Blood in Stone and the Second Coming: On the Meaning of the Wenceslas Chapel in St. Vitus's Cathedral in Prague and the Karlstein Chapels

The Imperial Insignia at St. Vitus

On Palm Sunday the liturgical rubrics of the church of St. Vitus required that a procession carrying palm leaves set out from Prague Castle towards a “suitable location,” which was usually Strahov Monastery to the west of the castle. There a statue of Christ mounted on an ass was to be attached to the procession. From there the procession was to continue to the castle and on to St. Vitus's church.^[3]

In 1350, however, this annual event commemorating Christ's glorious entry into Jerusalem took a different form. The King of Bohemia, Charles IV (r. 1346–1378), had finally managed to obtain the imperial crown jewels that confirmed the legitimacy of his having been chosen to be King of Rome, which he was crowned as in 1346.^[4] Conscious of St. Vitus's liturgical customs, Charles had the imperial insignia, which contained some of the most precious relics of the Passion, transported to Prague, deliberately doing so on Palm Sunday (21 March 1350) so that they could be included in the procession marking the symbolic arrival of Christ in Prague. This ceremonial entry was recorded by a contemporary of the event, the chronicler Franciscus (František) of Prague:

And when [the insignia] were brought in, the king, along with the archbishop, the other princes, the nobles and all the clergy, and accompanied by a multitude of people, set out in great glory and piety on Palm Sunday on foot to meet the treasure at Vyšehrad. And in the New Town, following some initial encouraging words, they were shown to all the people. They then accompanied them to Prague Castle. These are the imperial treasures: a large piece of the Holy Cross, a lance that pierced the side of the Lord upon the cross, and a nail with which the Lord was nailed to the same cross, and many other things, the Imperial Crown, and the sword of Charlemagne, which was sent to him from heaven.^[5]

Given that all of the Prague clergy, including the St. Vitus canons, took part in this procession, the Mount of Olives, from which Christ descended on an ass to Jerusalem, must have been represented by Vyšehrad instead of Strahov at that time. Vyšehrad Castle protected the city from the south, and the five-kilometer route that ran from there to Prague Castle cut through all of the individual towns within Prague, including the New Town, which was founded by Charles IV between Vyšehrad and the Old Town just two years earlier in 1348. And it was there, in the middle of a city still being built, that the imperial treasure was presented to the people.

Although Franciscus does not explicitly mention where the insignia were placed after their solemn arrival to Prague Castle, it was clearly in St. Vitus's basilica. This is communicated by Franciscus's successor Beneš Krabice of Weitmile, whose chronicle is one of the most valuable and reliable sources on the life, work, and time of Charles IV. In his annals, edited in 1372–1374, Beneš wrote about the event in 1350 that the insignia were brought to be kept in the “Prague church,” which means the Romanesque basilica of St. Vitus.^[6]

This hitherto little-emphasized account that the insignia, containing the lance of Longinus, a nail from the Holy Cross, and a large piece of the Cross itself, were moved to St. Vitus's church may be important for understanding the design of the new cathedral, the construction of which was under way on the site of the basilica at that time (figs. 1–2).^[7]

1

Prague Castle, Cathedral of St. Vitus, south transept and entrance, c. 1360–1419 with later additions

2

Prague Castle, Cathedral of St. Vitus, reconstructed ground floor as c. 1420. 1: canonical choir of St. Vitus, 2: mansionars's choir of the Virgin Mary, 3: chapel of St. Wenceslas, 4: altar of the Holy Cross, 5: south entrance, 6: north sacristy, 7: tomb of St. Adalbert

One of the reasons for this was that Charles IV treated the imperial insignia like no other Holy Roman Emperor had before him. As a young prince, this grandson of Emperor Henry VII in 1323 was sent to the Paris court of his uncle Charles IV of France, where he stayed for seven years until 1330. He was brought up in the court where the Passion treasures, among them Christ's Crown of Thorns, stored in the Sainte-Chapelle, were displayed and venerated.^[8] Charles wanted to treat the imperial insignia that he had just obtained in a similar way.^[9] Although he also drew inspiration from the occasional exhibitions of the insignia that had been held in the history of their existence, he put greater stress on the significance of the Passion relics they included than anyone had before.^[10] Charles decided that exhibiting the insignia would become an annual ceremony and one of the high points in the liturgical calendar in the Bohemian Kingdom and in the Empire. This gave rise to the Feast of the Holy Lance and Nails, which in the time of Charles IV and his successor Wenceslas IV drew thousands of pilgrims to Prague. In addition to this feast, rules were likewise established for worship by the clergy, which were built on rituals performed by the Cistercians in a monastery in Stams in Tyrol, the site at which the insignia had previously been kept.^[11]

Indulgences were promised to those who would publicly worship the relics. These were granted by Pope Clement VI in August 1350 for a period of seven years and seven quadragenes, and they could be obtained by anyone who wanted to come once a year on the appointed days to honour the treasure “wherever it may be” on display.^[12] Subsequently, in February 1354, the pope granted permission to establish the aforementioned Feast of the Holy Lance and Nails, which would be annually celebrated on the Friday after the Easter Octave. Anyone who would make a proper confession on that day and visited “the church itself or the chapel in which Christ's lance and the nail were on display at that time” would obtain indulgences for three years and three quadragenes.^[13]

The second way to worship the relics, this time by the clergy, was based on imperial tradition and is described in three charters dating from 1352 to 1354. First, in April 1352 the pope granted Charles permission to allow any priest serving mass at the altar in a place where the “holy imperial relics” are kept to serve the mass wearing pontificals.^[14] Then, in February 1353, Charles requested for the priests to celebrate liturgy on the nine named feasts and on a number of other feast days.^[15] In the last charter, issued in February 1354, the pope decreed that due to their great size the relics could not be placed on the altar inside the church during mass, instead authorizing that they be placed “on [another] altar, which is located inside the church.”^[16] Thanks to this charter we learn about the space in which these masses were held. It must have been very narrow if the altar could not be extended to accommodate the insignia – which points to the chapel of St. Wenceslas in the Romanesque basilica.

The chapel was located on the south side of the east choir near the basilica's main entrance, and although it was one of the most sacred places in the church and the whole kingdom, it was small in size (fig. 3, no. 4).^[17] Because the insignia would not be placed on the altar all the time, we must search for a depository inside the church. The new cathedral featured one above the south entrance, accessible only from the new Gothic Wenceslas chapel (fig. 1), and it seems likely that this arrangement was adopted from the basilica. Evidence of this may be two thick walls behind the southern entrance that may have been part of a vaulted vestibule (fig. 3, no. 3), supporting an additional floor, i.e., a depository.^[18] The alternative altar in question could have been the altar of the Holy Cross.^[19] It was placed in the Gothic cathedral against the west side of the new Wenceslas chapel (fig. 2, no. 7),^[20] and played an important role in the coronation ritual,^[21] but also during the visitatio sepulchri on Easter morning.^[22]

3

Prague Castle, Cathedral of St. Vitus, ground floor of the current cathedral with a plan of the Romanesque basilica. 1: eastern choir, 2: western choir, 3: south entrance, 4: chapel of St. Wenceslas

Whilst it is possible to deduce where the relics could have been kept and venerated after arriving in Prague, the aforementioned charters make it clear that the site was and would remain unspecified. Charles had probably two reasons for this. He wanted to retain the impression that the insignia would remain connected with the German part of the Holy Roman Empire, where they had been preserved for centuries, and therefore promised that they would be kept either in Frankfurt or in Nuremberg.^[23] Probably for this reason, Charles issued a charter in September 1352, according to which he left the insignia in the spiritual care of the Cistercians of Stams.^[24] And although Beneš Krabice records in 1365 that the insignia were being stored in Karlstein, no official document on this was issued during Charles's lifetime. It was only Wenceslas IV (r. 1378–1419) who shortly after his father's death sent the Stams Cistercians home and openly gave the insignia to the care of the Karlstein Canons (c. 1386).^[25] In addition, around the same time, in 1382, the construction of the Corpus Christi chapel was begun on the Cattle Market square (Karlovo náměstí), the function of which was to display the insignia during the Feast of the Holy Lance and Nails. This event took place on the square in the 1360s and 1370s, but because the charters requested the display of the insignia within a church, it had in fact a provisional form. It was thus not until the construction of the chapel after Charles's death that the legal aspect of the ceremony was put in order.^[26]

All this also suggests that the second reason behind Charles's silence might have been an intention to establish more places where the insignia could be kept and venerated. Yet when reading Beneš's aforementioned report from 1365, nothing like this emerges from it. According to its wording, on 9 February that year Archbishop Jan Očko of Vlašim

consecrated a large chapel in the tower of Karlstein castle. The emperor had this castle, which is a marvellous work, built with reinforced walls, in a way that can still be seen today, and in the upper tower he built a large chapel, its walls covered with pure gold and precious stones and he adorned it with relics and vestments for the dean and the chapter house or church clergy that he established there, and he had it decorated with very rare paintings. In all the wider world there is no castle or chapel as precious, and rightly so, as the imperial insignia and the treasure of the whole kingdom are kept there.^[27]

