While number 20, U Modré štiky (The Blue Pike) is of note not just because of the large numbers of tourists swarming past it, but also because, in 1907 (a year after it was built), Prague’s first permanent cinema, Bio Ponrepa, was opened here.
It’s named after its founder, Victor Ponrepo (1858-1926), born as Dismas Šlambor. He was also a magician, and his stage name was meant to be a play on the Bon Repos castle near Stará Lisa.
Pretty much everything in those two sentences is why I love writing these posts.
More on Ponrepo in 2045 if you’re still following me then – he has a street in Prague 21.
Good luck to anybody trying that these days, though – the street is so narrow that cars aren’t allowed to pass through it, let alone fire engines.
For vocab fans, a ‘stříbrný důl’ is a silver mine, a ‘stříbrná medaile’ is a silver medal, a ‘stříbrná svatba’ is a silver wedding, and the ‘stříbrné plátno’ is the silver screen.
This part of the street also features St Anne’s Church, as discussed in the same thread and no longer acting as a church.
The next part of the street is really a passageway – and is also closed at night (clearly, there’s something about streets named after gold only being accessible at certain times of day).
And then its final part is more like, well, a street – but starts slightly south of where the previous section ends.
On the other hand, it’s accessible 24/7, so that’s nice.
Announcement: the rest of the Prague 1 series is going to involve quite a lot of these ‘but I already said everything yesterday’ threads. Which, to be fair, I’m totally fine with.
In this spot, there was once a rotunda devoted to St Lawrence (Vavřinec). In 1230, the Knights Templar bought the land and had the rotunda expanded into a church.
Pope Clement V disbanded the Knights Templar in 1312, largely due to the machinations of Philip IV of France, who was in considerable debt to them and had an interest in their cancellation.
Their convent on the other side of the river had also had a church devoted to St Anne.
The convent (1313 Old Town Edition) was abolished in 1782 – like so many – and was converted into a printing house. Passing through various owners, it functioned as such until 1977.
The church, meanwhile, became a paper warehouse.
Since 1993, however, the middle wing of the convent building has been used by the National Theatre’s ballet troupe.
There’s also a fountain in the centre of the square. It didn’t have any water in it the day I took this picture… and apparently it never has done. Which makes you wonder.
It’s originally from the Újezd Barracks, which were destroyed in 1932, at which point it was decided the well deserved a new home. It’s never been connected to a water source (on the square, that is).
According to Wikipedia, the former convent is on Anenská, Zlatá, Anenské náměstí, Liliová, Stříbrná *and* Náprstkova.
Multi-street-occupying buildings seem to be a thing in this part of Prague, so please forgive me if any of these threads sound disjointed as a result.
A ‘zábradlí’ is a banister, railing, handrail or balustrade.
In the context of this street, there was once a church on the corner called Church of St. John the Baptist ‘Na zábradlí’. It was built around 1130.
It was most likely part of the wall that was in place to protect the Old Town from the Vltava – and the ‘zábradlí’ is probably a reference to a gate or something within these fortifications.
However, it survived longer than the fortifications did – they were destroyed in 1367. The church, which was closed down in 1789 and turned into a residential building, was destroyed in 1896.
The first thing you might think of when you hear ‘Na Zabradlí’ is the theatre of the same name.
Founded in 1958, it gained national and international recognition in the 1960s, largely due to its promotion of the theatre of the absurd.
After he left in 1968 – not of his own volition, of course – the theatre became something of a refuge for film directors of the Czech New Wave who had found themselves no longer able to make films.
One of the plaques on the façade is a tribute to Havel.
Betlémská features the character limit-busting Střední průmyslová škola strojnická, škola hlavního města Prahy (Secondary School of Mechanical Engineering, School of the Capital City of Prague). Founded in 1837, it’s the oldest school of its type in the city.
In the Middle Ages, there was a Romanesque church here devoted to Saints Philip and James – and so the accompanying street became known as U Filipa a Jakuba.
