Modus: Prace z historii sztuki (18.2018)

(see: Fig. 8). These were undoubtedly created in the Middle Ages, however, their
precise dating is hindered by the Iow level of artistry, betraying a non-professional
hand; nevertheless, there is no reason to believe that they were madę earlier than in
the fourteenth century.19 Olga Miriam Przybyłowicz also supported the thesis that
the church was built in the thirteenth century - in large part, at least - however, she
had used arguments disconnected from the form of the building, and somewhat also
detached from the sources; for, according to the researcher, it is unfathomable that
the Sącz convent, funded by such as significant a foundress as Saint Kinga, and the
most endowed financially of all Poor Clares’ convents throughout Poland, would
have done without a stone church for almost half a century.20
Most researchers assumed that the completion of church construction, or at least
of its main, generał framework, is determined by the datę of consecration, however,
Beiersdorf and Krasnowolski concluded that tracery patterns applied in the church
could not have appeared in Lesser Poland earlier than in the mid-fourteenth centu-
ry.21 In their pioneering study on the Lesser Poland traceries, Tomasz Węcławowicz
and Małgorzata Pietrzykówna dated the tracery Windows of Stary Sącz to the “de-
cline of the first third of the fourteenth century”, based on the datę of consecration;
in artistic terms, they defined these details, especially the tracery of the eastern
window of the tribune, as standing “at the turn of the post-classical and doctrinal
period”.22 Recently, Sonia Bała took up the subject of tracery in the church belonging
to the convent. In the end, the researcher upheld Crossleys identification, deriving
its forms from Austrian architecture, but she also pointed out several clues (some,
for instance, leading towards the cathedral in Konstanz), which paved the way, as we
shall elaborate later in this paper, for us to go beyond this spectrum of references.23
Beiersdorf and Krasnowolski, and later Pencakowski, also developed the divi-
sion into the alleged phases of the construction of the western part of the build-
ings body. According to these researchers, the vaults in the lower level constitute
a secondary addition, and thus, initially, both the upper and the lower level would
have been covered with ceilings. According to Beiersdorf and Krasnowolski, the
construction of the church in this form, which had begun at the end of the thirteenth

previously published documentation must be considered insufficient for analysing these other-
wise fascinating works; the set of these representations was published only in the form of a tra-
cing redraw by Mikołaj Kornecki (M. Kornecki, Ochrona i konserwacja zabytków ruchomych
w dawnym województwie Krakowskim w latach 1945-1975, “Ochrona Zabytków”, 42/2,1989,
p. 124, fig. 27); other than that, only the photograph of the chimera representation has ever been
published (M. Walicki (ed.), Sztuka polska przedromańska i romańska do schyłku xiii wieku,
vol.i, Warszawa 1968 (= Dzieje sztuki polskiej, 1), p. 511).
19 Some indication for dating of the carvings may be the shape of the bucket helms, whose bells
do not have the form of simple cylinders, as in the thirteenth century (compare, for example,
Leszek the Blacks Sieradz seal), but in the frontal part they narrow strongly upwards, resembling
helms shown on the seal of Władysław Łokietek as the Duke of Kraków and Sandomierz or
the seal of the first Duke of Oświęcim, Władysław; see: L. Kajzer, Uzbrojenie i ubiór rycerski
w średniowiecznej Małopolsce w świetle źródeł ikonograficznych, Wrocław 1976, pp. 96-97,111-115.
20 O.M. Przybyłowicz, Architektura kościoła, pp. 46-49.
21 Z. Beiersdorf, B. Krasnowolski, Stary Sącz, p. 31.
22 T. Węcławowicz, M. Pietrzykówna, Mas w erki w kościołach Małopotski, “Rocznik Krakowski”,
55,1989, pp. 67-69.
23 S. Bała, O nieznanym rysunku architektonicznym z kołekcji Muzeum Narodowego w Krakowie -
przyczynek do badań nad dekoracją maswerkową w kościełe Klarysek w Starym Sączu, “Rozprawy
Muzeum Narodowego w Krakowie”, 10, 2017, pp. 7-11.


8. Carvings on the walls
of the choir, a tracing
redraw by M. Kornecki,
after: Kornecki, Ochrona
i konserwacja zabytków
ruchomych w dawnym wo-
jewództwie krakowskim
w latach 1945-1975, “Ochro-
na Zabytków” 42/2,1989,
p. 124.
-> see p.10

Several remarks on the circumstances of the construction and architectural form...

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