The Story of Prague

by hrabe Francis Lützow

CHAPTER IV
Palaces

PRAGUE, the winter residence of the wealthy and powerful Bohemian nobility, is a city of palaces, but it will here be sufficient to mention those only that have considerable historical or artistic interest.

As has already been mentioned, many of the palaces of Prague were built in the last years of the Thirty Years’ War, or in the immediately subsequent period. Such are the Nostic Palace in the Graben or Prikapy, the great Waldstein Palace, the palace of Count Clam-Gallas, which will be mentioned presently, the Cernin Palace on the Hradcany, now converted into barracks, and many others.

Of the palaces that are situated on the right bank of the Vltava, the most interesting is the Kinsky Palace, which was built in the eighteenth century according to the plans of the architect Luragho. It contains an extensive library, particularly rich in works concerning the French revolutionary period—of these there are 17,470—a valuable collection of engravings, and the archives of the family of the Princes Kinsky. The celebrated Bohemian poet, Celakovsky, for some time held the post of librarian here.

The only other palace on the right bank of the Vltava which I shall mention is that of the Count Clam-Gallas, a handsome building that also dates from the eighteenth century. It originally belonged to Count Gallas, a descendant of one of Wallenstein’s generals. By one of history’s little ironies the palace was, in 1866, for a time the residence of the Prussian prince Charles, while the Count Clam-Gallas, to whom the palace then belonged, was one of the Austrian leaders in the disastrous campaign of that year.

Far more numerous are the palaces on the left bank of the Vltava in the Malá Strana and Hradcany districts, which constitutes what may be called the Faubourg St. Germain of Prague. In some of the short and narrow streets in this part of the town there were—as in mediæval Italy—sometimes several palaces of one family from which the street took its name. We still meet with names such as the Thun Street and the Waldstein Street.