Between 1391 and 1394, a chapel – the Bethlehem Chapel / Betlémská kaple was also constructed. The intention was for this to be a place where preachers would do their work in Czech.
A certain Jan Hus became the chapel’s administrator in 1402, and preached there until 1413. It naturally became a centre of resistance against the Catholic Church.
In 1412, three followers of Jan Hus who had been executed for protesting against the granting of indulgences were buried in the chapel.
After the Hussite Wars, the chapel basically served as a parish church, and many notable people were buried there.
In 1622 – two years after the Hussites had been defeated – Ferdinand II gave the chapel to the Jesuits. They had to cede it to the University of Prague in 1638, but got it back in 1661, and used it until their own dissolution in 1773.
In increasingly poor condition, the chapel was mainly demolished in 1798 and was later replaced with an apartment block.
The block was demolished in 1948, and the chapel was reconstructed from 1950 to 1952. It was officially reopened on 6 July 1954 (6 July being the date on which Jan Hus was executed):
The road was originally called Zlatá (Golden), and a neighbouring street still is.
You can still see evidence of the goldsmiths who lived on the street in the names of number 9 (U zlaté hrušky – The Golden Pear) and number 4 (U zlaté lodi – The Golden Boat).
Adalbert Fingerhut was born in Prague in 1826. A ‘Fingerhut’ is a thimble – interestingly, while this was father’s surname, his father’s siblings all had the Czech version of the surname, Náprstek.
That mother was Anna Náprstková, a brewer and philanthropist.
Still a student in 1848, he participated in revolutionary activities in both Vienna and Prague, and once these had been suppressed, went into exile. However, he fled a bit further than many others did – to Milwaukee.
He stayed for a decade, obtaining US citizenship and becoming the first Czech to launch a newspaper in the States, the Milwaukee Flugblätter. He also worked with Native American groups during this time.
In this time, his fascination with the Industrial Revolution also led him to visit Britain, where he took part in the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations at Crystal Palace in London in 1851.
On his return to Prague, he turned the family brewery into a centre for Czech intellectuals. He helped his friends learn English, and also used his experience in the States to promote women’s emancipation.
A year earlier, in 1874, Fingerhut/Náprstek converted the family brewery into the Czech Industrial Museum.
Since the 1940s, it’s borne his name and has been devoted to Asian, African and Native American cultures.
In 1880, Adalbert Fingerhut officially changed his name to Vojtěch Náprstek, which he had been using for ages anyway. Seven years later, he publicly advocated women’s suffrage.
In 1881, he had also attempted to repeal a law stating that all dogs in Prague had to be kept on a lead by their owners – hence this satirical cartoon from the same year.
Náprstek died in 1894, and was cremated (this took place in Germany, as it wasn’t legal in Austria-Hungary at the time). His urn is kept in the museum, which also received his collections of books and photographs.
Jakub Jan Václav Dobřenský was born in Prague in 1623. He studied medicine and philosophy at Charles University (and also in Italy), and began teaching at the university in 1664.
In the meantime, he bought several properties in Prague and set up laboratories in them. One of his properties was at number 5 on this street.
Dobřenský had two spells as rector of Charles University, and was also the dean of the Medical Faculty from 1683 to 1684.
Dobřenský died in 1697. Considered a pioneer in the field of pathological anatomy, his name is one of the 72 that you can find on the façade of the National Museum (now there’s an idea for a mini-series when the Prague 1 series is done).
U Dobřenských includes (one side of) the Náprstek Museum, which is devoted to Asian, African and Native American art. The museum was founded in 1874, and the road was formed after that. It’s had its current name since 1901.
There’s also a brewery – with the same name as the street – at number 3, known for brewing beers flavoured with medicinal plants.
A text from 1396 mentions ten mills in this location; no later than 1489, they had been joined by a wooden water tower, which was used to provide water from the Vltava to the Old Town.
