Mariánské, Trojicní a další svetecké sloupy a pilíre - Central Bohemian Region, Czech Republic - There's a Book About It on Waymarking.com

Marian, Trinity and other saints' columns and pillars represent a conspicuous part of many urban squares, areas, village greens and cultural landscape nooks, whose artistic appeal they are largely responsible for. They can also be encountered along both the major and smaller roads.

These monuments can chiefly be credited with the unique appearance of Central Europe - territories of the former Habsburg monarchy - but similar columns can also be encountered in other parts of the European continent (in Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland, etc.). In the Czech environment their origins can primarily be linked to the two onslaughts of the plague epidemic, which affected the lands dramatically in the years 1680 and 1713. As far as this particular set of monuments is concerned, it amounts to a wider collection of remarkable works (often both in terms of architecture and sculpture), the creation of which was primarily motivated by people's gratitude for deliverance from the plague.

On the other hand, however, Marian and Trinity columns were also meant as protection from any kind of danger - motives for their erection have therefore varied throughout the years and have always reflected the specific situation of a given locality and the person or persons of the benefactors. In the past, but also today, the set of monuments generally referred to as "columns" included works of varied appearance. Besides the column itself, a monument may also consist of a pillar, an obelisk, and some other shapes; even historical sources actually refer to these monuments using various descriptions, including "column", "statue", "colossus", "obelisk" or even "chapel" and the like.


For more than twenty years, research has been carried out on Marian, Trinity and saint columns in Czech towns, villages and landscapes. The results have been gradually presented in extensive professional publications. The book focuses on the Central Bohemian Region, whose monuments are the subject of two volumes. The first volume covers columns and pillars in the districts of Benesov, Beroun, Kladno, Kolín, Kutná Hora and Melník. The second volume covers columns and pillars in the districts of Mladá Boleslav, Nymburk, Prague-East, Prague-West, Príbram and Rakovník. The individual monuments are presented in the form of catalogue entries, which provide basic art historical and historical data, archival sources and literature; the entries are always accompanied by photo documentation of the monument. The publication also contains colour photodocumentation and photodocumentation of laboratory research on the stratigraphy of surface treatments of selected monuments.

The coordinates this waymark refers to Marian Column in Rakovník.

The note: a number of columns I have categorized in Baroque Architecture (visit link) or Chronograms (visit link) categories.

ISBN Number: 9788074801181 Author(s): Vratislav Nejedlý, Kateřina Adamcová, Zdenka Gláserová Lebedová, Viktor Kovařík, Pavel Zahradník

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Date Logged Log User Rating   06/25/2022 Tommy_Laura visited it