It should be noted, however, that this situation could not correspond to the first half of the 1350s, when the way of worshiping the imperial insignia was being codified. Although Karlstein, founded in 1348, was certainly very important in Charles's plans, it was just a fortress at that time, and it had as yet been assigned only a marginal sacred function.^[28] The castle had a long way to go before it could boast the chapel that Beneš would have recognised. In the meantime, Charles could have considered housing the insignia in different locations. Historians have speculated that among the options were the Slavic-rite Benedictine Monastery (founded in 1347)^[29] and the church of the Virgin Mary and Charlemagne (founded in 1350), both located in the New Town of Prague.^[30] In addition, Charles could hardly completely ignore the empire and had used the Frauenkirche in Nuremberg (founded in 1349) as a site to exhibit the insignia; one such opportunity arose after the baptism of his son Wenceslas in 1361.^[31]

None of these sites, however, had a space in which the walls were faced with semiprecious stones – the hallmark of Karlstein chapel. On the other hand, rooms of this kind existed in St. Vitus's Cathedral and much later at Tangermünde Castle, Brandenburg (dedicated in 1377, but no longer extant).^[32] Though the chapels built in Prague and at Karlstein were extraordinary for their time, the specific nature of the decorations in both places was so similar that they must have had something in common. As we shall see, what they shared was the association to the Passion of Christ, which was the reason why the incrustation was used. The predominant red associated with blood played a major role in their application. It is likely that the idea was born in St. Vitus's Cathedral, where it served to honour St. Wenceslas, a martyr and follower of Christ, in whose presence the precious Passion relics were first placed.

The Wenceslas Chapel and the Passion Chapel at Karlstein Castle

However exotic the semiprecious-stone facing may seem, its history may have begun in Bohemia long before the chapels were created. At the same time it is certainly true that its creation was influenced by other stimuli and buildings that Charles IV had seen on his numerous travels through Europe and possibly also by sites outside Europe.

Since the days of the Přemyslid princes the Romanesque St. Vitus's basilica has housed the graves of two saints who enjoyed extraordinary popularity in medieval Bohemia: Přemyslid Prince Wenceslas (Václav, died 935 or 929) and Prague Bishop Adalbert (Vojtěch, died 997, canonised 999). Charles later added the bodies of Sts. Vitus and Sigismund alongside them in the cathedral, but the first two saints retained their primary status within the cathedral and the country. To strengthen the reverence for them and especially for St. Wenceslas, an enormous project was undertaken.

In October 1341 King John of Luxembourg, Charles's father, issued a charter in which he established an income to be made for “the decoration and erection or the construction of the graves of St. Wenceslas and St. Adalbert, whose bodies are happily placed there [in the church of St. Vitus], with silver tablets and gilded statues, with pearls and precious stones.” This income was also intended for the “construction and erection of the new choir, and for the magnificent construction of the whole said church with excellent work until it is completed.”^[33] King John, likely at the request of the young Charles, then Margrave of Moravia (in 1333–1347), provided these financial resources for the construction of the new Gothic cathedral. By doing this, John tried to redeem his infamous visit to the cathedral in 1336, when, in search of money, he had the area around the tomb of St. Adalbert dug up and stripped off the tombstone of St. Wenceslas from its decorations, which contained the statues of the twelve apostles that Charles had had made earlier.^[34]

The foundation stone of the new choir was laid in November 1344.^[35] In addition, in 1346, after John's death, Charles had a new Bohemian royal crown made for his coronation in 1347, and repairs were carried out on the damaged tomb of Wenceslas the next year, in 1348.^[36] While this was being done, Charles had the saint's body raised (the skull had been removed earlier) and placed it in a new reliquary, decorated steadily with gold and precious stones over the course of Charles's reign.^[37] The feretory, the form of which could have been inspired by the reliquary of St. Louis at St. Denis,^[38] was set on top of a stone tomb that was placed over the grave. In 1367, when the floor was raised in connection with the completion of the new Wenceslas chapel, this stone tomb had been dismantled and a new one was built in its place.^[39]

During the construction of the tomb dedicated in 1367, the stones from the original 1348 structure were used in the fundament. They were found by the cathedral architect Kamil Hilbert in 1911– a discovery that is crucial for understanding the history of the use of semiprecious stones. The findings bore not only traces of gilding but also indentations for the precious-stone inlay.^[40] This means that the tomb from 1367 – also faced with the incrustation and which today in a reconstructed form occupies the focal point in the Wenceslas chapel (figs. 4–5) – adapted an older form of the tomb.

4

Prague Castle, Cathedral of St. Vitus, Chapel of St. Wenceslas, looking northeast, c. 1368

5

Prague Castle, Cathedral of St. Vitus, Chapel of St. Wenceslas, tomb of St. Wenceslas from c. 1368 after uncovering in 1915. The Archive of Prague Castle, Collection of photographs of the Construction Administration of Prague Castle, inv. no. 958/2

Yet there was a difference between the two inlay methods. On the tomb from 1348, the dimples were much smaller and were therefore probably fitted with gems rather than semiprecious stone slabs, such as those known from Karlstein and the walls of the Wenceslas chapel.^[41] The gilding also differed: whereas at Karlstein and in the Wenceslas chapel it was applied to the pastiglia, on the surface of the 1348 tomb the gold was applied directly to the stones.^[42]

The sources do not explicitly say when the first inlay was done. It was likely before the year 1358, when, according to Beneš Krabice, Charles had a reliquary made for St. Wenceslas's head. At that time he also had a new “tomb [i.e., feretory] of pure gold” made that was set on top of the stone tomb, which was in turn “decorated with the most expensive precious gems and other selected stones, and he so embellished it that no other such tomb could be found in the entire world.”^[43] From the inventories of St. Vitus's Cathedral it appears that the work had been in progress for several years. The oldest inventory, from 1354, states that Charles donated two wooden panels to “embellish” the tomb of St. Wenceslas, only one of which, however, was at the time covered with gems, while the work on the other panel had only been “recently initiated.”^[44] The 1355 inventory indicates that both panels were finished.^[45] In addition, it lists a medium-sized gilded silver cross, “which was previously laid on the tomb of St. Wenceslas,”^[46] a further evidence that the tomb was being worked on, which made it impossible to use the cross. The decoration of St. Wenceslas's tomb had thus been initiated at least four years before 1358.^[47]

The work took place at the same time when Charles was carrying out another of his major projects. In March 1357, he founded a college of priests by the chapel of the Virgin Mary and the chapel of the Passion and Its Instruments (now St. Catherine's chapel) in the Lesser Tower at Karlstein, and had the latter chapel faced with precious stones.^[48] In October 1357, he bought an estate called Boč, located near a quarry in Ciboušov at the foot of the Ore Mountains (Krušné hory), which is where the stones used in the chapel came from.^[49] This means that they could not have been applied on the St. Wenceslas tomb from 1348, and Hilbert's report proves that the technology and form of the stones differed as well. Nevertheless, it is clear that the idea of semiprecious-stone cladding, first used on a large scale in Karlstein, has its roots in St. Vitus's Cathedral.

When founded in 1348,^[50] Karlstein Castle was envisioned as a residence with two keeps. The higher of the two was built to house Charles's apartment, and the lower one the rooms of his wife. It was only after numerous changes were made during the course of construction that they acquired their sacred function.^[51] The first shift in function occurred after Charles decided to store his private Passion relics there, which by May 1357 included a large part of the Holy Cross, a fragment of one of the nails from the cross, a part of the Holy Sponge, and two thorns from the Crown of Thorns.^[52] In December of the same year, when the collection was praised as “the most precious treasure of all the kings and the kingdom of Bohemia,” the relics of St. John the Baptist and other saints were also mentioned.^[53]

The treasure was equivalent to the Passion relics from the imperial insignia. However, Charles had to take into account that the insignia would one day leave the kingdom again – they eventually did in 1420 – so collecting a parallel treasure ensured that some Passion relics would remain in Bohemia even afterwards. A private castle located outside Prague seemed to be a suitable place to store them, and to separate them from the imperial insignia. Charles placed the relics in a large reliquary cross (which later became the coronation cross of the Bohemian kings) and had it located in the chapel, dedicated “to the honour and in the name of the most celebrated Passion and Its Instruments.”^[54]

Whilst no adjective designates this chapel in the founding charter of the chapter, it is specified as “major“ by implication as the adjacent chapel of the Virgin Mary is explicitly called “minor.” As František Fišer convincingly argued, this distinction did not refer to the size but to the meaning of the chapels. In fact, the spatial size of the two chapels was reversed, since the Passion/Catherine chapel (2.3 × 3.9 m) was adapted from an older oratory, inserted into the thickness of the wall on the south side of the tower. The original living room was converted into the chapel of the Virgin Mary and served a college whose mission was the veneration of the Passion relics placed in Charles's cross (figs. 6–12).^[55]

6

Karlstein Castle, Lesser Tower, Chapel of the Virgin Mary. Relic scenes, crux gemmata, and entry to the chapel of St. Catherine, originally the chapel of the Passion and Its Instruments, c. 1357

The imperial insignia were also mirrored by turning the new reliquary cross into an object of religious veneration. Charles therefore asked the pope in 1357 to grant all visitors to the chapel absolution for seven years and seven quadragenes, just as he had obtained in 1350 for the insignia.^[56] In order to make visitors acquainted with his deeds and to explain the history of the reliquary, he had a series of three scenes painted on the partition between the two chapels (fig. 6). In the first, the thorns from the Crown of Thorns and a small cross from the Holy Cross are being passed by the hand of King John the Good of France into the emperor's possession.^[57] The second scene probably shows Byzantine Emperor John V Palaiologos in the act of handing Charles a piece of the Holy Sponge,^[58] and the third features the emperor placing the donated relics into the cross.

