Hello friends! Today on our Czech Republic Prague streets 4k walk, we will be traveling from Old Town Square towards the Convent of St. Agnes, where the National Gallery Prague is now located.

The Convent in Na Františku Street, historically a highly valued monasterial edifice and one of the oldest Gothic structures in Prague, bears the name of its foundress, the Premyslid Princess St Agnes of Bohemia (canonized 1989). Agnes the Premyslid (probably 1211⁠–⁠1282) founded this convent/monastery of the Orders of Poor Clares and Friars Minor with the support of her royal family in the 1230s. It was not long before she entered it and became its Abbess.
The Convent in Na Františku Street was the first combined monastery-convent of Poor Clares and Friars Minor north of the Alps, but it was also built as a burial place for the Premyslid family. It became a site of royal coronations and burials ⁠and the final resting place of St Agnes of Bohemia.
The Convent’s significance did not diminish after Agnes’ death; the Luxembourg royal family revered it, too. The nuns inhabited it until the beginning of the Hussite wars in the 15th century and returned after the wars seeking to restore it. Its takeover by the Dominicans in the Rudolfine period (late 16th ⁠–⁠ early 17th century) was another era in the Convent’s history ⁠–⁠ the male section of the Friars Minor ceased to exist, and the Convent’s lands were sold and gradually developed into a new urban quarter. The Dominicans eventually left the Convent, and the Poor Clares returned but could not stop the Convent’s decay. Emperor Josef II abolished the Convent in 1782 and sold it at auction.
The dilapidated Convent, which was leased for various purposes, faced demolition. The sanitation plan for Prague in the late 19th century was the last to propose it, but as the Convent was an important site, it escaped this fate. Starting in the early 20th century, the Convent was gradually documented, researched, and repaired. Despite its troubled history, the core of its unique layout has been preserved. The Convent was proclaimed a national heritage site in the 1970s and, after a lengthy reconstruction, was opened to the public in the 1980s. The history of its individual structures can be seen on a self-guided interior and exterior tour.

The Old Town Square is the oldest and most important square in historical Prague. It is surrounded by historical buildings such as the Old Town City Hall with the famous Astronomical Clock, the imposing St. Nicholas Church and Church of Our Lady before Tyn, and many houses and palaces of various architectural styles and colorful history. It has been a center of Prague Old Town since the middle ages when it was a marketplace crossing European merchants’ roads. The first houses were built around the Old Town Square in the 12 and 13 centuries. Some present homes still have Romanesque or Gothic foundations, basements, or ground floors. The Old Town City Hall was built in the 14 century and the Church of Our Lady before Tyn a little later. The Old Town Square became Prague Old Town’s economic and political center.

Recorded in 4k 60fps HDR
Perception Philosophy © 2022
14 of June 2022
Czech Republic ASMR

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