Cathedral of St Vitus-Chapel of St Adalbert
Prague 1-Prague Castle
Last quarter of the 16th century

Today it is difficult to imagine what the process of new construction at the Prague Castle was like in the 16th century. The ruler could have a dual role here: either "sui generis", the direct investor, patron (which was the case with the Royal Palace), or as a sponsor who contributed to buildings but was not the sole financier (evidently the case with sacred buildings). In the castle accounts we find an expense of 150 talers in 1576 (the first year of Rudolf's reign) for renovation of the oratory in St Vitus's Cathedral. The emperor also financed renovation of the cathedral clock in 1587 and 1602, and the monogram R with a small crown, golden fleece and two palm sprigs (?) above the window of the bell tower perhaps has to do with his support. The gilded window grill is also considered to be a Rudolfine work. At the beginning of his reign Rudolf II contributed 135 scores of Czech groschen to the construction of the St Adalbert Chapel-a new sanctuary above the tomb of the Czech national saint. In about the same period Empress Marie, Rudolf's mother, also donated 300 gold pieces for it. To get a sense of the value of these amounts we can compare them to the price of the castrum doloris for the emperor, ephemeral mourning architecture in the cathedral, for which Rudolf paid almost 800 talers, or the black cloth to drape the cathedral walls and to clothe two hundred poor people, which came to 3857 talers, i.e. much higher amounts. The funds for the chapel were administered by archbishop Antonín Brus of Mohelnice, so he was probably the one to choose its type. The Prague archbishop participated in the Council of Trent, and had an opportunity to familiarise himself with its views about sacred architecture, and could also be inspired directly by the facade in the construction of the Trent Church of Santa Maria Maggiore. At the time, the head builder of the Prague Castle, Bonifác Wohlmut, worked for the archbishop, and the castle master mason, Ulrico Aostalli, was also involved, as documented in the accounts. Although the building has relatively small internal dimensions (roughly 7,5 x 10 meters, or 4 x 5 and 2/6 fathoms, and the height, including the crowning cornice, is also 4 fathoms), it has a fascinating high order of Tuscan-Doric pilasters, which delineate space for monumental, shallow niches. The combination of niches and pilasters brings to mind another Wohlmut castle building, the somewhat older Large Ball Games Hall in the Royal Garden. The floor plan is an advanced feature, an elongated decagon, classifying the chapel among memorial cinquecento buildings for which theoreticians especially recommended centralising layouts. Compared to a classical concentric layout, this is an elongated, dynamised form, fitting the post-Classical, Mannerist aesthetic. Of course, one of the architectural elements of the chapel, the main portal, was also important for Prague. This was a segmented aedicule, where the gable did not rest on column or pilaster supports, but only on segments of the wall, emphasised by geometric plates, reminiscent in the lower part of pilasters and in the upper of two spandrels, meeting at the peak of the semi-circle not in a voussoir, but in a tondo. Because this apparatus was statically inadequate, two standard voluted consoles at the edges of the portal helped to carry the gable. Thus, a type was created which later spread both in Prague and in central Bohemia (the church in Hospozín). But it is precisely by comparison with later derivatives that the unusual elegance and grace of the castle portal forms arises.The chapel was destroyed during the Neo-Gothic completion of the cathedral, when Adalbert's grave shifted to roughly the middle of today's main nave. Czech Renaissance architecture thus lost an important developmental link which would help to vividly and convincingly show in the Castle the organic genesis of Rudolfine architecture from domestic tradition and the uninterrupted continuity created by Ulrico Aostalli, who had already worked in Prague for Rudolf's father Maxmilian.

Architect Ulrico Aostalli
Patron Maxmilian II, Rudolf II, Antonín Brus of Mohelnice
Location Prague 1-Prague Castle