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Old Town Bridge Tower (Staroměstská mostecká věž)
Karlův most Praha 1 - Staré Město Phone: 224 220 569 http://www.muzeumprahy.czAbout
Old Town Bridge Tower| History of the buildingThe tower, which is one of the most impressive works of civil Gothic in the world, was built according to a design of Petr Parléř in the 2nd half of the 14th century by the Parléř’s smelting plant by the St. Vitus temple. The construction was within the responsibility of the sculptor and builder Michael Savoyen, the son-in-law of Petr Parléř and the son of the architect of the Cologne cathedral. After him, both the house and the workshop was taken over by stonemason Petr in 1385, and he completed the tower. Apart from the main designers and sculptors, there were about a hundred of stonemasons working here.In 1621, 12 heads of some of the leaders of the nobility rebellion decapitated at the Old Town Square (Staroměstské náměstí) were put on display as a warning in the upper part of the tower towards the bridge. The heads remained in place for over 10 years, then they were taken down secretly during the night and buried in place which is still unknown.In 1648, the tower was damaged during Swedish siege on Prague, especially the side facing the bridge, which was originally decorated by statues of Madonna on a throne and the Emperor and King Charles IV and his wife Elisabeth of Pomerania. During the subsequent reconstruction, carried out by Carlo Lurago and Giovanni Spinetti in 1650 - 1653, this side was settled by a stone plate with Latin inscription to commemorate heroic fighting of the Prague citizens with the Swedes. A thorough reconstruction took place in 1854 - 78 under the management of Josef Mocker, and it was then that the tower got its present-day roof with four corner spires. Further repairs took place in the years 1952 - 1955 and 1978. During one of these minor repairs, two mysterious inscriptions were discovered coincidentally under the roof, with no spaces between the words and read the same way from the beginning to the end and backwards. Written out correctly, they look like this: Signate, signate, mere me tangis et angis; Roma, tibi subito motibus ibit amor (For your information, a sign, should you blemish me with your touch, you will be strangled; Rome to you at once with upheavals love will be sacrificed). These sentences do not make any deeper sense, but supposedly they contain magical formula of strength and power. They are the so called magical trap - magic formula to scare away evil powers. Similar inscriptions were common on the sacral buildings, namely in Italy.Sculptural decoration and symbolismThe lowest statues on the tower are placed on brackets completing the gate’s arch. On the Eastern front (i.e. the side towards the Old Town), there is a lion feeding on a rump on the left, and an eagle feeding on a hare on the right. On the Western side on the left, there is the fight of an eagle with a griffin, a mystical bird with an eagle’s head, neck and wings, and a lion’s body, legs and a tail, and on the right, there is a lion fighting with a snake. The griffin was born from a connection of a lion and an eagle, and this symbolism is indicated on the tower in an interesting way: there is a St. Václav’s eagle in a triangle-shaped gable above the St. Vitus statue, and there is the Bohemian lion standing above it on a bracket. On St. Vitus day (15th June) the shadow of the lion’s head touches the eagle’s chest, which at the same time symbolically confirms the connection of Bohemia and Moravia.There are minor comical statues on the tower’s corners about 2 m high: on the left, there is a woman in a gown and a man whose fidgety hand is under her kilt (evil rumours say that it is a depiction of a monk and a nun), and on the right, there is a man trying to explore a woman’s bosom with his hand.Besides the upper part of the gate’s arch towards the tower’s corners, there is a depiction of a kingfisher in a “věník” (
