
CoA of Cistercian Abbey of Sedlec - Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
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N 49° 57.609 E 015° 17.406
33U E 520807 N 5534240
CoA of Cistercian Abbey of Sedlec
Waymark Code: WMK5PC
Location: Středočeský kraj, Czechia
Date Posted: 02/17/2014
Views: 48
Complex of former Cistercian Abbey of Sedlec (Cisterciácke opatství v Sedlci) belongs among the most important architectonic and historic monument of Royal mining town Kutná Hora.
The oldest part of town Kutná Hora, Sedlec, is a place, where the history of Royal mining town Kutná Hora has begun. The landlord Miroslav of Markvartice ask the Cistercian order to establish the monastery here in 1142. The Miroslav´s fundation for the new monastery was really estated - a lot of lands and woods around Sedlec and even some villages belonged to it. And a few years later, when the silver ore was found there, the profits from renting the lands for mining earned a huge richness to Cistercian monastery in Sedlec. There is no monk in monastery in these days and Kutná Hora is not a Royal silver town any more, but we can still admire great cathedrals, churches, gloriously buildings and monuments, which were built and erected thanks to the unimaginable welth. Abbey became a location, where was constructed the first Gothic cathedral in Central Europe - a monumental Cathedral of Assumption of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist, which is on UNESCO World Heritage list.
The abbey was devastated and burnt during Hussite wars (April 24th, 1421) and its reconstruction was only provisory until the end of 17th century. In 1699, under abbot Jindrich Snopek, was heavily damaged catedral church completely restored in unique Gothic-Baroque style by brilliant architect Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel. Also the whole complex of monastic buildings was rebuilt in Baroque style. The abbey was abolished in the end of 18th century during the Joseph's II church reforms and from 1812 it served as tobacco manufacture. Nowadays, the monastery builings are reconstructed and serve as offices for Philip Morris company and also you can visit there the Tobacco Museum, located in former abbey refectory.
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