St. Vitus Cathedral

Interesting facts

The Zikmund bell in the great south tower, cast by Tomáš Jaroš in 1549, weighs about 16.5 tonnes and is the largest bell in the Czech Republic.

Ringing Zikmund takes six people: four to swing the bell and two to handle its clapper.

The chamber of the Bohemian crown jewels is locked with seven keys, traditionally held by seven officials including the president and the archbishop.

Mucha's window of Saints Cyril and Methodius was paid for by the Slavia bank, and the artist worked the bank's emblem, a female figure of Slavia, into the design.

For decades church and state fought in court over who owned the cathedral; the dispute ended only with a 2010 agreement on joint administration.

A new great organ with 122 stops and 5,755 pipes was completed in 2026, replacing an instrument built in 1929–31.

The paintings of the life of St Wenceslaus in his chapel date from 1506–1509, more than a century after the Passion cycle beneath them.

Why it is worth it

St Vitus Cathedral, formally dedicated to Saints Vitus, Wenceslaus and Adalbert, is the seat of the Archbishop of Prague and the largest and most important church in the Czech Republic. It stands inside Prague Castle, 124 m long with a main tower 102.8 m high, and holds the tombs of Bohemian kings and Holy Roman emperors. It is the third church on the spot: Duke Wenceslaus founded a rotunda here around 930, after obtaining a relic of St Vitus, and a Romanesque basilica followed.

The Gothic cathedral was begun on 21 November 1344, when Prague became an archbishopric, and was driven by Charles IV, who wanted a coronation church, a royal burial place and a shrine for St Wenceslaus. The first architect, Matthias of Arras, came from the papal palace at Avignon and built in a strict French manner; after his death in 1352 the 23-year-old Peter Parler took over and changed Gothic architecture with his net vaults of doubled diagonal ribs, his inventive window tracery and the portrait busts in the triforium, which include himself. The Hussite wars stopped construction, and for almost four centuries the cathedral stood half-finished, with a temporary wall closing the transept. It was only completed in 1929, for the Wenceslaus millennium, with a neo-Gothic nave and west front built by Josef Mocker and Kamil Hilbert.

Three places deserve time. The Chapel of St Wenceslaus, built by Parler in 1356–64, has walls set with more than 1,300 semi-precious stones and 14th-century paintings of the Passion; it can be seen from the doorways, and a small door with seven locks leads from it to the chamber where the Bohemian crown jewels are kept. In the south ambulatory is the monumental silver tomb of St John of Nepomuk from 1736, designed by Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach. And in the north side of the nave is a stained-glass window designed by Alfons Mucha, a highlight of the 20th-century glazing along with the rose window depicting the Creation, designed by František Kysela in 1925–27. Outside, the Golden Gate on the south transept, through which kings entered for coronation, carries a mosaic of the Last Judgement.

Getting there

The cathedral stands inside the Prague Castle complex on the hill above the Vltava. Václav Havel Airport Prague (PRG) is about 10 km away.

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Saints Vitus, Wenceslaus and Adalbert is a Catholic metropolitan cathedral in Prague, and the seat of the Archbishop of Prague. Until 1997, the cathedral was dedicated only to Saint Vitus, and is still commonly named only as St. Vitus Cathedral.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia