Modus: Prace z historii sztuki (7.2006)

opactwo wąchockie zdaje się dostarczać kolejnego argumentu w ramach dys-
kusji o rozmiarach i znaczeniu działalności artystów włoskich przybywających
do Polski właśnie w czasach nowożytnych56.

One More Opinion about the Signature on the Faęade
of the Cistercian Church at Wąchock

The interpretation of the smali inscription on the southem surface of the buttress in the north-
westem comer of the west elevation of the Cistercian church at Wąchock is of considerable
importance for the result of a discussion about the artistic origins of the four oldest Cistercian
abbeys in Little Poland (Jędrzejów, Sulejów, Wąchock, and Koprzywnica) which are some of
the most interesting elements of 13th century artistic hentage in Poland. Their architecture and
decoration had for long been linked with the Cistercian art of Burgundy, at the same time their
builders being thought to have come from France, although from the early 20th centuiy some
resemblance of the church and monastery at Wąchock to the Cistercian architecture in Italy was
also indicated. In the late 1950s or early 1960s the inscription F SIMON was discovered on the
faęade of the Wąchock church as well as in all probability a masoms mark incised next to it.
The inscription was regarded as contemporary with the building of the church and interpreted as
the signature of the architect Simon responsible for the erection of the entire monastic complex;
what is more, he was identified with one of the builders of the Cistercian abbey of San Galgano
in Val d'Elsa in Tuscany. In the end, the researchers accepted the hypothesis that a large and
exceptionally prolific masons' lodge arrived in Little Poland from Tuscany and was active here
between 1217 and 1239.

Nevertheless, epigraphic considerations (classical Roman capitals) weigh in favour of the
post-medieval date of the Wąchock inscription. In the second half of the 16th and in the 17th century
the church and monastery at Wąchock were repeatedly remodelled, and Simon's signamre appears
on one of those parts of the church which underwent the most extensive alterations then.

Also the castle at Dębno near Wojnicz, refashioned c. 1583-1586, and the tomb of Bishop
Piotr Kostka (c. 1595) in the collegiate church at Chełmża bear the signamre "Simon" in capitals
which is related to the Cracow builder of Italian descent Jan de Simon (d. 1626), who at the
beginning of the 17th century directed large-scale building work in the convent of Poor Clares
in Stary Sącz, similar in character to the work carried out in the late 16th centuiy at Wąchock.
All the stmctures linked with De Simon were decorated with sgraffito which also appeared on
some elevations of the Wąchock monastery.

Thus it was most probably Jan de Simon who directed the work of remodelling the church
and perhaps also part of the monastery at Wąchock and who commemorated his contribution
with his signamre on the church faęade.

=6 Zob. S. Kozakiewicz, Początek działalności Komasków, Tesseńczyków i Giyzończyków
w Polsce. Okres Renesansu (1520-1580), „Biuletyn Historii Sztuki" 22, 1959, s. 7, 10 (zazna-
czył, że obecność artystów z pogranicza włosko-szwajcarskiego w Polsce jest uchwytna dopiero
w okresie późnego średniowiecza, staje się zaś popularna dopiero w w. XVI).

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