Mala Strana and Church of St. Nicholas

Crammed between Petrin Hill, Castle hill, and the west side of Vltava River in Prague’s Mala Strana which translates into Little Town. You can very easily reach the area from within the park if you head northeast towards Malostranské námestí (Mala Strana’s Square) or east towards the river banks.

Mala Strana was formally established when King Ottokar II (from 1253 to 1278, under his reign the Premyslid dynasty reached its height) merged several pre-existing settlements into one administrative unit which was given royal privileges and the name of Nové Mesto pod Pražským hradem (New Town beneath the Prague Castle) a name which was changed into Menší Mesto (Lesser Town) when Emperor Charles IV founded the New Town of Prague in 1348.

The name Mala Strana (more accurately translated into Little Side or Quarter) was widely used after the 17th century. It was under Charles IV that the defensive wall surrounding Mala Strana was built. It was named Hunger Wall because at the time of its construction it provided livelihood to many workers that were previously faced with famine. A respectable part of it (about 1.2 km) still stands today behind the mirror maze building at Petrin Hill for example.

Mala Strana’s heart is of course its central square Malostranské námestí with its renowned Baroque Church of St. Nicholas (Kostel svatého Mikuláše). This masterpiece of architecture is considered one of the finest examples of Baroque north of the Alps.

The construction started in 1703 and lasted approximately one hundred years, with three generations of great Baroque architects – father, son, and son-in-law – working on the church. It was built on the site of an older Gothic Parish Church also dedicated to St. Nicholas that had stood there from 1283.

The construction was funded by the Jesuits who had already built a college at the center of the square in 1673. The former Jesuit college currently houses the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University in Prague.

The Gothic parish church was demolished along with a nearby Romanesque Rotunda of St Wenceslas (built in memory of the miracle that occurred during the transfer of Wenceslas’ body from Stará Boleslav to Prague Castle according to medieval legends), twelve houses and a school, to make way for the ambitious Jesuit church.

The church’s massive dome (20 meters in diameter, 57 meters high inside, 70 meters on the outside) and slender belfry (both 79 meters high) along with the equal-in-height clock tower cast their shadows on the square that is split into the upper and lower parts by the church.

Its interior is by far more impressive than its exterior. Here, the architect Ignác Dientzenhofer demonstrated his mastery of perhaps all of the expressional resources offered by the Baroque style to emphasize the overall aesthetic effect. The contrast between the dark dome and the bright light from the lantern, the four larger-than-life-sized statues of the Eastern Church Fathers below the cupola, and a gold-plated statue of St Nicholas above the main altar.

The fresco depicting the open heavens in which Christ and the Holy Father are glorified by a choir of saints covers the surface of the dome, the grand ceiling painting of the Apotheosis of St Nicholas, the largest of its type in Europe, an outstanding series of ten paintings on the subject of The Passion of Christ by Karel Škréta.

Finally, the church’s main organ with 4,000 pipes and up to six meters in length that W.A. Mozart played during his stay in Prague, is probably too much for just one building. But then this is not “just one building”. You can also climb up its bell tower from the side of its entrance which offers a great panoramic view of Mala Strana or even attend one of its very frequent concerts.