The Basilica of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary stands at Svatý Kopeček near Olomouc, on a hill east of the city. It is a place of pilgrimage connected with the Premonstratensian Hradisko Monastery, whose land forms the basis of the whole complex.[1][2]
Beginnings of the pilgrimage site
The history of the place is linked with Jan Andrýsek, son of the Olomouc burgher Samuel Andrýsek, who moved to Olomouc from Ratiboř after 1623. Jan Andrýsek traded in wine and on his travels to Austria he visited the Church of St Martin above Lulč near Tučapy. He vowed that if he grew rich he would build a chapel to the Virgin Mary on a hill east of Olomouc. He put off the vow for a long time, until, according to the story, the Mother of God urged him twice in a dream to fulfil it.[1]
At the end of February 1629, during a heavy snowstorm, Andrýsek arrived at a place above the village of Droždín, where, according to the story, he saw a hill lit by a light similar to the one that had appeared to him in his dream. The land belonged to the Premonstratensian Hradisko Monastery. Abbot Leodegarius and prior Maximilián Pracher accepted Andrýsek's intention, and the Olomouc bishopric gave its consent to the building of the chapel on 13 March 1629. The foundation stone was blessed in the same year by the newly elected abbot Pracher.[1]
The building of the chapel at the place called Svatá Hora was completed in four years and consecrated on 3 April 1633 by the Olomouc auxiliary bishop Filip Breuner. Since the previous year the altar had held a stone relief of the Virgin Mary with the Child, the discovery of which was told by a hermit entrusted with the duties of sexton. According to his account, the image was placed on the altar by unknown pilgrims dressed in white. According to the parish's text, the prevailing view today is that it was an older work of sculpture previously venerated at another place in the countryside.[1]
On the day of the chapel's consecration, Alexandr Bory, the son of a nobleman who had been blind until then, was according to testimony said to have regained his sight. The Olomouc episcopal consistory requested written statements on the case from the physician Dr Stupani and the burgher Erazim Blitling.[1]
In 1642 the Swedes occupied Olomouc and held it for eight years. In 1645 a Swedish lieutenant threw a burning pitch wreath into the chapel; after the fire only bare walls remained and the miraculous image was lost.[1]
Construction of the present church
According to the Latin inscription on the facade, the sanctuary, in honour of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth, was built by the fiftieth abbot of Hradisko, Aleš, and completed by his successor Norbert Želecký of Počenice. It was consecrated in 1679 by the Bishop of Olomouc, Charles, Prince of Liechtenstein, and its decoration was provided by the abbot of Hradisko Monastery, Robert Sancius.[2]
The interior decoration was created in two periods: the vault was executed in 1675–1679, and the surfaces from the cornice downwards in 1722–1732. The stucco decoration of the presbytery, in places as much as 30 centimetres deep, was made in 1675–1679 by the Italian masters Quirico Castelli, Domenico Gagini, Carlo Borsa and Matteo Contessa. The al secco fresco decoration was carried out by a young Italian named Jakub on the basis of designs by the Olomouc Augustinian Antonín Lublinský, with motifs of the invocations of the Litany of Loreto. On the presbytery vault there are three large fresco paintings: the Holy Trinity above the high altar, the Divine Glorification by three Charities in the middle, and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in the third field.[2]
Appearance of the church
The axis of the church does not point exactly from west to east, as is usual for Christian buildings, but towards the mother monastery of Hradisko, so that from the high altar there is a view of the monastery.[2]
The facade is divided vertically into three fields by pilasters and horizontally by a massive cornice into a lower and an upper part. In the lower part is a portal with three Baroque statues of generosity, fame and hope by Josef Winterhalder from 1731; above the entrance is a stone plaque with a Latin inscription on the history of the building. Three niches in the lower part of the facade contain statues of St Stephen, patron of Hradisko Monastery, in the middle, and of the patrons of the Premonstratensian order, St Augustine and St Norbert, on either side. The upper part of the facade is crowned by a stone sculpture of the Virgin Mary of Svatý Kopeček with the Child.[2]
The wings of the residences on either side of the facade bear on the top cornice sculptures of the twelve apostles and two plague patron saints, a work by Josef Winterhalder from 1739. In front of the church, on the steps, stand two statues of St Cyril and St Methodius, since 1909.[2]
The interior is designed as a longitudinal single-nave building with two sacristies and chapels around the perimeter. Above the crossing of the main and transverse naves a spacious dome of equal height and width rises. The barrel vault with lunettes is covered with plastic stucco and frescoes, which according to the parish's text is a rarity in the Czech lands for stucco work of such size from the second half of the 17th century.[2]