Vrtba Palace

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Palace (right) and studio of the painter Mikoláš Aleš (left)
Entrance to the garden
Vrtba garden, partial view

The Palais Vrtba (Czech: Vrtbovský palác ) in Prague is a multi-bladed, originally in the Renaissance built style, but rebuilt several times over the centuries city palace . It is located at Karmelitská 25 (corner of Tržiště), a few meters south of the Lesser Quarter Ring and today contains rental and owner-occupied apartments.

Building history

Sezima z Vrtby , who had been raised to the rank of count in 1624, had two neighboring townhouses combined and redesigned to form a palace in the style of the late Renaissance from 1627 to 1631. The north of the two houses, built in 1591 by the important Prague architect Ulrico Aostalli (Oldřich Aostalis), he had acquired in 1623 from the confiscation estate of Baron Kristov Harant (1546–1621), who had been executed for participating in the Bohemian uprising against the Habsburgs . The house had served scholars, writers, composers and others from Harant’s large circle of acquaintances as a meeting place and place to stay in Prague. The southern house, built in 1575, was bought by Count Vrtba in 1627. The bastion of the former Újezd ​​Gate (Újezdská brána) was also included in the complex as a rectangular Gothic building with thick walls in the northern corner of the second inner courtyard. The palace complex has an irregular floor plan and consists of four courtyards and a number of wings of different sizes and heights.

Vrtba garden

The small lane between the two buildings remained after the renovation as a passage into the palace grounds and today provides access to the magnificent Vrtba Garden ( Vrtbovská zahrada ), one of the most important and most beautiful baroque gardens in Prague and in Europe north of the Alps. The garden, now owned by the city of Prague, was in the years 1715-1720 for Sezimas grandson, Jan Josef z Vrtby (1669-1734), Viscount of Prague by the Czech architect and builder František Maximilian Kaňka on the lower slopes of the hill Petřín immediately created below the palace after he first redesigned the palace himself. The garden contains sculptures by Matthias Bernhard Braun and in the Sala terrena , which connects the palace and the garden, frescoes by Václav Vavřinec Reiner . The stucco work was done by Tomasi Soldati . All four were among the outstanding artists of their time. The three-storey garden contains boldly curved flights of stairs, symmetrically planted terraces connected with balustrades , and a viewing platform with a beautiful view of Prague's Lesser Town and St. Nicholas Church and the Hradschin . The garden was extensively renovated between 1990 and 1998 and is open to the public in summer.

Later use

Former studio of the painter Mikoláš Aleš

The Vrtba sold the palace to Dr. Johann Mayer, imperial personal physician, who soon afterwards had it extensively expanded by the Prague court architect Joseph Zobel and redesigned in the classical style. During this phase the new west and south wings of the north building and the four staircases were built. As early as 1807 a new owner was mentioned again, Charles Chorobinci. In 1836 the merchant KJ Barth bought the palace, which he converted into a tenement house. One of the pavilions later served as a studio for the Czech painter Mikoláš Aleš , who lived with his family from 1886 to 1898 in an apartment on the first floor of the wing facing the courtyard. The ownership of the palace, which was now used as a tenement house, subsequently changed several times, and further structural changes were carried out on the street side in 1911/12.

After the end of the Second World War , the palace, which had previously been privately owned by Germany and initially served as accommodation for the displaced, was expropriated and transferred to Czechoslovak state ownership. The Czechoslovak Foreign Policy Institute occupied the first floor. A spacious and representative 7-room apartment on the ground floor with antique furniture and paintings was used by the institute's social club and was the site of many night-long carousing works, in which furniture, the house and the garden were badly damaged. In order to prevent drunk guests from climbing over the fence to the neighboring American embassy, ​​it had to be reinforced and raised by barbed wire. It was only after years of complaints from other tenants, the “Friends of the Lesser Town” and the “Association for Old Prague”, that the lease of the club, which had high-ranking guests, was finally canceled.

renovation

In the 1990s the palace and garden were renovated. New paving stones designed by the architect Ivan Brezina were laid in the courtyard. During the inspection of the preserved facades, Renaissance sgraffiti were found and partially exposed in the first courtyard; the others were left under the plaster for protection. Above the main portal was a picture of the Virgin Mary with saints painted on tin. The street facades got their historical street signs and dormer windows back. A copy of the statue of Atlas with the globe was placed at the entrance to the garden.

literature

Web links

Commons : Vrtba Palais and Gardens  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 5 ′ 12.5 ″  N , 14 ° 24 ′ 12.1 ″  E