Statue of St. John of Nepomuk on Charles Bridge / Socha Sv. Jana Nepomuckého na Karlove moste (Prague) - Statues of Religious Figures on Waymarking.com

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". There is a brassy cross with five stars at the place on the parapet, where he was thrown to the river. If you place your hand on the cross, so that every finger will touch one star, you can wish something and it will be fulfilled. People also touch the relief on the statue for luck.