The baroque heraldic gallery of coats of arms. Heraldic representation of nobility, clergy and burghers, its interpretation and application possibilities

This article focuses on Baroque heraldry, specifically the phenomenon of galleries of coats of arms in the Bohemian lands during the post-White Mountain period. Using auxiliary historical sciences methods, three sets of coats of arms from 1660-1690 are analysed: 1. Heraldic coats of arms and insignia of benefactors on sixteen paintings of the Saint Wenceslas series in the Basilica of St. Wenceslaus in the pilgrimage area of Stará Boleslav near Prague; 2. A set of three painted coats of arms in stucco cartouches on the triumphal arch of the Chapel of the Virgin Mary and St. Charles Borromeo in the former Vlašský Hospital in Prague's Lesser Town; 3. Heraldic coats of arms and insignia on ten wooden plinths of statues of Bohemian patrons in the archdeanery church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Tachov. The article yields a series of named sets of coats of arms, and the identification of most persons to whom they belonged to, including a comparison with coats of arms presented in other sources (seals, designs on deeds for coats of arms, old prints). With the placement into a wider historical context and an analysis of the donor structure, the article also points to the composition of the elite at that time, stemming from a range of higher and lower nobility, clergy and burghers, and to the need to make..