In a previous post I related the tale of the three Defenestrations of Prague, the last of which, in 1618, started the Thirty Years’ War. Following that incident, both the Catholics and the Protestants began amassing their forces for what they knew would be a hard-fought struggle. The Bohemian Estates, controlled by the Protestants, voted to depose King Ferdinand and invited a Calvinist prince, Frederick V of the Palatinate, to replace him. Frederick happened to be married to the daughter of James I, King of England, for whatever that was worth, which proved to be very little. Unwisely, and against his father-in-law’s advice, he accepted the Crown of Bohemia. He arrived in Prague in October 1619. Meanwhile Ferdinand II had been elected Holy Roman Emperor in Frankfurt.
Frederick and the Protestants appeared to be in a strong position at first. They had powerful supporters, including England, the Dutch Republic and the Protestant League of German princes, formed by Frederick’s father. Ferdinand II, by contrast, was broke and had to go begging for aid from his Spanish cousins, but they were spending all their money on trying to subdue the Dutch.
Yet the Bohemian Protestants’ advantages turned out to be illusory. The powerful Duke of Bavaria, Maximilian Wittelsbach, was no friend of Ferdinand, who had been his rival for election as Holy Roman Emperor; but he was even less a friend to Frederick or any Protestant. And in 1609 he had formed a league of Catholic princes which he now summoned to action. In 1620 the forces of the Catholic League stormed through the Protestant territories in Austria, then marched on Bohemia. In the Battle of the White Mountain near Prague, in November 1620, the Catholics routed the Bohemian forces and then entered Prague. Frederick fled. The Bohemian Protestant leaders were rounded up and 27 of them were executed on Old Town Square on June 21, 1621. This was the start of a program of what might be called the 3 Rs – retribution, re-distribution, and re-Catholicization, with Germanization thrown in for good measure. Protestant nobles were expelled en masse from Bohemia; their estates were confiscated and awarded to Catholics, mostly Germans. The German language was made an official tongue of Bohemia and was widely spoken among the aristocracy and the urban inhabitants; Czech was mostly relegated to the rural areas. Bohemia became a staunchly Catholic country and remains so today.
One of the people most instrumental in restoring Catholicism and Habsburg rule in Bohemia was a man known to history as Albrecht von Wallenstein. He was born in 1583 into a family of poor Protestant nobles, the Waldsteins (Wallenstein is a variant of the name commonly used in English-language publications), but in 1506 he converted to Catholicism, probably to enhance his prospects in Imperial service. He became wealthy by two marriages to rich heiresses. When the Bohemian Revolt began in 1618, he used his wealth to equip troops to fight on the Catholic side. The rebels confiscated his estates in Moravia, but he recovered them after the Battle of the White Mountain, in which he distinguished himself. The Emperor Ferdinand rewarded him with new estates and grandiloquent titles, including Count Palatine, Prince and Duke. In turn Wallenstein supplied the Emperor with loans and raised armies, which he commanded, to fight the Protestants. In the late 1620s Wallenstein’s armies went from one victory to another, carrying all before them, and it seemed that Ferdinand’s dream of restoring Catholicism throughout the Holy Roman Empire was on the verge of realization.
Then the Swedes struck.
Nowadays Sweden is justifiably thought of as a peaceful, democratic country, having been neutral in two world wars. But in the 17th century Sweden was the terror of Northern Europe. Its king from 1611 to 1632, Gustav Adolf, was something of a military genius. In 1630 he invaded Germany in support of the Protestant cause and won a series of victories that completely reversed the balance of power in the Thirty Years’ War.
However, even before this development Ferdinand II had already begun to have doubts about Wallenstein, who was becoming something of an over-mighty subject. In September 1630 he dismissed Wallenstein, who retired to his estates. But the Swedish victories soon forced Ferdinand to recall Wallenstein. In November 1632, the Swedish and Imperial armies met in the climactic battle of Lützen. The result was a tactical victory for the Swedes, but a strategic defeat, for King Gustav Adolf was killed. Again the balance of power had changed, this time favorably for the Habsburgs.
Yet the Swedes were not finished; they renewed the fight under other commanders, with financial support from France, and the Thirty Years’ War continued in full fury. In 1633 Ferdinand discovered that Wallenstein was negotiating with the enemies of the Habsburgs, including Sweden and France, and determined to oust him once and for all. In 1634 he had Wallenstein assassinated. Ferdinand II himself died in 1637, but the Thirty Years’ War raged on. Peace was not concluded until 1648.
