Mala Strana, or the Lesser Town, situated at the foothills of Prague Castle, belongs to the most enchanting and interesting Prague districts, one of the least affected by modern times. Its palaces, gardens, burghers’ houses, squares, and mainly churches endow it with a specific and inimitable character felt in every lane, in quiet and shaded courts, in picturesque corners with pergolas full of ivy, in the illuminated nights. Here, in this charming environment, the Church of Our Lady Victorious stands with its facade facing Karmelitska Street. It has an eminent place among the numerous churches of Mala Strana, not only for its architectonic structure and artistic decoration, but mainly because it is here that the famous statuette of the Graceful Infant Jesus of Prague is held and venerated. Its copies and sanctuaries devoted to the Infant Jesus of Prague can be found in all parts of the world.
The church was built in the years 1611 – 1613, according to the inscription on the northern side. It belonged to German Lutherans at the time, and was dedicated to the Holy Trinity. It was one of the few late Renaissance churches constructed in Prague and its designer was influenced by Vignola’s and Palladio’s Roman classicism. Giovanni Maria Filippi, born in Italy, Rudolph II’s court architect, was apparently the supervisor.
After the victory of the Counter-Reformation in the Czech lands, Emperor Ferdinand II handed the church over to the order of the Descalced Carmelites. It was consecrated to Our Lady Victorious and originally also to St. Anthony of Padua, it became a part of the monastery and it was newly adapted in the years 1636 – 1647 by an unknown architect. The rectory was relocated to the opposite side and on the eastern side, where the choir used to stand, a new early Baroque front was built with the main entrance directed towards the Vltava and the centre of the city; the access to the church was possible by a three-part staircase. This reconstruction had meant the introduction of early Baroque in Prague church architecture.
However, the history of the statuette that has made this church so famous began in Spain. It is the work of an unknown artist and in 1550s it was owned by the Manrique de Lara family. The renewed reverence for the Incarnation emphasizing also the human side of Jesus Christ who had become a mere child, was very much alive in Spain at the time. St. Therese of Avila, the reformer of the Carmelite order, used to bring a statuette of the Infant Jesus with her all the time when founding convents. When the duchess Maria Maxmiliana Manrique de Lara married the Czech nobleman Vratislav of PerrAtejn in 1556, she had received this rare family treasure as a wedding gift from her mother Isabela and brought the Infant Jesus to her new residence in Prague. Her widowed daughter Polyxena of Lobkovice donated the statuette to the Mala Strana convent of the Descalced Carmelites in 1628.