Plague Column (Mariana Pillar) is a type of religious monument common in the countries of Central Europe : a column standing in the middle of a city square, as a rule, in the Baroque style , on which a statue of the Virgin Mary is erected.
Since such columns were erected, as a rule, as a token of gratitude for the cessation of the pestilence or victory in the war, a column with the statue of Our Lady is often surrounded by appropriate figures of saints - St. Roch (infected with plague during the healing of the infirm), sv. Barbarians (the patron saint of the dying), St. Francis Xavier , of sv. Carla Borromeo and St. Sebastian .
A direct prototype of the baroque plague columns of Central Europe was the column of the Basilica of Constantine crowned with the statue of the Virgin Mary, erected in 1614 in front of the facade of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome . Similar monuments have been known in Western Europe since the early Middle Ages: for example, in Clermont-Ferrand such a sculptural composition was recorded in the 10th century.
Significant Examples
- The first plague column of Central Europe is the Mariina Column, established in 1638 on the Marienplatz square in Munich to commemorate the liberation from the Swedish invasion and from the “plague-like fabric”.
- At the end of the Thirty Years War , a column of Mary appeared on the Old Town Square in Prague . For many years, its half-day shadow marked the line of passage of the Prague meridian . The monument was destroyed by the revolutionary masses at the news of the overthrow of the Habsburg dynasty in 1918.
- In 1693 a plague column appeared in Vienna - it was dedicated not to the Virgin Mary, but to the Trinity. From the side, the pillar is almost invisible - it sinks in marble clouds, figures of saints, angels and putti .
- The most ambitious example of the plague column is the Holy Trinity Column on Gornja Ploshchad in Olomouc . The construction of the 35-meter column continued from 1716 (the year the plague epidemic ended in Moravia) until 1754. The monument is so large that a chapel can be found at its base. In 2000, the plague pillar in Olomouc was added to the list of World Heritage sites as one of the most expressive works of Central European Baroque.
Rome
Mariina column on the background of the two towers of the Munich Frauenkirche
Wroclaw
Mount Swat Caterini
See also
- Obelisk
Links
- Plague Column : Wikimedia Commons Media