The Jesuit Seminary in Olomouc: A Baroque Landmark That Became the University's Forerunner

In the historic centre of Olomouc stands the former Jesuit seminary of St. Francis Xavier — a monumental four-wing building with a lavish Baroque façade that was once the forerunner of the local university. The Jesuits founded a school here in 1675, and the building took on its present appearance after a rebuilding in the first quarter of the 18th century. The former seminary stands on Univerzitní Street, at house number 244/22.

Baroque façade and the statue of a saint

The building is a three-storey corner house with a striking seven-bay façade facing the square. The entrance is framed by a gate with stucco ornamentation resembling a late-Baroque portal. A richly profiled cornice separates the ground floor from the upper storeys; on the main façade it supports four pilasters, while the other façades are decorated more simply, with paired pilaster strips.

Some of the windows are framed by moulded surrounds with "ears" and "drops," topped by winged triangular pediments. The window above the entrance is crowned with a segmental pediment bearing a coat of arms and a bishop's mitre, beneath which stucco ornamentation features leaf and shell motifs. On the rounded part of the façade, a niche holds a stone statue of St. Florian.

Vaults, a well and a chapel

The courtyard façades are more simply finished, with a double profiled cornice and stucco pilasters. Part of the building rests on a basement with barrel or groin vaults, while another part stands directly on bedrock. In the basement's western wing, a now-covered well has survived. The staircase and corridors are barrel-vaulted, and the roof still has its original Baroque timber trusses from the 17th century.

Particularly notable is the large hall on the ground floor, covered by three different types of vaulting at once. In the rounded corner room at the junction of the north and west wings, an oval room was built on every floor — on the ground floor topped with a domed vault with seven triangular lunettes, and on the upper floors flat-ceilinged, with walls articulated by six pilasters formed of paired half-columns with Corinthian capitals. The top floor houses the oval chapel of St. Francis Xavier.

From a seminary for the poor to a university faculty

The building was erected in 1675 on the site of four older houses; the seminary was intended primarily for poorer pupils of non-noble birth. A Baroque rebuilding took place in 1717–1720: construction was overseen by builder Wolfgang Reich, following a design by the Olomouc architect Lucas Glöckel. Today the building houses the Saints Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology of Palacký University.

The monument was placed under state protection back in May 1958. Since April 1971 it has been part of the local heritage reservation, and since December 2000 it has also formed part of the so-called buffer zone of the World Heritage site.

Around Prague, based on reporting by turistika.cz