The Old Dining Room - The Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine

We have entered the former dining room of the chapter deanery, which gained its present appearance in the late Baroque period before the middle of the 18th century. We are reminded of the original function of the hall by the food elevator in the right corner of the room.

Baroque art is here represented by a monumental altar screen showing the Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine. Its author, Olomouc Augustinian Antonín Martin Lublinský, was not only the founder of Moravian Baroque painting but also a leading Baroque scholar. St. Catherine of Alexandria was Lublinský's favourite theme. The reason is simple: Catherine is considered to be the patron saint of education. An educated Christian virgin, who refused to marry Emperor Maxentius, she was tortured and imprisoned for her faith. But before she died, she was able to convert fifty pagan scholars to Christianity during scholarly dispute.

Lublinský filled his paintings with symbolic meanings. A number of symbols can also be found here: books, writings and globes as attributes of the patron saint of education, part of the wheel on which she was tortured, but which divine intervention broke, a red robe to mark her suffering, and rose wreaths symbolizing the blood shed by the martyr.

--------------------

From the Old Dining Room we can enter the second Treasury of the Archdiocesan Museum.