Kaple svatého Jana Křtitele při ambitu kostela svatého Václava v Olomouci a její výzdoba

The Late Middle Ages was a time of heightened spirituality and widespread veneration of the Holy Virgin and Christ, and it is in this period that we encounter the two most common forms of Marian rosary, the Dominican and the Franciscan. The Dominican rosary, which usually consisted of one-hundred-and-fifty Hail Mary prayers, can be seen in the Chapel of St John the Baptist of St Wenceslas Cathedral in Olomouc, where, in addition to individual rosary beads painted along the ribs of the vault, there is also a series of valuable late Gothic paintings in the eastern field of the chapel. If we link these paintings, which are on the vault as well as the walls, to the fragments of surviving inscriptions found in the western field of the chapel, we obtain a singular illustration of the integrated nature of the decorations in this liturgical space. Václav of Moštěnice, Canon of Olomouc and the cathedral preacher, is the person who was most likely behind the chapel's decorative programme and concept. The culmination of his efforts came in 1517 when a choir of mansionaries was founded in the Chapel of St John the Baptist, their duty being to perform regular daily prayers and Marian hymns. This action completes the picture of the situation in that period in Olomouc, where in the late 15th century a rosary altar of the Holy Virgin was founded in the Dominican Church of St Michael, which was serviced by a lay rosary confraternity that adhered to the same rules as the first confraternity of the rosary in Cologne approved by the Pope.