Baroque day in Mariánská Týnice today presented the newly built ambulatory and chapel

Kralovice – In Mariánská Týnice in northern Plzeň, a Baroque Day took place today, which is part of the Summer Baroque Festival of the Plzeň Region. There was great interest in the event focused on reviving Baroque monuments. Visitors could view the recently completed eastern ambitus and chapel in the Church of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary. Guides in replicas of Baroque clothing presented the architecture and local fresco decoration through guided tours.

Mariánská Týnice was a ruin a hundred years ago; now its former beauty has been restored. The inscription among national cultural monuments allowed for EU funding to complete the unique construction of the never-finished eastern ambitus, as planned by architect Jan Blažej Santini 300 years ago during the height of Baroque. The construction of the eastern ambitus and chapels of the Baroque pilgrimage complex Mariánská Týnice began in 2018 and was completed in the spring. It cost 60 million crowns.

The new eastern ambitus mirrors the opposite western one. It features three corridors and four chapels, which have recently been decorated with Baroque paintings. "It is a square courtyard, bordered by three arcaded corridors that are open from the inside and have three entrances from the outside. At the corners of the arcade, where they meet, there are chapels with a special elongated hexagonal layout," described Irena Bukačová, long-time director of the Museum of Northern Plzeň, which is located in the complex.

"This year's edition is dedicated to Baroque choreography and Baroque ballet. Colleagues from the Plzeň region are dressed in Baroque outfits, some of which are even our own garments, which hold great value," stated Bukačová. In Mariánská Týnice, there is a specialized workplace for the study of Baroque and the understanding of Baroque culture.

The former Cistercian pilgrimage site, which includes the Church of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, was built between 1711 and 1768. Since the monastery was dissolved in 1785, no use was found for the complex, and it gradually fell into disrepair; by the early 20th century, it was a ruin. After the dome of the church collapsed in 1920, efforts to save it began even during the First Republic, but those efforts were interrupted by the war and then a long period of totality. The complex was only spared complete devastation because a museum has been located there since 1952.