Old Town Bridge Tower by F. A. Heber - Prague, Czech Republic
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ToRo61
N 50° 05.161 E 014° 24.884
33U E 458131 N 5548359
Old Town Bridge Tower by F. A. Heber
Waymark Code: WMV2PQ
Location: Hlavní město Praha, Czechia
Date Posted: 02/13/2017
Views: 43
The Old Town Bridge Tower is one of the most beautiful Gothic gateways in the world. The tower, along with Charles Bridge, was built by Emperor Charles IV according to designs by Petr Parlér in the mid-14 th century.
The passage through the gate, vaulted via a Gothic arch, is 8 metres wide, and there are remains of Gothic painting on its vault, completed by Petr Maixner in 1877 - 78. The tracery vault of the passage is divided into 8 fields by the ribs, which again depict the kingfisher in “veník”. In the lower part, there is a spa girl with a pail in her hand - a reminder of the legend of a barber girl named Zuzana, who rescued king Václav IV from the neighbouring spa, where he was washing himself when he was imprisoned there.
In the passage, there is a spiral staircase with 138 steps leading into the tower. The column around which the staircase is winding is concluded by a statue of a tower keeper at the top, which dates back to the 1450s. There probably used to be a guard room on the first floor, from where an iron grille would be lowered to close the gate. The second floor was used as a prison for debtors from better-situated families, and it has a new-Gothic ceiling from 1880, realized according to a design of architect Jan Schöbl. The windows are decorated with stained glass according to the boards of Jirí Bink. The tower is approximately 47 metres high; the roof with the gallery is approximately 18 m high.
The author this painting is František Alexandr Heber (
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F. A. Heber was a merchant and amateur historian, author of heptamerous book 'Böhmens Burgen, Vesten und Bergschlösser' in which first systematically described and documented Czech castles and fortresses.
'Ceské hrady, zámky a tvrze západní Cechy' (
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