Kampa Island is an island and park between the Vltava and the Čertovka in Prague's Malá Strana, first mentioned in 1169.
Kampa Island is a park on an island between the river Vltava and its side arm Čertovka in Prague. It lies by the Malostranské nábřeží embankment. According to Prague City Tourism, it is among the most romantic and picturesque places in the city, the lawns serve for resting and picnics, and the island is sometimes called the Venice of Prague.[1]
Name and origin
The oldest mention of Kampa Island dates from 1169, in the founding charter of a church of the Order of Malta under King Vladislav II. The origin of the name is not clear-cut. It may come from the Latin word campus, meaning a field or plain, from the word zákampí in the sense of a shady place, or from the name of Tycho Gansgeb z Kampy, who owned a house here in the 17th century.[1]
The Čertovka is an artificial arm of the Vltava, named Rožmberská strouha in 1585 after the owner of the land, Vilém z Rožmberka. The source derives the present name from the house U sedmi čertů.[1]
The height of the island rose gradually through natural deposits and landfill, especially after the great fire of Malá Strana and Hradčany in 1541. The banks were firmly formed after 1600. At first the island was filled with gardens; building began in the 15th century at the earliest. The first buildings were mills with plots of land, later converted into noble gardens.[1]
Gardens and buildings
On the side facing Smíchov, the largest Baroque garden was the first to be created, Michnovská zahrada, built in the 17th century by Count Michna z Vacínova as part of the Michnův palác behind the Čertovka in Újezd. By the palace a large wooden mill wheel turns in the Čertovka, recalling the Huť mill. In the 18th century the palace served as an armoury, which is recalled by the name of the restaurant Stará zbrojnice.[1] On the island there is also the mill wheel of the former Velkopřevorský mlýn from the 15th century.[1]
Odolkovská zahrada adjoins the building of the former Sovův mlýn, named after Václav Sova z Liboslavě, owner of the mill in the 15th century. In the 19th century the mill belonged to the baker family Odkolek, who had the Renaissance building rebuilt in the neo-Gothic style by the architect Josef Václavík.[1] The garden connects to Kaiserštejnská zahrada around the palace of the Kaiserštejns, the Kaiserštejnský palác, today called Liechtenstein Palace. The founder of the garden, František Helfríd z Kaiserštejna, had the well-known carnation beds with fountains made here.[1] Behind the house lies Nosticovská zahrada, which František Antonín Nostic founded by the Nosticův palác in 1765.[1]
By the house that Count Nostic gave to the National Revival figure Josef Dobrovský stands the Dobrovský monument of Carrara marble by the sculptor Václav Žďárský from 1902, designed by Professor Tomáš Seidan and moved here from Vrchlického sady in 1949. Zdeněk Wirth lived in the house in the First Republic, and after the war Jan Werich and Vladimír Holan; busts of Wirth and Werich are on the house.[1]