Rotunda svatého Jiří: A Romanesque Church on Mount Říp
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Czechia
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Bohemia, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page9 sections
History
Rotunda svatého Jiří is a Roman Catholic filial church on the summit of Mount Říp in Czechia, in the municipality of Mnetěš. It is a Romanesque building whose present form developed from a chapel associated with Saint Adalbert of Prague, and it is regarded as one of the oldest surviving buildings in the Czech Republic. Heritage protection covers both the rotunda and Mount Říp.
Origins and rebuilding in 1126
The church was originally dedicated to Saint Adalbert of Prague, a tenth-century bishop of Prague and an important Christian missionary and saint in Central Europe. A chapel probably stood on the mountain by about 1039, when part of Adalbert’s relics was brought to Prague. This early structure may have been wooden, although its ground plan probably already resembled the present rotunda.
The building was first recorded in 1126. By then, the existing church had deteriorated, and Duke Soběslav I ordered it to be rebuilt and enlarged after his victory in the Second Battle of Chlumec. The renewed church was consecrated by Heinrich Zdík, bishop of Olomouc. This rebuilding established the principal medieval form of the monument.
Monastic and aristocratic ownership
During the twelfth century, the church was transferred to Strahov Monastery, a Premonstratensian monastery in Prague that held religious and landed possessions. During the Hussite Wars, a series of religious and political conflicts in fifteenth-century Bohemia, Mount Říp and the chapel came into the possession of the Vladiks of Cziněves. They donated the two bells that remain associated with the church.
Strahov Monastery had regained possession of the mountain by 1515. Mount Říp was sold in 1577 and became part of the Roudnice nad Labem estate. After the death of William of Rosenberg in 1592, the estate passed through his widow Polyxena by marriage to the Lobkowitz family.
Dedication and pilgrimage
From the sixteenth century onward, the church became known under the dedication to Saint George, a Christian martyr traditionally shown fighting a dragon and regarded as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. The chapel retained its association with Saint Adalbert as well. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it became a popular pilgrimage destination.
The chapel was remodelled in 1826 in connection with the seven-hundredth anniversary of the Second Battle of Chlumec. A more extensive purist reconstruction, intended to impose an idealized historical appearance, took place from 1869 to 1881 and shaped much of the building seen today.
Twentieth-century changes and conservation
Further alterations took place in the 1960s, when the building was modified in an attempt to restore a supposedly Romanesque appearance. The state subsequently converted it into a national memorial, and the secular name “Rotunda na Řípu” reflected this change. After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the chapel was returned to the Roman Catholic Church.
The annual pilgrimage is held on the Sunday before Saint George’s feast day, 24 April, with related cultural activities taking place during the following weekend. The church continues to serve Roman Catholic worship. Its present condition also reflects the consequences of modern conservation decisions. The exposure of historic masonry after the twentieth-century alterations contributed to deterioration, and the facade was plastered again around 2009. That plaster has since deteriorated rapidly because an unsuitable technology was used.
Remains
The rotunda is arranged as three cylindrical volumes on a single axis: a western bell tower, the circular main nave, and an altar or presbytery area. The presbytery is the part of a church surrounding the main altar, while an apse is the usually curved space behind it. The nave and presbytery overlap, giving the compact building a clearly ordered plan. It is built mainly of opuka, a local marlstone, with thick walls and the strongly enclosed character associated with Romanesque architecture.
Plan, entrances, and masonry
The original design had small Romanesque windows and a western entrance portal. That entrance was later blocked, and access was transferred to a portal on the south side of the main rotunda. The reconstruction of 1869 to 1881 enlarged the nave windows, created the south portal, applied smooth exterior plaster, and replaced the stone roof covering with cement. During the 1960s alterations, the south portal was removed and replaced by a Neo-Romanesque portal, while the windows were reduced and fitted with replicas of Romanesque surrounds.
The historic opuka paving was replaced with sandstone during the twentieth-century works, although it had been considered largely sound at the time. The oldest surviving Romanesque masonry in the second storey of the bell tower was lost when the lower exterior shell was completely rebuilt in the 1960s. The facade was then left unplastered, exposing the ground-level opuka to weathering, before a new plaster layer was applied around 2009.
Bell tower
The western bell tower contains a short spiral staircase leading to a small landing approximately at first-floor level. A full-height window opening on the landing faces into the church, and the bell ropes extend to the same platform. A ladder formed from iron rungs set into the wall leads to the belfry.
Two bells hang in the tower. One dates from 1491 and the other from 1509, and both were probably cast by Master Thomas of Litoměřice. They are rung manually rather than by electric power. Their original tuning requires an experienced bell ringer to produce a harmonious sound.
Interior sculpture and setting
The interior is largely free of permanently integrated decorative elements. Above the passage between the main room and the bell tower is a relief of Saint George fighting the dragon, made by Bernard Otto Seeling and installed in 1870. Eduard Veselý created a stone polychrome statue of the same subject.
Inside the rotunda stands Stanislav Hanzík’s sculpture Boy with a Lamb, which symbolizes the arrival of Slavic shepherds in Bohemia. Hanzík also made the Crucifixion placed in the apse of the presbytery. Behind the simple altar is a sculpture of Saint George’s combat with the dragon; it can be moved when required, including during religious celebrations.
A measurement of basalt magnetism on Mount Říp was carried out in 1890 by members of the International Geodetic Commission. The results were carved into the rotunda’s stone floor slabs. Dense tree growth now surrounds the chapel, changing its relationship with the wider landscape and making it less visible from a great distance than it appears in nineteenth-century illustrations.
