Church of the Holy Name of Jesus in Lány

Princess Marie Anna, née Wallenstein, married to Prince William Arnost of Fürstenberg, had the rococo chateau chapel of the Holy Name of Jesus built in 1748 – 1752 at a cost of 14,344 gold pieces, which has served as the parish church of Lány since 1850. At the time of the chapel’s construction, the castle was still surrounded by a moat, and since the chapel was to be connected to the eastern wing of the castle, it was necessary to lead a covered connecting corridor from the first floor of the castle through arcaded arches. The chapel building was designed by the architect František Ignác Prée (who probably also consulted on the interior art style), but it was executed by the builder Slon. The mostly uniform interior decoration is the work of the sculptors Richard Prachner, Josef Jelinek and Ignác Platzer, the stucco artist A. Odelli, painter Franz Barberri, marble artist Josef Lauermann and others. The two church bells were cast in 1750 by Johann Georg Kühner, a bell-maker from the Lesser Town. The bell with the image of the Holy Family still hangs on the tower, the second Kühner bell was recast in 1852 and then carried the image of St. Francis Xavier, but when it was requisitioned for military purposes in February 1917, it was never replaced by a new one. Late Baroque statues of St Ludmila and St Wenceslas by an unknown artist stand opposite each other on the north side of the church.

Lány Municipality

The name of the municipality Lány is derived from the word lán, which used to denote a certain area of agricultural land, but the area of agricultural land in its cadastral territory amounts to just over one quarter of this area, while almost 2,500 ha is forest land. However, almost everything that has happened in the history of Lány that has made it a village of special significance is directly or indirectly related to the fact that Lány is located on the relatively accessible northern edge of the Křivoklát forests. Forests and hunting are the initial common denominator from which more or less everything else in Lány has gradually developed.

History of Lány

The oldest written mention of Lány is from r. 1392 and says that they were the seat of the landowners and belonged to the Stochov goods. The owner was vladyka Hašek. Jan Hromada of Boršice was the owner until 1528. He sold the Stochov goods and with them the ash court in Lány to Jindřich Žejdlic of Šenfeld.

Another owner from 1581 was Jiřík Bořita of Martinice. He sold the Lány fortress in 1589 to Emperor Rudolf II. Until 1658 it belonged to the Czech Crown. The next owners were the Schwarzenbergs, who sold the Křivoklát estate, including Lány, to the noble family of the Counts of Wallenstein.

From 1733, the estate was owned by Maria Anna of Wallenstein, who soon married Prince Josef Wilhelm of Fürstenberg and Baden, and so Lány was in the hands of the highly politically exposed Fürstenberg family until 1921.

T. G. Masaryk Museum in Lány