About the Tower

Phone: +420 224 948 225
Opening hours: Tuesday - Saturday from 10.00 to 18.00

The dominant of the New Town Hall was completed in 1456; its height is almost 70 m and there are 221 steps leading to its gallery. Since the 15th century, the Tower had fulfilled a function of a "fire station" for the New Town and later on, a watchman blared out elapsed time from its gallery. The Tower underwent construction modifications in 1520 - 1526 and then in 1556 - 1561, the gallery and the roof were repeatedly repaired due to thunderstrucks (the latest construction work dates back to 1876).

In the first floor, there is an originally Gothic chapel, later consecrated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and to St. Wenceslas - the patron of the Czech land. In 1722, it was transformed into the Baroque style, which has been preserved e.g. in the vault decorated in its centre with a fresco of an allegory Right and Justice or in the entrance profiled portal.

In the higher floors, there are exhibitions and installed building fragments found during the reconstruction in 1970s - 1990s.


On the east side of the Tower, there is a fragment of a chain, which was formerly used for blocking the street: this measure should have ensured a night silent hours to the inhabitants - especially the wooden wheels of the carriages were very noisy on the roadway.

Since 1760, there has been a Czech or Prague cubit mounted here as a standard measure. Here, the merchants could calibrate their wooden measures and the purchasers could check, whether they received a right measure or not.

On the south side of the Tower, a following glyptic Latin inscription can be found in a sandstone block about two meters above the ground:

SIGNA TE SIGNA TEMERE ME TANGIS ET ANGIS
ROMA TIBI SUBITO MOTIBUS IBIT AMOR

This is a case of a so-called PALINDROME - i.e. a text readable identically from the right as well as from the left, which was put on the wall of the New Town Hall in 1640, replacing possibly the same inscription from the Gothic era. It is pretended that the same inscription was on the gate of the medieval Rome restored after the Arabic invasion.
We know several interpretations of the meaning of this palindrome: In the late 19th century, Jan Herain assumed that the inscription related to the place of execution, which had been situated in close proximity. It used to be a practice that a priest present to the execution gave a crucifix to the condemned to death in order to kiss it after this person had prayed and crossed himself for the last time. Therefore, according to Josef Hrubeš, it could correspond to a free translation of the inscription: Cross thyself, cross, thou daringly touch me, by fast steps a help will come to thee from Rome.
But an ecclesiastic translation reads as follows: Cross, cross thyself: unreasonably dost thou lay hands on me and vex me; soon by my exertions shalt thou reach Rome, the object of thy desire. This biblical sentence is attributed to the devil himself, when St. Martin of Tours changed him into a donkey and ridden him to Rome. However, the above distich may be translated in the following manner as well: Be aware, thoughtlessly (precipitately) you offend and vex me, Rome; love will suddenly be sacrificed to you by cataclysmal acts (love will suddenly come to you by cataclysmal acts). This more accurate translation is very similar to the one mentioned by RNDr. Milan Špůrek, CSc in the book Praga mysteriosa, who considers the Leonine distich to be an imaginary dialog between a lion and an eagle and explains it as a relation of Bohemia to Rome: Show yourself as a sign (in the sky), vainly you touch me and long to me, Rome, love will come to you through the (star) motions.
Nevertheless, there exists one more - magic - interpretation, according to which the inscription represents a typical "magic trap", which task was to protect the building against evil ghosts, damage and destruction (E. Th. Havránek, 1947).