Prague Audio Tour: Charles Bridge Statues

Look for a light-colored sandstone sculpture forming a distinct pyramid shape, with the Virgin Mary and infant Jesus at the very top and a kneeling saint gazing up at them from below.

This piece was commissioned back in seventeen oh nine by Benedikt Littwerig, the abbot of a Cistercian monastery, as part of a massive effort to turn this bridge into a theatrum sacrum, or a sacred stage, for the public. To bring his vision to life, Littwerig hired the talented sculptor Matěj Václav Jäckel. The Cistercians had very specific theological demands to honor their founder, Saint Bernard. Jäckel delivered an intricate scene, but he also added a rather unexpected touch.

Originally, there were actual metal speech scrolls attached to the figures' mouths, making this perhaps the world's grandest Baroque comic strip. If you check out your screen, you can see a close-up of the figures' faces where these bands once rested. Saint Bernard's metal bubble read Ave Maria, and the Madonna's scroll replied Salve Bernarde. Those bands are gone now, but the literal dialogue remains a charming piece of the bridge's lore.

Jäckel packed the rest of the sculpture with incredibly deliberate details. On the left are the instruments of Christ's passion, including an architectural column modeled directly after a famous holy relic in Rome, physically linking Prague to the wider Catholic world. And if you glance at the app again, you will spot a small angel, or putto, hanging out near Bernard, holding an abbot's pointed hat called a mitre. This subtly honored Abbot Littwerig, ensuring the guy footing the bill got a little divine nod.

What you are looking at today, however, is a modern replica carved from pale sandstone. The original Jäckel masterpiece stood its ground against centuries of wind, rain, and pollution until the late nineteen seventies, when the stone simply could not fight the bitter elements any longer. To ensure the art survived, the fragile original was carefully dismantled and relocated safely indoors to the Gorlice hall at Vyšehrad, perfectly preserved for future generations while its lighter copy takes over the watch.

Move to the south side to see a youthful masterpiece born of a tragic commission, then transition to Statuen der Heiligen Barbara, Margaret und Elizabeth, Charles Bridge.

Look for the tall sandstone sculpture featuring three women, with the central figure raised on a pedestal holding a golden chalice and a small carved tower resting at her feet. This is the statue of Saints Barbara, Margaret, and Elizabeth. It was commissioned in seventeen oh seven by an Imperial Councillor who was suffering from a terminal illness. He knew his time was up, so he paid for a permanent visual prayer to save his soul. The central figure, Saint Barbara, was the patroness of a happy death. If you look at your screen you can see a close up of the golden chalice she holds, symbolizing the final sacrament. The other two saints, Margaret stepping on a dragon and Elizabeth offering bread, were named after his wife and mother.

The inscription on the base credits the famous master sculptor Jan Brokoff. But that is not exactly the whole truth. The true genius behind this carving was actually his nineteen-year-old son, Ferdinand Brokoff. This was the teenager's debut on the bridge. Instead of his father's rigid, old-fashioned style, young Ferdinand introduced a breathtaking new realism. Take a look at your app again to focus on the beggar at Saint Elizabeth's feet. Ferdinand carved human dignity and suffering into the stone with a mastery of deep, fluid clothing folds that instantly made his name.

That nineteen-year-old's work proved remarkably tough. Carved from fine-grained sandstone, this monument held its ground when revolutions brought cannon fire to the bridge in eighteen forty-eight, and it stood firm against the catastrophic floods of eighteen ninety. Aside from a major restoration in eighteen fifty-two, it has survived largely intact for over three centuries, stubbornly protecting a doomed man's final wish from both the elements and the chaos of human history.

Since the bridge is open twenty-four hours a day, this stone vigil never actually stops. Now, let us cross back to the north side for another of Jäckel's works, as we step right next door to the statues of the Madonna, Saint Dominic, and Thomas Aquinas.

