Church of Saints Peter and Paul (Mělník): A Gothic Provost Church in Czechia
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Czechia
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Bohemia, Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Bohemia
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page9 sections
History
The Church of Saints Peter and Paul is a Roman Catholic parish and provost church in Czechia, standing beside Mělník Castle. Its foundation is traditionally placed around the year 1000, during the time of Princess Emma, the consort of Duke Boleslav II, although architectural evidence dates the first construction to the second half of the tenth century. The church is regarded as one of the oldest in Bohemia and may originally have been dedicated only to Saint Peter. Its provost status preserves the memory of the collegiate chapter, a community of clergy organized for worship and church administration, which existed here from the beginning of the eleventh century until 1421.
Romanesque origins and Gothic rebuilding
The first direct written reference to the church dates from 1172, when lightning caused a fire. At that time, the building was a Romanesque basilica. A Chapel of Corpus Christi had been built beside it before 1330, and the chapel was later converted into the sacristy. Provost Jan of Landštejn gave this chapel its present form.
A major rebuilding in the Gothic style began around 1380. This campaign produced the three-nave church and its principal tower. Tower construction started in 1483 and ended in 1488 under the direction of the workshop of Johann Spiess of Frankfurt. During the early sixteenth century, the main nave was raised and the church acquired the form conventionally dated to 1520. Builder Benedikt Ried of Pístov directed this final Gothic phase. A rose belonging to the Lords of Landštejn appears on one keystone from the period of Jan of Landštejn, while a W-shaped emblem of King Vladislaus II Jagiellon on a keystone in the south nave records the king as a donor.
Fires, restoration, and modern history
Fires in 1555 and 1681 brought further changes. The earlier fire resulted in the addition of Renaissance gables. The fire of 1681 melted the church bells and led to the replacement of the tower’s Gothic termination with a Baroque onion dome. Three replacement bells were cast in 1690 by Jean Pricquey, a bell-founder from Lorraine who worked in Mladá Boleslav. Two remain in use, while the third, dedicated to Saint Ludmila, was later confiscated for military purposes. The oldest bell, dated 1410, was donated after the 1681 fire and formerly served as a death bell. It is no longer used.
Comprehensive restoration took place from 1910 to 1916. Architect Kamil Hilbert examined the building in 1913 and 1914 and identified the surviving fragment of a Romanesque tower as the oldest part of the church. During the same restoration, the crypt and ossuary were examined and rearranged by Czech anthropologist Professor Jindřich Matiegka.
On 9 May 1945, an aerial bomb struck the church during an air raid. The blast severely damaged the roof and shattered the windows and part of the tracery on the south side. The main tower received a white facade in 1972, and the church facade was renewed in 1977. In the late 1990s, the presbytery was reroofed with pantiles and the nave roofs were repaired. During the early twenty-first century, the windows were reglazed, the south entrance received an ornamental security grille, and the organ was repaired. The crypt entrance in the north vestibule was opened on 19 October 2001, allowing further investigation of the people buried within the chamber.
The church has been protected as a cultural monument since 1966. Since 2002, its spiritual administration has been entrusted to the Saletins, members of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette. In 1993, Bishop Josef Koukl of Litoměřice consecrated a bell dedicated to Saints Agnes and Zdislava. It weighs 650 kilograms and is tuned to F-sharp.
Remains
Layout and exterior fabric
The surviving building is a stone Gothic hall church, a form in which the nave and side aisles are approximately equal in height. It measures about 40 metres long and 21.5 metres wide. A square-plan tower rises 65.87 metres and stands above the confluence of the Elbe and Vltava rivers. Its Baroque onion dome replaced the earlier Gothic termination after the fire of 1681. The dome retained a shingle covering until 1937, when it was fitted with an exact replica roof of copper sheet. A fallen cross was also replaced and secured with a lightning conductor.
Below the tower’s north window is a sandstone relief of the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Bohemia. At the church’s southwestern corner, the receding fragment of a second Romanesque tower survives. An octagonal column shaft and base found during repairs in 1892 confirmed the Romanesque construction. The base corresponds to sixteen others discovered in the crypt of St Wenceslas Church at Stará Boleslav.
Presbytery and vaulted interior
The presbytery stands above the crypt and is separated from the main nave by a broad staircase. Its large windows have flamboyant tracery, a late Gothic pattern of flowing, flame-like forms. A polychrome net vault bears the date 1533, while the termination has a star-rib vault carried on slender cylindrical supports. The main nave opens into the side naves through arcades with pointed Gothic arches resting on rectangular piers. Its star-rib vault rises from corbels. The south aisle has three bays with cross-rib vaulting, and the north aisle has four. A net vault covers the north vestibule.
The ground and first floors of the large tower contain complex net vaults. The lower part of the older tower has a cross vault, preserving a further element of the church’s Romanesque building history.
Altars, paintings, and furnishings
Most of the interior furnishings and decoration are Baroque, although the presbytery retains late Gothic ceiling frescoes and a panel painting of the Crucifixion. The late Baroque high altar carries sculptures of Saint Wenceslas, Saint Ludmila, Mary Magdalene, and Saint Florian. Its painting of the Apostles Peter and Paul is traditionally attributed to Karel Škréta.
A side altar has a 1697 painting by Filip Mazanec showing Saint Ludmila with the child Saint Wenceslas and a panorama of Mělník behind them. Other furnishings include an altar of the Virgin Mary with a copy of the Palladium of Stará Boleslav, a Marian image associated with the pilgrimage tradition of Stará Boleslav, and an altar of Saint John of Nepomuk. The Baroque pulpit dates from 1731. A group sculpture of the Descent from the Cross was made around 1724 by a pupil of Ferdinand Maximilian Brokof. The nineteenth-century organ is housed in a Rococo case, and a late Gothic silver monstrance, a vessel for displaying the consecrated Eucharistic host, is kept in the church treasury.
Crypt and ossuary
The crypt lies beneath the presbytery and has a cross vault with lunettes. Its vault retains Renaissance figural and ornamental painting dated 1583. The chamber also contains an ossuary, a space for the organized storage of human bones removed from earlier burials. The bones came from the former church cemetery, especially during plague epidemics when burial space was insufficient. They are estimated to represent approximately 10,000 to 15,000 individuals and are arranged in the shapes of an anchor, a cross, and a heart, representing faith, hope, and love. After ossuaries in Bohemia were generally closed after 1787, the Mělník ossuary was among the few to be sealed and retained.
Bells
The tower’s surviving bell tradition combines medieval and post-fire elements. The 1410 bell, probably brought to the church after the 1681 fire rather than cast for it, once served as a death bell and is no longer used. Of the three bells cast in 1690 by Jean Pricquey, two remain in service. The later bell consecrated in 1993 for Saints Agnes and Zdislava weighs 650 kilograms and has the principal pitch F-sharp.
