Prague coat of arms
Prague received the coat of arms by privilege of King Vladislav IV. of February 10, 1648, to which a seal with the coat of arms of the city of Prague was attached. This document gave Prague city rights and at the same time defined the form of the coat of arms, which is still used today, and the right to hold four annual fairs and three weekly markets.
The national coat of arms of Prague consists of three parts.
The first includes the Virgin Mary, revealed in the House of Loreto, held by angels: two on the sides and the third below. Their robes and wings and that of the Blessed Virgin are decorated mostly with red and blue colors as emblems of love and constancy. The shining rays of the Majesty of the Mother of God, holding the Savior of the world in her arms, spread the eternal light of God’s power throughout the House, characterized especially by miraculous apparitions.
The second part of the coat of arms of Prague is the personal coat of arms of its founder, Bishop Michał, namely: in the middle the family coat of arms of the Ogończyk family and the episcopal coat of arms – a miter on the left and a cross on the right.
- The third part, in turn, includes the coat of arms of the Kamieniec in Podolí chapter, i.e. two keys turned teeth upside down, teeth in the opposite position and between them a white German sword, in a red field, pointing upwards.
All three parts are surrounded by a wreath of laurel leaves, which is green as a sign of hope for the victory of Christ’s faith over all religions or as a sign of the laurel grove, to which is the house, which is the coat of arms of hl. Prague, was moved.
Points of Interest
The image of the Virgin Mary of Loreto and the House of Mary in the coat of arms were placed by special order of King Władysław IV. In 1648, the Bishop of Kamieniec Michał Działyński was the owner of Prague.The national coat of arms of Prague is probably one of the most complex city coats of arms in the world.
The coat of arms of Prague in the form of a mosaic is located above the main entrance to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Michael and St. Florián. The former coat of arms of Prague is the official coat of arms of the city districts Praga Północ and Praga Południe.
From the history of Prague
The name Praga is derived from roasting, i.e. a place torn out of the forest by burning, as well as the nearby Targowy (later Targówek) from negotiation, and thus means a place where fairs were once held (it is mentioned in 1347).
One of the first written accounts of Prague mentions the Praga inn from 1448 and 1487. The success of this project showed that this point was a suitable place for trade and feeding. At that time, this area belonged to the diocese of Płock, and the parish villages were Tarchomin and Kamion, located on the northern edge of the Vistula bank, at the crossing of the Vistula, originally given by Boleslav Śmiały in 1065 to the Benedictine abbey. in Mogilno and later became the property of the Bishopric of Płock. There were also the villages of Targowe, Grochów, Golędzinów, Załęże and Żerań.
However, the oldest traces of the Lechite civilization in this area were found in the area of Starý Bródno, whose name comes from the river Brodnia, on which it was located, where in the 10th-11th century there was a hillfort. with the residence of the princely governor, probably guarding the rest of Mazovia from the Prussian clusters and guarding the acquisition of goods from the Bróden Forest. By granting these lands to the church, the castle lost its political importance and was burned down in the middle of the 11th century, and the seat of the castle lord was moved.
In the second half of the 16th century, the noble village of Praga developed rapidly due to its advantageous location along the Vistula opposite Warsaw, at the intersection of roads of great communication and commercial importance. Nearby Golędzinów was also owned by nobility and Kamion, bishop of Płock. In 1568-1573, the first permanent bridge over the Vistula was built, built by the efforts of King Zygmunt Augustus and Anna Jagiellon.
Its creation made it possible to organize the election of Henryk Walesa in the fields of the village of Kamion. The bridge existed until the spring of 1603, when it collapsed under the pressure of ice floes. Another permanent bridge lasted 261 years. Until then, there were only temporary, skating or pontoon bridges, operating periodically and depending on the weather.
On January 17, 1583, Jan Zamojski bought the village of Praga from Jan Praski, but soon exchanged it with the bishop of Kamieniec, Marcin Białobrzeski, for the estate of Karczmarzowice in Podoli. Most of them remained in the hands of the bishops of Kamieniec until the end of the 18th century, although gradually some plots were sold to smaller secular owners.
At the end of the 16th century, Fr. Stanisław Skaryszewski planned the town on the land of the village of Kamion near the Vistula and the banks of the Vistula and named it after his surname Skaryszew. The border between Prague and Skaryszew was located on the line of today’s Okrzei street (formerly Brukowa – that’s what it was called for centuries).