Look for the towering stone sculpture group featuring a central figure of the Madonna perched on a rounded globe, flanked by two men and an unmistakable little stone dog holding a torch at the base. This dynamic scene was carved in seventeen oh eight by Matěj Václav Jäckel, the same artist we ran into earlier on the bridge. He was commissioned by the Dominican order to create a grand, theatrical vision descending from the clouds.

Notice the dog at the feet of the Madonna. It is actually a centuries-old visual pun. In Latin, the Dominican order is called Dominicanes, which sounds an awful lot like Domini canes, or the dogs of the Lord. The torch refers to a legend that Saint Dominic's mother dreamed she would give birth to a dog carrying a torch to set the world ablaze with the gospel. On the right stands Saint Thomas Aquinas with a sun pendant, and below him, a cherub holds a beehive, representing his honey-sweet words.

These intricate details were originally carved from local sandstone. But standing out over the river means facing the relentless dampness of the water year after year. The original stone eventually became too fragile to withstand the natural environment and was moved to a museum in nineteen fifty-eight to keep it from crumbling away entirely. If you want to see how this masterpiece has weathered time, take a look at your screen for a comparison of the stone from the nineteen seventies. Thanks to these faithful replicas, this dramatic vision survives against the odds.

Let us continue along the bridge to another spot with a history of extreme vulnerability, leading us right to the statue of the Pietà.

Look to your right at this fine-grained sandstone sculpture, where the seated figure of the Virgin Mary forms a triangular shape holding the body of Christ beneath a prominent, copper-covered wooden cross.

This third pillar of the bridge has always been something of a cursed spot, historically vulnerable to the raging river below. A catastrophic flood in fourteen ninety-six completely swept away a simple wooden crucifix that first marked this location.

For nearly two centuries, the pillar sat empty until a dramatic Baroque Pietà was installed in sixteen ninety-five. But that sculpture's reign ended violently during the eighteen forty-eight Revolution. As barricades went up across Prague, the bridge was caught in the crossfire, and the artwork was heavily damaged by cannon balls and musket shots. Take a glance at your screen to see a historical drawing of that lost original.

The story of what happened next involves a rather convenient expert opinion. Sculptor Josef Max was asked if the ruined piece should be restored. He strongly recommended removing it entirely, which, by a pure coincidence I am sure, paved the way for his brother, Emanuel Max, to win the new commission.

But Emanuel Max's eighteen fifty-nine replacement marked a meaningful shift in the city's history. While older statues were bankrolled by wealthy aristocrats, this restrained Neoclassic piece was funded entirely through a public collection. It was a true project of the people.

The figures form a deeply intimate scene. Mary Magdalene kneels to kiss Christ's hand, while Saint John stands in mourning. Keeping this people's monument intact requires a continuous cycle of destruction and rebirth. Between two thousand and twenty-two and two thousand and twenty-three, restorer Miroslav Žán led a major intervention to remove thick sulfate crusts and biological colonization, which is really just a polite scientific term for decades of stubborn moss and algae eating into the stone.

Step over to see a tender scene born from the ashes of revolution, then we will transition to the Statue of Saint Joseph right next door. And in case you were wondering, the bridge is open twenty-four hours a day, all week long.

Here on the stone railing, look for a tall sandstone pseudo-Gothic base supporting a sculpture of Saint Joseph gently leading a young Jesus by the hand. As we saw at our last stop with the Pietà, art often gets caught in the crossfire of history.

The sculpture you see today is an eighteen fifty-four replacement. For nearly a century and a half, a grand Baroque masterpiece stood right here, sculpted in seventeen-o-six by the renowned Jan Brokoff. But then came the eighteen forty-eight Uprisings. As nationalist forces clashed with the Austrian Empire, the Charles Bridge became a literal battlefield. Cannon fire ripped across the river, and the original Saint Joseph took a direct, devastating hit. The damage was so catastrophic, the statue could not be saved.

If you pull up the photo in your app, you can see the surviving pieces of that original Baroque sculpture, which now rest in a local museum, bearing the scars of the city's turbulent past.

