Kladruby Monastery, Romanesque-Baroque monastery in Pozorka, Czech Republic
Kladruby Monastery is a former Benedictine abbey whose Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was rebuilt in Baroque Gothic style by Jan Blažej Santini between 1712 and 1726. The church, 84 metres long with a 39-metre-high dome, has a pale yellow stone facade with grey trim, tall pointed windows, stepped buttresses, a domed tower, and two deep pointed-arch portals. A new convent by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer stands to the south.
Founded in 1115 by Duke Vladislav I and settled by monks from Zwiefalten, the monastery was burned by Hussite troops under Andreas Prokop in 1421. Rebuilt from 1712 to 1726 to plans by Jan Blažej Santini-Aichl, it was dissolved in 1785 under Joseph II's reforms.
The monastery is no longer a monastic house: Joseph II dissolved it in 1785, and the state has owned it since 1945. Its name comes from the village of Kladruby, and the former convent building housed a brewery from 1864. The octagonal Marian star is marked on the church floor where the nave and transept cross.
The monastery stands in Kladruby, in the Tachov district, on a hill above the Úhlavka river. Only part of the complex is open to the public, and the site is managed by the National Heritage Institute. The church interior holds Santini's altars and Braun's statues, with an octagonal Marian star marked on the floor where the nave crosses.
In 1996 archaeologists found about 1,400 fragments of opuka-stone sculptures and architectural carvings from the second half of the 14th century, buried at the site. The pieces come from the monastery's Gothic furnishing, destroyed after the Hussite raids of 1421.
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