Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc
"To the glory of God the Almighty, the Virgin Mary and the saints I will build a column that in its height and splendour will be unrivalled in any other town." From Wenzel Render's letter to the Olomouc City Council.
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| Coordinates | 49°35′38.19″N 17°15′1.53″E / 49.5939417°N 17.2504250°ECoordinates: 49°35′38.19″N 17°15′1.53″E / 49.5939417°N 17.2504250°E |
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| Location | Olomouc, Czech Republic |
| Beginning date | 1716 |
| Completion date | 1754 |
| Official name | Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | i, iv |
| Designated | 2000 (24th session) |
| Reference no. | 859 |
| State Party | Czech Republic |
| Region | Europe and North America |
The Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc is a Baroque monument (Trinity column) in the Czech Republic built from 1716 to 1754. The main purpose was to celebrate the Catholic Church and faith, partly caused by feeling of gratitude for ending a plague, which struck Moravia (now in the Czech Republic) between 1713 and 1715. The column was also understood to be an expression of local patriotism, since all artists and master craftsmen working on this monument were Olomouc citizens, and almost all depicted saints were connected with the city of Olomouc in some way.
It is the biggest Baroque sculptural group in the Czech Republic. In 2000 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as "one of the most exceptional examples of the apogee of central European Baroque artistic expression".
According to the ICOMOS evaluation of this patrimony, "the erection of Marian (plague) columns on town squares is an exclusively Baroque, post-Tridentine, phenomenon. Its iconographic basis lies in the Book of Revelation. The basic model is thought to have been the column in the Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, from 1614.
This monument for Olomouc was the culmination of work of several artists and master craftsmen, but it did not bring much fortune to them. The first to die during the work was Wenzel Render, a monumental mason and privileged imperial architect. He came first with the idea to build the column, enforced his will upon the city council, designed it, built the first stage and helped to finance it. His followers Franz Thoneck, Johann Wenzel Rokický and Augustin Scholtz also did not live long enough to see the column finished; it was completed by Johann Ignaz Rokický. The sculptural decoration was started by Phillip Sattler. After his death Andreas Zahner continued and made 18 sculptures and 9 reliefs in 7 years before he died as well. Goldsmith Simon Forstner, who made gilded copper sculptures of the Holy Trinity and of the Assumption of the Virgin, was somewhat luckier and managed to finish his brilliant work. However he lost his health when working on the sculptures and using toxic mercury compounds during the gilding process.
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