7

Karlstein Castle, Lesser Tower, ground plan of the second floor. 1: chapel of the Virgin Mary, 2: chapel of St. Catherine (originally the chapel of the Passion and Its Instruments), c. 1357, a – b: apocalypse, chapters 9–12, b – c: apocalypse, chapters 6–7/8, c – d: sixteenth-century window and altar, d – e: relic scenes, f: corridor, +: crux gemmata, p: Pantecost, h – i: apocalypse, chapters 12, i– k: apocalypse, chapter 13

The relic scenes were painted in such a sequence that they pointed the way to the passageway that led to the Passion/Catherine chapel.^[59] There the cross was placed on an altar in a recess in the eastern wall (fig. 8),^[60] while on the opposite western (entrance) side of the chapel the cross was depicted being raised by the imperial couple. The title of the small chapel was reflected in the painting of the Crucifixion on the front face of the altar and in a stained glass with the same subject in the east window, which was complemented by a stained glass with the Man of Sorrows surrounded by the Instruments of Christ's Passion in the second window.^[61] Not only were the walls of the chapel lined with semiprecious stones, but also those in the passageway.^[62] Seeing the chapel lined with semiprecious stones was and still is an extraordinary experience, but to enter it through a very narrow corridor with the same decoration, which had no sacred function, is quite unexpected. One would have felt as if they were entering a tomb, and not by coincidence, for this was probably intentional, as it might have referred to the Holy Sepulchre, which also included two small rooms – the Tomb of Christ itself and a vestibule.^[63] A figure of the angel swinging a censer that is painted in the corridor (fig. 11) may belong to this iconography.^[64] Although the Passion/Catherine chapel was constructed by adapting an earlier oratory already containing a passageway, the given layout seems to have been utilized to refer to principal sites of the Passion of Christ.

8

Karlstein Castle, Lesser Tower, Chapel of St. Catherine, originally Chapel of the Passion and Its Instruments, looking east, c. 1357

The area in front of the entrance to the chapel was also modified with this in mind. While the relic scenes faced the entrance from the left, on the right side the visitor saw the images referring to the Holy Sepulchre and Golgotha, sites where Christ was crucified and buried. In a window splay adjacent to the corridor there was a collection of relics walled up behind a slab representing the Sepulchre from which Christ arose (fig. 12). The items included, according to the inscription, a piece of the stone from the Holy Sepulchre that the angels had pulled back, and stones from other sites in Jerusalem: from the pillar to which Christ had been bound, from the site of the Last Supper, from the place where Christ had preached, from the Mount of Olives, and finally from the Calvary.^[65] The Sepulchre is located above a crux gemmata fashioned of semiprecious stones, referring to the cross erected by Emperor Theodosius II (r. 408–450) on Mount Golgotha.^[66] From the crossing come painted sprouts to indicate that it is a life-giving cross (fig. 12), and an inscription that today is only partly legible probably spoke of the fall of mankind and its redemption by Christ's sacrifice on the cross.^[67]

The decoration of the Passion/Catherine chapel took place in several phases, and thanks to recent examination we can distinguish these stages more clearly. The oldest is the painting of the enthroned Madonna adored by the imperial couple in the recess of the east wall, accompanied by the figures of Sts. Peter and Paul. The consecration crosses on the walls probably date from the same period, and since they differ from the consecration crosses in the adjacent larger chapel of the Virgin Mary, it is likely that they, together with the Madonna in the recess, predate the founding of the chapter. After the foundation, the lower part of the walls were faced with semiprecious stones, extending as far as a series of seven half-figures of the apostles and Bohemian saints painted on the north side (fig. 10). In the third phase, the incrustation was extended up to the vault, destroying the lower parts of the half-figures, and the Crucifixion was painted on the front face of the altar. All these phases followed each other in a short time interval.^[68]

The individual stages of incrustation can be roughly distinguished by the stamps used on the pastiglia strips lining the stones. Based on this it is clear that the altar table and the archivolt of the altar recess were among the first to be decorated with stones,^[69] which comes as no surprise given that the space was used to house the reliquary cross. The way of applying stones here, it should be noted, differs from the rest of the chapel as well as from other shrines. The rim of the altar table is decorated with convex stones, between which smaller gems are inserted (fig. 9). These gems can also be found on the archivolt, where they complement the flat circular and square slabs (fig. 8).^[70] We can thus observe here how the form of the incrustation evolved. First the convex stones were used, which later turned into flat slabs. Initially, these slabs were cut in geometric forms (in the dado), and eventually kept their natural irregular form, which turned out to be the most efficient solution (in the upper part of the walls) while they gradually increased in size (fig. 10).

9

Karlstein Castle, Lesser Tower, Chapel of St. Catherine, originally Chapel of the Passion and Its Instruments, detail of the altar, c. 1357

10

Karlstein Castle, Lesser Tower, Chapel of St. Catherine, originally Chapel of the Passion and Its Instruments, north wall with the semiprecious-stones incrustation, c. 1357

11

Karlstein Castle, Lesser Tower, Chapel of St. Catherine, originally Chapel of the Passion and Its Instruments, corridor originally faced with the semiprecious-stones incrustation, painting of an angel, c. 1357

12

Karlstein Castle, Lesser Tower, Chapel of the Virgin Mary. Crux gemmata and the Tomb of Christ in the window niche by the chapel of St. Catherine, c. 1357

Based on this and Hilbert's documentation we can assume that the altar table and the recess in the Passion/Catherine chapel were decorated in the same or a similar way as the first tomb of St. Wenceslas at St. Vitus's. Given that the tomb was being worked on around the same time, this suggestion seems to be logical, as does the fact that both works were linked by the presence of the Passion relics.

In addition, we can perhaps push the history of the inlay further into the past by pointing out the tomb of St. Adalbert in St. Vitus's church. Bishop Adalbert died on a missionary trip in Prussia in 997. In the year 1000 the sides of his tomb in Gniezno in Poland were decorated with three magnificent panels that were likely donated by Emperor Otto III. These panels, along with the bishop's relics, were stolen in 1039 and brought to Prague by the Bohemian Prince Břetislav.^[71] We know what they looked like from a description provided by the chronicler Cosmas, who wrote of the larger of the two panels that it had a height of ten palms and a length of five cubits (approx. 0.8 × 3 m). It was decorated with gemstones and crystals, and an inscription on the edge of the panel indicated that it weighed 300 pounds, i.e., about 150 kilograms.^[72] How these plates were used in Prague and how long they remained at St. Vitus's is not known. They were probably still there in 1129, when the Bishop of Prague, Menhart, had Adalbert's tomb restored in gold, silver, and crystal.^[73] Their magnificent appearance can probably best be imagined based on the pulpit that Emperor Henry II had made between 1002 and 1014 for the Palatine chapel in Aachen, which also featured a large number of semiprecious stones accompanied by inscriptions.^[74] We do not know whether Charles IV and his contemporaries had the opportunity to see the panels, but they would certainly have been aware of them.^[75] In this regard, it should be noted that St. Adalbert's tomb was not a raised feretory but a tomb that rose directly up from the ground, similar to St. Wenceslas's tomb.

