Černín Palace: Aristocratic Residence and Seat of Czech Diplomacy
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Czechia
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page12 sections
History
Černín Palace is a historic palace in Prague, Czechia, commissioned by the Bohemian aristocrat Count Humprecht Johann Czernin of Chudenitz in 1669. Its design reflected the ordered classical proportions and monumental columnar façades of Palladianism, an architectural tradition derived from Andrea Palladio. The palace was built on Hradčany, opposite Prague Loreto and near Prague Castle, as the principal residence of the Czernin family in Prague.
Foundation and Construction
Czernin acquired the site in 1666, and Francesco Caratti prepared the first design. A sketch by the leading Italian architect and sculptor Lorenzo Bernini may have influenced the planning. Bernini had prepared the sketch for Christina, Queen of Sweden, a major patron of the arts who lived in Rome after abdicating, but he never visited Prague. Construction proceeded under Caratti and was later overseen by Giovanni Battista Maderna, Domenico Rossi, and Giovanni Alliprandi.
Work accelerated in 1673 after Emperor Leopold I announced a visit to Prague. The cost of the project brought Humprecht Johann Czernin close to financial ruin. Hermann Jakob Czernin of Chudenitz became the palace’s subsequent patron in 1682, while Franz Maximilian Kaňka oversaw the completion of the interiors between 1717 and 1723.
Changing Uses and Damage
The palace was seldom occupied because the family’s social and political life centered on the imperial court in Vienna, where the Czernins also maintained a palace. Military operations damaged the building several times. French occupation and plundering caused losses, and Prussian artillery inflicted further damage. Emperor Joseph II declined an offer to purchase the palace.
In 1779, part of the building became a military hospital. Count Johann Rudolf Czernin rented another section to the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts, an association founded to promote art exhibitions and collections in Prague. Its exhibitions and auctions provided an institutional predecessor to the National Gallery Prague. Johann Rudolf retained rooms on the second floor, while the family archives occupied the ground floor and the administration of the Czernin domain used offices in the left wing.
Rental income did not meet even basic maintenance costs, and Johann Rudolf eventually sold the palace to the army. From 1851, during the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I, it served as a military barracks and underwent extensive alterations. Part of the building later housed an orphanage.
Government and Diplomatic History
After the establishment of Czechoslovakia, President Tomáš Masaryk commissioned Pavel Janák to modernize the palace from 1928. The reconstruction was completed in 1934 and adapted the building for the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Original plans guided the work, and later alterations were removed in an effort to preserve the palace’s historical character.
During the German occupation of the Czech lands, the palace housed Reich Protector Konstantin von Neurath, the highest German civil authority in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. His successor, Deputy Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich, and the Protectorate’s state secretary, Karl Hermann Frank, also used the building. Kurt von Burgsdorff temporarily maintained his official and residential quarters there.
After the Second World War, Černín Palace again became the seat of the foreign ministry. In March 1948, Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk was found dead after falling from a window. The event became known as the “third Prague defenestration,” a term referring to the throwing of a person from a window; the circumstances of Masaryk’s death have remained historically controversial.
On 1 July 1991, the palace hosted a ministerial meeting chaired by Czechoslovak President Václav Havel. The meeting signed the agreement that ended the existence of the Warsaw Pact’s political organs. The Warsaw Pact was the Soviet-led military and political alliance of several communist states in Europe. Černín Palace currently houses the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.
Remains
Layout and Exterior
Černín Palace occupies an elongated plot measuring approximately 60 by 250 metres, with a difference in elevation of about 8.5 metres. Four wings form the building, and a cross-wing divides the courtyard into two parts. The north and east wings rise to three storeys, while the other wings are one storey high. The principal façades face east toward Loreto Square and north toward the garden. Courtyard façades are shaped chiefly by arcades and a system of blind panels.
Main Frontage
The main frontage extends for 150 metres and is divided by 30 Corinthianizing half-columns. These columns rise in a colossal order above tall socles faced with diamond rustication, a masonry treatment formed from raised diamond-shaped blocks. The arrangement creates strong contrasts between light and shadow and reflects English and French Palladianism. Its ordered composition has been compared with the contemporary east façade of the Louvre. Four rows of windows, ground-floor rustication, and monumental half-columns articulate the long elevation, which was built as a single block without projecting sections.
Portals and Garden Side
Anselmo Martino Lurago repaired war damage between 1744 and 1749. He added three portals to the main façade and placed a balcony above them, with the central section projecting outward. On the garden side, he created a visually prominent passage featuring a statue of Hercules by Ignaz Franz Platzer. He also added an orangery to the palace garden.
Černín Garden
The palace includes the large Italian-style Černín Garden, which was laid out for Hermann Jakob Czernin of Chudenitz in 1693. The garden forms part of the palace’s planned setting behind the principal building.
Interior Features
Staircase and Dome
Franz Maximilian Kaňka completed the palace interiors around 1720. An imposing staircase is preceded by a monumental sculptural group by Matthias Bernhard Braun. Above the staircase, a dome carries Wenzel Lorenz Reiner’s ceiling painting The Fall of the Titans.
Paintings and Principal Hall
Wall paintings on the first floor and ceiling panels on the second floor remain from the palace’s earlier interior decoration. The principal hall rises through three storeys, giving the interior a vertical scale that corresponds to the building’s monumental exterior composition.
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