Vrtba Garden

Vrtba Garden is a compact yet densely decorated Baroque terraced garden in Prague's Malá Strana district, laid out on the lower slope of Petřín Hill. It was created between 1715 and 1720 for Jan Josef, Count of Vrtba, then the Highest Burgrave of Prague Castle, alongside the renovation of the neighboring Vrtba Palace. While the palace itself has been reshaped repeatedly over the centuries, the garden has kept its original layout and decoration almost untouched.

Who designed the garden?

The design came from František Maxmilián Kaňka, the Prague architect already responsible for the palace's renovation. He turned the steep hillside plot into a sequence of terraces linked by staircases and ramps — a layout borrowed from Italian Baroque gardens, unusually ambitious for such a small urban site.

Whose sculptures decorate it?

The sculptural program was carried out by Matyáš Bernard Braun, one of the leading Baroque sculptors active in Bohemia. His workshop produced the figures of Bacchus and Ceres, along with a set of statues of classical deities lining the staircase balustrades between the terraces — Apollo with a bow, Mercury, Diana with her dog, Juno with a peacock, Minerva with a shield, Jupiter with an eagle, and Vulcan with a hammer. Stucco work by Tommaso Soldati and ceiling frescoes by Václav Vavřinec Reiner — depicting Venus and Adonis and an allegory of art — complete the decoration of the garden's pavilions.

Why climb to the upper terrace?

The garden's highest terrace offers one of the finest views over the rooftops of Malá Strana, the Cathedral of St. Nicholas and Prague Castle beyond. Few spots in the city combine a close-up view like this with a garden composition designed as a single visual sequence: stairs, terraces, hedges and statues arranged to draw the eye upward from the entrance to the summit.

How has the garden survived to this day?

Vrtba Garden is one of four large Baroque gardens built into the slope of Petřín Hill, alongside the Vratislav, Schönborn and Lobkowicz gardens, making this stretch of Malá Strana a unique concentration of Baroque garden art. Despite the upheavals of the 19th and 20th centuries, the layout and sculptures survived largely intact. A thorough restoration between 1993 and 1998 renewed both the garden structures and the planting, returning the composition close to its original appearance.

Frequently asked questions

When was Vrtba Garden built? It was laid out between 1715 and 1720 for Jan Josef, Count of Vrtba.

Who designed the garden? Architect František Maxmilián Kaňka, who also renovated the adjoining Vrtba Palace.

Whose statues can be seen there? Works by Matyáš Bernard Braun, including Bacchus, Ceres and a series of classical deities on the staircase.

What can you see from the upper terrace? A panorama of Malá Strana's rooftops, the Cathedral of St. Nicholas and Prague Castle.

When was the garden last restored? A major restoration of the buildings and greenery took place between 1993 and 1998.