Looking back at the walls of the Passion/Catherine chapel, they give an impression that a new, untried form of decoration was intensively searched for, while many ideas and inspirations were discussed. Among the stimulating models certainly were reliquaries, although we would have to imagine them enlarged to the size of the room and decorated on the inside.^[76] John's description of the Heavenly Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation, whose walls are built of precious stones (Rev 21), was clearly essential. The transformation of the gems from the altar or tombs onto the walls may have also been related to the idea of living stones – lapides vivi, representing the faithful for whom the church was built – often commented on in the Middle Ages.^[77] Another stimulus must have been Charles's imperial coronation in Rome in May 1355, when the king had the opportunity to tour many of the Roman sanctuaries. The omnipresent floor and wall coverings, executed in brightly coloured Cosmatesque patterns based on red and green porphyry, must have made a great impression on him and his entourage. This was all the more so when they were used in the chapels built as receptacles for relics, such as the Sancta Sanctorum in the Lateran Palace (fig. 13) and the chapel of San Zeno in the basilica of Santa Prassede.^[78] The reference to the Sancta Sanctorum is also clearly visible in the aforementioned window splay of the Virgin Mary chapel.^[79]

13

Rome, Sancta Santorum, interior, c. 1278

Yet the principal idea that resulted from all the stimuli and which perhaps set the process of this complex search in motion must have been the meditation on the colour of the stones. Specifically, the red to deep red that entirely dominates the chapel and which was undoubtedly associated with the blood of Christ.^[80]

This is attested by a passage in the founding charter of the Karlstein chapter, which joyfully proclaims the “sacred mystery of the Lord's Passion and his remarkable signs” and which reads: “How truthfully joyful is the altar with the cross of salvation, decorated with exquisite pearls that have blossomed from the blood of Christ.”^[81] Crucial here is the expression “margaritis eximiis,” or “exquisite pearls.” The convex stones that decorate the altar table have a much higher quartz content and are therefore lighter than the slabs on the walls: they look like white pearls with red islands, which is exactly what the text of the charter says (fig. 9).

We can find a reflection of this idea in another contemporary source, the antiphonary of Arnošt of Pardubice, the first archbishop of Prague and Charles's advisor, which dates to 1364. It includes the officio De armis Domini, celebrating the Instruments of Christ's Passion, and calls for “arming” oneself with precious stones, for in this spirit the heavens will be pleased: “With pearls the spears glitter, gleaming brilliantly; from the tip numerous gems shine, resembling blood. So we are to arm ourselves that the heavens may rejoice.”^[82] Arnošt and Charles also must have had a debate over the stone that the king acquired in Pisa in 1355 and donated to the church of Sts. Peter and Paul at Vyšehrad in Prague. It was a piece of the altar which he had cut off in the church of San Piero a Grado on his way to the coronation in Rome, and on which St. Peter is said to have celebrated his first Mass on the Apennine Peninsula. The slab was connected with a miraculous event described by Charles's chronicler Giovanni di Marignolli: when after St. Peter “his successor St. Clement celebrated Mass on the day of the consecration of this Pisan church, which he consecrated with many bishops, three drops of blood from his nose fell on it [i.e., on the stone] as a divine sign.”^[83]

While the stones chosen for the chapel's inlay were those where red prevailed, there were slabs inserted between them where the ‘blood’ of Christ dominated. These were fully red- coloured jaspers carved in the form of coats of arms. Six of them were placed in the wall above the altar (fig. 8) and one each in the tops of the lunettes on the north and west sides (fig. 10), for a total of nine slabs. The original idea was to put them in place of the seven half-figures of saints, however, when the first two beds were carved out, the plans were abandoned and the murals were covered by the ‘relics’ of the planks from St. Wenceslas's funeral carriage.^[84] The shape of these selected slabs was probably inspired by the association between the Instruments of Christ's Passion and the ambiguous word arma, for the term arma Christi can be understood in three ways: namely, that in Christ's (1) coat of arms (or Christ's emblem or shield) the heraldic (2) signs are the Instruments of Christ's Passion, and these are also Christ's (3) armor, with which he conquered the Devil and death. The synonym of the word arma is insignia, which was used in the founding charter of the chapter for the title of the chapel and the altar therein.^[85] The Instruments of Christ's Passion are depicted on such a coat of arms in the Passional of Kunigunde (1312–1321), abbess of the Benedictine monastery of St. George at Prague Castle, with the explanation that it is “the shield, armour and insignia of a completely invincible knight who is called the victor with five wounds, leaning on a spear and adorned with a crown” (fig. 14).^[86] As we can see not just one but multiple coats of arms at Karlstein, their meaning may be twofold. They could represent those who followed Christ, the miles Christi – in this case the saints originally painted on the north wall, which would also explain why the slabs were first intended to replace their images. Yet if we follow closely the title of the chapel and the dedication of the altar to “those signs,” then we are more likely to see in them the symbols of the Instruments of the Passion.

14

Passional of Abbess Cunigunde, 1312–1321, Instruments of Christ's Passion, c. 1312–1321. Prague, Národní knihovna, XIV A 17, fol. 3r

The six coats of arms are further supplemented by a large cross made of five irregular amethyst slabs above them (fig. 8). It was the first such a cross at Karlstein, which became a characteristic feature of the later chapel of the Holy Cross and the new Wenceslas chapel, and it is due to its robust character that it has so far escaped notice.

The imagination of Christ's blood in coloured stones was not an invention of Charles's time. In the popular Historia scholastica, written around the year 1173, Petrus Comestor describes the Passion of Christ, stating that there were “visible traces of blood” on the stone to which he was tied when being whipped.^[87] This belief was recorded a century later in an equally well-read description of the Holy Land written around the year 1283 by Burchard of Mount Sion, who described a fragment of a column kept in the church of the Holy Sepulchre as “a piece of dark porphyry stone, with natural red spots, which the vulgar believe are to be the stains of Christ's blood.”^[88] This is repeated in a treatise by Marino Sanuto written in 1321 to inspire a new crusade.^[89]

The San Zeno church in Rome also boasted such a relic, brought there from Jerusalem by Cardinal Giovanni Colonna in 1223, although it was, of course, not the same stone.^[90] For our story it is important that this stone was venerated by Charles IV during his pilgrimage through the city before the coronation in 1355, as is attested by a contemporary account by Cardinal Jean Porta.^[91] It is an ancient white marble base containing numerous grey-black mottles (fig. 15) and notwithstanding the missing documents they could have also been considered as traces of Christ's blood. If so, Charles's encounter with this relic must have been a major impetus for the creation of the meaning given to semiprecious stone inlay in Bohemia.

15

Rome, St. Prassede, Zeno Chapel. A stone believed to be the column on which Christ was flagellated

The fact that not only the decoration of the altar of the Passion/Catherine chapel was perceived as a reference to the blood of Christ and to the Passion, but also, and especially, the wall incrustation, is evidenced by another contemporary account, written by Ludolf of Sagan (1353–1422), abbot of the Augustinian monastery in Sagan, Silesia.^[92] In two of his works, the Catalogue of the Abbots of Sagan and the Treatise on the Lengthy Schism, Ludolf devoted a short passage to Emperor Charles, where he inserted the same sentence that sums up Charles's relationship to the relics:^[93]

The emperor piously and humbly venerated the imperial and royal relics, the instruments of our salvation, and maintained a special affection for the relics of the saints. Thus for the glory of the most sacred lance, the one that was sanctified by piercing Christ's side, he had a precious chapel built at Karlstein castle, remarkably decorated and executed, and had the chapel of St. Wenceslaus the Martyr in Prague church faced with precious stones and gold.^[94]

According to Ludolf a special place among the relics was held by the Holy Lance, and it was to celebrate its glory that the emperor not only had another shrine built at Karlstein, i.e., the chapel of the Holy Cross, but for the same reason also covered Wenceslas chapel in St. Vitus's Cathedral with semiprecious stones.^[95]

Before Ludolf joined the Augustinians in Sagan he had studied in Prague early in the 1370s,^[96] hence at the time when the incrustation work was being carried out on the walls of the Wenceslas chapel in 1372–1373.^[97] His account thus reads like a new and important source for understanding the meaning and purpose of the two chapels. This applies to the Wenceslas chapel, too, where until now the main source was an account by Beneš Krabice from 1372 which claimed that the decorative work served the purpose of venerating St. Wenceslas: “Then the emperor returned [from Aachen] to Prague and had decorated the chapel of St. Wenceslas in Prague church with paintings, gold, gems and precious stones in honour of God and the Holy Martyr Wenceslas, his protector and helper.”^[98] Though the two reports may appear contradictory, in fact, they tell the same story: the facing was utilized to celebrate the Passion of Christ and the martyrdom of his follower, the saintly Prince Wenceslas.

The New Design of the Wenceslas Chapel and the Passion Chapel at Karlstein

Charles IV enjoyed a long reign and had ample opportunity to modify the world of the Passion treasures and the sites he built for them. At Karl-stein and in St. Vitus's Cathedral two new chapels were created at about the same time, based on a similar idea. From the foundations in 1344 until his death in 1352 the construction of the new cathedral of St. Vitus was led by French architect Matthias of Arras. In 1356, a new master builder, the gifted German architect Peter Parler, arrived in Prague. One part of the cathedral constructed by Parler included a shrine that was completed in 1366, and consecrated the next year as the chapel of Sts. John the Evangelist and Wenceslas.^[99] Its form undoubtedly is the result of a complicated process, and a similar search was apparently under way at Karlstein.

