Klášter Vyšší Brod

Wok von Rosenberg founded the monastery in 1259, bringing twelve Cistercian monks from Wilhering in Austria to settle on a rock shelf above the Vltava. Building ran from the 1260s into the 1380s, giving the complex a chapter hall whose square vaulted space is considered unique in Europe and a church with a five-sided Gothic presbytery. The Rosenbergs used the church as their family mausoleum for ten generations, from the 13th century to the 17th, a continuity unmatched by any other Czech noble tomb. The monastery survived the Hussite wars and the Josephine dissolutions of the 1780s, which closed seven other regional Cistercian houses, then closures under the Nazi occupation and the communist government, reopening each time. Its library, founded with 77 volumes the first monks carried from Wilhering, has grown to roughly 70,000 books, 1,200 manuscripts and 400 incunabula, including 8th-century papal fragments and an 11th-century psalter, making it the third-largest historic library in the Czech Republic. The frescoed library hall was built in 1757. On view are the Vyssi Brod Madonna, painted around 1420, and Zavis's Cross, tied to the monastery's first notable burial.