Telč

Did You Know?

• In 1963, Vojtěch Jasný made the film The Cassandra Cat in Telč.
• Werner Herzog filmed the movie Woyzeck in Telč in 1979.
• Many Czech fairy tale movies were filmed at Telč Castle, including The Proud Princess (1952) and Z pekla štěstí (1999).

Geography

Telč lies about 26 km southwest of Jihlava in the Křižanov Highlands. The highest point is Studnická Ostražka at 642 m above sea level, near Studnice. The Telčský potok stream flows through the town and contributes to the Moravian Thaya River, which partly forms the eastern municipal border. The territory is rich in fishponds; a system of ponds lies in the town centre.

History

Local legend dates the town's founding to 1099, but the first written mention is from 1335. A Gothic castle, Gothic houses, and water fortification were built in the mid-14th century. Development halted during the Hussite Wars, when the town was conquered by the Hussites but the castle resisted. Under Zachariáš of Hradec in the mid-16th century, the medieval castle was rebuilt in Renaissance style and Gothic houses were given arcades and decorated façades. During the Thirty Years' War, the Swedish army briefly occupied the town. The Jesuits arrived during the counter-reformation, building the Church of the Name of Jesus in 1667 and founding a Latin Grammar School. In the 18th century, wealthy townspeople funded statues, fountains, chapels, and a Marian column. The Jesuit Order's rights were cancelled in 1773. From 1785, Telč was Germanised. Industry developed in the 19th century, and the railway was built in 1898.

Sights

The historic town centre lies between Štěpnický rybník and Ulický rybník and is delimited by town walls. It is protected as an urban monument reservation, and the part Telč-Staré Město is an urban monument zone. The town square is a long plaza with well-conserved Renaissance and Baroque houses featuring high gables and arcades; the houses were uniformly reconstructed in Renaissance styles, with later individual remodelling of gables and façades, mostly in Baroque style. The 17th-century Renaissance castle, with an English-style park, is a main landmark and a national cultural monument. The castle houses exhibition routes and a branch of the Vysočina Museum with ethnographic, historical, and archaeological collections. The Church of the Holy Mother of God, originally Gothic from the second half of the 14th century, is the oldest church in Telč; it was rebuilt in early Baroque style in the 17th century, with an 18th-century enclosure wall, gate, and Baroque statues, and contains a preserved late Gothic pulpit. The Church of the Holy Spirit was built in late Gothic style on the site of an older sanctuary, extending a late Romanesque tower from the early 13th century; the tower was later lowered and given a pseudo-Gothic roof after a fire. The Church of the Name of Jesus, built in Baroque style from 1663 to 1667 by Giovanni Domenico Orsi, stands in a row of houses as part of the former Jesuit college. The Church of Saint James the Great is a large Gothic building extending Telč Castle, with a tower nearly 60 m high. The Church of Saint Anne, a second cemetery church, was built in early Baroque style at the end of the 17th century.