There the new phase of construction likely began with a discussion about establishing another space in the Lesser Tower, which was possibly meant to serve as the eventual storage of the imperial insignia. Some nineteenth-century findings in the room north of the chapel of the Virgin Mary (fig. 7) support such an interpretation, because they included traces of the inlay in window splays, removed shortly after completion, which were lined with silvered pastiglia, as well as unfinished paintings in the window vaults.^[100] Today, only the beds in the outer face of the two opposite window jambs are visible (fig. 16). The plans were that the slabs (four to six in number) would form an equally high strip at the lower part of the jambs. The slabs were shaped in squares and circles, as in the Passion/Catherine chapel, particularly in the portal.

16

Karlstein Castle, Lesser Tower, window of the space north of the Chapel of the Virgin Mary with traces of the intended incrustation, c. 1362

Work here was perhaps interrupted after the emperor, during his extended stay at the castle in the autumn of 1362,^[101] decided to build a new chapel in the second tower, originally also intended to serve a profane function.^[102] Consecrated in 1365, the shrine is known today as the chapel of the Holy Cross (figs. 17–18), though it is impossible to tell whether this is the original dedication because medieval sources simply refer to it as a “chapel.”

17

Karlstein Castle, Great Tower, Chapel of the Holy Cross, looking north, c. 1365

18

Karlstein Castle, Great Tower, Chapel of the Holy Cross, incrustation of the dado in the northwest part, c. 1365

Although nobody in Charles's time seems to have doubted that the Holy Cross chapel was built both for the emperor's private Passion treasure and for the imperial insignia – this is what Beneš's report says, and this also follows from the treatise of Ludolf – the chapel does not reflect this clearly. In fact, it merely emphasizes that it was a new chapel for the reliquary cross. Just before the entrance, like in the Lesser Tower, there is a relic scene in which Charles inserts a new relic – probably the blood of St. Wenceslas – into the foot of the reliquary cross (fig. 19).^[103] Are we to understand this scene in the sense that Charles still wanted to keep silent about the location of the insignia in Bohemia fifteen years after he acquired them? Or was its iconography based on the fact that there were still more places such as St. Vitus's Cathedral where they could be stored?

19

Karlstein Castle, relic scene before the entrance to the Chapel of the Holy Cross, a nineteenth-century copy of the original from c. 1365

An observation supporting this assumption is that the cathedral had two sacristies, one on the northern side (fig. 2, no 6; and fig. 20), and another above the new Wenceslas chapel (fig. 1). Numerous inventories predating the Hussite Wars attest that the northern sacristy provided space for the cathedral's treasures, relics, liturgical books, and vestments, as well as for the royal and episcopal insignia – whereas the sacristy located above the south entrance, and accessible only via the Wenceslas chapel, remained empty.^[104] This can probably be explained by the fact that the sacristy was prepared as a temporary repository of the imperial insignia during the Feast of the Holy Lance and Nails in Prague, which could be turned into a permanent one at any time. It seems also that the original intention was to display the relics from the sacristy, or from the terrace above it.^[105] Initially, the sacristy had much larger windows, which allows us to compare it to the chapel of St. Michael constructed above the northern sacristy.^[106] Its half-rounded doors faced the ambulatory and originally led onto a balcony, where the relics that were in the possession of the church were displayed,^[107] especially the Virgin Mary's veil that Charles had obtained in Trier in 1354 (fig. 20).^[108] A similar scheme – for those relics not owned by the church – may have been envisaged for the southern sacristy but abandoned before the mosaic was installed in 1370–1371.

20

Prague Castle, Cathedral of St. Vitus, northern sacristy, c. 1360

Given the effort undertaken to make them similar to each other, the mutual resemblance of the chapels does not contradict this assumption. The ‘Passion iconography’ developed at Karlstein (i.e., the stone inlay) was transported to Prague, and ideas and relics essentially linked to the cathedral went the opposite way. The result was that in Prague the Passion of Christ played a dominant role in the chapel dedicated to St. Wenceslas whilst in the Holy Cross chapel, designated to house the Passion treasures, the connection to St. Wenceslas was emphasized. This interweaving of the iconography and meaning had begun with the placement of the carriage ‘relics’ in the Passion/Catherine chapel and culminated with the insertion of Wenceslas's relic into the Bohemian Cross. In addition, the staircase leading to the Holy Cross chapel was fitted with the paintings from the life of St. Wenceslas. Its iconography was conceived as a scala coeli, and whenever Charles and his family, depicted at its top (fig. 19), climbed these stairs, they would have been reminded of the role Wenceslas played in the path to salvation.^[109]

A similar setting can be reconstructed on the outer western wall of the Wenceslas chapel (fig. 21). As already mentioned, the Holy Cross altar was placed against this side, next to the entrance from the transept.^[110] In March 1369, immediately after the consecration of the chapel, according to Beneš Krabice, “the head of the venerable Father Andrew, the eighteenth bishop of Prague, was placed in the wall of St. Wenceslas's chapel above the altar of the Holy Cross, where the painting and the golden cross can be seen.”^[111] Andrew was bishop from 1214 to 1224 and died in exile in Italy, but his skull was later brought to Prague. A list of anniversaries written before 1416 adds that on his anniversary a mass was to be sung at the Holy Cross altar, with a tapestry hanging above the bishop's head, “which is hidden in the wall, where there is a painted cross under the painted head of St. Wenceslas.” The same source adds that this cross was silvery.^[112] The painting was executed in 1373 by Master Oswald, who was paid to “paint the image of St. Wenceslas at the smaller entrance,”^[113] i.e., at the west portal of the chapel. The reference to the “painted” cross, silver in appearance – or golden according to Beneš – might suggest that it was executed in pastiglia.

21

Prague Castle, Cathedral of St. Vitus, Chapel of St. Wenceslas, western wall, a modern reconstruction of the original from c. 1368. A: a niche originally with a skull of Bishop Andrew inserted in 1369

A niche measuring 40 × 30 cm, still containing the skull, was found on the west side of the chapel by Josef Mocker in 1888.^[114] This niche was located 4 m above the ground on the same level as Christ's head, carved into the west portal (fig. 21). It illustrated Jesus's words “I am the gate; who ever enters through me will be saved” (John 10, 9), thus promising salvation to anyone who entered.^[115] Salvation was secured by Sts. Peter and Paul, the founders of the Church, whose figures the visitor would see after entering the chapel on the inner sides of the portal. Wenceslas's role is thus stressed by placing his image next to Christ's head as his close follower. The iconography of the entrance to the Holy Cross chapel utilizes similar motifs while shifting the attention towards Charles. The vera ikon is placed not in the portal (which was not seen from the stairs), but on the vault in front of it, directly above the emperor's head (fig. 19).

Unlike the Passion/Catherine chapel the incrustation of the Holy Cross chapel covered only the dado, while the upper section of the walls was filled with a unique set of 134 panel paintings created by Charles's court artist Theodoric and his workshop (fig. 17).^[116] Here, too, the concept was changed during the implementation, and the earlier plan from the Passion/Catherine chapel was partly realised here, for the dado was originally planned to be complemented probably only by one series of half-figures of saints.^[117] The stone facing is very artfully laid out and the motif of the cross multiplied, first used somewhat clumsily above the altar in the first chapel. The colour scheme is also enriched: in a ‘red sea’ of jasper and amethysts, Greek and Latin crosses – 39 large and 28 smaller ones – the tones range from red to purple, and in the northern splays of the sanctuary windows the crosses are made of olivine (fig. 18).

Based on the incrustation, the chapel is often interpreted as a reference to the Heavenly Jerusalem. This notion had been first voiced by Vlasta Dvořáková and Dobroslava Menclová.^[118] František Fišer, on the other hand, insisted that the Heavenly Jerusalem according to John's description could neither contain the sun and moon as depicted in the vault of the chapel nor the crosses in the stone facing.^[119]

We can support this criticism by interpreting the dado as a reference to the Passion of Christ, which is why the depiction of the Passion is otherwise absent from the exceptionally large body of paintings. Thus the inlay of the dado stands for the earthly zone where the Passion took place, while the rest of the chapel is reserved for the celestial zone. In addition, one of the side altars, which contained the relics of the martyrs Sts. Stephen and Barnabas,^[120] referred to the same aspect of the facing. The contents of the second altar are unknown, but it is likely that they included the relics of the martyr St. Wenceslas, which would underscore his affinity to Christ.

