Background
Little is known about the earliest youth of Peter Parler. His father, Heinrich Parler the Elder, was a stonemason at Cologne Cathedral.
Little is known about the earliest youth of Peter Parler. His father, Heinrich Parler the Elder, was a stonemason at Cologne Cathedral.
He completed his apprenticeship under his father.
lt is probable that young Peter visited parts of central Europe, including Strasbourg, Cologne, and perhaps Paris, for his work betrays familiarity with the architecture of those cities. In 1352 he became a parlier (chief assistant to the site director) and stand-in for his father at the site of the church of Our Lady at Nuremberg, where his first sculptures are found. He probably also worked as a sculptor at nearby Lauf Castle, which, like Our Lady, had been commissioned by Charles IV.
In 1356 he was called by the emperor to Prague, where he took over direction of the cathedral site (from Mathieu d'Arras) until 1397. The fact that the emperor entrusted the direction of the most prestigious building site in the empire to such a young architect is indicative of his outstanding talent. Apart from the cathedral site. where a portrait bust of him can still be seen, he also supervised the building of the Charles Bridge (from 1357), the monumental gate leading to the Old City (from ca. 1373), the Palatine chapel in the castle (now destroyed), and the choir of Saint Bartholomew at Kolin (1360-78).
As a sculptor, Peter made the cenotaph for Ottokar l in Prague Cathedral and designed the busts of the royal family and of the two architects and master builders for the cathedral triforium. Peter Parler was granted citizenship in Prague in 1379. He died on July 13, 1199.
Peter Parler was one of the most well-known and influential craftsman of the Middle Ages. The designs of both he and his father became known as the "Parler style" and spread throughout Central Europe.
An Asteroid named in honor of Peter Parler, 6550 Parléř, was discovered by Antonín Mrkos at Kleť Observatory on 4 November 1988.
His first wife Gertrude died in the late 1360s and he returned to Cologne to dispose of her inheritance in 1370. He then married Elisabeth Agnes von Bur in 1380 and in the same year bought a second house on Castle Square. From this marriage two children were born: Johann, who possibly became a stonemason in Zagreb; and Paul, about whom no information survives. He may have had other children as well.
