National cultural monument Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary Holy Mountain is an important Baroque complex and place of pilgrimage, towering over the city at an altitude of about 590 m for more than 300 years. According to legend, the beginnings of the cult of the love statue of Our Lady of Svatohorská are connected with the time of Archbishop Arnošt of Pardubice in the middle of the 14th century. According to a well-known legend, he had to carve the statue of the Virgin Mary out of pear wood. The year 1647 was decisive in the history of the Holy Mountain, when the Jesuits acquired a relatively little-known chapel until then, and according to the plans of Carl Lurag and Fr. Benjamin Schleyer, they began generously rebuilding it into a magnificent church from 1658. The main construction of the complex took place in the years 1658-1675. This extremely valuable monument of the Czech Baroque of the 17th century was decorated by a number of artists, led by the world-famous sculptor J. Brokoff, painter P. Brandl and others.
The Holy Mountain underwent a very extensive reconstruction, which also affected the courtyard in front of the church (Svatohorské poutní náměstí) in 2015.
The complex includes the 78 m deep Mariánská well (in the form of a chapel), a column on the square with a gilded statue of the Virgin Mary, the Stations of the Cross , covered Svatohorské stairs , 450 m long, connecting the area with the center of Příbram, Kalvárie hill with the sculpture of M. Huber, the so-called Exercise House, Svatohorské pilgrimage museum and the area of covered stalls and shops with pilgrimage goods and refreshments . Another attraction of the area is also the massive so-called St. Wenceslas Oak(age about 400 years). During the year, the Holy Mountain hosts a number of mainly religious festivities (probably the most famous is the Coronation Festival ), but also cultural and social and even sports events (eg Svatohorská šalmaj or Firefighters’ Run to Svatohorské Stairs ). The Holy Mountain is also one of the stops on the St. Jacob’s European Pilgrimage Route .
