A Prague Summer Snow ... on June 28

After my News class today (in which we did TV script creations, and mine was very well received ... all 40 seconds of it. Also, I am getting progressively better at the News Quiz we usually get every class - that seems to happen when you actually CHECK the news regularly ... huh!), I went to the Jungmannova Namesti (Jungmann Square) area to complete my A+A homework for the Gothic Period.


I was to locate, and locating it was actually PART of the task I later found out, the Church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows. It is just a smidge difficult to find, as I frustratingly found out. Well, let me clarify - - I was able to FIND the cathedral (it is quite hard to miss, being a cathedral and all) ... but finding the ENTRANCE to it was another matter entirely.


I fairly easily located the portal to the old monastery, which is now gated and locked, above which is the Gothic tympanum that I needed to discuss in my homework. I studied the tympanum for a while, and took some pics as well.

Said portal with tympanum above it ... note the padlock on the gate - not getting in to the church that way!

A close-up of the tympanum ... which is meant to represent both The Mystery of The Trinity, as well as the Coronation of the Virgin Mary. However, there is also a Paradise theme - - and two imporant Czechs in the lower corners too ... Charles IV and John of Luxemborg. I'm a little confused on this piece, as the research I did was translated and therefore was a little hard to understand - and I only spent a few minutes chatting with my teach about it. However, I do know that this is in a hieratic format - - the more important you are the higher up in the image you are ... you know, like hierarchy.

So, after I contemplated the tympanum - I went looking for the way in to the church. Basically, I circumnavigated the ENTIRE building - - by keeping it in sight and walking around it, looking for the damn entrance!

Now, this may not sound like a terribly frustrating or arduous task - - but keep in mind that buildings have been built up AROUND the cathedral ... so I ended up wandering in through several Medieval portal-tunnels, and into courtyards that did NOT lead to the church.

And the size of this church's property is great too ... did I mention that? I mean, this is no neighborhood church - - it is HUGE, and also has many outer buildings as well as a rose garden (and a fabulous one at that I might add).

Soooo ... maybe I have made my point that my trying to locate the entrance was NOT just a matter of walking around a "normal" sized church to find the door - - more like walking around the Prudential Center in Boston (comparison in footprint mind, not height).

OK, I'm done with that rant now. Here are some of the images I got on my FIRST trip to the Church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows ... yes, I had to go BACK once I had asked my teach how the *@!#* to get in!!

The Church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows, as seen from the its Rose Garden. Note the Gothic pointed arched windows, and the sheer verticality of the building - which shows they had moved out of the shorter, stouter and heavier Romanesque buildings. What I love most about this image, is that you can see the light coming through the northern windows THROUGH the southern ones.

This is the entrance to the cathedral's Franciscan Rose Garden (so named for the friars that added it later). I don't have any pics of the garden itself this time around, because I didn't actually know it was PART of the church's property.

So, I went BACK to the Church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows after speaking to my A+A teacher - - who smirkingly noted that he purposely made the directions vague to see if we could find it. Nice!

OK ... so for the record, I almost freakin' circumnavigated the thing a 2nd time. I did spend a lovely time in the Rose Garden, now knowing it was part of the church - - - taking pics and trying various doors and portals, to no avail. Here ... see some lovely pics now.

One of the lovely corners of the Franciscan Rose Garden, added about 200 years after the cathedral was built in 1397.

More lovely rose'd trellis'

There were a LOT of roses ... red, pink and white.

A cropped shot of the gorgeous roses, I love how they grow in natural bouquets.

Oh, didn't you know ... this is the Blog of the Roses - but without all the angst from Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas, and of course the comedy of Danny DeVito.

;-}

Yeah, that's me ... tying things to movies, I do that.

But seriously, I wasn't allowed to take pics inside the cathedral (YES!!! I did actually make it INSIDE this place!) ... so I am sharing what I do have.

This is a cool shot, the Church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows as seen through one of her Franciscan Friar's rose bush ...

A wide-shot of the cathedral and Rose Garden.

