Church of Our Lady before Týn, Gothic church in Old Town, Czech Republic.
The Church of Our Lady before Týn is a Gothic church of brown and grey stone blocks on Prague's Old Town Square, its two 80-metre western towers topped by steep dark spires with corner turrets and gold finials. Between them a gabled section carries a gold clock face and cross above a large traceried window, with a carved balustrade at clock level.
A Romanesque church stood here in the 11th century, replaced by an early Gothic church in 1256. Construction of the present building began around 1350 under Matthias of Arras and Peter Parler; the Hussites controlled it for two centuries from 1427. The gable and north tower were finished under George of Poděbrady, the south tower in 1511 by Matěj Rejsek, and after 1621 the Jesuits took over.
The church kept the name Týn from the merchants' courtyard it served. Its Hussite period left a golden chalice on the gable, removed in 1626 and restored as a gilded copper copy in 2017. Inside, look for the stone baldaquin of 1493 and the baptistery of 1414, the largest in Prague.
The main entrance is on the west face, reached through a narrow passage between the houses standing in front of the church. The north-eastern portal, with a Crucifixion relief from the Parler workshop, is a separate Gothic entrance. The interior is entered from the Old Town Square side, where the towers rise above the surrounding buildings.
The tomb of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe from 1601 rests in the main nave under a bronze memorial plate. Many visitors miss it because it lies on the floor and is easy to walk past.
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