DOI Artikel:
Adamski, Jakub: An allusion to a cathedral in a rural foundation: on the iconography of the architecture of the sixteenth-century parish church in Brochów
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51757#0015
AN ALLUSION TO A CATHEDRAL IN A RURAL FOUNDATION?...
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6. Brochów, parish church, interior of the chancel.
Photo by J. Adamski
7. Brochów, parish church, interior of the northern aisle.
Photo by J. Adamski
vaults with no lunettes, covered with dense coffering of ancient or Serlian provenance,26 the apse is covered
with an umbrella-like semi-dome. The boundary between the nave and the chancel is marked only with
a protruding arch with no vertical supports.
The exterior faęades are supported by massive buttresses. The windows are closed with semicircular
arches; in the clerestory they alternated with small openings on the axes of piers, but those were later
walled over (Fig. 10)27. The suggested defensive character of the structure, attained mainly through the
multi-towered silhouette, is additionally accentuated by narrow arrow-slits on the ground levels of the
side naves, chancel and the apse and in the western towers. Robert Kunkel is probably right in assuming
that the gables with pinnacles, which unfortunately have not been preserved in their original form, were
made by an unidentified local workshop after the departure of the team of masons supervised by Giovanni
26 See J. Kowalczyk, Sebastiano Serlio a sztuka polska. O roli włoskich traktatów architektonicznych w dobie nowożytnej,
Wrocław et al. 1973, pp. 123-124; Kunkel, Jan Baptysta..., p. 30.
27 Some scholars suggest that the large windows in the section of the communication passage (described in relevant literature
as the “shooting” or “defensive” one) were cut only during the restoration of the church by Olbracht Adrian Lasocki in the 1660s;
cf: Rokowski, op. cit., s. 109; Kunkel, Jan Baptysta..., s. 29; Żmudziński, op. cit., s. 29. However, there are no traces of larger
alterations in the surviving original walls of the passage on the north side of the church or in the eastern bay of the southern wall of
the chancel. Also, it is difficult to assume that an edifice with such a tall main nave could originally lack direct lighting; if it had, the
entire upper half of the interior would have been unlit, which would make it difficult to appreciate the architectural and painted decora-
tions of the ceiling.
13
6. Brochów, parish church, interior of the chancel.
Photo by J. Adamski
7. Brochów, parish church, interior of the northern aisle.
Photo by J. Adamski
vaults with no lunettes, covered with dense coffering of ancient or Serlian provenance,26 the apse is covered
with an umbrella-like semi-dome. The boundary between the nave and the chancel is marked only with
a protruding arch with no vertical supports.
The exterior faęades are supported by massive buttresses. The windows are closed with semicircular
arches; in the clerestory they alternated with small openings on the axes of piers, but those were later
walled over (Fig. 10)27. The suggested defensive character of the structure, attained mainly through the
multi-towered silhouette, is additionally accentuated by narrow arrow-slits on the ground levels of the
side naves, chancel and the apse and in the western towers. Robert Kunkel is probably right in assuming
that the gables with pinnacles, which unfortunately have not been preserved in their original form, were
made by an unidentified local workshop after the departure of the team of masons supervised by Giovanni
26 See J. Kowalczyk, Sebastiano Serlio a sztuka polska. O roli włoskich traktatów architektonicznych w dobie nowożytnej,
Wrocław et al. 1973, pp. 123-124; Kunkel, Jan Baptysta..., p. 30.
27 Some scholars suggest that the large windows in the section of the communication passage (described in relevant literature
as the “shooting” or “defensive” one) were cut only during the restoration of the church by Olbracht Adrian Lasocki in the 1660s;
cf: Rokowski, op. cit., s. 109; Kunkel, Jan Baptysta..., s. 29; Żmudziński, op. cit., s. 29. However, there are no traces of larger
alterations in the surviving original walls of the passage on the north side of the church or in the eastern bay of the southern wall of
the chancel. Also, it is difficult to assume that an edifice with such a tall main nave could originally lack direct lighting; if it had, the
entire upper half of the interior would have been unlit, which would make it difficult to appreciate the architectural and painted decora-
tions of the ceiling.