The Decanal Church of St. Jiles and Virgin Mary the Queen
Historical records show that St. Jiljí was a parish church in 1280. It became the church of the monastery in 1367, when the Augustinian monastery was founded, and it started to be renovated at the same time as construction started on the monastery. The presbytery was finished in about 1380, and its two naves were vaulted in the following years. The outside of the church, despite its perfect proportions, gives few clues to the inner size of the double nave. This nave, which at the east opens out with a high, pointed and richly profilated arch, opens into a relatively large presbytery of two parts and an apse, constructed in the Baroque style in the end of the 18th century. Along the lengthwise axis of the naves, four slender pillars rise up from which the ribs of the vault project, being set on fine, highly placed consoles in the circumferential walls. As a result of this division, five pairs of vault severies originate. The walls, both of the presbytery and the naves, on the outer side turned to the street, are articulated by simple pillars, amongst which there are regularly placed high windows of two or three parts with a rich tracery. Only on the western severy of the nave is there a rosette instead of windows, which is today partly covered by an annex built later. In the middle of the southern wall there is a pointed, richly profiled portal. A tower of prism shape on the axis of the western front has an entrance with a pointed arch on the western wall with small windows on the first and second floor.
Following completion, the monastery church was furnished with numerous high-quality works of art. The paintings of the main altar, a work by the so-called Master of Třeboň, belong to the classic period of Czech Gothic art, which was in the last third of the fourteenth century. There used to be two splendid sculptures from the Calvary group and a statue of the Madonna from around 1450. The latter is the only piece to have survived. The presbytery's former Gothic vault was demolished by a falling truss during the fire of 1781, and was later restored in the Baroque style. Fortunately, the inner decorative work of the church was not damaged by the fire. During the general reparation of the monastery and the church during 1897 to 1903, the tower was rebuilt in the Gothic style and crowned with a Baroque cupola. The altars and the majority of the other decorative work are Baroque, originating from the first half of the eighteenth century, though the pulpit dates from 1791.
On the walls, paintings from the late half of the 15th century have been preserved. A fresco depicting the Last judgement survives in the choir and, by the entrance of the presbyterium, there is part of a fresco depicting the coming of the first monks from Roudnice to Třeboň. The tympanum, beside the southern entrance of the church, is filled in by a picture of the Crowning of the Lady Mary. On the presbytary floor there are memorials and gravestones of dukes and prelates. By the east side and by the southern portal of the church there are statues of St. Augustine, St. Vojtěch, St. Jan Nepomucký and St. Václav, all made before 1744.
The Augustinian monastery
The Church of St. Jiljí dominates the complex of buildings of the former Augustinian monastery, which was founded in 1367 by the Rožmberks. The monastery greatly influenced the history of the town as it established itself as one of the prominent centres of education and art in South Bohemia. The Rožmberks funds were unusually generous, although the canonical property also increased through legacies and by clever economic management. The construction of the new convent coincided with the building of a new cloister and, in 1369, works on the arcade were probably undertaken. On the north side of the church rose a one-storey convent on a square ground, along with the cloister, which almost retains its original character. Each of the four wings of the gallery, as well as the vault severies, has five inter-joists of their own. All of the four walls facing the cloister's inner 'Garden of Eden' are broken by wide and pointed arcades with narrow ledges. The windows formed in this way are articulated by three rods and their keystone is filled in by a rich tracery of three variations.
A chapel consecrated to St. John the Evangelist, part of the original construction,opens onto the centre of the east wing of the cloister. On the southern side of the courtyard, in front of the convent, is a house built by Petr of Rožmberk. It has a chapel on the first floor, whose body turns its side towards the court. The chapel, dating back to 1380, was consecrated to St. Vincent. The other buildings in the courtyard originated from the eighteenth century during new times of prosperity. The fountain in the middle of the courtyard was probably constructed by the end of the 17th century. The closing of the monastery in 1785 put its flourishing times to an end.
In the nearby town park, there is a Baroque statue of St. Jan Nepomucky. Originally erected in 1723 outside the castle in Hamr, near the town of Veselí nad Lužnicí, it was transferred to Třeboň in 1835 by the Swarzenbergs.