As with nearly every wooden structure that’s come up in these posts, it was destroyed by fire; it was replaced by a stone version in 1577 (although the Neo-Gothic version you see nowadays is the result of a makeover from 1878 to 1888).
The lávka – i.e. footbridge – changed names over time, depending on who its owner was.
In 1887, it was renamed Novotného lávka in honour of Karel Novotný (1827-1900), a miller who had arranged for an iron footbridge on the southern side of the ‘street’.
If you’re passing by and you’re not sure who this museum relates to, a statue outside offers you an unsubtle reminder (also: what a view).
Appropriately, the footbridge had once been lived on by another composer, Josef Mysliveček (1737-1781), whose father had owned one of the mills.
At the other end, Karlovy lázně used to be a spa, and also a cafe, as well as being the location for Karel Havlíček Borovský’s apartment and publishing house.
Since 1999, it’s been a nightclub, and, while I’m glad they *finally* stopped advertising themselves as ‘the biggest club in middle Europe’, I’ve never been inside and sense that doing so would make me feel much older than I actually am.
No, I didn’t pick the music for this video:
A good-looking collection of buildings, this (would look better if those scooters weren’t there, but we can’t have it all).
Bedřich Smetana (baptised as Fridrich) was born in Litomyšl in 1824. His father František was a prolific brewer (and played violin in a quartet) while his mother Barbora was a relative of the Baroque composer Jiří Ignác Linek (and was a dancer).
Bedřich, meanwhile, started violin and piano lessons, giving his first public performance on the latter in 1830, when he was six.
A year later, the family moved to Jindřichův Hradec when his father became head of the castle brewery; they stayed there until 1835, when František bought the estate at Růžkova Lhotice.
Smetana transferred again in 1840, this time to the academic gymnasium in Prague, where music soon took up much more time than his studies did. He announced he was dropping out, and his father promptly had him transferred to Plzeň.
He matriculated (just) in 1843.
Having composed several pieces in Plzeň – of which the polkas became particularly popular – Smetana returned to Prague as soon as he could, eventually finding work as a tutor to a noble family in 1844.
He continued to compose and tried to make it as a concert pianist.
In June 1848, Smetana was on the barricades during the failed Prague Uprising; two marches he wrote during this time became his first published works.
Thanks to financial support from his parents, he was able to open a piano school on Old Town Square in 1849; he married his long-term sweetheart, Kateřina Kolářová, in the same year.
After a series of personal setbacks (three of his four daughters died within two years) and professional difficulties (some of his concerts were poorly received and led to a financial loss), Smetana moved to Göteborg and opened a successful music school, staying until 1861.
Kateřina would also die in 1859; Smetana then spent time with a friend, Ferenc Liszt, in Weimar.
It was around this time that he met his second wife, Bettina, whom he married in 1860, although the marriage would ultimately become somewhat miserable.
Smetana’s living quarters in the first part of the decade were at Palác Lažanských, which is on the embankment which now bears his name, and which you may know better as the home of Café Slavia.
From 1873, Smetana’s health worsened – by 1874, he had become totally deaf – but still managed to compose Má vlast, a collection of six symphonic poems, and finally saw Libuše premiered at the National Theatre in 1881.
In the Czech Republic, Smetana is regarded as the father of Czech music. The annual Prague Spring International Music Festival is always opened with a performance of Má vlast.
Internationally, however, his most famous work is probably The Bartered Bride / Prodaná nevěsta, a three-act comic opera which was premiered at the Provisional Theatre in 1866.
As well as Palác Lažanských at number 2, Smetana’s name adorns the cultural centre next door at number 4.
While the embankment is also noticeable for the Park of National Awakening / Park Národního probuzení, created in the 1840s and dominated by Krannerova kašna, a Neo-Gothic monument to Francis I, first Emperor of Austria (from 1804 to 1835).
Finally, back in the 1980s, you’d have seen Smetana’s face more often than you do now.
There’ll be a little bit more Smetana coverage tomorrow.
