Church of St. John of Nepomuk on the Rock / Kostel sv. Jana Nepomuckého Na Skalce (Prague) - Baroque Architecture on Waymarking.com

The Church of St. John of Nepomuk on the Rock (In Czech: Kostel sv. Jana Nepomuckého Na Skalce) was originally founded as a chapel at the vineyard Skalka (Little Rock) in 1691 by Old Town citizen Kristian Florian Heger. Services were carried out by monks from the opposite monastery at Slovany. John of Nepomuk (Jan Nepomucký) was at that time already honoured as a saint.

In 1706 the Brotherhood under the Virgin Mary patronage was established here in honour of John of Nepomuk, which was officially canonized in 1729. The brotherhood members decided to build a new spacious church because of the chapel’s small proportions. Architect Kilián Ignác Dientzhofer was asked to prepare the project and a foundation stone was laid in 1730. A late-Baroque church was completed 8 years later.

This single-aisle church of St. John of Nepomuk has an octagon floor plan. Two flights of open stairs run up to the front of the church, which is facing street. The stairs were completed in 1776 and its banisters are adorned with sculptures of the saints. Two steeples, on both sides of the ffaciat, are 35 m tall and are standing sideways. This gives the whole building an extraordinary dynamic character. The steeples’ mass is divided into two floor levels and the façade is elaborately decorated. The bell floors in the steeples are fitted with spaced semicircular windows, which are finished with spherically triangular straight cornices. The steeples have tall domes, whose lower parts have two cornice curves one above the other. On the very top of each tower are relatively mighty prismatic lanterns with decorative vases and crosses. A Baroque snail stairway is running through the entire south steeple. The north steeple has three rooms divided by wooden ceilings.