Church of Saint Mary Magdalene, Baroque church in Lázně Bohdaneč, Czech Republic.
The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene is a single-nave Baroque church with a rectangular nave widened at its middle, built 1728–1737. A Gothic tower on a square plan stands in the facade, its lower part medieval and raised in 1860. The narrower square presbytery has a sacristy on the north side and a small bell turret (sanktusník) above; the entrance is on the north side of the nave. The facade is smooth, light ochre lime-cement plaster, the nave roof covered with fired bobrovka tiles and the tower with copper sheet.
The Baroque church was built in 1728–1737 on the site of an older Gothic church, to a design by Tomáš Haffenecker carried out by builder František Jedlička. Its Gothic tower base was raised in 1860 by František Schmoranz. Repairs followed in 1924, 1935 and at the end of the 20th century.
The church is dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene, whose painted image fills the main altar inside a painted illusionary architectural frame by the Baroque painter Josef Kramolín, flanked by figures of Saint John of Nepomuk, Saint Adalbert with an oar, Saint Libor and Saint Romedius with a bear. The side altar of Saint Florian shows in its background painting the fire of the Bohdaneč square in 1772, which also destroyed the old three-gabled town hall.
The entrance is on the north side of the nave, not on Masaryk Square itself. The nave is entered from the north, and the church stands on the square in the town centre. The tower's lower Gothic section was raised in 1860 by František Schmoranz.
In the tower roof a chimney from the tower room's stove is still visible; there the bell-ringer Vondráček lived with his large family until the early 20th century. The tower holds five bells and the original tower clock. In the paving around the church, several crosses mark graves of the former parish and town cemetery, abolished in the 19th century.
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