Statue of the Virgin Mary

The Marian Column on Old Town Square in Prague was erected immediately after the end of the Thirty Years' War as an expression of public gratitude for the city's deliverance. In 1648, the people of Prague faced the final assault of the Swedish troops, who were attempting to conquer the Old Town. At that time, the townspeople prayed to God through the intercession of the Virgin Mary before a votive image dedicated to her that was displayed in Old Town Square. This is the origin of the local epithet Panna Maria Rynecká (from the old Czech word for a square, rynek). When the war ended, the city and Emperor Ferdinand III wanted to commemorate this in stone. They therefore resolved to thank the Virgin Mary for protecting Prague by erecting a column to her in the square and placing a votive image in its base. In 1652, Cardinal Arnošt Vojtěch of Harrach, Archbishop of Prague and Grand Master of the Order of the Crusaders with the Red Star, consecrated it in the emperor's presence. The emperor also established a foundation, administered by the metropolitan chapter, to maintain regular religious services. Processions to the column took place every Saturday and on Marian feasts and their vigils.

The top statue of the Immaculata is a conventional depiction of the Virgin Mary that refers to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (immaculata conceptio), which was proclaimed dogma only two centuries later. The belief that original sin was not passed on to the Mother of God is part of Church Tradition. The first clearly attested statement comes from the 7th century and is found in St. Sophronius of Jerusalem: “None but you were cleansed beforehand.” (Hom. II; PG 87/3, 3248). Marian devotion itself has its biblical foundation in the Gospel of Luke: “… from now on all generations will call me blessed …” (Lk 1:48). Mary is depicted as a praying Mother treading on the dragon as she turns toward heaven. The twelve stars around her head refer to John's Revelation: “A great sign appeared in heaven: a Woman! The sun clothed her, the moon was under her feet, and twelve stars crowned her head; …” (Rev 12:1), which has been interpreted as an image of Mary's participation in Christ's victory since the 2nd century. The motif of trampling on the dragon has its parallel in the psalm: “You will tread on the beast and the viper; you will trample the lion cub and the dragon.” (Ps 91:13), which in turn is grounded in the verse: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. They will crush your head, and you will strike them on the heel.” (Gn 3:15). In the Baroque period, the dragon was understood not only as a symbol of evil, but also as an image of spiritual blindness, which after the war was seen as one of the causes of social disorder in Europe. The values brought by faith triumph over the forces of decay that destroy human society. The column was thus not only a monument, but also a public declaration of confidence that spiritual order can triumph over chaos.

The Marian Column was erected at a place which the Prague people associated with deep humiliation. It was precisely here that the Saxons, when they invaded the city in March 1632, nailed the Palladium, the most revered image of the Virgin Mary in the Bohemian lands, to a chair beneath the pillory, which was perceived as deliberate desecration. Therefore, as early as 1647, the Strahov abbot proposed to erect a Marian Column at this place as a sign of renewal, purification, and protection of Prague, and after the defence of the city against the Swedes in 1648, this idea gained even stronger spiritual and symbolic significance. The Marian Columns, moreover, draw upon an ancient tradition reaching back to the legend of the Virgin Mary on a column in Zaragoza, where, according to tradition, she appeared to the Apostle James and left him a stone pillar as a sign of her eternal protection. Baroque Europe understood this legend as an image of Mary's presence in the midst of Christian cities, and therefore the column became an expression of the faith that the Virgin Mary protects the place which has been dedicated to her.

Four angels on plinths around the base further develop the Immaculata motif. Their iconography is not borrowed from either the Munich or the Vienna column, but instead creates its own visual programme based on an apocalyptic image of a city threatened by raids:

1. The angel with the key, holding the devil in chains, depicts the scene from Revelation: “… an angel comes down from heaven, having in his hand the key of the abyss and also a huge chain. He overcame the Dragon, that ancient serpent - that is, the Devil, Satan - and bound him for a thousand years. He cast him into the abyss, locked it, and sealed it, so that he would cease leading the nations astray until the thousand years were completed. After that, he must be released for a short time.” (Revelation 20:1‑3).
2. The angel with a flaming sword represents the guardian of the Garden of Eden: “He drove out the man and stationed cherubim and the flame of a flashing sword before the Garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Gn 3:24). The demon with a lion's head and membranes reminds us of the words of the apostle Peter: “Your adversary the Devil prowls around like a 'roaring lion' and seeks someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8). In this image, evil is already stopped at the gate of Eden.
3. The angel holding a drawn sword and treading on the subdued dragon refers to the heavenly battle of Archangel Michael: “Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon. And the Dragon and his angels set themselves against them, but they were defeated and driven out of heaven. Thus the enormous Dragon, the ancient Serpent, the Devil or Satan, as he is called, the deceiver of the whole world, was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.” (Revelation 12:7‑9). At the same time, his stance may also recall the biblical scene in which the angel of the Lord with a drawn sword blocked Balaam's way in a narrow gorge (Num 22:26‑31) and its parallel in the battle on Charles Bridge.
4. The angel with the cross, striking the devil to the ground, indicates that the defence of the city was understood as part of a wider spiritual struggle. In Scripture, the power of the cross is connected with Christ's victory over evil: “But they conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, …” (Revelation 12:11). As an iconographic prototype, one may point to Hans Memling's late Gothic Last Judgment from St. Mary's Basilica in Gdańsk, in which the Archangel Michael holds a processional cross as an attribute of judicial authority. The scene also depicts a fighting angel with a cross set against demons who fight with pole weapons.

When the column was pulled down by a crowd in the atmosphere of euphoria following the proclamation of Czechoslovakia, this act became not merely a symbol of the transformation of political power, but also foreshadowed a period in the new republic in which the Church was increasingly pushed out of the public sphere. The tearing down of the column was not merely the removal of a Baroque monument, but also a gesture of cultural rupture, revealing how deep the tension ran between the religious heritage of the ancestors and the newly emerging anti-clerical currents. Some of their protagonists in the following years aligned themselves with the socialist and later communist movement, which subsequently began to persecute people who refused actively to lie about their faith.

Yet Marian devotion in Prague did not die out. The Gothic image of Our Lady of the Square, which had once survived the Hussite iconoclasm, was preserved even after the column was pulled down. Numerous fragments from it and its sculptural decoration are today housed in the lapidary. The idea of its restoration survived the entire 20th century. When it was re-erected in 2020 as a deliberate symbol of reconciliation (expiatory), it was not merely a reconstruction of a Baroque work, but a reconnection with a spiritual heritage that transcends political history. And above all it shows that some symbols, even when they disappear for a time, have the power to return, because they belong to the identity of the city and of the people who live in it.