Třetí nádvoří Pražského hradu Courtyard

Třetí nádvoří Pražského hradu is the largest of the four courtyard in the Castle and at the same time the easternmost located. For over a thousand years, the centre of power and Catholic church of the Czech state has been concentrated here. The railway station forms the central part of the Castle, to which the entrance from the west is through the entrance from the second courtyard, in the north it passes smoothly to the Vikářská street and in the east it connects through the passage to St George's Square.

The courtyard is dominated by the Cathedral of Saint Vitus, Václav and Vojtěv with its западé two-prison front and the original Golden Gate on the south side. Next to it stands the building of the Old Probostness, a shelter with excavations, an obelisk from 1928 and a statue of St. George. On the east side of the courtyard is the medieval Old Royal Palace, on the west and south side of the newer palace building with the royal balcony, of which on 29 December 1989 shortly after his election as President of Czechoslovakia Václav Havel spoke. Before the entrance to the Old Palace is located the Eagle fountain and the Bull's staircase leads on the south side to the garden of Na Valech.

The original form of the courtyard was different from today. From the west, there was a rise that individual historians and archaeologists identify with the sacred hill of the Live mentioned in the Cosmo Chronicle. The remains of this high ground have been preserved under the Old Proboscy building. To the south, the territory sintered and the eastern part of the courtyard overloaded the ravine with the south flowing stream, which separated the eastern part of the island.

In the first half of the 9th century, the definition of the area is documented by a moat and subsequent extension of the area up to Hradčanská Square. At the same time, the discovery of a burial site with pagan burial elements originated. It is in the area of today's Obelisk and the Old Provost that an important grave of an arms fighter has been found. Around 880, the presence of the elite manifests itself at the first Church of the Virgin Mary in the western part of the castle and the Grand Moravian jewels in Lumbe's garden.

Under Prince Václav I, perhaps in 929, the church of St. Vitus was built in the courtyard as the third castle church, probably in the form of a single-apsid rotunda with an added southern apsid for storing Václav's remains. Around the middle of the 11th century, this rotunda was replaced by a three-boat basilica. In the 14th century, the Prince's Palace was rebuilt and Basilica was replaced by an unfinished cathedral. In the 15th and first half of the 16th century, the building of the palace and the cathedral gradually approached the conclusion and the courtyard was thus released from the previously built space.

The first Habsburgs (1526-1657) built new palace buildings along the south and west sides of the courtyard. Marie Terezie then united all three palace facades in one form, which has been preserved to this day. The cathedral was in 1873- 1929. After 1918 Jože Plečnik compared the area of the courtyard to one plane and incorporated new elements - obelisk, a new fountain with statue of St. George and Bull Stairs to the garden Na Valech.