There are countless beautiful churches in Prague. This is just one of them.
St Nicholas's was the result of work by an architectural dynasty: Christoph Dientzhofer built the nave, then his son, Kilian Ignaz, oversaw the construction of the dome and choir stall. His brother-in-law, Anselmo Lurago, made the steeple and interior decoration. The dome (1750) and steeple (1755) are the same height at 74 metres and look similar to the steeples of Martinville of Prague, playing hide-and-seek depending on where you look at them from. All the architects' work consisted in reducing the perspectives: concave and convex alternate from the facade in a clever mixture of lines with horizontal splits, while the pilasters, columns and niches hold statues giving vertical perspectives. The interior is in unison: the pillars are oblique, there are many trompe-l'oeils, the nave ceiling is painted ( Apotheosis of St Nicholas), the cuploa has frescos ( Glory of the Holy Trinity), as does the St Cecilia Chapel, not forgetting the statues by Platzer. Everything here shows the art of the Jesuit Counter-Reform with a richness that is breathtaking, and an ostentatious image of spectacular proliferation, that of the omnipresent and omnipotent God.
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