Statue of St. John of Nepomuk at Praterwehr Bridge

Here at the Praterwehr Bridge there is a statue of the bridge saint Johannes Nepomuk. It dates from 1857 and was restored by Willi Hohl in 1957. It was dedicated by civil raft masters.

John (of) Nepomuk or John of Pomuk[1] (Latin Joannes de Pomuk, Czech Jan Nepomucký or Jan z Pomuku, * around 1350 in Pomuk near Pilsen; † March 20, 1393 in Prague) was a Bohemian priest and martyr. He was canonized in 1729 by Pope Benedict XIII. The Jesuits made him their second patron saint in 1732. Nepomuk is considered the saint of bridges and the patron of the seal of confession.Along with crosses and depictions of the Virgin Mary, sculptures of Saint Nepomuk are the most common Christian stone figures found outside of church buildings in the open countryside in Catholic areas of southern Germany, Bohemia, Moravia and Austria. Statues of the saint are very often found on or next to bridges. The most famous of them, created in 1683 by Johann Brokoff, has been on Prague's Charles Bridge since 1693, on the spot where the saint was thrown into the Vltava 300 years earlier. The image was based on a small plaster model made in 1681 by Mathias Rauchmiller, initially as a wooden model, which was placed on the rock in Prague's church of St. John of Nepomuk in 1888. The bronze casting took place between 1683 and 1693 in Nuremberg by Wolf Hieronymus Herold. Bronze reliefs to the left and right of the statue's base show the murder of John Nepomuk and the legendary confession of the queen.