Shrines and Columns

It's been quite a gulf since the last post. Here's something short, however, that I'd like to share.

You may recall that I have an interest in Church architecture and in where that sits in urban surroundings. One oversight from that post - pillars and columns. Not those sat on by stylites, nor memorials like Nelson's Column or the Monument to the Great Fire of London (known, helpfully, as the Monument). We might also consider the Islamic world and the place of the minaret.

I refer to Columns bearing Trinitarian or Marian images. Here's a simple-ish one, from Prague.

Thank you, Wikipedia.

Of course, this is hardly an unknown. Tall monuments, from Trajan's Column to Cleopatra's Needle to the Menhirs of Brittany are hardly news. But some of these get impressively Baroque.

From Vienna.
Thank you, Wikipedia - again.

My own understanding of Baroque architecture may have been muted by the English variety (all due respect to Sir Christopher Wren), but that is still an impressive piece of cloud-wreathed work. But let's go one better.

Thank you, Wikipedia - a third time.

This is from a city in Moravia. Wikipedia lists eighteen sculptures as well as many reliefs: the Holy Trinity above and numerous saints below. Yes, there is a small chapel inside. I very much hope it is still functional and that processions of priests will troop out to it occasionally, disturbing traffic in the town square.

It is deliciously complex and prominent as a setting for something. Perhaps it would be some manner of Peculiar in a fictional setting. Within the fabric of the city, it would certainly be the focus of municipal concern and the devotion of city-dwellers. The start or finish, perhaps, of a procession.

If you take nothing else from this, make it an understanding of how cramped and layered a European city could be - the strangeness of historical buildings and the uses thereof.