On your right stands a dark stone monument shaped like a massive pyramid where a towering central figure is held aloft by a struggling group of men. Commissioned by Charles University in seventeen eleven, this ambitious sculpture of Francis Xavier is widely considered the undisputed masterpiece of Ferdinand Brokoff. Amazingly, he was only twenty-three years old when he carved this.
Scan the crowded base supporting the saint and see if you can find the young man standing directly beneath the saint's hand, holding a cross. That is Brokoff himself, carving his own confident legacy right into the stone. Check your app for a close-up of his hidden portrait.
But that youthful triumph met a brutal reality during The Great Flood of eighteen ninety. Heavy rains turned the river into a battering ram of debris, collapsing three arches of this very bridge. Brokoff’s masterpiece plummeted into the raging water. For over a decade, his proud self-portrait sat buried in the mud.
When salvage crews pulled the heavy fragments from the riverbed in nineteen o one, it marked a profound moment of destruction and rebirth. You can look at your screen to see the original shattered pieces, now resting safely in a museum. This meticulous nineteen thirteen replica stands exactly where the original fell.
Fragments of the original sandstone sculpture, which suffered a catastrophic fate during the Great Flood of 1890 and remained submerged, now preserved in the Lapidarium of the National Museum.Photo: Ondraness, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped & resized.
Look across the bridge at the water below, imagining the flood's longest-lasting scar, before we step right over to the nearby Statues of Saints Cyril and Methodius. You can visit this spot whenever you like since the bridge is open twenty-four hours a day.
The meticulously crafted replica of the Statue of Francis Xavier by Čeněk Vosmík, installed on the Charles Bridge in 1913, preserving Brokoff's original Baroque vision.Photo: Zp, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped & resized.The replica of the statue on Charles Bridge, noted for its ambitious scale as the entire central group is held aloft by figures representing regions where Xavier preached.Photo: Yair Haklai, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped & resized.One of the diverse figures at the base of the statue, representing a Moor, symbolizing one of the 'four corners of the world' reached by Saint Xavier's missions.Photo: Sarah Stierch, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0. Cropped & resized.The notable fragment of the original statue containing Brokoff’s self-portrait (the head of the young man), which was reportedly kept for a time by sculptor Josef Václav Myslbek.Photo: Ondraness, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped & resized.A morning view of the Charles Bridge, where the statue stands on the south side, serving as a lasting reminder of the bridge's vulnerability to the elements.Photo: Estec GmbH, Billig Hotel in Prag, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0. Cropped & resized.The dramatic composition of the Saint Francis Xavier statue in its context on the Charles Bridge, which had a significant impact on later Czech art, inspiring works like the Monument to Marshal Radetzky.Photo: Txllxt TxllxT, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped & resized.The nearby sculpture of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, which, like Brokoff’s statue of Francis Xavier, plummeted into the raging Vltava River during the Great Flood of 1890.Photo: Michal Kmínek, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped & resized.arrow_back Back to Prague Audio Tour: Charles Bridge Statues
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This tour was such a great way to see the city. The stories were interesting without feeling too scripted, and I loved being able to explore at my own pace.
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