But a destroyed monument is rarely the end of the story. A local tradesman stepped up to fund a new version by sculptor Josef Max. Take a glance at the next image on your screen. Max kept the tender motif of Joseph and Jesus but placed them on that uniquely tall pedestal, a style meant to modernize the bridge. It is fitting that Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters, stands as a testament to the fact that whatever history tears down, skilled hands will build back up.

Let us keep walking along this bridge, which remains open twenty-four hours a day all week, to meet the protective matriarch of the bridge, Saint Anne.

Look to your right for a pale sandstone sculpture group where a central matriarch cradles an infant, while a younger girl stands at her feet offering a carved bouquet of roses. This is Saint Anne, created in seventeen oh seven by the sculptor Matěj Václav Jäckel.

The monument was bankrolled by Count Rudolf of Lisov, a powerful official in the Prague administration. For eighteenth-century nobles, sponsoring religious art here was the ultimate status symbol, essentially a Baroque billboard of piety and wealth.

Jäckel designed a Holy Kinship scene. Saint Anne holds her grandson, the infant Jesus, who grasps a globus cruciger, a globe topped with a cross symbolizing worldly dominion. Below them, a young Virgin Mary offers her mother those roses, balancing immense cosmic power with simple domestic affection.

While an aristocrat paid for the stone, the city's working-class millers claimed its soul. They adopted Saint Anne as their patron, seeking her divine protection against the devastating river floods that threatened their vital grain trade.

Over centuries, relentless weather and urban pollution slowly dissolved the soft stone. Refusing to let history be washed away, the city moved the original statue indoors to safety, installing this faithful replica in nineteen ninety-nine. Since the bridge is open twenty-four hours a day, she remains a constant presence.

Why do you think the city's working-class millers felt such a strong connection to this specific maternal figure?

Let that linger as we move straight ahead to the statue of Francis Xavier, where we will uncover one of the bridge's most dramatic tales of destruction.

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.

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.

On your right, you will see a dark stone monument where the tallest figure stands with one hand raised in blessing, towering over smaller figures on a rocky base.

This spot holds a ghost story of sorts. For nearly one hundred and eighty years, a magnificent Baroque statue of Saint Ignatius of Loyola stood exactly where you are looking. But on the fourth of September, eighteen ninety, during that same Great Flood, the Vltava River turned into a battering ram. After relentless rain, heavy logging rafts and debris surged downstream, forming a massive, deadly barrier against the arches of the bridge. The immense pressure eventually snapped three arches and two pillars, sending Saint Ignatius crashing into the dark torrent below, along with several unfortunate souls who were standing right where you are now.

Take a look at the fifth image in your app to see a striking artistic rendition of what eventually took its place.

For decades, this pedestal sat empty, a painful reminder of what was lost. It was not until nineteen twenty-eight that a newly independent Czechoslovak Republic decided to fill the void. Instead of replacing the Jesuit saint, they chose figures deeply rooted in their own national identity, the ninth-century Slavic missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius.

The sculptor, Karel Dvořák, spent ten agonizing years perfecting this piece. You can see his highly structured, modern style in the towering Saint Methodius offering a blessing, while Saint Cyril holds a newly translated Bible and a small model of a rotunda, a round stone church representing the earliest Christian sanctuary in the Czech lands. The figures reaching up from the bottom represent Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia, receiving the gift of faith.

It took a tragic loss to clear the way, but this monument stands as a lasting testament to destruction and rebirth. Since the bridge is open twenty-four hours a day, these figures keep a constant, quiet watch over the water. Let us leave the bridge behind and head toward the museum of a musical legend, making our way to the statue of Bedřich Smetana.

On your left, you will spot a heavy, bronze figure seated squarely on a polished stone block, complete with his signature cast right into the front of the pedestal. That is Bedřich Smetana, a composer who gave a musical voice to the Czech national identity.

