Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/60

44 the high pyramids of its pilasters, the phantastic shapes of its gargoyles and top-phials. The beauty of this scene is, as it were crowned by the fine dome of St. Vitus’ steeple in its robe of copper green. The picture is finished off towards the east by the characteristic outlines of the Daliborka and the Black tower, the donjons which protect the secondary entrance of the Castle from the eastern side.

A new and beautiful prospect opens as we proceed but a few steps farther. At the very end of the garden, in the middle of the fresh green of a lawn, surrounded by very old yew-trees and cypresses stands the Dudák (Bagpiper) a grand fountain of bronze, a famous work of master Jaroš z Brna dating from 1536, and behind it rises as a pleasing background, the airy loggias, finely wrought architraves and the lengthy green dome-roof of Queen Anna’s Belvedere, the master work of the Italian architect Giovanni di Spazio and Paolo di Stella. It is an artistic monument of the early renaissance-style and by its character a unique specimen to the north of the Alps. It was a splendid gift of Ferdinand I. to his Queen Anna, the heiress of the Jagellonic kings of Bohemia. The fact of its being a gift is also expressed symbolically in one of the loggias, which as to elegance and loftiness have no equal.

From the loggias there is a beautiful view of the fresh Chotek-park below, which is one of the finest public gardens in Prague, is adorned by a small ornamental lake and offers from its beautiful situation an enchanting prospect of the Castle.

Through this park we pass quickly down; first to the serpentine road winding past the Blind-institution (the beautiful chapel of which contains pictures by the best Bohemian artists; amongst them the world-renowned Christ upon the Mount of Olives), and then to the right into Waldstein-street, one of the most chaste and at the same time most aristocratic streets of the capital. There are many palaces and gardens of the Bohemian nobility here, and one of its sides is entirely taken up by the extensive range of buildings which belong to the counts of Waldstein. From the corner of the street there is also a fairylike view of the Castle, of the slopes and fresh green lawns of the