is a former welfare institution for military veterans, operated between 1744 and 1938 by the Order of Merciful Brothers. Kuks would probably still be just a local name near the village of Slotov if František Antonín Špork, an important patron of the arts at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries and one of the most interesting figures of the Czech Baroque, had not chosen it as his summer residence. Thanks to him, an island of Baroque art was created here, inspired by many European models, an image of an ideal world, which, in addition to the bustling life in the count's residence and spa, also included a spiritual and charitable component in the form of a monastery with a hospital, crowned by the tomb of its founder and the cemetery of the hospital's inmates, eternity and death. Death and life, entertainment and contemplation in an ingenious setting, as seen by the Baroque.
