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- Title
KAPLICA ŚW . KAZIMIERZA W WILNIE I JEJ TWÓRCY.
- Authors
Jamski, Piotr Jacek
- Abstract
The article summarizes the material gathered by former investigators regarding the building of St C asimir's Chapel in Vilnius Cathedral. Using as reference existing literature and newly discovered sources, the process of the building of this chapel in the first half of the 17th century is discussed. The author contends that the Great Duke of Lithuania and the King of Poland Sigismund III Vasa was the main founder of this chapel. Furthermore, the argument is put forward that the chapel was essentially built during the years of his rule (the end of the basic building works is considered to date to 1632), and that his son Vladislaus IV Vasa organized only the solemn ceremony of the transfer of the remains of the prince St C asimir and contributed to a lesser degree to the decoration of this chapel. The artistic interior of this chapel that dated to the first half of the 17th century did not survive. Consequently, the first stage of the building process of this chapel has, until now, received less attention in the scientific literature that covers this Chapel. However, the meticulously collected, though hardly plentiful written sources help us to imagine and estimate the artistic value of this exclusive work of art. The author of this publication aims to thoroughly reveal the cultural, political and artistic circumstances of the building of St Casimir's Chapel - one of the most important monuments of the early Baroque in Middle Europe. A lot of attention is given to a discussion of the organizational works of the building. Constantine Tencalla, who arrived in the GDL from Italy, and his assistant and brother Jacob, are considered as the main builders of the Sigismund III Vasa's project by the author of this article. The iconographical program of décor reveals that the most important themes for the decoration of a chapel at that time was related to the struggles for Smolensk and the image of St Casimir as a knight and defender of his native land. The accounts of the expenses of the St Casimir's Chapel works and other works in Vilnius Castle between 1623 and 1631, presented by Peter Nonhardt for Stephanus Pac, the treasurer of the GDL, and signed by the canon Franciscus Dolmat Isajkowski (the transcription of this document is published in the appendixes of this article) are widely used a written source of considerable note in this article. The issues raised in this publication and the considerations presented in the article are a valuable complement to the knowledge of Vilnius artistic life under the rule of the Vasas, and reveal the importance of the St Casimir's Chapel to the development of the early Baroque in the GDL.
- Subjects
VILNIUS (Lithuania); LITHUANIA; CHAPEL design &; construction; ARTISTIC masterpiece; SYMBOLISM in art; HISTORIC sites; PUBLIC sculpture; MONUMENTS; SEVENTEENTH century
- Publication
Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis, 2008, Issue 51, p91
- ISSN
1392-0316
- Publication type
Article