambiguously confirmed by listing this solitaire building into the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Sites.

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Reconstruction of the Monastery Premises

Submitters: Cistercian monastery - the Abbot Václav Vejmluva

The educated and resolute abbot of the Žďár monastery, Václav Vejmluva, decided for a complete reconstruction of the monastery after its economic recovery. By virtue of his relationship with the Sedlec Abbot Jindřich Snopek, he obtained references about the young talented architect, Jan Santini. After first contacts, he invited him to Žďár for the first time about the year 1706 and submitted him the reconstruction of the large Convent Church of the Assumption of Virgin Mary. Here, Santini implemented conversions of the individual naves of the church so as to place the monumental organ galleries into the front part of the altar transept. According to his design, the organ cases were placed on the galleries afterwards. The whole space is closed by the high altar, the design of which markedly transformed the layout of the originally rigorous Gothic church into the baroque ideology of that time. The next order was construction of a small cemetery, later on called Plague Cemetery. Originally, it had been really intended for eventual victims of the plague. Hovewer, this epidemic did not touch Žďár that time. The cemetery was symbolically built on a ground plan of a human skull with three chapels and a statue of the Last Judgement Angel by Řehoř Theny in the middle of them. Later a fourth chapel was integrated into the ground plan and the cemetery area was considerably enlarged.

About the year 1710, Santini realized a slighter conversion of the Fountain Chapel of the Virgin Mary situated inside the Rajský dvůr (Yard of Paradise). It was closed by the now already demolished Convent buildings. Santini realised only the new vaulting of the building, placed a baroque forged grate there with a baroquized statue of the Madonna (originally, the statue had been probably situated above the entry into the monastery).

In connection with the radical enlargement of the monastery space and the construction of the church on Zelená hora hill, a noble academy was established directly within the monastery premises. Santini designed both a layout of its main building as well as the stable building of a particularly clear architectural style. The ground floor building is oriented in parallel with the convent shrine and it was a representation area in spirit of the noble culture of that time. The impressive artistic philosophy also corresponds with this culture, especially in the design of the intricate structure of the roof vault.

In addition to the stable building, Santini designed a number of other farm buildings for the Žďár monastery. Beside the farmyard built on a ground plan of a musical instrument - a lyre, it was also a monastery tavern U Tří hvězd (Three Stars), a hospital built on a ground plan of an isosceles cross and a preserved roadside inn in Ostrov nad Oslavou symbolically built on a ground plan of the letter W - the first letter of the name of the monastery Abbot Václav Vejmluva.

The peak new building closing the area between the Gothic part of the monastery, the original old abbey and the reconstructed convent church is the monastery prelature building and its entry wing. The baroque building was drawn up as an octahedron went along with a couple of lower wings above the rectangular ground plans. The half storey pavilion roofing unambiguously corresponds with the time character. The high windows ended with accentuated circle embossments evoke some forms brought from the Italian models, for example in the façade of the castle in Chlumec nad Cidlinou. The supreme relation of the walls mass and the façade and the window apertures gains an extraordinary expression. In the interior of the building, mainly the hall main staircase is fascinating as well as the large fresco painting of heavenly glory of the Cistercians by Töpper dominating the large hall.

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