Loreta, Prague

Loreta is Prague’s Hradčany pilgrimage complex, with a grand Baroque façade facing Loretánské Square. Take in the tower above that frontage: its chime has rung since the fifteenth of August, sixteen ninety-five, using thirty bells made by clockmaker Peter Neumann. Building began in sixteen twenty-six through the patronage of Kateřina Benigna of the Lobkowicz family.

Italian architect Giovanni Orsi created the Holy Hut, which received its blessing on the twenty-fifth of March, sixteen thirty-one. Cloisters later enclosed the pilgrimage site, and Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer added their upper gallery after seventeen forty. Christoph Dientzenhofer and Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer then devised the façade in the early eighteenth century. Inside, the complex also holds a substantial collection of liturgical objects, notably monstrances.