Abstract
The wall paintings in the St. Wenceslas chapel of Prague’s St.
Vitus Cathedral are the work of the first decade of the 16th century. They show the life of the most important national patron of Bohemia.
It is apparent that King Vladislav II borrowed the Saint Wenceslas idea from his predecessor on the Bohemian throne, Charles IV, and used it as an instrument of his political programme. He was thus able to project his own person onto that of the holy prince in order to legitimise his own position as ruler by God’s grace of Bohemia.
He was able to translate this idea by making it more relevant to his own contemporary times by employing the tools of the just dawning Renaissance. The holy duke Wenceslas, who promoted the Christian faith in Bohemia and as a result died as a martyr, is seen as an integrative figure untouched by contemporary religious dogmatic disputes.
In the chapel wall paintings of the St Vitus Cathedral he is presented in utraquistic guise in order to better respond to the needs of the Jagiellonian epoch. The depiction of the royal couple in the altar wall paintings of St.
Wenceslas’ life leaves no doubt that Vladislav did indeed wish to identify himself with Wenceslas.