Mníšek pod Brdy - Pilgrimage area Skalka

At the end of the 17th century a complex of buildings, later called Skalka, grew on the rocky spur Rochota above Mníšek. The church, monastery and hermitage were built by the son of the founder of the Mníšek castle, Servác Ignác Engel of Engelsfluss, after a great plague epidemic, which did not escape his family.

Servác Ignác Engel of Engelsflusse (1651-1704) was the son of the founder of Mníšek Castle, Servác Ignác Engel of Engelsflusse (1609-1674), a member of the noble Engel family of Engelsflusse, originally from Tongeren near Maastricht (now Belgium), with the title of free lords. Originally a merchant family who moved to Prague for business during the Thirty Years' War, they were elevated to the nobility in 1651.

The Engel family, which had held a monopoly on the rawhide trade for the entire Habsburg monarchy since 1654, bought the abandoned Mníšek estate in 1655. He improved the Mníšek estate, built a chateau (1656-1672), restored the water supply, ponds, a tavern and houses damaged by the Thirty Years' War. In 1667 the family received the title of Free Lords of Engelsflus.

The Engel family was a patron of the Catholic Church, financially supporting the decoration of St. Nicholas Church and St. Salvator's Church in Prague, where the family tomb was located.

Servac Ignác Engel of Engelsflusse (1651-1704) was also an imperial councillor and governor of the Beroun region. He died childless.

In 1679-1681, a plague epidemic broke out in the Bohemian lands, which did not escape the Mníšek estate. The sister of Servác Ignác Engel of Engelsfluss (1651-1704) died of the plague. He decided to build a church and a monastery in the forest above the castle to honour her memory. For this purpose, he sold a farm in Korkyně for 33,000 gold coins and bought a plot of land above Mníšek from Prince Mansfeld of Dobříš.

The church was dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene and the model for the construction was the chapel in the cave of La Sainte Baume in southern France, where Mary Magdalene lived for thirty years after the death of Jesus according to a legend from the 6th century.

At that time, a church was completed in the place of her ministry near Marseille in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume to celebrate her, and Servatius Ignatius Engel wanted to build a faithful copy of it above Mníšek. For his project he got the builder and architect Christoph Dietzenhofer around 1691. Servác Ignác Engel sent Kryštof Dientzenhofer on a study trip to Provence and the latter materialized the inspiration in the form of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene on Skalka. The building with an elliptical sanctuary and a square tower began to be built after his return to Bohemia.

The interior was intended to represent a cave, the floor was covered with quartz pebbles, the so-called ducks from the Berounka River, and stalactites hung from the walls and ceiling. Important Baroque artists, such as the carver Jan Jiří Bendl or the painter Karel Škréta, took part in the interior decoration.

On the altar there was a statue of kneeling St. Mary Magdalene and in the niches there were statues of the hermit saints St. Paul, St. Anthony, St. Ivan and St. Procopius, all made by the Prague carver Jan Jiří Bendl. On one side was an altar with a painting of St. Francis of Serafinsky and a painting of St. Francis by Karel Škréta, on the other side was a pulpit. On the south side there was a small sacristy and underneath it a crypt built in the rock.

The building was erected in 1692-1693 under the supervision of Jan Rektoris and Benedikt Spinner of Mníšek.

The founder of the church also had the mass utensils made for the church - a magnificent jewelled monstrance, chalice and gilded paten, pacifical, ciborium, six candlesticks and censer. For security reasons, this treasure was stored in the monastery castle and only on the day of the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, at the time of the service at Skalka, was it carried to Skalka in a glorious procession.

A small monastery and hermitage with four cells, the so-called "retreat house", also designed by Christopher Dientzenhofer, was built at the same time as the church.

For the interior decoration of the monastery he invited the sculptor Jan Brokoff, who created a statue of Pieta for the monastery, and the painter Peter Brandl, who painted a masterful ceiling work in the refectory of the monastery, representing Mary Magdalene in her grotto. Brandl did not use the then common Baroque method of twilight and illuminated the ceiling space with beautiful colours. The painting became a symbol of the place that came to be called Skalka. The neighbouring room was similarly decorated with Brandl's painting of God the Father.

The monastery and hermitage were completed in 1694.

To complete the monastery grounds, part of the surrounding forest was converted into a field and an ash yard was established. However, the monastery was not favoured in ecclesiastical circles and the planned arrival of the Benedictines to Skalka never took place. The founder of Skalka died in 1704 without his idea of the Benedictine monastery being fulfilled.

Another of the monastic lords, Ignaz Karl Engel of Engelsflus, also failed to make the monastery grounds operational. The Engel family of Engelsflusse died out in 1743, and the Mníšek estate was subsequently inherited by the Unwerth family.

It was not until 12 October 1762 that the foundation deed of the monastery was drawn up and confirmed and the Franciscan Order came to Skalka. After long and complicated negotiations, the establishment of the monastery was the work of Countess Benedikta Čejková of Olbramovice, the pious mother-in-law of the new owner of the estate, Václav Ignatius of Unwerth, who managed to bring Skalka to life after more than fifty years. She carried out the most necessary repairs and secured a foundation for the monastery. Under the church she had the Unwerth family tomb built and a nearby inn for pilgrims established. At the same time, she had the Stations of the Cross built in 1755-1762, whose 14 chapels connect the hermitage with the church.

