Modus: Prace z historii sztuki (18.2018)

the then avant-garde trends in Czech and Austrian architecture; having said that,
he failed to provide a convincing indication of specific works.11 His thesis about
the execution of the aforementioned details by the “royal construction workshop
of the Wawel cathedral” was finally accepted by Bogusław Krasnowolski, however,
according to the latter, the details were meant to decorate the building that had al-
ready been shaped in its basie form, though not completed, during Kingas lifetime.12
Paweł Pencakowski, on the other hand, rejected the suggestion of the workshop -
based relationship with the cathedral, which, in his opinion, is contradicted by
a different shape of the lower part of the aforementioned tracery corbel, a different
spatial type of the two churches, the use of smooth walls in the convents church
as compared to great plasticity of the cathedrals elevations, and finally, a differ-
ent building materiał - ashlar stone in Kraków, versus broken sandstone slabs in
Stary Sącz.13 Pencakowski did not indicate specific sources of the style of the Poor
Clares’ church, although he expressed the postulate of seeking them in the Czech
Republic and Austria.
Among the advocates of the thesis on the multiphase construction of the build-
ing, Stefan Świszczowski madę the most detailed description, distinguishing the
parts of the church allegedly built during Kingas lifetime; he came to the conclusion
that this original church included the eastern part of today s nave, and part of the
chancel. In the fourteenth century, added to that were the apse and the western
part with a large convents oratory and a chapter house, he argues.14 It should be
noted, however, that this concept is extremely unconvincing - the only argument
for separating the construction phases of the church nave is the lack of buttresses
at its eastern bays, which, however, has a elear structural justification in view of
the original covering of this part of the structure with a ceiling, and no division
into storeys. Furthermore, Świszczowski himself remarked that all the parts of
the church walls that he had uncovered were built in a single masonry work of
sandstone slabs.15 Despite that, Pencakowski and Andrzej Włodarek also decided
that the corpus contained parts of the walls of the older church.16 Some research-
ers, especially the authors of the monograph of the city, Zbigniew Beiersdorf and
Bogusław Krasnowolski, considered a group of “Romanesque” carvings on the walls
of this part of the building, discovered in 1963, to be an argument for dating the
walls of the presbytery to the thirteenth century.17 The carvings present ornamental
motifs (including an interlaced Solomons knot), human figures and fabulous crea-
tures (a chimera with a crowned female head), bucket helms topped with feathers
and horns, as well as other symbols and elements, which are difficult to identify18
11 P. Crossley, Gothic Architecture, p. 88.
12 B. Krasnowolski, Kraków, Zawichost, Nowe Miasto Korczyn, Skała, Sącz: plany urbanistyczne
jako źródło do badań nad epoką Bolesława Wstydliwego, błog. Salomei i św. Kingi, “Nasza
Przeszłość”, 101, 2004, pp. 185-186.
13 P. Pencakowski, Gotyckie kościoły zakonu św. Franciszka w Starym i Nowym Sączu, “Kwartalnik
Architektury i Urbanistyki”, 36,1991, pp. 90-91.
14 S. Świszczowski, Materiały do dziejów, passim.
15 Ibidem, pp. 292-296.
16 P. Pencakowski, A. Włodarek, Stary Sącz, vol. 2, pp. 214-215.
17 Z. Beiersdorf, B. Krasnowolski, Stary Sącz, pp. 28-31; also short mention iidem, Rozwój prze-
strzenny, in: Dzieje miasta, pp. 209-210; T. Chrzanowski, M. Kornecki, Sztuka ziemi Krakowskiej,
Kraków 1982, pp. 56-57; B. Krasnowolski, Kraków, Zawichost, p. 185.
18 It should be noted, however, that these carvings are not available at present, and that the

24

ARTICLES

Piotr Pajor