St Nicholas, Prague

 

After the Thirty Years War the Jesuits were given space in the Mala Strana and they started their convent building there in 1665 and in 1673 the foundations of a  church. Work stopped for unknown reasons and by 1703 was proceeding again to a plan, almost certainly by Krystof Dientdenhofer. By 1711 the nave had vaults and then work stopped again. 

The nave  CC By-SA 3.0 Jorge Royan

The nave is 85 feet long and 45 broad divided into three bays flanked by deep recessed chapels.The basic Vorarlberg wall pillar design is there. But there is a crucial difference :the pillars are given a sloping edge at 45 degrees and the pilasters aligned at this angle on the faces so formed. Also the pilasters are doubled and superimposed. The pillars therefore become sculptural and above the gallery swings from pier to pier, These effects are continued across the organ gallery to form a continuous curvy movement around the interior of the nave. There is controversy over the influence of Guarini and in particular engravings of his Church of Divine providence in Lisbon are cited. We cannot check out the latter because it was destroyed in the 1755 earthquake. The nave vault at St Nicholas has ribs in three dimensions and instead these may be derived from the late Gothic of churches like St Barbara at Kutna Hora.

There is a dynamism in the facade : the three bays go concave convex concave but on the ground level the larger central section is cut away to frame pairs of columns and on the upper storeys is pushed back. Maybe it is derived from Borromini's San Carlo alle Quatro Fontane in Rome.

Plan by Planetware

Christoph died in 1722 before his designs for the choir and tower could be done. His son Kilian had to do it 1737-53. He decided to use all the available space at the choir end and his solution is much grander than the originals by his father. The sacristy behind the high altar was abandoned and an oval one put on the left side of the hih altar and the right hand side is used the base of the huge tower. The central  area under the dome  has three apse like arms coming from it. The piers supporting the dome have coupled columns protruding into the space crowned with sculptures. With the great structure of the high altar these columns, pilasters, sculptures they almost make the wall surface disappear. It is an overwhelming effect and leads the eye upward to seek rest in the dome. Above the entablature below the drum windows are separated by slender columns and figures. 

Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 Ludek

The final great change involved the frescos by Johann Lukas Kracker. His great fresco in the nave is one of the finest Baroque ceilings north of the Alps. Christoph's ribbed vaults were plastered over to create a smooth undulating surface. Across a blue sky St Nicholas is carried up to Heaven by the angels. 

Apotheosis of St Nicholas  CC

This was the most ambitious Jesuit Church in Central Europe. Kilian had taken his father's achievement even further. "But his true monument is the setting...of the dome and the tower, completed last of all. From every angle they seem inevitable, indispensable; yet this is the last great accent the left bank town received, By itself the fat pilastered mass of the dome would float unanchored in that buffeting sea of tiles; by itself the tower with its fanciful Chinese-looking cap would seem merely to strive for notice with the rest. Together they make the pivot upon which silently the city turns." Brian Knox "The architecture of Prague and Bohemia. (Faber, 1962.)