DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.41589#0058
of Wawel hill: Austin Friars church of St. Catherine and the parish church of Corpus
Christi. At the same time, in the centre of Cracow, by the market square, the rebuilding
of St. Mary’s church (Fig. 54) was proceeding. All three churches have huge choirs
— over 30 metres long and almost 30 metres high. Originally hall naves were planned
but later they were replaced by basilican bays which followed the cathedral solution in
construction and in the main composition.
In the same period the Dominicans were rebuilding the nave of their church
according to the same scheme. For the first time, the two-storey elevation of the
cathedral was probably repeated in the Dominican church but the present structure is
a neo-Gothic copy erected after the fire in 1850.
The next was the nave of the Cracow parish church of St. Mary rebuilt at the very
end of the fourteenth century. We can see there the baldachin niches used for the first
and for last time after the cathedral nave. The lower parts of the clerestory windows are
filled with blind panels, but there are no blind side lancets as those which flanked the
tall central ones in the cathedral. This motif was lost. The lower parts of the vaulting
shafts were changed from clusters of delicate profiles into thick polygons and the
similarly profiled arcade pillars were reduced to massive polygonal shapes. The whole
elevation is about ten metres higher than that in the cathedral, reaching the hieght of the
tall choir. The lower storey of the arcade is so enlarged, that the dividing cornice is
situated more or less in the middle of the wall.
The spatial effect of the whole is not only the result of enlarging the dimensions and
simplifying the details. The wall surface in the upper storey over the cornice is recessed
slightly between the shaft clusters. This suggests that the rhythm of the lower pillar
arcades is repeated in the upper storey by similar blind arcades. It is this which really
gives a monumental effect.
The reduction of the cathedral design to simpler forms was followed in the two
churches in Casimiria. The nave of the Austin Friars church of St. Catherine (Fig. 59)
may have been begun towards the end of the fourteenth century. The upper part of the
clerestory lost its original character after damage in the eigteenth century and after the
nineteenth century restoration. The verticality of the elevations of the cathedral and St.
Mary’s have a more horizontal direction. The polygonal vault shafts rising up along the
massive pillars do not reach the cornice but are crowned with pinnacles placed in the
spandrels of the arcade arches. Over the cornice the polygons are again continued. This
unique motive was repeated nowhere else in Cracow or Lesser Poland.
The nave of Corpus Christi parish church (Fig. 61) is characterized by the same slow
rythm of the two-storey arcades. The final effect is perhaps the most monumental
among all the basilicas. The polygonal vault (Fig. 62) shafts rising from the pavement
are broken neither by baldachin niches, as in St. Mary’s, nor by pinnacles, as in St.
Catherine’s.
In all these afore-mentioned churches a special construction a so-called pil-
lar-buttress system, was used. It consists of the internal buttresses, square in plan,
attached to the outer side of the arcade pillars and linked by extra arches behind the
profiled arcade arches. Paul Crossley called them „counter arches”.
The two-storey elevation and the pillar-buttress system create the integral whole
which has been difined by Polish art historians for nearly a hundred years as ”the
Cracow school of fourteenth century architecture”. Exactly one hundred and ten years
ago Wladyslaw Luszczkiewicz, painter and art historian, asked in his article: ”Can the
structure of the fourteenth century Cracow gothic churches be regarded as a specific
feature of this style in Poland?” He anwered in the positive. Successive generations have
attempted to answer this question more precisely, giving a fuller account. Links have
been shown between the plan scheme of Citeaux III in Cracow and Wroclaw cathedrals,
between, Cracow and Silesian long choirs, and between the short naves in Cracow and
Bohemian churches. Neither a workshop nor a single church was never found where all
the Cracow motifs had been used together before.
56
Christi. At the same time, in the centre of Cracow, by the market square, the rebuilding
of St. Mary’s church (Fig. 54) was proceeding. All three churches have huge choirs
— over 30 metres long and almost 30 metres high. Originally hall naves were planned
but later they were replaced by basilican bays which followed the cathedral solution in
construction and in the main composition.
In the same period the Dominicans were rebuilding the nave of their church
according to the same scheme. For the first time, the two-storey elevation of the
cathedral was probably repeated in the Dominican church but the present structure is
a neo-Gothic copy erected after the fire in 1850.
The next was the nave of the Cracow parish church of St. Mary rebuilt at the very
end of the fourteenth century. We can see there the baldachin niches used for the first
and for last time after the cathedral nave. The lower parts of the clerestory windows are
filled with blind panels, but there are no blind side lancets as those which flanked the
tall central ones in the cathedral. This motif was lost. The lower parts of the vaulting
shafts were changed from clusters of delicate profiles into thick polygons and the
similarly profiled arcade pillars were reduced to massive polygonal shapes. The whole
elevation is about ten metres higher than that in the cathedral, reaching the hieght of the
tall choir. The lower storey of the arcade is so enlarged, that the dividing cornice is
situated more or less in the middle of the wall.
The spatial effect of the whole is not only the result of enlarging the dimensions and
simplifying the details. The wall surface in the upper storey over the cornice is recessed
slightly between the shaft clusters. This suggests that the rhythm of the lower pillar
arcades is repeated in the upper storey by similar blind arcades. It is this which really
gives a monumental effect.
The reduction of the cathedral design to simpler forms was followed in the two
churches in Casimiria. The nave of the Austin Friars church of St. Catherine (Fig. 59)
may have been begun towards the end of the fourteenth century. The upper part of the
clerestory lost its original character after damage in the eigteenth century and after the
nineteenth century restoration. The verticality of the elevations of the cathedral and St.
Mary’s have a more horizontal direction. The polygonal vault shafts rising up along the
massive pillars do not reach the cornice but are crowned with pinnacles placed in the
spandrels of the arcade arches. Over the cornice the polygons are again continued. This
unique motive was repeated nowhere else in Cracow or Lesser Poland.
The nave of Corpus Christi parish church (Fig. 61) is characterized by the same slow
rythm of the two-storey arcades. The final effect is perhaps the most monumental
among all the basilicas. The polygonal vault (Fig. 62) shafts rising from the pavement
are broken neither by baldachin niches, as in St. Mary’s, nor by pinnacles, as in St.
Catherine’s.
In all these afore-mentioned churches a special construction a so-called pil-
lar-buttress system, was used. It consists of the internal buttresses, square in plan,
attached to the outer side of the arcade pillars and linked by extra arches behind the
profiled arcade arches. Paul Crossley called them „counter arches”.
The two-storey elevation and the pillar-buttress system create the integral whole
which has been difined by Polish art historians for nearly a hundred years as ”the
Cracow school of fourteenth century architecture”. Exactly one hundred and ten years
ago Wladyslaw Luszczkiewicz, painter and art historian, asked in his article: ”Can the
structure of the fourteenth century Cracow gothic churches be regarded as a specific
feature of this style in Poland?” He anwered in the positive. Successive generations have
attempted to answer this question more precisely, giving a fuller account. Links have
been shown between the plan scheme of Citeaux III in Cracow and Wroclaw cathedrals,
between, Cracow and Silesian long choirs, and between the short naves in Cracow and
Bohemian churches. Neither a workshop nor a single church was never found where all
the Cracow motifs had been used together before.
56