DOI article:
Pajor, Piotr: Kilka uwag o okolicznościach budowy i formie architektonicznej kościoła Klarysek w Starym Sączu
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.44918#0030
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11. Stary Sącz, the church of
Poor Clares, tracery in the
Southern wali of the nave.
Photo by Piotr Pajor.
12. Lauffen am Neckar, pa-
rish church, traceries, based
on: Binding, Masswerk,
Darmstadt 1989, p. 254.
-> see p. 14
13. Worms, window above
the Southern portal of the
cathedral. Photo by Jakub
Adamski.
-> see p.15
were the earliest to appear, as Jakub Adamski pointed out recently, in Austria, where
in the last quarter of the thirteenth century they were used to decorate church choirs
at Liebfrauenkirche in Wiener Neustadt, and the Cistercians in Heiligenkreuz. Dur-
ing the first half of the next century, this motif was also popularized in Bohemia (in
the Cistercian church in Sedlec, in the chapter-house of the Benedictine monastery
at Sazava, and others)35 or in Hungary (for instance, found in the chancel arch of
the parish church in Levoca).36
Contrary to the opinion of the researchers, the genesis of traceries used in the
convent church in Stary Sącz must be sought somewhere else, and a bit further.
Their creator was particularly fond of the motif of the trefoil with sharpened petals,
inscribed in the spherical triangle. This figurę was used as a motif crowning the
bipartite Windows (one in the apse of the choir, and the other, in the nave, see: Fig. u)
and in a very extensive tracery composition within the window, which provides com-
munication between the nuns oratory and the nave (see: Fig. 7). The latter consists
in the lower part of two very wide lancets, each of which is in fact a smaller bipartite
tracery with a quatrefoil in the finial. Above these lancets, there is a hoop with three
spherical triangles inside, filled with trefoils; triangles and trefoils are devoid of verti-
ces directed towards the centre of the circle, so that they permeate each other, form-
ing a figurę of the fourth trefoil in the middle. In the remaining traceries, motifs of
a quatrefoil, a cinquefoil in a circle, and mounted trefoils were used. Ali of the tracery
window lights were shaped from mullions with angular profiles, devoid of capitals.
Most of the motifs discussed above originate from the French architecture around
the mid-thirteenth century. This concerns not only the compositions madę of mount-
ed round multifoils, but also the extremely characteristic motif of spherical triangles
with sharpened trefoils inside them. The latter was first used by Pierre de Montreuil
in the blind traceries decorating the side walls of the south transept of the cathedral
in Paris.37 For the discussion of the Stary Sącz church decoration, however, it seems
morę important that the motifs of the multifoils inscribed inside spherical polygons -
morę often, quatrefoils in squares, but also trefoils in triangles - starting from the
beginning of the fourteenth century, enjoyed considerable popularity in the western
part of the Empire - the regions of Rhineland, Alsace, West Swabia, as well as todays
Switzerland. Already around 1300, the motif of trefoil with sharpened petals inscribed
in spherical triangle was used in the Windows of the parish church in Lauffen am
Neckar38 (see: Fig. 12), and about a decade later, in the church of St. Theodor s in Basel39,
35 J. Adamski, Biskupi Nanker i Jan Grot a architektoniczna awangarda około roku 1300. Uwagi
o chronologii i stylu gotyckiego chóru katedry Krakowskiej, w: M. Walczak (ed.), Działalność
fundacyjna biskupów Krakowskich, Kraków 2016, pp. 75-76; compare P. Crossley, Gothic Archi-
tecture, p. 61; both cited researchers quoted these studies in their discussions of corbels in the
choir and the ambulatory of the cathedral in Kraków, however, as we shall see a little further,
these analyses can also be applied to the decoration of the church in Stary Sącz.
36 B. Pomfyova, Vrcholnegoticka architektura na Spiśi, in: D. Buran (ed.), Gotika. Dejiny slovenskeho
vytvarneho umenia, Bratislava 2003, p. 105.
37 See: C. Lautier, Les remplages aveugles de Jean de Chelles et de Pierre de Monteuil a Notre-Dame
de Paris, in: Architektur und Monumentalskulptur des 12. - 14. Jahrhunderts: Produktion und
Rezeption. Festschrift fur Peter Kurmann zum 65. Geburtstag, S. Gasser, Ch. Freigang, B. Boerner
(eds.), Bern 2006, p. 137.
38 G. Binding, Masswerk, Darmstadt 1989, pp. 217-218.
39 W. Gfeller, Geschichte des Mafiwerks am Oberrhein. Die Eingebung des entwerfenden Bau-
meisters und ihre geometrische Konstruktion, Petersberg 2016, pp. 30-31.
