Old Royal Palace: The Historic Seat of Bohemian Rulers at Prague Castle
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.2
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Czechia
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Bohemia, Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Bohemia
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page25 sections
History
The Old Royal Palace is the historic central section of Prague Castle’s southern wing in Czechia. It served as the seat of Bohemian princes and kings from the tenth to the sixteenth century, developing through Romanesque, Gothic, Late Gothic, and Renaissance phases into a representative royal and imperial residence.
Romanesque Foundations
The palace replaced an older residence associated with the Přemyslid prince Bořivoj I, a member of the dynasty that ruled medieval Bohemia, from the 880s. In the 1130s, Prince Soběslav I commissioned a stone Romanesque palace. It formed part of Prague Castle’s fortifications while also serving as a ceremonial residence for the ruling house.
Soběslav’s palace had a large south-facing throne hall, a princely room, and a chapel on its eastern side. The chapel was consecrated in 1185. These early buildings established the palace as both a fortified part of the castle and a centre of princely representation.
Gothic Expansion and Imperial Residence
After 1252, Přemysl Otakar II expanded and rebuilt the palace in the Gothic style. A fire around 1303 severely damaged the complex, which was subsequently abandoned. Its remains later provided the foundation for a major reconstruction under Charles IV.
In 1333, Charles IV began rebuilding the palace above the remains of Soběslav’s Romanesque residence. Charles, a Luxembourg ruler who was King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, transformed Prague Castle into a representative imperial residence. During his reign, the palace became a residence of Roman emperors, while Prague rose to become the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, the central European political entity governed by an elected emperor and leading princes.
Wenceslas IV extended the palace westward. The Gothic building soon proved inadequate for the needs of the imperial court, however, and in 1383 he moved to a new royal residence at the eastern edge of Prague’s Old Town. Known as the King’s Court, that palace no longer survives, and the Municipal House now occupies its site.
Between 1370 and 1387, a new Gothic All Saints church was built on the site of the earlier princely chapel under Charles IV and John of Luxembourg. Its architect was Peter Parler, a leading Gothic architect and sculptor associated with major works at Prague Castle. The church was probably modelled on the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.
Vladislav II’s Rebuilding
The Bohemian kings returned to Prague Castle in 1484 under Vladislav II Jagiello, a ruler of the Jagiellonian house. He initiated the palace’s last major medieval rebuilding. Hans Spies directed the initial work from 1483, and Benedikt Ried, a major Late Gothic architect active in Bohemia around 1500, later became the principal architect.
This rebuilding created the Vladislav Hall, its Equestrian Staircase, and the Ludwig Wing. The works combined Late Gothic architecture with emerging Renaissance elements and gave the palace much of its present character. The hall also served royal representation and, during the reign of Rudolf II, temporarily functioned as a free marketplace for artists.
Habsburg Administration and Political Conflict
After the Habsburgs assumed the Bohemian throne and moved into the western part of Prague Castle during the sixteenth century, the Old Royal Palace ceased to be the principal royal residence. Its rooms continued to support coronation ceremonies, assemblies, chancery offices, and storage. A major fire engulfed Prague Castle in 1541, severely damaging the palace and All Saints chapel. Both were subsequently rebuilt, and the chapel was enlarged and reconstructed in the Renaissance style toward the end of the sixteenth century.
Following the fire, the second floor of the Ludwig Wing became the seat of the Bohemian Chancery, the central administrative office of the Bohemian kingdom. For two centuries it served as the official seat of the Habsburg governors of Bohemia. The Imperial Court Council, an institution that handled affairs of the Holy Roman Empire, also met in the palace during the reign of Rudolf II.
The Stattholder’s Hall in the Ludwig Wing was the setting of the Second Defenestration of Prague on 23 May 1618. Bohemian Protestant estate representatives threw royal officials from a palace window, an act that began the Bohemian Revolt and helped trigger the Thirty Years’ War. On 19 June 1621, the death sentences of 27 leaders of the revolt were read in the Imperial Court Council Chamber. The condemned men were executed two days later in Prague’s Old Town Square.
Later Alterations and Continuing Use
In the 1760s, Maria Theresa commissioned the Theresian Wing along the palace’s south side. The wing was rebuilt several times during the twentieth century and was adapted for art exhibitions in 1993. The Old Royal Palace consequently preserves later Baroque, nineteenth-century, and twentieth-century alterations alongside its earlier fabric.
Since 2004, the Gothic basement has housed the permanent exhibition The Story of Prague Castle. It presents the castle’s development and building history through original objects, archaeological finds, and models, while also addressing the lives of aristocrats, artists, architects, military engineers, and ordinary inhabitants. The Vladislav Hall remains a setting for formal state ceremonies, including the election of the president of the Czech Republic.
Remains
The Old Royal Palace occupies the central part of Prague Castle’s southern wing. A side wing forms the eastern boundary of the Third Courtyard, where the relatively inconspicuous entrance is placed, with the Baroque Eagle Fountain in front of it. The surviving complex brings together Romanesque masonry, Gothic halls, Late Gothic vaults, Renaissance rooms, and later alterations in individual chambers and wings.
Romanesque and Early Gothic Levels
Soběslav’s Palace
The deepest surviving level is the second basement, approximately at the level of the Wall Garden. It contains the hall of Soběslav’s twelfth-century Romanesque palace. Romanesque remains also include a basement vault, sections of the southern exterior wall built with solid stone and turrets, and the remains of a Romanesque tower within the western line of buildings.
Charles’s Palace
The first basement contains rooms from Charles IV’s former Gothic palace. Among them are Charles’s Hall, the Column Hall of Wenceslas IV from around 1400, and the room of the Old Land Tables. Before the 1541 fire, the last room held the nobility’s land registers and the decisions of the provincial court.