You would think a man of his stature would have gotten a monument right after his death in eighteen eighty-four. Well, it took seventy-five years of bickering just to find a location that would honor his drive for artistic legacy without disrupting the historic skyline. The idea was first pitched in nineteen oh nine, but this statue, weighing about a ton, was not unveiled until nineteen eighty-four.

The socialist government pushed it through to celebrate the Year of Czech Music. They placed him here so he could gaze out over the Vltava river, the very waters that inspired his most famous symphonic poem. While the striking Neo-Renaissance architecture of the museum behind him has anchored the riverbank for over a century, you can see how the surrounding waterfront subtly modernized around him if you check out the historic before and after image in your app.

The public reaction, however, was not exactly reverent. Locals immediately noticed Smetana’s stiff posture with his hands resting awkwardly in his lap. They gave the monument a mocking nickname... Sleighing Smetana. They thought he looked less like a musical genius gazing over the water, and more like a man clumsily sliding down a hill on an invisible sled. Even the chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic strongly protested the rigid socialist design, though the state authorities completely ignored him.

Today, the statue guards the Smetana Museum, which holds a rather unexpected artifact... the composer's preserved earbone. It is a stark reminder that Smetana wrote some of his most triumphant music while totally deaf, proving that true creative vision outlasts both physical decline and political squabbles.

Since this outdoor area is open twenty-four hours a day, Smetana is always here, silently sledding toward the river. Now, let us head to our final stop, where Prague's artistic spirit meets modern technology, as we take a nine minute walk to Laterna Magika.

Look to your right, and you will see a massive, box-like building wrapped entirely in an armor of textured glass blocks, resting on a sturdy dark stone base. We have spent our time today walking among centuries-old stone and silent statues, but here, the artistic spirit of Prague takes a completely different form. This is Laterna Magika, and it is the perfect place to end our journey.

In nineteen fifty-eight, Czechoslovakia was tasked with creating a cultural pavilion for the World Expo in Brussels. Director Alfréd Radok and set designer Josef Svoboda did not want to just put on a traditional play. They invented a totally new theatrical language, blending live actors on stage with synchronized film projections.

At the premiere, a young woman stood on stage speaking French. Behind her on massive screens, two pre-recorded versions of herself answered her back in German and English, perfectly timed. Audiences were mesmerized. It was a technological magic trick that required absolute discipline from the performers. The pavilion won a Gold Star, and global icons like Walt Disney stood in long lines just to see it. Here, a new layer of Czech national identity was born, proving their avant-garde creativity, their highly experimental and boundary-pushing art, could rival the most advanced technology on earth.

But art rarely has an easy path when authoritarian regimes are involved. Back home, a communist government minister hated one of the pieces, claiming it ignored the glorious modern socialist economy. He launched a vicious ideological attack, forcing Radok out of the very theater he founded. The visionaries were pushed out, but their creation survived.

It always does. In nineteen seventy-seven, the theater premiered a show called Magic Circus. The director nervously asked the lead dancer if he thought the show might survive for at least a year. It played for forty-five years. Over the decades, something deeply poetic happened. Audiences watched the dancers' youthful, immortalized selves on the film screens, moving in perfect synchronization with the older, living dancers on the stage below.

This space even shaped world events. In November nineteen eighty-nine, the communist regime was finally collapsing. Laterna Magika temporarily abandoned its artistic repertoire. Its underground spaces became the nerve center for the Velvet Revolution. While armored vehicles roamed the streets, political dissidents, citizens who bravely opposed the authoritarian state, crammed into tiny theater offices. They fielded non-stop phone calls and coordinated a peaceful uprising. Famous American news anchors walked the halls of this theater, broadcasting the bloodless fall of an empire live to the world. The actors were not dancing. They were operating the switchboards of history.

From the moment we started our walk to right now, you have seen how deeply creativity is woven into the D-N-A of this city. Kings build bridges, empires fall, and regimes come and go. Yet the ideas, the stories, and the theater remain, forever looking forward. Thank you for walking with me today. Take your time here, and enjoy the rest of your adventure in Prague.