Kostel svatého Vavřince (Vysoké Mýto-Město) Church

The Church of Saint Lawrence in Vysokém Mýtě is a three-naved late Gothic stone building with two towers on its façade. It is protected as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic.

At the site of an older church, a stone three-naved temple was built at the end of the thirteenth century. Its southern nave and tower have been preserved to this day. The largest part of the church was built around the year 1375 and was restored after a fire in 1461. After another major fire in 1774, the church acquired its main altar from a dissolved monastery in Sedlci u Kutné Hory.

Between 1875 and 1892, the church underwent extensive re-Gothicization under the direction of architect František Schmoranze. From 1892 to 1899, Josef Mocker led the work, and until 1904, Podhájský and Živný continued it. The Baroque vaults were then replaced with Neo-Gothic ones, and new interior furnishings were created. At the beginning of this century, between 2000 and 2005, the roofs were repaired.

The church has a long chancel ending with a five-sided apse with external buttresses. A sacristy adjoins it from the south side. Between the two towers on the façade is an open vestibule with a triangular gable, and within it a richly profiled Gothic portal. The main and southern naves have ribbed vaults, while the northern nave has a star vault. South of the church stands a massive Renaissance bell tower from 1583, which is no longer in use today.

The main altar is a work by Jäckel from the year 1700. It bears a large painting of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, painted by Petr Brandl in 1728. The other altars are mostly Neo-Gothic. A valuable monument is a tin baptismal font on three legs with sculptures of bearded men and reliefs of apostles. It was made in 1499 by Master Ondřej Ptáček of Kutná Hora. In the northern chapel of Saint John the Baptist stands a polychromed statue of the Virgin Mary from the beginning of the sixteenth century, and there are also stone tombstones from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. The smaller bell, Lawrence, dates from 1466. The large bell, George, weighing 2080 kilograms, was obtained from a public collection in 2003.

A unique work of European significance is the Art Nouveau fresco decoration that covers all the walls and ceiling. Its author is the painter and interior architect Karel Vítězslav Mašek. The patron of the decoration was Hermenegild Jireček with his family. Therefore, the Jirečks are portrayed on the church wall, which goes against the rules of decoration, which is meant to serve the glorification of God.