Church of Our Lady of the Snows

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Olomouc

The typical church of the Jesuit order was built at the beginning of the 18th century and is distinguished by its beautiful and very rich interior decoration. Among the artists whose works can be seen here are the painters Karel Josef Harringer and Jan Kryštof Handke.

The Baroque Church of Our Lady of the Snows (built in 1712) is part of the complex of former Jesuit school buildings. The building is based on the prototype of a Jesuit church with a wreath of chapels around the nave. The direct source of inspiration for the architect of the church was the Church of St. Nicholas in Prague's Lesser Town, completed just before the Olomouc construction began.

The monumental Baroque building was built in 1712-1719 by Lucas Glöckel to a design by Michael Klein. Václav Render worked on the architecture of the facade and the front staircase. The richly decorated interior was designed by painters J.K. Handke, J.J. Schmidt and J. Wickart, plasterer A. Ricci and gilder W. Rossmayer. The author of the ceiling fresco from 1716-1717 and the altarpiece is K. Harringer. Inside the church there is a tombstone of Bishop Vilém Prusínovský. On the altar you can see a sculpture of the Virgin Mary from the 14th century.

The two-manual organ with 24 registers was built in 1728-1730 by the organist Jan Bohumín Halbich from Králíky. The organ case was richly carved by Antonín Ricci. In 1976-1978 the whole instrument was reconstructed and modified.

Today this mechanical baroque organ has a total of 28 registers, 3 couplers and a tremolo. Until the end of World War I, the church had four bells. Those that were swallowed up by the war were replaced. World War II again required two bells. Since 1983 there are only two bells: the larger one from 1732, dedicated to St. Pauline and St. Donatus, and the smaller one from 1732, dedicated to St. John of Nepomuk.