Hájek Monastery, Franciscan monastery in Červený Újezd, Czech Republic.
Hájek Monastery is a Franciscan monastery in Červený Újezd featuring Baroque architecture with stone walls and ornate chapels. Multiple religious buildings are arranged around a central courtyard to form the complete complex.
The Loretto chapel was founded on 12 June 1623 by Florián Jetřich of Žďár, consecrated in 1625 and rebuilt in 1630. His son František Adam Eusebius founded the Franciscan monastery in 1659; Carlo Lurago and Giovanni Domenico Orsi designed it, and it was completed in 1673, after his death.
The place name comes from the wooded grove that Gotthard Florian Žďárský had planted in 1589 and that was later walled as the monastery garden. The Loretánská kaple is the starting point of the 14 km Loretánská cesta to Prague's Loreta, lined with twenty niche chapels built in 1720–1726. The high altar painting of St Francis Seraph is by Peter Johann Brandl.
The monastery stands 1.5 km east of Červený Újezd, north of the road to Břve, inside a walled wood of about 350 × 270 m. It is open to the public by prior arrangement and on religious holidays; no guided tours are offered. The 14 km Loreto pilgrimage way with its niche chapels starts at the Loreto chapel and runs to Prague's Loreta.
The walled grove that gives the site its name was planted in 1589 by Gothard Florian Žďárský and first served as a game preserve. A later account by Jan František Beckovský claims a summer storm ended a bird plague there after residents prayed.
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