28 ARTICLES
Piotr Pajor
11. Stary Sącz, the church of
Poor Clares, tracery in the
Southern wali of the nave.
Photo by Piotr Pajor.
12. Lauffen am Neckar, pa-
rish church, traceries, based
on: Binding, Masswerk,
Darmstadt 1989, p. 254.
-> see p. 14
13. Worms, window above
the Southern portal of the
cathedral. Photo by Jakub
Adamski.
-> see p.15
were the earliest to appear, as Jakub Adamski pointed out recently, in Austria, where
in the last quarter of the thirteenth century they were used to decorate church choirs
at Liebfrauenkirche in Wiener Neustadt, and the Cistercians in Heiligenkreuz. Dur-
ing the first half of the next century, this motif was also popularized in Bohemia (in
the Cistercian church in Sedlec, in the chapter-house of the Benedictine monastery
at Sazava, and others)35 or in Hungary (for instance, found in the chancel arch of
the parish church in Levoca).36
Contrary to the opinion of the researchers, the genesis of traceries used in the
convent church in Stary Sącz must be sought somewhere else, and a bit further.
Their creator was particularly fond of the motif of the trefoil with sharpened petals,
inscribed in the spherical triangle. This figurę was used as a motif crowning the
bipartite Windows (one in the apse of the choir, and the other, in the nave, see: Fig. u)
and in a very extensive tracery composition within the window, which provides com-
munication between the nuns oratory and the nave (see: Fig. 7). The latter consists
in the lower part of two very wide lancets, each of which is in fact a smaller bipartite
tracery with a quatrefoil in the finial. Above these lancets, there is a hoop with three
spherical triangles inside, filled with trefoils; triangles and trefoils are devoid of verti-
ces directed towards the centre of the circle, so that they permeate each other, form-
ing a figurę of the fourth trefoil in the middle. In the remaining traceries, motifs of
a quatrefoil, a cinquefoil in a circle, and mounted trefoils were used. Ali of the tracery
window lights were shaped from mullions with angular profiles, devoid of capitals.
Most of the motifs discussed above originate from the French architecture around
the mid-thirteenth century. This concerns not only the compositions madę of mount-
ed round multifoils, but also the extremely characteristic motif of spherical triangles
with sharpened trefoils inside them. The latter was first used by Pierre de Montreuil
in the blind traceries decorating the side walls of the south transept of the cathedral
in Paris.37 For the discussion of the Stary Sącz church decoration, however, it seems
morę important that the motifs of the multifoils inscribed inside spherical polygons -
morę often, quatrefoils in squares, but also trefoils in triangles - starting from the
beginning of the fourteenth century, enjoyed considerable popularity in the western
part of the Empire - the regions of Rhineland, Alsace, West Swabia, as well as todays
Switzerland. Already around 1300, the motif of trefoil with sharpened petals inscribed
in spherical triangle was used in the Windows of the parish church in Lauffen am
Neckar38 (see: Fig. 12), and about a decade later, in the church of St. Theodor s in Basel39,
35 J. Adamski, Biskupi Nanker i Jan Grot a architektoniczna awangarda około roku 1300. Uwagi
o chronologii i stylu gotyckiego chóru katedry Krakowskiej, w: M. Walczak (ed.), Działalność
fundacyjna biskupów Krakowskich, Kraków 2016, pp. 75-76; compare P. Crossley, Gothic Archi-
tecture, p. 61; both cited researchers quoted these studies in their discussions of corbels in the
choir and the ambulatory of the cathedral in Kraków, however, as we shall see a little further,
these analyses can also be applied to the decoration of the church in Stary Sącz.
36 B. Pomfyova, Vrcholnegoticka architektura na Spiśi, in: D. Buran (ed.), Gotika. Dejiny slovenskeho
vytvarneho umenia, Bratislava 2003, p. 105.
37 See: C. Lautier, Les remplages aveugles de Jean de Chelles et de Pierre de Monteuil a Notre-Dame
de Paris, in: Architektur und Monumentalskulptur des 12. - 14. Jahrhunderts: Produktion und
Rezeption. Festschrift fur Peter Kurmann zum 65. Geburtstag, S. Gasser, Ch. Freigang, B. Boerner
(eds.), Bern 2006, p. 137.
38 G. Binding, Masswerk, Darmstadt 1989, pp. 217-218.
39 W. Gfeller, Geschichte des Mafiwerks am Oberrhein. Die Eingebung des entwerfenden Bau-
meisters und ihre geometrische Konstruktion, Petersberg 2016, pp. 30-31.
28 ARTICLES
Piotr Pajor