Václav Krocín was born in 1532, and grew up in Žatec, later moving to Prague, where his mother owned various properties.
After finishing his studies there in 1560, he started working for the Old Town Municipality, eventually becoming mayor in 1584.
He became known as Václav Krocín starší z Drahobejle in 1587, and became a noble seven years later. He served as mayor until 1605, the year in which he died.
During his tenure, he ordered the construction of a fountain on Old Town Square. Built between 1591 and 1596, it was named Krocínova kašna / the Krocín Fountain.
The fountain was made of red marble – due to its ready availability, but also because it looked good – but this was at the expense of its efficiency, and it soon started to deteriorate.
In the 1850s, there were heated debates about what to do with it, given, in part, the high cost of repairing it; in 1862, it was dismantled, amid much controversy and a declaration by the authorities that Prague City Council had acted illegally in doing so.
On two occasions (1895 and 1915), a reconstruction was planned, but had to be cancelled because too many parts were missing.
It reverted to Boršov in 1870, but, around the end of the century, the manor was destroyed as part of the ‘clean-up’ that this part of Prague underwent at the time.
Its remains can be seen in these two properties.
This is one of Prague’s shorter streets – about 40 metres – and is really more of a courtyard than a street.
The southern part of the street was originally called Svatoštěpánská, later being known (from 1780) as Štěpánské náměstí, both after a nearby church which is no longer there.
The northern part became known as Poštovská, because it was on the regular mail route between Malá Strana and Vienna (and there was a post office here).
This name was attributed to the whole street from 1870 onwards.
Johanna Nepomucena Rottová was born into a wealthy family on the street – at number 20 – in 1830.
Her education allowed her to learn French as well as Czech and German.
In 1852, she married her piano teacher, Petr Mužák. Their only child, Boženka, was born later that year, but only lived for three months.
Partially as a way to deal with her grief, Johanna started writing.
Her husband was from Světlá pod Ještědem (near Liberec), where she would spend her summers, and which inspired her pseudonym, Karolina Světlá.
While many of Světlá’s works were about the Prague bourgeoisie, it was her rural prose – notably five novels which came to be known, collectively, as the Ještěd novels – that had the most enduring popularity.
Along with Vojta Náprstek (coming up soon), Světlá founded the American Ladies’ Club, the first Czech women’s association, in 1865; in 1871, she founded the Czech Women’s Manufacturing Association, which aimed to help girls from poor families get an education and find work.
From the late 1870s onwards, Světlá had to dictate her works to her niece, Anežka Čermáková-Sluková, due to an eye condition.
Světlá died in 1899 and is buried in Olšany Cemetery. The street had been named after her a year earlier.
The street is also known for its Neo-Renaissance buildings designed by Antonín Wiehl and Jan Zeyer in the 1870s (specifically numbers 15 and 17 – see below).
A ‘průchod’ is a passage(way) or alley(way), much like a ‘pasáž’ (except you wouldn’t also use ‘průchod’ to refer to a shopping arcade).
It can also be used to denote the action of going through something, rather than the physical space itself.
As in ‘Průchod stavbou zakázán!’, which translates something like ‘Sod off, this is a construction site and we’re trying to work, so cross over to the other side or the road like everyone else is doing, FFS, I hate tourists’.
It outlived the konvikt, and was promoted to street status in 1905, when it was named after the composer Karel Bendl (1838-1897), who had worked nearby.
The street got its current name in 1968. It’s hardly the district’s most happening street, but it can make for some of its most atmospheric photos.
Originally, this street was called U sv. Kříže (St Cross), named after a rotunda which was built around 1125. Pleasingly, it’s still there and was done up in 2022.
In the 1600s, the street was renamed ‘Horní Solní’ due to the presence of a nearby salt warehouse.
In Latin, ‘convīctus’ means ‘communal life’ (or, alternatively, a ‘banquet’ – hence ‘convivial’).
