In the middle of the 15th century, a slender chapel, one of the most beautiful Gothic buildings in Slovakia, was added to the south wall of the parish Church of St. Ladislaus in Spišský Štvrtok. Although it is considered to be a funeral chapel, neither this chapel nor its French model, the Sainte-Chapelle which inspired it, is used for this purpose.
The chapel in Spišský Štvrtok contains a small riddle which has not yet been reliably solved: who built it here and why? Both visitors and researchers who admire the chapel have asked a similar question for almost four hundred years. Reliable archive documents that clarify the circumstances of its construction are missing, which is what has led to the myth. According to myth, it is the funeral chapel of the important Zápolya family who owned Spiš Castle from 1465 onwards. However, the Zápolya family found their final resting place in a chapel which they had built in 1495, at the cathedral in Spišská Kapitula. The chapel in Spišský Štvrtok has no crypts or tombstones. From the beginning it was dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and in its interior, there is another preserved jewel of Gothic art, a panel painting of the death of the Virgin Mary. It was painted by an anonymous Medieval master, the Master of the Tucher Altarpiece that was created in Nuremberg.
The chapel is elevated and stands on a temple hill, enclosed by a wall. It has two floors, referred to as the upper and lower chapels. The south façade of the chapel, evenly divided by eight tall pillars (buttresses), is its most interesting and artistically dominating feature. All of the pillars include pinnacles richly decorated with a crab motif. The façade was designed in the building workshop of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. This idea is supported by Medieval drawings that have been preserved, they were probably made by Hans Puchspaum, the head builder of the St. Stephen workshop between 1446 and 1452. Both sections of the chapel are topped with net vaults. In the upper chapel above the altar, in the vault, the original keystone is preserved and bears the heraldic figure of a jumping lion with a double tail and a crown on his head. Maybe this detail could be the key to finding the person who ordered the construction of the chapel.
In 1869, the Chapel of Assumption of the Virgin Mary was damaged by fire, but thanks to the efforts of Alfons Gmitter, a Guardian in O.F.M. Conv., it was restored in the neo-Gothic style between 1899 and 1901. The Order of Friars Minor Conventual once again faces the tough challenge of finding the means to restore this jewel of Gothic architecture. Between 1999 and 2002, the main altar of the upper chapel and from 2020 to 2022, the interior of the lower chapel were restored. The largest part – the exterior of the building and the interior of the upper chapel are still waiting for restoration.
Mária Novotná