So, at this point I had had enough of the damn roses ... and wanted to be done with my homework and was fully prepared to tell teach Chris that I tried my best, but was unable to locate the entrance.

So ... I left.

Or, in programme speak - - I let go and gave it to God ... and lo, She spoke unto me and bade me to turn my head as I was leaving the alley-like walkway that leads to the Rose Garden ...

And there it was. 

The entrance to the church. 

Mind you, I only stopped because I recognized the mosaic above the door because of the research I had already done ...

There she is, the Virgin Mary ... shown in a Throne of Wisdom pose.

A wide-shot of the entrance to the Church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows

Now some of you, the wise-ass ones I'm sure, might be looking at this and saying - "sheesh Ami, why couldn't you FIND that all the time you were looking for it?" ... so, allow me to retort.

As I have said many times, either here or in emails or via Skype, locating things is difficult in a Medieval city (and this IS still a city laid out in it's original Medieval format) - because of the frustrating (but yet oh so fabulous and cool and fun, assuming you aren't trying to locate something particular!) little portal-tunnels that lead to inner courtyards that invariably have several businesses in them, and these business' inside the courtyard have a "street address" of the building that surrounds the courtyard. Aargh!

So, in this case ... the building that surrounds the courtyard that actually contains the entrance to the cathedral is this HUGE bright-yellow neo-classical new thing - - that in NO way shape or form makes one think of a Gothic church, hence my complete un-exploration of it despite its proximity to the church itself.

It was as I was passing this wholly unattractive building, to my eye, that She spoke unto me and bade me turn my head and look in through the portal-tunnel ... and there it was!

A few of the statues in the courtyard outside the entrance to the church.

And those are all the images I have folks. So, on to the description and history of the Church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows.

As I walked in, and immediate sense of awe came over me ... not only due to the sheer height of the cathedral itself, nor the opulent decorations, nor the almost complete silence, nor the whispered mumblings of Latin prayers - but for the immenseness of the main altar.

The church is the highest in Prague, at 127 feet floor to vault. It was built in 1397 by Charles IV, and belonged to the Carmelite order of monks for almost 200 years before they left for lack of money to sustain the maintenance. The Franciscans took over for a short period, built the Rose Garden, and left for the same monetary reasons as the Carmelites. Necessary restoration was finally done in the early 1600's by a private benefactor ... who by an odd twist of fate was executed for murder a year after restoration was complete, but yet is buried in the tombs at the cathedral.

This church was one of the few that survived the reformations of Joseph II, and has been open to the public since the 1990's after being closed for 40 years under Communism.

I mentioned the enormous and overpowering altar ... it is also the largest in Prague, at approximately 108 feet high. It essentially takes up the ENTIRE rear wall of the church ... with just a little light peeking over the top from the tremendously tall and thin windows. I sketched it, though pretty roughly I might add.

Aside from the feelings of awe that entering one of the Medieval churches brings over me, the thing I loved the most was the painted half-columns along the walls between the windows. I haven't seen this before. They were subtle and soft paint jobs, abstract in nature - shapes really, in muted colors ... but they gave the whole place a warmer feeling. Maybe - just maybe mind - they were trying to mimic the color reflected through a stain-glass window on these half-columns.

Hmmmm.

Also, I suspect that some of you are wondering about the name of the church ... well, the story goes ... in the 4th century the Virgin Mary appeared to a Roman merchant in his dream and told him to build a temple of the place where the snow will lie in the morning. This confused the merchant, as it was summertime. Yet as he woke and explored, he found the Esquilinum Hill covered in snow. Following the saintly request, he built the Church of St Maria Maggiore there. The huge altar in the Prague church of the same name carries a painting that references this legend.

Well ... ladies and gents, that is it.

Considering what I got to see and experience inside the church, and outside as well, the effort of locating it was WELL worth it.

Here is a link to the two day's pics (note that the 2nd day will also be in tomorrow's blog, as it includes an A+A excursion to the Royal Gardens) ... Snow Day in Praha and Snow Day Two