In the years of his ascendancy, between 1623 and 1630, Wallenstein had a grandiose Baroque palace built for himself in the Malá Strana district of Prague. On the last day of our stay in Prague, our Gate1 tour group began its tour of Malá Strana with a visit to the Wallenstein Palace and its extensive gardens. We debarked from our tour bus a few blocks away, at Letná Hill, an outcrop of rock dating from the Ordovician period, which lasted from 485 to 443 million years ago; it contains fossils of ancient creatures such as trilobites, brachiopods, graptolites and conodonts (early vertebrates).
Proceeding past the Kunsthalle Praha, a museum for modern art, and the Czech Geological Survey headquarters, we came to a small park, the Holubička (Dove) Park. There we found a famous statue, Girl with a Dove, by Václav Šimek (1958), as well as several models of buildings erected or planned during the years of Communist rule (1948-1989). I was intrigued by these structures, which proved to be examples of Brutalism, an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s and was characterized by minimalist constructions that showcase the bare building materials and structural elements in preference to decorative design; it makes use of exposed, unpainted concrete or brick, angular geometric shapes and a predominantly monochrome color palette. It found favor under the Communist regime, and gave rise to a number of interesting projects, but these have largely been rejected by post-1989 Czech society because of their Communist associations. Some of the planned structures were never erected, and some of those actually built have been demolished or scheduled for demolition. Despite its association with the Communist period, the term Brutalism has nothing to do with brutality, but is derived from the French word brut, meaning “rough”. Although it’s not exactly my favorite architectural style, I thought that the examples I saw in Prague were worth preserving, at least for historical reasons.
From Holubička Park, we entered the Valdštejnská zahrada, the garden of the Wallenstein Palace. The eastern side of the garden is enclosed by a large structure which was built as the Waldstein Riding School but is now part of the National Gallery of Art. Most of the east end of the garden area is occupied by a large pool, or small lake, with a circular island in the middle, on which is a sculpture of Hercules beating a dragon with a club; figures of naiads (water nymphs) decorate the banks of the island. Along the north side of the garden runs a large greenhouse. Westward from the pool run three paved walkways, lined with sculptures of figures from classical antiquity, including, including Diana, Apollo, Bacchus, and others. These are copies of original works by the famous Dutch Mannerist sculptor Adriaen de Vries (1556-1626). In 1648, while negotiations were underway for the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War, the Swedes made one last assault on Prague, which they sacked. They looted the Wallenstein palace and gardens and carried the statues off to Sweden, where they still grace the grounds of Drottningholm Palace, the Swedish royal residence. In the twentieth century, copies of the originals were made and installed in the garden. The copies are said to be inferior to the originals, but I would not be able to distinguish between them, so I didn’t mind.
Proceeding westward toward the palace, we encountered a fountain which, unlike the others in the gardens, was unadorned with any sculptures or other decor. It was called the Středová kašna, or “Central Fountain” in Czech. However, středá, meaning “center”, also means “Wednesday” in Czech (Wednesday is after all the middle of the week), so středová kašna could also mean “Wednesday’s Fountain.” From this I deduced that the lack of decoration was possibly the result of the sculptors taking Wednesdays off. An alternative explanation could be that the Swedes stole whatever embellishment was originally associated with the fountain and it was never replaced.
Wending our way through the tall hedges, in the southwest corner of the gardens we came upon the Dripstone Wall, a unique structure consisting of roof tiles cooked in such a manner as to form artificial stalactites. The effect is striking. Integrated with the Dripstone Wall is an aviary, consisting of the same material and housing a number of exotic birds, including two pairs of Eurasian eagle owls, similar to the famous Flaco who escaped from the Central Park Zoo in 2023.
The west end of the palace gardens is dominated by the Sala Terrena, a garden pavilion (or loggia, to use the Italian term). Designed by the Italian architect Andrea Spezza in 1627, it consists of three arcades supported by double columns and is decorated with frescoes by the Florentine artist Baccio Bianco depicting scenes from Greek and Roman mythology. Wallenstein could dine there while enjoying the view of his gardens. Directly in front of the Sala Terrena he would have seen a statue of Venus accompanied by Cupid and a dolphin, adorning a bronze fountain, which he had acquired in 1626. Like the other statues in the garden, the original, which was the work of the German bronze-caster Benedikt Wurzelbauer, was looted by the Swedes in 1648; but unlike the others, it was returned by Sweden in 1890. However, the original now resides in the National Gallery, safely out of reach of Swedish tourists, while the one in the garden is a copy.
Our excursion did not include a tour of the interior of the palace, which is the seat of the Czech Senate, so from the garden we exited to Waldstein Square (Valdštejnské náměstí) in front of the palace.
From Waldstein Square we trekked down Tomášská Street, a picturesque narrow lane lined with venerable and attractive structures such as the Three Storks Hotel and the Golden Stag Townhouse, to Malá Strana Square (Malostranské náměstí).