In Czech (and German, albeit with a capital K), ‘konvikt’ came to mean a common home with some sort of spiritual element – such as a seminary. In Austria, ‘Konvikt’ can also be used to denote a Catholic boarding school.
It lasted for over a century, until 1773, when Pope Clement XIV issued a papal brief declaring that the Jesuits were no longer a force for good and should be dissolved.
Number 22 in the street is the Czech Technical University’s Faculty of Transportation Sciences.
In the 1200s, this area was a poor neighbourhood; one of its most well-known buildings was called ‘Benátky’ (Venice), and so the street’s first name was Benátská.
The street then became known as V Jeruzalémě or Jeruzalémská.
Accommodatino for them was provided in the chapel, named after Mary Magdalene.
In 1660, the Jesuits turned this into a boarding school, and the street’s named was changed to Horní Konviktská (more on that tomorrow).
In the 1720s, the Jesuits decided to build a new, Baroque church – the Church of St. Bartholomew, hence Bartolomějská.
My photos show very, very little of the church, so maybe enjoy this painting by Václav Jansa instead.
When the Jesuit order dissolved in 1773, the church became state property. It was used by the Grey Nuns of the Third Order of St. Francis from 1835 to 1949 – and again since 1995.
Number 13 in the street – one of those houses that you feel needs a clean, but which you’d miss in its current state if it got one – was lived in (and died in) by Jan Podlipný (1848-1914), once mayor of Prague but also of the Sokol organisation (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/26/prague-2-day-114-sokolska/).
Meanwhile, number 14 is as stern as it looks – it’s the district directorate of the Prague 1 police, and, until 1990, was the headquarters of the StB, communist Czechoslovakia’s secret police force.
And number 12 is the headquarters of the Criminalistics Institute of the Czech Republic.
And number 6 is the Criminal Police and Investigation Service.
Pernštejn Castle is located about 40 kilometres northwest of Brno. It was founded in the second half of the 13th century, and is what we would classify as ‘well preserved’.
The name ‘Pernštejn’ is derived from the original German name for the castle, ‘Bärenstein’ (the Bear Rock).
Obviously, the Pernštejn clan wasn’t short of cash, and, in 1524, one of them – Jiřík Kasík z Pernštejna – bought number 5 on this street, which subsequently became known as Pernštejnský dům.
Next door, number 7, U Medvídků – literally The Little Bears – was one of Prague’s oldest breweries, dating back to the 1430s. Its name derives from one of its owners in the 15th century, Jan Nedwidek.
The brewery closed in 1898; the current hotel-restaurant-microbrewery combo was created after the Velvet Revolution. As part of that process, number 5 was attached to number 7.
The most famous inhabitant was František Ladislav Rieger in his student days.
When I was at university in the UK, I too lived directly upstairs from the college bar. I wonder if this was as counterproductive for Rieger as it was for me.
Sadly, it was destroyed in 1949-50 and replaced with something a whole lot more corporate (cool reflection, though).
Further down, number 12 is called Purkrabský pivovar – while ‘pivovar’ means ‘brewery’, it hasn’t been one for a long time, and currently hosts the National Monument Institute.
In the early 1500s, a hat-maker called Vít Skořepa bought number 10 and ran his business from there. It became known as Dům U Skořepů (with the alternative name of Dům U Tří zlatých lvů (the Three Golden Lions)).
Mozart wasn’t the only person of note to live in the street – number 5 was lived in by the sculptor Jan Brokoff (1652-1718), and also his son Ferdinand (1688-1731).
Number 1, the Neo-Renaissance U Mladých Goliášů (The Young Goliaths), is possibly the most impressive building on the street.
Number 3 – which you can see on the right-hand side of the next picture – was the birthplace of Petr Brandl, the most famous Czech Baroque painter.
While Dům U Šturmů, at number 9, was the birthplace of Vojta Náprstek (1826-94), a philanthropist, politician and journalist. More on him in about ten days.
What's in a Prague street name 
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