Rooms of Law and Government
The Green Room
The Green Room dates from the fourteenth century. Charles IV presided there over minor legal proceedings, and from the sixteenth century the Court and Chamber Court met in the room. Its original Gothic ceiling was destroyed in the 1541 fire. The present flat ceiling carries an eighteenth-century fresco of the Judgment of Solomon, and the room is now used as a bookshop.
Audience Hall
Two smaller Gothic rooms adjoin the Green Room. One is the Audience Hall, also incorrectly called Vladislav’s Bedroom. Its walls bear the coats of arms of the lands of the Bohemian Crown and of former Chamber Court members. Vladislav’s living quarters were on the floor above and connected by a covered bridge to the royal oratory in St. Vitus Cathedral.
Land Tables Rooms
The Hall of the New Land Tables is reached through the left entrance of a double Renaissance portal north of the Vladislav Hall and by a spiral staircase. The New Land Tables were kept there from after the 1541 fire until the end of the eighteenth century. These provincial-court books recorded noble property, court decisions, and resolutions of the provincial assembly, giving legal force to their entries.
Painted coats of arms of Land Table officials decorate the walls and ceilings, while seventeenth-century furniture and a tiled stove remain in the room. A rear door leads to the Land Tables Archive, where reproductions of the registers are held in carved wooden cabinets from the period of Rudolf II.
Crown Archive Wing
An adjoining small wing was built by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer in 1727. It housed the Crown Archive and temporarily held the Bohemian Crown Jewels in 1868. Its double door has seven locks.
Vladislav Hall and Its Gothic Features
Vladislav Hall
Built by Benedikt Ried between 1493 and 1502, the Vladislav Hall measures 62 metres long, 16 metres wide, and 13 metres high. It occupies the former location of three Gothic rooms from the time of Charles IV and was then the largest secular interior in medieval Prague.
The hall is covered by a vast support-free Late Gothic cross-ribbed vault, a ceiling structured by intersecting ribs. Its five vault bays form an ornamental pattern based on a six-pointed star. Broad triple windows are divided on the exterior by pilasters and half-columns. Together with the portals, these features represent an early manifestation of the Renaissance in Bohemia.
High Renaissance windows on both sides illuminate the hall. Its wooden floor probably dates from the eighteenth century. Five Renaissance chandeliers hang from the vault, including three original sixteenth-century fittings and two twentieth-century copies.
Equestrian Staircase
The Equestrian Staircase leads from the Vladislav Hall toward St. George’s Square. It enabled knights taking part in tournaments to enter the hall on horseback and now serves as an exit from the palace. Built around 1500 during Vladislav II’s rebuilding, it is 3.5 metres wide and 8.4 metres long.
Nine long, low steps slope slightly forward to make passage more comfortable for horses. An elaborate Late Gothic cross-ribbed vault covers the staircase. A viewing terrace on the south side of the Vladislav Hall overlooks the southern palace gardens and the roofs of Prague’s Old Town. Beside the terrace, a granite spiral staircase built by Otto Rothmayer in 1930 and 1931 connects the palace with the Theresian Wing.
All Saints Chapel
All Saints chapel occupies the eastern end of the Vladislav Hall and is reached by steps leading to its gallery. Peter Parler’s original Gothic church was probably modelled on the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. The 1541 fire led to its reconstruction in the Renaissance style, and the chapel was enlarged and extended to the eastern front of the Vladislav Hall. By 1580, only its outer walls remained from the Gothic structure.
Assembly and Administrative Wings
Old Assembly Hall
The Old Assembly Hall lies in the double building tract adjoining the north side of the Vladislav Hall. Its original structure was created during Vladislav II’s expansion by Benedikt Ried and was severely damaged in the 1541 fire. Bonifaz Wohlmut rebuilt its elaborate Late Gothic ribbed vault between 1559 and 1563.
The hall contains nineteenth-century furniture and a tiled stove. Its seating arrangement follows the hierarchy established by the Renewed Provincial Ordinance of 1627. A Neo-Gothic royal throne stands between the windows, with a seventeenth-century silver lion above it. To the left is a richly decorated Renaissance tribune for the chief provincial clerk.
The archbishop and senior clergy sat beside the throne, while noble representatives occupied the opposite side. A small gallery provided standing places for representatives of the royal towns. Copies of portraits of Maria Theresa, Joseph II, and other Habsburg rulers cover the walls.
Ludwig Wing
The three-storey Ludwig Wing projects southward from the palace. Benedikt Ried added it in the Renaissance style at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and it originally contained the living quarters of Ludwig II Jagiello. The Imperial Court Council Chamber occupies its third floor and is reached by a spiral staircase.
The chamber contains furniture, paintings, and a Baroque tiled stove dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Copies of portraits of Habsburg Bohemian kings hang on the walls. Two sandstone obelisks beneath the windows of the Stattholder’s Hall, in the Wall Garden, commemorate the Second Defenestration of Prague.
Theresian Wing
The Theresian Wing is a long, single-storey building along the south side of the palace. It connects the Ludwig Wing with the Noble Ladies’ Institute. Its present form reflects the rebuilding and adaptation that followed Maria Theresa’s eighteenth-century commission and later twentieth-century alterations.
Archaeological Exhibition
Gothic Basement Exhibition
The permanent exhibition in the Gothic basement contains original objects from the castle collection, archaeological finds, and numerous models of Prague Castle. Its presentation explains the castle’s historical development and architectural history while placing the palace within the wider life of the castle community.
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