St Vitus Cathedral is situated in the third courtyard of Prague Castle and takes up so much of the space that it's hard to get an overall impression of this chaotic Gothic edifice. The cathedral has had a long and chequered history, for although the foundation stone was laid in 1344, the cathedral was not completed until 1929.
The inspiration for the medieval cathedral came from Charles IV, who, while still only heir to the throne, had not only wangled an independent archbishopric for Prague, but had also managed to gather together the relics of Saint Vitus. Impressed by the cathedral at Narbonne, in 1344 Charles commissioned the Frenchman Matthias of Arras to start work on a similar structure. Matthias dies in 1352, with the cathedral hardly started, and Charles summoned Peter Parler, a precocious 23 year old from a family of great German masons, to continue the work. For the next 46 years Parler worked on the cathedral, but it got no further than the construction of the choir and the south transept before his death in 1399.
Little significant work was carried out during the next four centuries and the half-built cathedral became a symbol of the Czechs' frustrated aspirations of nationhood. Not until the Czech revival of the nineteenth century did building begin again in earnest. A succession of architects oversaw the completion of the entire west end and the building was transformed into a treasure-house of Czech art. The cathedral was finally given an official opening in 1929, though work, in fact, continued right up to World War II.
(c) extract from The Rough Guide: Czech & Slovak Republics