The ‘earthly’ and ‘celestial’ zones were also distinguished in the new Wenceslas chapel, separated by a pronounced cornice, below which the inlay was carried out after the emperor's order in 1372–1373.^[121] In this case, too, the facing is one of the reasons why the Wenceslas chapel has been considered an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Viktor Kotrba, the first to come up with the idea, was led to it by the square plan of the chapel, the division of the walls into twelve bays, and the dedication to the author of the biblical description of the Heavenly Jerusalem, St. John the Evangelist.^[122] He also pointed out that the altar, placed against the eastern wall, was dedicated to Sts. John the Evangelist and Bartholomew.^[123] In addition, he drew on the description by Beneš, who gives the name of St. John before St. Wenceslas at the dedication, and on an account from 1381 that mentions “the altar of St. Wenceslas at the head of the tomb in the chapel of St. John the Evangelist,” thus omitting Wenceslas's name from the title of the chapel.^[124] Fišer rejected this interpretation, too, and considered the association with the Heavenly Jerusalem to be unintentional. As in the case of Karlstein, he stressed that the inlay framed the Passion scenes that took place on Earth and therefore could not be associated with Christ's eternal kingdom that would come with the heavenly city. The dedication to St. John the Evangelist should therefore be read, Fišer suggested, as a dedication to the one representative of the Twelve Apostles to whom the altar in the rotunda, once standing on this place, was originally dedicated.^[125] Hana Šedinová, who authored a detailed analysis of the meaning of the stones in the chapel, agreed with Fišer's reservations and argued that only certain colours were chosen in the chapel, particularly red, purple, and green. She was also the first to put forward a new interpretation according to which the stones were mainly associated with the Passion of Christ. Nevertheless, she admitted that the incrustation might have been loosely perceived in association with the heavenly city.^[126]

Though the objections raised against the alleged intention to build the Wenceslas chapel as well as Karlstein chapel as images of the Heavenly Jerusalem must be taken seriously, their respective consecrations to St. John the Evangelist were anything but coincidental. When Beneš Krabice recorded the consecration of the chapel in honour of St. John the Evangelist and St. Wenceslas on 30 November 1367,^[127] he failed to mention that the same day an identical ceremony took place in the church of Sts. Peter and Paul at Vyšehrad, Prague's second castle. Archbishop Jan Očko of Vlašim, together with the identical trio of bishops – Petr Jelito, Bishop of Chur; Lamprecht of Brunn, Bishop of Speyer; and Gerhard of Schwarzburg, Bishop of Naumburg – at Vyšehrad consecrated the new altar of St. John the Evangelist.^[128] It probably was the rivalry between the Vyšehrad and St. Vitus chapters that was behind the omission of this remarkably staged sacred synchronisation in Beneš's chronicle. Nothing else is known about this Vyšehrad altar, which was probably located in the newly built western part of the church, but we can read the report of the parallel dedication of the chapel and the altar in the two most prominent churches in Prague on the same day as a significant symbolic message.

Equally important is the account from Tangermünde castle. At the consecration of the now defunct chapel in December 1377, a dedication of St. John the Evangelist was added by the emperor to the existing title St. John the Baptist.^[129] At the same time, a chapter was established; in its foundation charter Charles described the chapel as “decorated with precious and other stones.”^[130] These, it should be noted, were the same semiprecious slabs as used in Prague and Karlstein.^[131] As we learn from the list of relics from 1412, the main treasure stored there was Christ's blood kept in a crystal ampoule. ^[132] This was indeed a very valuable relic, especially for the emperor, the acquisition of which can be traced back to Mantua in 1354.^[133] The significance of Tangermünde also lies in the fact that the dedication to St. John the Evangelist appears in connection with the stone inlay.

The third fact hitherto overlooked is the unusual arrangement of the principal (northern) wall of the Holy Cross chapel. Contrary to the usual practice, the painting of St. John the Evangelist – which is one of the oldest panels in the chapel – is not a part of the series of evangelists further below, but is placed on the same level as the Crucifixion (fig. 22).^[134]

22

Karlstein Castle, Great Tower, Chapel of the Holy Cross, northern wall with St. John the Evangelist on the side of the Crucifixion, c. 1365

How can we then understand these multiple references to St. John the Evangelist? As the walls of all aforementioned chapels were faced with semiprecious stones (we know nothing about the altar in Vyšehrad), one may expect that they were based on a similar concept. We can reconstruct it as beginning with the Passion of Christ for which the lower, i.e., ‘earthly’ zones of the chapels were reserved, and it ends with the reference to the Book of Revelation in the upper, ‘heavenly’ zones of the shrines. Thus, the titles of the chapels either refer to the beginning or the end of this program. The role of St. John in these chapels was twofold: first, as a witness to Christ's Passion and death, and second, as one who anticipates Christ's Second Coming and the descent of the Heavenly Jerusalem. This is the message of the main wall of Karlstein chapel, where there is a figure of St. John standing under the cross next to his own bust, and we can read the iconography of the Wenceslas chapel in a similar way, where St. John is again depicted above the main altar below the Crucifix.

The beginning of the program in the Wenceslas chapel was a dado of about the same height as in the chapel of the Holy Cross – 130 cm in Karlstein, 150 cm in Prague. While the Passion cycle is missing at Karlstein because it has been completely replaced by a ‘bloody’ facing, in Prague the allegory of the stones was supplemented by clearly understandable images of Passion scenes by Master Oswald. They depict the main events of Holy Week: Christ on the Mount of Olives, the Betrayal, Christ before Pilate, the Flagellation, Christ crowned with the Crown of Thorns, the Crucifixion with donors, a second Crucifixion, the Entombment, and finally the Resurrection. The series is not limited to the Passion, but continued with the scenes of the Ascension and Pentecost, and ended with the figures of Peter and Paul, a reference to the foundation of the Church of Christ (figs. 23–24).^[135] Large crosses – 17 in total – were inserted between the scenes, but together with the surrounds of the scenes they have a much greater variation in colour than at Karlstein: they are of red jasper, purple amethyst, and green chrysoprase. Although, as in Karlstein, red and purple predominates, in one case (in the north-east corner next to the scene of Christ at the Column) the whole bay is green. Whereas red is clearly associated with blood, purple was interpreted in the Middle Ages in the same way.^[136] According to Hana Šedinová, among the many possible interpretations of the colour green it can be understood as a reference both to faith and to Christ. Hence the green chrysoprase lines the arcades above the figures of Christ before Pilate and the apostles Peter and Paul, while the same stones under their heels represent the foundation of the Church. A marginal place in the inlay is also given to blue stones, which line the archivolt of the north portal. Generally, the incrustation speaks not only of the Passion of Christ but also of the Christian faith.^[137] After the implementation of the two incrustations at Karlstein, where the association with blood was dominant and gave it an almost uniform colour, we enter a much more colourful world in Prague. This allows us to think of the Heavenly Jerusalem, and one may therefore ask whether this was intentional.

23

Prague Castle, Cathedral of St. Vitus, Chapel of St. Wenceslas, altar and the Crucifixion on the eastern wall, c. 1368–1373

24

Prague Castle, Cathedral of St. Vitus, Chapel of St. Wenceslas, Sts. Peter and Paul on the side of the western portal, c. 1368–1373

The Wenceslas chapel differs from its counterpart in Karlstein in one peculiar way. While the architecture does not play a prominent part in the new (and also the first) Karlstein chapel, in Prague, where one of the most talented master builders of his time was active, it is one of the cathedral's primary modes of communication. One of Parler's masterpieces is the vault of the chapel, and its unusual form may indicate that it carries symbolic meaning.

The vault he constructed is based on an eightpointed star pattern, in which the parallel pairs of ribs are crossed (figs. 4 and 25).^[138] This rare form was born in the Mediterranean countries, where it was adapted by Arab architects for domed structures, the most charming and oldest of which are in the Great Mosque of Córdoba (962–966).^[139] Whereas these vaults have robust ribs and a large central bay, later master builders in Andalusia and Morocco preferred thinner ribs and downscaled central oculi. With the advancing re-conquest, Christian architects came to learn these vaults, but with a few exceptions their use remained limited to southern Europe.^[140] The most prominent can be found in the church of Santo Sepulcro in Torres del Río in

25

Prague Castle, Cathedral of St. Vitus, Chapel of St. Wenceslas, ground floor

Navarra from 1160–1170, located on the road to Santiago de Compostela (fig. 26).^[141] It represents a larger group of Spanish buildings, including the Capilla de San Salvador in Old Salamanca cathedral,^[142] which has its counterparts along the road to Compostela on the other side of the Pyrenees in French Aquitaine (Oloron-Sainte-Marie and L’Hôpital Saint-Blaise).^[143]

26

Torres del Río, Church of Santo Sepulcro, vault, c. 1160–1170

We do not know how Peter Parler learned about these vaults, but evidence that there must have been a drawing of a pattern very close to that in Torres del Río in the workshop at St. Vitus's can be found in Vienna: this is the vault on the second storey of the southern tower of the church of St. Stephan, designed by Peter of Prachatice (fig. 27).^[144] Peter had come to Vienna from Prague, and could have brought a copy of the drawing with him because his design is rooted in Prague as attested by the ‘scissors’ springers, which drew on Parler's vault in the Old Town Bridge Tower. If that was the case, Peter of Prachatice remained true to the original because he created a vault in the octagonal tower, while Parler had to adapt the given geometric pattern in order to fit a square floor plan of the Wenceslas chapel.

