A new exhibition at the Archdiocesan Museum will present the history of St. Wenceslas Hill 

PRESS RELEASE | JANUARY 26, 2023

From January 2020, visitors could not enter the Archdiocesan Museum Olomouc due to reconstruction. This will change on 24 April 2023, when the historical premises of the former chapter deanery and the Romanesque palace of Bishop Zdík will be reopened to the public. Visitors can expect big news. On the ground floor of the Zdík Palace, they will be able to walk through all four arms of the Gothic cloister with medieval wall paintings for the first time since it was opened in 2006, and a catwalk with original Romanesque windows rounds off the entire gallery one floor higher. The museum will also offer a new permanent exhibition that will explain the cultural and historical development of the local St. Wenceslas Hill.

The new permanent exhibition Here You Are, which is quite accurately defined by its subtitle Svatováclavské návrší in the Changes of the Centuries, will be located in the renovated attic of the Archdiocesan Museum. "A large part of the exhibition will belong to new media and digital content. Visitors can look forward to screens with virtual visualisations of the area of St Wenceslas Hill in prehistoric, medieval and modern times," says Miroslav Kindl, head of the Archdiocesan Museum. There will also be three bronze models of the hill from the same periods.

Visitors will also be able to see a facsimile of the rare Olomouc Horologium (also called the Olomouc Collector) from the first half of the 12th century. The work was commissioned by Bishop Jindřich Zdík (c. 1083-1150) for the Olomouc Chapter of St. Wenceslas. The illustrated manuscript includes on 161 sheets of parchment a collection of liturgical texts necessary for daily prayers. The codex became a prize of the Swedish army during the Thirty Years War and is still preserved in the Royal Library in Stockholm.  

The new exhibition will be accompanied by a comic strip by Martin Šinkovský and Petr Novák (Silence 762). Fifty-two pages tell the story of a contemporary young man who sets out to climb the rock beneath St. Wenceslas Cathedral and coincidentally becomes a time traveller. "Thanks to this, he gets to know the St. Wenceslas Hill across historical stages and back to prehistoric times. In each period, he will meet various local historical figures and always experience an event that took place here. With these stories, we are particularly targeting younger visitors so that they can better understand the importance and significance of this area," adds Miroslav Kindl. 

A new book guide to the Archdiocesan Museum Olomouc will also be published. It will focus on the original permanent exhibition To Glory and Praise, which has been reinstalled, and the new exhibition in the attic. Of course, it will also present the history of this place.

Machine translation