Franciscan Garden & Our Lady of the Snows
Why is it significant?
Walk in through the gate and the noise of Wenceslas Square simply switches off. Rose beds, clipped hedges, benches, a little fountain, and above the wall a church so tall and so oddly short that it looks as if somebody built the head of a giant and forgot the body.
Key Facts
| Place | Franciscan Garden & Our Lady of the Snows |
|---|---|
| Address | Jungmannovo náměstí 18, 110 00 Praha 1, Czechia |
| Geo Coordinates | 50.08240, 14.42370 |
| Part of Walk | Wenceslas Square to the Dancing House: Prague's Century of Revolutions, 1918–1989 |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk in through the gate and the noise of Wenceslas Square simply switches off. Rose beds, clipped hedges, benches, a little fountain, and above the wall a church so tall and so oddly short that it looks as if somebody built the head of a giant and forgot the body.
That is almost exactly what happened. In 1347 the emperor Charles IV founded the church of Our Lady of the Snows to mark his coronation, and planned it to be larger than Saint Vitus Cathedral at the Castle. Only the choir was ever finished. Even so, its vault rises around thirty-three metres, the highest church interior in Prague.
Seventy years later, this church had a different fame. Its preacher, Jan Želivský, led a procession from here in July 1419 to the New Town Hall, where the crowd threw the councillors out of the windows. That first defenestration lit the fuse of the Hussite wars. Prague has always had a habit of settling things by window.
The garden itself belongs to the friars, the Franciscans who came here around 1604 and planted herbs and vegetables behind these walls. In April 1950 the Communist state raided the monasteries of the whole country in a single night and sent the monks to internment. The garden was opened to the public, a little park carved out of a confiscated cloister. After 1989, the Franciscans came back, and the garden stayed open... a rare case of the regime's leftovers turning out to be a gift.
Sit for a minute and look up at that impossible wall of a church. It has survived Hussites, Swedes, Habsburgs, Nazis and Communists, and it is still, after almost seven centuries, waiting for its missing nave. Now leave by the far side, cross Jungmannovo náměstí and follow Národní třída, National Avenue, towards the river. Halfway along, under an arcade, look for a group of bronze hands.