Franciscan Monastery

The late medieval pilgrimage monastery in Kadaň was the cynosure of monarchs and diplomats, priests and secular pilgrims, artists and patrons, noblemen and commoners for more than half of a millennium. One of its first benefactors, John Hassenstein of Lobkowicz, conceived the construction as a reflection of his impressions from sacred places of Jerusalem.

The spiritual management was entrusted to the members of the Franciscan-Observant order. Artistic merit was impressed into the monastery by its builders mainly in the basement vault (perhaps the first one in the Czech lands), by painters around Lucas Cranach senior (and by other artists later on) in decorations of walls of the entire interior of the Fourteen Holy Helpers’ Church and by sculptors mainly in their sepulchral works, as the church was also used as significant burial place.