On the site of Litomyšl’s current cemetery, there used to be gardens that were theoretically being used as a meeting place for non-Catholics from the city and beyond. Countess Marie Anna Trauttmansdorff, the owner of the estate at that time, wanted to prevent this, so she arranged for a Catholic pilgrimage church dedicated to St. Anne to be built on the site. Featuring a cross-shaped ground plan, the church was built in the early Baroque style between 1670 and 1672, most likely according to a design by Antonio Alfieri, the Trauttmansdorffs’ builder at that time. The main altar, with a painting of St. Anne, is from 1795, while the side altars are from the period in which the church was originally built. The church’s construction underwent renovation at the end of the 18th century and again in 1878.
As early as the 17th century, people were occasionally being buried around the church, but this became more frequent starting with the period of Josef II., because he forbade burial inside the city ramparts. The cemetery was definitively moved here in 1831; from this point on, the Church of St. Anne has been designated a “cemetery church.” The entry to the cemetery is on Prokešova Ulice Street via a monumental neo-Renaissance gate from 1897.