27

Vienna, Church of St. Stephan, vault of the second floor of the southern tower, c. 1416–1427

Why, however, would Parler feel the need to exploit such an exotic vault pattern, and to transform it into a new solution? The answer may be that there was a symbolic meaning in this kind of vault, one that Parler was after. Such a vault can be found in Torres del Río, the symbolism of which can be interpreted as relating to the vision of St. John the Evangelist. The vault is made up of 24 ribs, which bear inscriptions and paintings. They include names of the apostles, eleven of which were documented early in the twentieth century though only eight are visible today;^[145] a patriarchal cross, the inscription “me fecit,” presumably originally accompanied by the name of the master builder, and a portrait. The inscriptions form a series and are placed at the level of eight small windows, topped by an archivolt with a trio of turrets, wedged between the springing of the ribs (fig. 28).^[146] Since the church was associated with the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, it has been suggested that the meaning of the series, unique in Spain, has its origin in the Anastasis, the western part of the Jerusalem church. This, it has been argued, reflects the iconography of its vault, where the figures of the twelve apostles and twelve prophets were depicted.^[147] Another hypothesis is that the names of the apostles are related to the twelve columns carrying the vault of the church of the Holy Sepulchre.^[148] The names of the prophets, however, are not documented, and could hardly have ever been found in the vault at Torres del Río. When searching for the meaning, the architecture of the windows, which are framed by the inscriptions, should be taken into account. They recall gates (of fortification walls or of a church: the central tower has a window in the shape of a cross), on the basis of which the whole vault can be read as an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem according to John's description: “The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Rev 21, 14). The builders of the church might have been inspired by a widely distributed commentary on the Apocalypse by the Spanish monk Beatus of Liébana, written in 776–786, numerous copies of which contain depictions of the Heavenly Jerusalem as a fortified city with the names of the apostles and corresponding precious stones.^[149]

28

Torres del Río, Church of Santo Sepulcro, detail of the vault, c. 1160–1170

The assumption that Parler drew on this model because of its specific meaning is supported by the way he adapted it in order to fit it to the layout of the chapel. By giving the Wenceslas chapel a square plan, the structure was divided into twelve bays, which fits John's description. Parler further modified the pattern of the vault by filling in its centre, which is as empty in Vienna as it was in Torres del Río (today it is covered by an additional dome). He inserted two intersecting ribs for which there is no structural necessity. The result is a Greek cross that seems to be inserted into the crossing ribs by marking its arms with clusters of foliage (fig. 29). This crocketing was undoubtedly inspired by the motif of the painted sprouts, which ‘grow’ from key stones and cover the vault webs of medieval churches, yet in Parler's rendering this motif can be read in the following ways:

29

Prague Castle, Cathedral of St. Vitus, Chapel of St. Wenceslas, central part of the vault, c. 1368

In the context of the idea of the Heavenly Jerusalem, it could represent the paradise tree from John's vision. When the angel had finished introducing the city to the evangelist, the walls and twelve gates of which were built of precious stones, he showed the evangelist “the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Rev 22, 1–2). According to prevalent belief, the tree that grew in Eden (Gen 2, 9) was used to make the cross on which Christ was crucified. In this spirit the Holy Cross was described as the life-giving cross in the introduction to the founding charter of the Karlstein chapter.^[150]

Yet the cross could likewise allude to the Last Judgment preceding the appearance of the heavenly city: “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” (Matt 24, 29–31, also Mk 13, 26 and Lk 21, 25). The sign of the Son of Man was often interpreted as the cross that will appear in the sky, e.g., in liturgical chants used in Bohemia with this wording: “This symbol of the cross will be in heaven when the Lord comes to the Judgement.”^[151]

This suggests that the association with St. John the Evangelist might have been broad. In the vault of the west window of the Holy Cross chapel we find scenes of the Apocalyptic God Enthroned and the Adoration of the Apocalyptic Lamb by the Twenty-Four Elders. The question is in what sense was this reference to the apocalyptic part of John's Revelation linked to the vault of the chapel? Based on the description published by Bohuslav Balbín in 1681 it seems that there were crosses on the vault as well,^[152] but the documentation before the reconstruction undertaken by Josef Mocker, who restored the removed glass lenses representing the stars, shows that the state we are looking at today actually corresponds with the original form.^[153] Yet we should not forget that the crosses could have been represented by the ribs themselves, which were decorated the same way as the webs of the vault.

Crosses are the dominant motif in the vault in the Passion/Catherine chapel, modelled in great numbers in pastiglia. Their arms were surmounted by trefoils (fig. 30), as in the hands of three apostles on the north side of the chapel (fig. 10). Fišer accordingly suggested that the apostles and saints were announcing the Last Judgment and the coming of the Son of Man.^[154] This was, after all, a daily reminder to the canons of Karlstein, as the reading panel of the pulpit in the chapel of the Holy Cross was similarly inlaid with the image of a Greek cross shining against a starry background (fig. 31).^[155]

30

Karlstein Castle, Lesser Tower, Chapel of St. Catherine, originally Chapel of the Passion and Its Instruments, detail of the vault, c. 1357

31

Karlstein Castle, Great Tower, Chapel of the Holy Cross, pulpit (a nineteenth-century copy)

So are we looking at an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem in the chapel of the Holy Cross? Probably not at first glance, but there certainly are elements that refer to it, namely an arch, raised above the door in a wrought-iron screen, marking off the chancel, from which gems are suspended (fig. 17). The idea has its origin in Roman mosaics, many of which Charles IV saw before his coronation in 1355. In the churches of Santi Cosma e Damiano, Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Cecilia, San Marco, San Clemente, Santa Maria in Trastevere, San Lorenzo fuori le mura, and Santa Prassede, twelve lambs representing the apostles are shown coming out of the gates of the cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem at the base of the apse. At the gates hang differently coloured gems, which also decorate the walls of the cities (fig. 32). Both cities can be seen as a prefiguration of the Heavenly Jerusalem, which, as at Santa Prassede's, is depicted above them as the city whose walls are made in the same manner (fig. 33). The screen with the arch in the Holy Cross chapel thus stands for the earthly Jerusalem, and as such it belongs to the lower zone of the chapel. Crucially, it likewise refers to the Heavenly Jerusalem,^[156] and offers a symbolic link between the two worlds. In this sense, the dado could also be interpreted as a prefiguration of the Heavenly Jerusalem, perhaps most obviously in Prague. Indeed, the edicule fashioned of different coloured stones in which the figures of the Apostles Peter and Paul are set at the end of the series may have referred to the coming of the heavenly city (fig. 24). They flank a larger archivolt lining the entrance, representing Christ (whose head is depicted on the outside), and perhaps this is also why the series continues beyond the Passion scene in order to point the way to the Heavenly Jerusalem.

32

Rome, Church of San Clemente, mosaic above the triumphal arch, detail with the City of Jerusalem, c. 1200

33

Rome, Church of Santa Prassede, the Heavenly Jerusalem on the triumphal arch, c. 822

We can perhaps conclude the meditations presented in this essay by pointing out that the chapels in question were decorated, contrary to

Fišer's hypothesis, with the Book of Revelation in mind. The semiprecious stones did not refer to it directly, but as the images from the earthly Jerusalem that reflected what was to come. On the other hand, we can still argue, agreeing with Fišer, that all Karlstein chapels share a similar program, where the Passion relics were presented in an eschatological manner in relation to the Last Judgement.^[157] That is why the titles of the chapels either refer to the beginning or the end of this program, with St. John the Evangelist representing both of them. These two ‘poles’ of the program were also reflected by the altars: whereas one of the side altars of the Holy Cross chapel contained the aforementioned relics of the martyrs Sts. Stephen and Barnabas, it was dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel,^[158] one of the central figures of the Apocalypse (Rev 12, 7).

Ultimately, it should be noted that this concept has perhaps a precursor in the chapel located on the ground floor of the royal palace in Prague's Old Town square, called the Stone Bell house (dům u Kamenného zvonu). Its murals, executed circa 1310 or 1300, on one side depict the Man of Sorrows – the oldest known in Bohemia – flanked by the angels holding the Instruments of Passion (fig. 34), and on the other side the cycle of the life of St. Wenceslas.^[159] The image of the Man of Sorrows has a distinctive architectural framework, a canopy with turrets on the sides, which could have been seen as a reference to the Tomb of Christ or the church of the Holy Sepulchre.^[160] A key to this interpretation is provided by the

34

Prague, Old Town Square, Stone Bell house (dům u Kamenného zvonu), former royal palace, lower chapel, the Man of Sorrows with the Instruments of Christ's Passion, c. 1300 or 1310

Liber floridus, an illustrated encyclopaedia written around 1120 by Lambert of Saint-Omer, a copy of which, dating from the second half of the thirteenth century, is preserved in the University Library in Leiden. It contains a depiction of the Holy Sepulchre as a site framed by a trefoil arch, bearing four turrets, apparently representing not only the church of the Holy Sepulchre but the city of Jerusalem itself.^[161] Further into the manuscript, we come across the Heavenly Jerusalem, represented as a circular city with a triple arcade in the centre, topped again by four tall towers.^[162] An observer thus could get the impression that the first illustration was a prefiguration of Christ's Second Coming, and in the same way the architecture pictured in the chapel in the Stone Bell house might be understood as a reference to what was to come.^[163] In this respect, the chapel appears to have served as the model to Charles's shrines since its iconography combines Christ's Passion and the notion of St. Wenceslas as Christ's follower. As it is assumed that Charles's parents, King John of Luxembourg and Queen Elisabeth (Eliška) Přemyslid, lived in this palace, as did the young Charles before moving into the refurbished Old Royal Palace at Prague Castle in the 1330s,^[164] the comparison with the Wenceslas chapel is based on solid ground.

