Rotunda of St. Lawrence
The Church of St. Anne, in which the Prague Crossroads is found, has a remarkable history associated with the earliest evidence of the religious buildings of the OldTown. At the site of the present Church of St. Anneoriginally stood the Rotunda of St. Lawrence, which took the form of a classical circular layout with a semicircular apse and apparently belonged to the early feudal court. The age of the original Rotunda of St. Lawrence remains a question. In the “Czech Chronicle” of 1533-1539 Václav Hájek of Libočan attributes its founding to Saint Wenceslas in 927. How will scientific research dispose of this information? Most information on this topic was brought by archaeological excavations under the guidance of Ivan Borkovsky, carried out in 1954 and 1956. They unearthed the torso of the Romanesque Rotunda of St. Lawrence under the presbytery of the present church, as well as the torso of the apse, of which only the foundation walls and short sections of the wall in contact with the Rotunda’s nave remain (Borkovský 1957; 1959).Based on observations of the foundations of the Rotunda located in the ground with pottery from the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th century, Ivan Borkovský dates the establishment of the Rotunda to the second half of the 12th century.
Source (thanks to the authors)
Martin Pavala, 2004: http://www.techartis.cz/Anna/Anna.htm
Miroslav Kovář – Zdeněk Dragoun 2012: Příspěvek k poznání komendy templářů v Praze na Starém Městě; Staletá Praha XXVIII / 2012 / no. 2.
Ivan Borkovský 1957: Objev templářského kostela v Praze. Archeologické rozhledy 9, 1957, 500–507.
Ivan Borkovský 1959: Kostel řádu templářů v Praze na Starém Městě. In: Kniha o Praze, Praha 1959, 35–46.
Layout of the Rotunda of St. Lawrence, which Ivan Borkovský uncovered during his archaeological excavation.
