Kostel svatého Bartoloměje v Praze Church

The Church of Saint Bartholomew is a highly baroque building on Prague's Old Town Square. It stands on Bartolomějská Street, not far from where medieval city walls once ran. It is dedicated to the Apostle Bartholomew and was built between 1726 and 1731 according to a design by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer.

In the Middle Ages, a house of prostitution stood here, which was called Benátky. In 1372, under the rule of Charles the Fourth, Jan Milíč z Kroměříže transformed it into Jeruzalém. It was a preaching school and a refuge for repentant women who wanted to change their lives. Already in 1374, the house was converted into a Cistercian college named after Saint Bernard, called Bernardinum.

During the Hussite Wars, Jeruzalém was destroyed and the building then had secular owners until the seventeenth century. After the middle of the seventeenth century, it was acquired by the Jesuits. They began to build a chapel here, but it burned down in a fire of the district in 1678. From its ruins, the present church grew, consecrated in 1731. It served its purpose only until 1773. Then, during the Josephine reforms, the Jesuit order was dissolved and the church fell to the state. The paintings from the side altars were sold. Saint John of Nepomuk by Václav Vavřinec Reiner is today in the depot of the National Heritage Institute in Kutná Hora. The Crucifixion by Peter Brandl went to the church in Dolní Slivna.

From 1853 onwards, the church belonged to the Congregation of Grey Sisters of the Third Order of Saint Francis. After the communist coup, it was confiscated from them in 1949. The church then served as a warehouse and fell into disrepair. On Bartolomějská Street, the notoriously known State Security had its headquarters at that time, today the police are located there. The Grey Sisters received the church and cloister back in 1995, and fifteen of them live there today.

The broken facade on Bartolomějská Street is very restrained. Apart from a simple portal, it has only simply framed baroque windows. The small interior on an irregular ground plan contrasts sharply with it. It is richly articulated architecturally and decorated with artificial marble and gilding. The vault above the nave is covered with damaged frescoes by Václav Vavřinec Reiner depicting the martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew.

The courtyard facade is exceptional. It is accessible from Konviktská Street through the building of the transport faculty of the Czech Technical University. It forms a monumental facade of the courtyard and partially connects to neighboring older, simpler baroque buildings. It is independent of the arrangement of the interior, which is helped by the slanted window splays. Apart from real and blind windows, it is decorated with statues of twelve apostles, Christ and the Virgin Mary from the workshop of Matěj Václav Jäckel. They stand in niches and on the attic.