Towards the end of her life, Countess Čejková lived and died in the monastery in a separate room with a painting of Brandl's God the Father.

Skalka became a popular place of pilgrimage. It was a spiritual stop during the pilgrimage from Prague to Svatá Hora in Příbram, enjoyed great popularity and became a place of rest and contemplation, and later also a popular tourist destination, when in 1889 the third Czech marked tourist path was marked on it.

Tourists also headed to the old pub and at the same time a hunting lodge, called Pokojný dům. This eventually became a hotel and a tourist hostel.

However, the poor Franciscan order did not have enough funds to repair the building, so the Skalka was taken over by the Religious Matrix in 1925. After the Second World War, the buildings were in a very poor condition and in 1947 a general repair was carried out at a cost of more than one million crowns.

The tradition of pilgrimages to Skalka ended in 1953. Firstly, due to the social climate, which did not favour church festivals, and secondly, due to the fact that the church and the whole area were affected by insensitive undermining of Skalka in the 1950s.

Directly below Skalka there is a well-known deposit of iron ore, which was mined here in relatively small quantities as early as 1746 and transported for processing to Stará Hut near Dobříš.

After World War II, mining under the Skalka began to increase in intensity and tunnels with several floors and an extraordinary extent were created under the monastery. Although the miners undertook that the monuments would not be damaged by mining, the initial intention remained only on paper. At Mníšek, lump mines were built to treat the extracted ore, which from the start was an unprofitable venture that threatened the environment of the wider area with dusty fallout. Eventually, even the monuments at Skalka were to be sacrificed. It was assumed that they would one day collapse in the undermined area.

As iron ore mining progressed beneath the Skalka hill, cracks began to appear in the walls of the church and sinkholes in the surrounding terrain. Although the whole area was expensively reconstructed soon after the end of World War II, ten years after the reconstruction it was devastated and completely abandoned.

Bendel's statues were moved from the little church to the monastery church of St. Wenceslas, and other interior decoration fell into disrepair. A decree of the then Ministry of Education and Culture allowed the removal of the roofing from the monastery, the uncovered building soon fell into disrepair, some of the building material was stolen and used for buildings in Mníšek and its surroundings.

In the meantime, mining was still going on under the monastery and the cracks in the masonry were getting bigger. The church only withstood a vertical collapse of 150 cm because it was surrounded by steel wreaths.

Fortunately, the operation of the mine ended due to sheer unprofitability on 9 January 1967. The subsidence stopped and the site was saved. The restoration of the mine could begin, but it was not fully realised until after 1989.

After the end of mining in 1967, the rock mass was gradually stabilised and this gave the church and the whole area a chance to be restored.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the first rescue work was started on the Church of St. Mary Magdalene. The foundations were reinforced with concrete grouting, cracks were filled and later a new wreath was added. In 1993, the restoration of the façade and plumbing elements was completed and the reinstallation of the restored bell was carried out.

After November 1989, the monastery was gradually restored. In 1996, the preserved masonry was stabilized or missing parts were rebuilt and a new roof was installed, followed by other works. In July 2001 the monastery was reopened to the public. In the autumn of 2006, a complete renovation of the facade was completed.

The hermitage also fell into ruin under the previous regime. In the first half of the 1990s, the town of Mníšek pod Brdy became the owner. In 1994, the building was roofed and extensive reconstruction began, which was completed in 1996. The Pieta, a sculpture by Jan Brokoff, was placed in the inner apse.

In 2010, the remains of the former farmhouse (perhaps originally an ash yard) were stabilised and the Baroque pilgrimage trail from the town to Skalka was restored.

The church is south-facing, oval, with a rectangular front on the north and a rectangular sacristy on the south side. The walls are articulated with lozenges, the façade is finished with a triangular gable and broken by a portal with a gable and a cartouche carried by two angels. The interior of the church is covered with a dome, arranged as a cave with stalactites.

The Baroque monastery building is ground floor, originally covered with shingles.

The niche chapels of the Stations of the Cross, dating from 1762, are designed with a segmental niche with a vault in the top, terminating in a segmental interlaced cornice.

Leading artists of the time, such as Karel Škréta, Jan Bendl, Petr Brandl and Jan Brokoff, participated in the decoration of the local buildings.

There were also gems of Baroque art, such as the statue of Pieta by Jan Brokoff. The most valuable monument in Skalka was probably the ceiling painting of St. Mary Magdalene by Petr Brandl. This fresco was located in the monastery refectory and, given the time of its creation, is interesting for its departure from the traditional Baroque method of contrasting chiaroscuro. The painting is considered one of Brandl's most important works.

Brandl's wall painting of St. Mary Magdalene from the refectory of the monastery was removed, transferred to canvas and placed in the Church of St. Wenceslas in Mníšek.

After 1989, the Baroque Skalka complex became the property of the town of Mníšek pod Brdy.

The Skalka Baroque complex is currently used for wedding ceremonies, exhibitions, concerts and other cultural events.