The Calvary Chapel in Jerusalem as the Model for the Wenceslas Chapel?

While it is possible to interpret the small Passion/Catherine chapel as the Tomb of Christ, it seems worth probing whether the Wenceslas chapel might have been designed with the Calvary chapel in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in mind. In the fourteenth century, the Calvary chapel continued to exist in the form acquired around 1149 when the Crusaders ruled over the city. It was located above the Golgotha ​rock on the right side after entering the church from the main portal on the south (fig. 35, no. 3).^[165] It protruded southwards from the body of the church in the same spirit as the Wenceslas chapel. The chapel was square in plan, divided by a central pillar; it measured 10.7 × 10.0 m,^[166] roughly matching the Wenceslas chapel's 10.8 × 10.8 m.^[167]

35

Jerusalem, Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 1: the Rotunda, or Anastasis with the Holy Sepulchre, 2: the Eastern Choir, 3: Calvary Chapel, 4: the main entrance, 5: the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist and the tower

Their similar form, size, and rather awkward position within the church, together with the ‘Passion’ nature of the Wenceslas chapel, suggest that this affinity was not entirely coincidental. As we are short of sources this will remain a hypothesis. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the time when the insignia arrived in Prague, and became the subject of the veneration within St. Vitus's, matches with Peter Parler's thorough remodelling of the planned cathedral's layout. Both took place in the 1350s, and one may argue that it was the knowledge of the Jerusalem shrine – the site where the last part of the Passion took place – that had significance for the new design.

It may help to look at Charles IV's relationship with the Holy Land as it was in the 1350s, when the back and forth between Prague and Jerusalem was quite intensive. There were around four groups of pilgrims setting off from the Bohemian Kingdom for Jerusalem, two of which were directly connected to Charles. The first was the mission of Prince Henry V (Henryk V Żelazny), who petitioned the pope's permission to see the Holy Land in December 1353, travelled via Serbia and Byzantium, and returned around 1357, as he is documented at his residence in Silesia in April of that year.^[168] He was followed by Tobiáš of

Bechyně, who called himself the emperor's ambassador (ambassiator regis Romanorum) when requesting the same grace from Innocent VI early in 1354.^[169] Counting the other two groups as well, some hundred men were ready to undertake the journey.^[170] Considering the small number of pilgrims we know about from the previous and subsequent periods, this is exceptional. Their zeal was certainly awoken by the presence of the insignia in Prague and the desire to see the sites related to the relics for themselves. In addition, their voyage was clearly synchronized with Charles's coronation journey to Rome, starting in 1354, and its purpose was probably also to help enrich Charles's collection of relics, acquired during his ‘raid for holy relics’ in 1353– 1354. Tobiáš was certainly a suitable person for this task, as he had brought a tablecloth from the Last Supper as a gift from the King of Hungary to Prague in 1349,^[171] and it was Henry who undoubtedly had brought a piece from the Holy Sponge to Bohemia, a gift from John V Palaiologos that is depicted in the Karlstein murals.^[172] One of these pilgrims must have also been responsible for transporting the collection of stones that is set into the wall bove the crux gemmata.

In addition to these treasures the pilgrims could also have brought with them a drawing such as the one preserved in the Vatican Library (fig. 36),^[173] a simple sketch of the plan, or a description of the holy places, which could have been utilized in Prague and Karlstein. A somewhat curious proof of Charles's interest in such sources is a copy of the aforementioned bestseller from the pen of Burchard of Mont Sion kept in the National Library in Prague and accompanied by the announcement “What follows is a book Description of the Holy Land sent by the Sultan, King of Babylon, to the Emperor Charles IV at the emperor's greatest wish, in the fourth year of his imperial reign.”^[174] Since the latter is reckoned to be from Charles's coronation of April 1355, he must have acquired the book some time around the turn of 1359–1360, when the “King of Babylon,” i.e., the Egyptian sultan, was an-Nasir Hasan (r. 1354–1361).^[175]

36

Jerusalem, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, elevation and the Holy Sepulchre (a fourteenth-century drawing). Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Cod. Urb. Lat. 1362, fol. 1v

The reference to the Calvary chapel would explain why the layout of the cathedral of St. Vitus took its rather unusual form. There can be little doubt that, when construction began in 1344, the original plan did not differ much from the standard Gothic cathedral. It was perhaps due to the presence of the precious Passion relics that the layout was modified in the 1350s, resulting in an asymmetric building, never seen in Europe before.^[176] In this spirit, too, Charles might have been modelling on Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, the sanctuary that first shaped his idea of a sacred space for the Passion relics. If Matthias Müller's conjecture is correct, the chapel was built by Louis IX, who twice attempted to conquer Jerusalem, as an echo of the Calvary chapel.^[177]

It should also be noted that there was a chapel created at Vyšehrad castle around 1404 that architecturally drew on the Wenceslas chapel, and symbolically on the church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was dedicated to the Resurrection – and later jointly to St. Longinus –, and attached as a large centrally planned structure to the western part of the church of Sts. Peter and Paul, referring both by this position and dedication to the Anastasis (Resurrection) Rotunda in Jerusalem.^[178] That architectural imitation was a familiar tool for Charles's master builders is evidenced by the abovementioned church of the Virgin Mary and Charlemagne, which was conceived as a copy of the Palatine chapel in Aachen.^[179]

Looking at the cathedral, one may also notice that the spire to the left of the south entrance recalls the elevation of the Jerusalem church (fig. 36), and that the Gothic tomb of St. Adalbert, located in the middle of the western part of the cathedral, could have stood for the Edicule with the Tomb of Christ (fig. 2, nos. 5 and 7).^[180] In that case it would represent a remarkably faithful adaptation of the topography of the church of the Holy Sepulchre.^[181]

Conclusion

St. Vitus's Cathedral in Prague no doubt is a unique building, and this can even more truly be said of its greatest treasure, the Wenceslas chapel. When this chapel is compared to the pair of chapels at Karlstein Castle, the last of which, located in the Great Tower, is close in its date and design to the Wenceslas chapel, it is possible to undertake an analysis of its symbolic meaning, which can be read on two levels. In the first it can be viewed as a ‘Passion’ chapel, where the martyr Wenceslas assumes the role of Christ's follower. The presence of the imperial insignia at St. Vitus's, including the Holy Lance and a nail from the Holy Cross, kept there from 1350, was probably the reason for the emphasis on that relation. A terrace was built above the southern entrance of the cathedral probably for the purpose of exhibiting the insignia, and a sacristy was constructed beneath it where they could be kept. Although in the later years of Charles's rule the insignia were kept at Karlstein Castle and exhibited at the Cattle Market in the New Town of Prague, the emperor evidently envisioned having multiple places where they could be housed and displayed. This was a key factor in the conception of the Wenceslas chapel, and for this reason the chapel might well have been created as a space alluding to the Calvary chapel in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the Passion of Christ and the events leading to the salvation of the Christians took place. Similar ideas are to be found in the chapel of the Holy Cross and earlier chapel of the Passion and Its Instruments at Karlstein.

Arguably, by collecting as many relics as possible Charles wanted to ensure that the expected Second Coming would take place in his kingdom. This desire also shaped the program of the second symbolic level of the Wenceslas chapel, which, together with the association with the Heavenly Jerusalem, was shared by all the shrines. The same message is additionally conveyed in the image of the Last Judgement that was created above the main entrance of the cathedral using the Italian mosaic technique, and in which the Bohemian saints, headed by St. Wenceslas, are represented speaking on Charles's behalf. The transept wall that looms above the mosaic looks like a monumental gate, as if this was Heaven's door. This is the gate that had been opened by the Holy Lance kept in Bohemia, the lance so much venerated by Charles IV and celebrated by Pope Innocent VI in the charter in which he granted permission to establish the Feast of the Holy Lance and Nails with the following words: “Oh happy lance, which has for us been an instrument of so much good and the celebration of such a great triumph. By opening the side most holy, it opened the gates to heaven for us […] and brought back life and salvation.”^[182] That lance was brought by Charles to Bohemia in the hope of securing the salvation of his subjects who would come to venerate it, and he made it clear enough that he was instrumental in this project of salvation. In the liturgical office, composed by the theologians and the emperor himself for the Feast of the Holy Lance and Nails, these words were inserted: “The emperor, the radiant reflection of the Father, by his indulgence he saves the world from sins with the nails and spear, be greeted such pious infinite grace.”^[183]