DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25050#0332
Canons Regular. Corpus Christi grew up together with the town
of Kazimier2. The original wooden church was supplanted by
a monumental edifice, whose core was erected from 1385 to 1405
by the masters Jan and Nikolaus Czipser. On its completion in
1405, Ladislaus Jagiello set up here the Regular Canons, for whom
a monastery was built, later frequently extended and rebuilt. The
church and monastery complex is the work of several centuries.
The Late Gothic gable of the facade was added around 1500, the
belfry dating from 1566—1582. During the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries the church was rimmed with vestibules and
chapels, as well as receiving an interior decoration surpassed in
richness and artistic value only by the Cathedral and St Mary’s.
The immediate environs of Corpus Christi have been pre-
served in a shape close to the original. As was once true for
St Mary’s, the entire area is encircled by a wall, behind which
a parish graveyard used to be located. The slender corpus of the
church is thus surrounded by much open space, with lawn and
trees.
The architecture of the church is a typical example of the
Cracow Gothic. The combination of brick and stone, the basilica
corpus with the pillar-buttress system, the elongated choir with
a three-sided apse, and the characteristic proportions — all these
mark a close affinity to St Mary’s. The basic difference is the
solution of the facade, where instead of two towers organically
melded with the corpus there is only one, projecting outside the
surface of the facade, abutting the northeastern corner of the
church. The corpus is varied by numerous extensions: the Late
Gothic two-storey treasure house at the north side of he choir;
three vestibules from the first half of the seventeenth century, in
the form of domed chapels; and similar-looking though more
imposing Our Lady’s Chapel. The church is linked to the mo-
nastery by a covered gallery resting on a huge arcade. Between the
buttresses of the tower is a relic of the graveyard, an open-fronted
Chapel of Gethsemane with a group of Late Gothic and Re-
naissance wooden sculptures.
3t8
of Kazimier2. The original wooden church was supplanted by
a monumental edifice, whose core was erected from 1385 to 1405
by the masters Jan and Nikolaus Czipser. On its completion in
1405, Ladislaus Jagiello set up here the Regular Canons, for whom
a monastery was built, later frequently extended and rebuilt. The
church and monastery complex is the work of several centuries.
The Late Gothic gable of the facade was added around 1500, the
belfry dating from 1566—1582. During the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries the church was rimmed with vestibules and
chapels, as well as receiving an interior decoration surpassed in
richness and artistic value only by the Cathedral and St Mary’s.
The immediate environs of Corpus Christi have been pre-
served in a shape close to the original. As was once true for
St Mary’s, the entire area is encircled by a wall, behind which
a parish graveyard used to be located. The slender corpus of the
church is thus surrounded by much open space, with lawn and
trees.
The architecture of the church is a typical example of the
Cracow Gothic. The combination of brick and stone, the basilica
corpus with the pillar-buttress system, the elongated choir with
a three-sided apse, and the characteristic proportions — all these
mark a close affinity to St Mary’s. The basic difference is the
solution of the facade, where instead of two towers organically
melded with the corpus there is only one, projecting outside the
surface of the facade, abutting the northeastern corner of the
church. The corpus is varied by numerous extensions: the Late
Gothic two-storey treasure house at the north side of he choir;
three vestibules from the first half of the seventeenth century, in
the form of domed chapels; and similar-looking though more
imposing Our Lady’s Chapel. The church is linked to the mo-
nastery by a covered gallery resting on a huge arcade. Between the
buttresses of the tower is a relic of the graveyard, an open-fronted
Chapel of Gethsemane with a group of Late Gothic and Re-
naissance wooden sculptures.
3t8