“An architect built a pilgrimage church whose entire plan is composed of fives, for a saint with a five-starred crown, in a style he invented by combining Gothic structure with Baroque space. Nobody else built quite like this before or after him.”
About Saint John Of Nepomuk Church
Commissioned 1720 by the Žďár Cistercian abbot and designed by Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel in his signature Baroque-Gothic synthesis style. Built two years before the saint's canonization in 1729. UNESCO World Heritage Site 1994.
Overview
The Pilgrimage Church of Saint John of Nepomuk on Zelená hora, Green Mountain, near Žďár nad Sázavou is Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel's masterpiece: a Baroque-Gothic synthesis chapel built in 1722 on a hilltop in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands whose ground plan is composed entirely of fives, five-pointed stars, five-sided chapels, five aisles, as a reference to the five-starred crown of the saint it commemorates. It received UNESCO status it a World Heritage Site in 1994.
It received UNESCO status it a World Heritage Site in 1994.
Commissioned by King Wenceslas
Jan of Nepomuk was a fourteenth-century priest who was tortured and thrown from the Charles Bridge in Prague in 1393 by order of King Wenceslas IV, according to tradition for refusing to reveal the confessional secrets of the queen. He became a symbol of Catholic martyrdom under the Habsburgs' Counter-Reformation program and was canonized in 1729. The pilgrimage church was commissioned in 1720, two years before canonization, by the Cistercian abbot of the nearby Žďár monastery. Santini-Aichel, himself half Italian and half Czech, developed a style he called Baroque Gothic: Gothic structural elements like pointed arches and ribbed vaults combined with Baroque spatial dynamics and Baroque ornamentation. The Zelená hora church is the most complete realization of this style.
Visiting Pilgrimage Church of Saint John of Nepomuk
The church sits at the center of a cloister enclosure on the hilltop, which itself is enclosed within a wall creating a five-pointed star, the plan geometry is visible from aerial perspective but experienced at ground level as a series of curved and angled spaces. The chapel interior, narrow, high, and covered in white plaster with Gothic rib patterns, has a spatial quality unlike either conventional Baroque or conventional Gothic. The hilltop setting above the Bohemian-Moravian landscape adds a siting logic that connects the architecture to its devotional purpose. Zelená hora is 3 kilometers from Žďár nad Sázavou in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. Žďár is accessible by train from Brno (1.5 hours) and Prague (3 hours). The hilltop is a 30-minute walk from town or accessible by taxi.
The Experience
A hilltop cloister enclosure in five-pointed star geometry, enclosing a chapel interior of Gothic ribs and Baroque spatial dynamics, a building whose plan logic is invisible from ground level but physically present in every turn of the interior.
Why It Matters
Santini-Aichel's Baroque-Gothic is a unique architectural style with no real precedent or successor, and the Zelená hora church is its most complete expression, a building that requires a new category to describe.
Why Visit
The church is the only place to experience Santini-Aichel's Baroque-Gothic synthesis at its fullest development, a style so specific it effectively exists in a single building. The hilltop location and the five-pointed star plan make the visit as conceptual as it is aesthetic.
✦ Insider Tips
- 1
Study the floor plan before visiting, understanding the five-pointed star geometry makes the spaces legible as you move through them.
- 2
Walk the full cloister enclosure before entering the church to understand the outer plan.
- 3
The Žďár nad Sázavou Cistercian monastery in the town below is also Santini-Aichel's work and worth including on the same visit.
