With an area of more than seven hectares, Charles Square is Prague’s biggest – it’s more like a small park, really, and was originally the city's cattle market. Presiding over it is the Church of St Ignatius, a 1660s baroque tour de force designed for the Jesuits by Carlo Lurago. The rather scruffy piazza outside is due to undergo thorough gentrification in coming years.
The baroque palace at the southern end of the square belongs to Charles University. It’s known as Faust House because, according to a popular German legend, this was where Mephistopheles took Dr Faust away to hell through a hole in the ceiling. The building also has associations with Rudolf II’s English court alchemist, Edward Kelley, who toiled here in the 16th century trying to convert lead into gold.
