Basic information
The Chapel of St. Anne is a single-nave building located near the northwest corner of the St.Wenceslas Cathedral. The core of the building is an early Gothic structure, originally consecrated to St. John the Baptist, and built by cathedral building works in 1268. A chapel of the same name was later built on the grounds of the adjoining Bishop’s Palace.
The Chapel of St. Anne is first mentioned in 1349. The original chapel was rebuilt for the rare Přemyslid shrine with the arm of St. Anne between the years 1306-1349. The Olomouc chapter acquired the shrine following the assassination of King Wenceslaus III. in Olomouc in 1306.
The Chapel of St. Anne is in fact a rectorate church. Since the late 17th century it has served as the election place of the Olomouc bishops and archbishops. The right of electing the bishop was acquired by the Olomouc chapter from King Ottokar I. back in 1207. An overall reconstruction in a Mannerist style was completed in 1617. The construction work was financed by the then provost of the chapter and general vicar Martin Wenzel von Greifenthal and was related to the activities of the brotherhood of St. Anne, renewed in 1581 by the Jesuit church. The Brotherhood was personally supported the then bishop and builder of the new presbytery of St.Wenceslas Cathedral – the Cardinal Franz von Dietrichstein. Today it is no longer possible to see the chapel in its full beauty as in 1617, as she lost its whole southern span during a Neo-Gothic reconstruction of the frontage of St.Wenceslas Cathedral. A Mannerist portal with coat of arms of Bishop Dietrichstein and a marble relief of The Virgin and Child with St. Anne were brought over on the new historicist frontage.