St. John of Nepomuk on Charles Bridge / Sv. Jan Nepomucký na Karlove moste (Prague)
N 50° 05.202 E 014° 24.615
33U E 457810 N 5548437
The statue of Czech Catholic martyr, St. John of Nepomuk (In Czech: Socha Sv. Jana Nepomuckého) is the oldest statue on the Charles Bridge in Prague. The stamp was issued in the 600 years anniversary of the Saint's death.
Waymark Code: WM6FHR
Location: Hlavní město Praha, Czechia
Date Posted: 05/26/2009
Views: 292
The statue of Czech Catholic martyr, St. John of Nepomuk is the oldest statue on the Charles Bridge. It was made by Jan Brokoff in 1683. It is made of bronze and it became an obligatory iconographic model for many other statues of this saint made in Bohemia and abroad.
St. John of Nepomuk was a parson, who refused to betray a secret, confided to him by Queen Sophia, to the king Wenceslas IV. He was tortured on the king´s demand and then thrown to the river Vltava from the Charles Bridge in 1393. The inseparable attributes of St. John of Nepomuk statue are the five stars, a surplice, a cross and a martyr´s palm tree. The five stars allegedly appeared above the river, after the martyr was thrown there. They are supposed to symbolize the five letters of Latin word "tacet", which means "silent".