Basilica of Sts Peter and Paul & the Devil's Column
Why is it significant?
Look up at the two openwork spires of the basilica, needle-sharp against the sky, and then look down at the grass near the church. There, behind a low rail, lie three chunky pieces of stone, broken from a single column. Prague calls them the Devil's Column. The legend goes like this.
Key Facts
| Place | Basilica of Sts Peter and Paul & the Devil's Column |
|---|---|
| Address | K Rotundě 10, 128 00 Praha 2, Czechia |
| Geo Coordinates | 50.06430, 14.41910 |
| Part of Walk | Vyšehrad: Princess Libuše, Cubist Houses and the Nation's Cemetery in Prague |
| Generated | Generated |
Look up at the two openwork spires of the basilica, needle-sharp against the sky, and then look down at the grass near the church. There, behind a low rail, lie three chunky pieces of stone, broken from a single column. Prague calls them the Devil's Column.
The legend goes like this. A priest of Vyšehrad, deep in sin, made a wager with the devil: if the devil could bring a column from Saint Peter's in Rome before the priest finished saying mass, the priest's soul was his. The devil flew off. But Saint Peter, the patron of this very church, took pity on the priest and ducked the devil three times in the sea on his way back. When the devil arrived, soaked and too late, he hurled the column at the church in fury. It smashed through the roof and broke into three pieces... and here they lie.
Historians are less dramatic. The stones may be the remains of an older building, or even part of a giant sundial. But Praguers have never let mere geology spoil a good story, and children are still brought here to count the pieces.
The basilica itself is far older than it looks. King Vratislav II founded a great church to Saints Peter and Paul here in the 1070s, and it was rebuilt again and again: Romanesque, Gothic, baroque. The building you see today is the work of the late nineteenth century, when the Czech national revival wanted its holy hill to look properly medieval. The two spires were only finished in 1903. Inside, the walls are covered in Art Nouveau paintings of saints and flowers, a surprise behind such a severe Gothic face.
For centuries, this basilica was the church of the Vyšehrad chapter, one of the most powerful clerical bodies in Bohemia, and it was the canons of the chapter who, in the nineteenth century, turned their small parish graveyard into something much greater. Walk round to the side of the basilica and through the gate into the cemetery. Speak a little more quietly there.