History
To a certain extent, the Cathedral of the Assumption Our Lady and St. John the Baptist is a hidden pearl standing in the shadow of other landmarks in Kutná Hora. Actually, this rare and unique UNESCO monument is the convent church of the former oldest Cistercian abbey in present- day Czechia. The formerly Gothic cathedral is located on the spot where a Romanesque church once stood, which was built sometime after 1142, i.e. the year of the Cistercian monastery Charter.
The monastery became rich after one of the Sedlec monks found silver on monastery land. The wealth coming from the silver mining land leases provided for erecting a three-nave Gothic cathedral between 1290 and 1320, with a transept and choir flanked by an arcade and an apse chapel. For many centuries, it remained the largest religious building in Bohemia and Moravia. In 1421, the Hussite army burned down the Cistercian monastery and church. The building remained shattered for almost 300 years. In spite of its miserable condition, the building appeared to be so monumental that the Bohemian writer Bohuslav Balbín called it SPLENDISSIMA BASILICA (the most magnificent basilica) in 1681. At the turn of the 18th century, Abbot Jindřich Snopek had gathered enough strength and funds to have the damaged cathedral repaired. He invited renowned artists of his time to reconstruct it and among them was the then unknown yet budding architect Jan Santini-Aichel, who paid full respect to Abbot Snopek's assignment: i.e. to preserve the cathedral’s original Gothic character and to connect it with elements of the then modern Baroque. Santini created a harmonious entity giving rise to a new distinctive architectural style - Baroque Gothic - by connecting these seemingly incompatible styles. In the cathedral itself, Santini fully proved his inventiveness, talent, and endless fantasy for the first time, applying the principles that he later developed in other buildings for the first time ever. In 1783, the Sedlec monastery was abolished. Is property as well as the large plots were sold at public auction. The cathedral was turned into flour warehouse. A tobacco factory was established in the monastery buildings in 1812, which has remained there until today. The cathedral was returned to the church for further use in 1801. In the course of the 20th century, the cathedral gradually fell into disrepair yet in 1995, it was put on the list of UNESCO's material heritage, reconstructed afterwards and reopened to the public in 2009. Nowadays, it is a functioning parish church of the Roman Catholic Parish of Kutná Hora – Sedlec.
This monstrance comes from the architecture by Petr Parléř (a court Architect of the Emperor Carl IV.), who was also the architect of Cathedral of Saint Vitus in Prague or the Church of St. Barbara in Kutná Hora.
Haptic aids for the blind and the purblind – the ground plan and the west frontage of the building – are to your disposal in the Cathedral