Kutná Hora, Part 3: St. Barbara's Church

After two intervening stops in Sedlec (see my previous posts), my party finally made its way into Kutná Hora proper, with the final destination of St. Barbara's Church.

Again, a real place, not Hogwarts.

First, though, we stopped for an indifferent lunch and got a little lost navigating the medieval city streets trying to find the church.  Kutná Hora started as the small monastic community at Sedlec, but soon, miners discovered a rich silver deposit in the mountains, and Kutná Hora became a boom town. From roughly 1300-1550, the city rivalled Prague in stature and wealth, and the historic city center, which is also on the UNESCO World Heritage list, testifies to this power. The city survived wars and plagues, but when the main silver mine flooded in 1546, the city's moment ended. Though the mining continued in a smaller way for some time, the town never regained its status. For any visitor who comes to enjoy the time-travel effect its winding streets and old buildings convey, this is likely a good thing.

Beside St. Barbara's is the Jesuit College, a Baroque beauty which houses a contemporary art museum. Because sure!

The courtyard of the Italian Court, once the mint for the city. Again, real place.

To the right, the Jesuit College. In front, St. Barbara's. To the left, the steep mountain side, with a gallery of statues.
And the back of my flatmate's head.

As you may have guessed from the photographs--and the name Hora, which means "mountain"--Kutná Hora is a mountain/hill town (Czech mountains aren't really *that* mountainous). If you go, which I *highly* suggest you do if you're in Czechia for more than 3 or 4 days, prepare either to do a lot of walking up and down hills, or set aside a (very) few dollars to take the various forms of transit which connect the various points of interest in Sedlec and Kutná Hora. It's walkable, but it's about 45 minutes, and not always the easiest or prettiest walk. As I mentioned, we got lost a little, but that allowed us to find the trails and paths across a small stream and valley from the city center, from which I took some of the pictures above. So, that was nice.

Anyway, on to the church!

No, the church isn't crooked; the photographer is just bad at this.

Not crooked, but off-center! Also, notice the lack of symmetry on the windows.

St. Barbara is the patron saint of miners, so when the wealthy folks of  Kutná Hora decided in the late 1300s to throw a lot of money at a new, grand, cathedral-style church for the town, St. Barbara was the obvious choice as patron. The original plan was for the church to be perhaps twice as big as it currently is, but it had to be scaled back. Indeed, the church wasn't officially "completed" until 1905, and it underwent several revisions, as it were, along the way, especially on the interior. The front wall shown in the photos, in fact, was added near the end of the building process, perhaps just to be done with it. The most recent (and last?) addition to the church was a stained glass window of St. Agnes of Bohemia, added in 2014 to take the place of the last window that was intended to be stained glass but wasn't.

Speaking of stained glass...

As at St. Vitus' Cathedral in Prague Castle, the stained glass windows at St. Barbara's were added over centuries, so they reflect a wide range of styles, much like the rest of the interior, which combines original Gothic elements, Renaissance, Baroque, and neo-Gothic, to quite splendid effect.

Looking from the back. Notice the hats--it is always quite cold in these places.

From the mid-point back. The Baroque organ coverings depict a sort of heavenly orchestra.

The impressively vaulted ceiling contains crests from families and groups that contributed to the building costs. 

Now, if it were just a lovely church, well-appointed, there wouldn't be much to separate St. Barbara's from numerous other churches in Bohemia, or even in Kutná Hora, where St. James' Church a few blocks away is quite impressive, as well. However, St. Barbara's has, at a minimum, three things that make it truly special. The first is its architecture, with its famous three-peaked roof. My pictures of the exterior of the church are sorely lacking, but fortunately, it's one of the most-photographed places in the country outside of Prague.

Whether it's cloudy...

Or sunny...

Or dark...

In any conditions, the church stands as a unique, and kinda weird structure. Weird in a beautiful way, to be sure, but it's hard to think of anything else quite like the overall impression St. Barbara's gives. It's almost as if it's not quite right or real somehow. 

The second thing which makes St. Barbara's so cool is the access to the interior gallery. From here, you can get some pretty cool shots of both the flying buttresses through the windows and the crests and interesting supporting beam designs on the ceiling.

As at the Church of Our Lady in Sedlec, this higher view also allows you to get a better sense of just how massive the space inside the church is.

My favorite thing about St. Barbara's, however, were the Gothic frescoes that adorn some of the chapel walls. I stan for Gothic art (like at Emmaus Monastery), and I immediately gravitated toward the examples here.

Unicorns were very big in Medieval Europe.

The frescoes adorn the chapels behind the main alter, built in the earliest phases of construction by local families who contributed large sums of money to have their own space to worship, and to bury their dead. Giving money to a church such as this was a religious act in the sort of transactional Catholicism which flourished before the Protestant Reformation, so wealthy families were constantly supporting religious building. These chapels are the equivalent of having your name on the wing of a hospital or lab building at a university, except instead of just prestige, you also got into Heaven.

No unicorns on this side...

Overall, St. Barbara's was the definite highlight of the trip to Kutná Hora for all of us, so we ended our day with the best part. As a whole, the historic center of Kutná Hora felt like historic Prague without all the cheap touristy stuff, to be blunt. There were plenty of restaurants and whatnot, but Kutná Hora is clearly hoping to attract tourists who are more interested in history, architecture, and art than in getting drunk on fake absinthe. I can't wait to get back (in slightly better weather), to explore the city more fully, see the things we didn't, and spend some more time learning and lingering at St. Barbara's.

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