Art History Faculty Lecture | Alice Klima

Reform and Peace at the Prague Cathedral Royal Oratory

Alice Klima, Instructor of Art History

Image: Royal Oratory, St. Vitus Cathedral Prague, Czech Republic, attributed to Benedikt Ried and Hans Spiess, c. 1500. Photo courtesy of Alice Klima.

During the first half of the 15th century, the Bohemian kingdom was marked by war and political turmoil provoked by Pre-Protestant reforms. From mid-century attempts to restore peace and prosperity were frequently hindered by disputes over the role of the king, growing power of the nobility, and disagreements over royal succession. Only after the election of a new king, the Catholic Jagiellon Vladislav in 1471, did the kingdom turn a corner.

The Prague Royal Oratory, built c. 1500, transforms a cathedral chapel bay into a tree-branch pergola composed of intersecting sculpted branches tied together with fictive rope. Entwined within branchwork, or astwerk, the sculptors exhibited political alliances through a parade of coats of arms, references to early modern Vitruvian theories on the primitive hut as well as symbolic nods to the Hussite and Catholic factions. The stunning oratory represented the king and kingdom and heralded the new peace within the Prague Cathedral sacred space.