DOI article:
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 Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51757#0021
AN ALLUSION TO A CATHEDRAL IN A RURAL FOUNDATION?...
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by written sources as early as in the 12th century. These officials, usually knights (later, members of the
gentry) of venerable age, were “deputies to castellans, guardians of castles, counties and lands, defenders
of the peace when the knights went away on campaigns”.55 Their task was thus to protect the lands, towns
and villages entrusted to their care. The unusual, castle-like forms of the Brochów church constitute, to
a certain extent, a very early example of architecture parlante',56 57 one which conveys its message through
the very shape of the edifice, which in this case contains clear references to military architecture, and
through the style of its statement, here an austere and ascetic one - a style which, in keeping with the
theory of rhetoric and elocution can be described as stilus gravis.51
THE GALLERY IN THE EASTERN TOWER - A QUOTATION FROM THE POZNAŃ CATHEDRAL
Perhaps the most unusual element of the spatial programme of the Brochów church is the eastern tower
above its apse. It contains a spacious gallery whose arcade, filling the upper section of the eastern wall
of the chancel, provides a strong and expressive accent to the church interior. So far, it has received little
scholarly interest, which all the more surprising since it seems that the correct iconographic interpretation
of this architectural solution is the key to understanding the form of the edifice. Only Piotr Gryglewski
noted that “the most surprising feature” of the Brochów church, “one that finds no analogy in any
edifice of the region, is the tower above the chancel, which repeats solutions known from Romanesque
architecture”.58 This point requires a closer analysis.
The first question to ask is whether a tower above the apse, with a gallery open to the interior of
the chancel, could have been a personal idea of the Italian architect, or whether the initiative to include
it came from the founder. Considering the potential analogies of this feature in European architecture,
the latter seems more probable. An extension above a church apse was a solution relatively frequently
encountered in the entire Italy from the late 15th century onwards, but the extensions were in form of
slim domes on drums which let additional light into the chancel. In Venice, the key model was the church
of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, built by Pietro Lombardo in the years 1481-1489 (Fig. 13)59. This model
of a church, which in essence is a simplified version of the domed complex of the basilica of St Mark,
was repeated in the Laguna and in the Venetian terra ferma until the 18th century. Among its significant
examples is the slender apse with a dome added by Andrea Palladio to the medieval cathedral in Vicenza
in the years 1558-1566,60 that is concurrently with the construction of the Brochów church. It is also
worth noting that this northem-Italian method of adding light to the apse by means of a dome resting on
a tall drum appeared in the architecture of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania with the arrival
55 Z. Gloger, Encyklopedja staropolska ilustrowana, vol. 4, Warsaw 1903, pp. 461-462.
56 See e.g. A. Hauser, Architecture parlante - stumme Baukunst. Über das Erklären von Bauwerken, [in:] Architektur und
Sprache, Hrsg. C. Braegger, Munich 1982, pp. 127-161; G. Ś witek, Architecture parlante. The art of speaking to the eyes and the
philosophy of language, “Ikonotheka. Prace Instytutu Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego”, 23, 2012, pp. 23N-5.
57 See R. Suckale, Peter Parler und das Problem der Stillagen, [in:] Die Parier und der schöne Stil 1350-1400. Europäische
Kunst unter den Luxemburgern, Hrsg. A. Legner, Bd. 4, Köln 1980, pp. 175-183 [reprinted in: idem, Stil und Funktion. Ausgewählte
Schriften zur Kunst des Mittelalters, Hrsg. P. Schmidt, G. Wedekind, Munich-Berlin 2008, pp. 257-286]. In this context, it is necessary
to mention the issue of the so-called “Renaissance Romanesque revival”, which is alleged to have manifested itself in ecclesiastical
architecture of the 16th century in Poland in the use of simple, rudimentary solids, semicircular apses, biforia or arcade friezes; See e.g.
Lewicka, op. cit., s. 133; Gryglewski, op. cit., s. 192-239. In the context of Brochów, Adam Miłobędzki wrote of “an almost-Romanesque
additive character of the cylindrical towers, the main body and the apse” of the church, and “wall arcades that have a quasi-Romanesque
character”; Miłobędzki, Pułtuski „system architektoniczny”..., p. 240. However, as stressed by Zygmunt Świechowski, such references
to pre-Gothic architecture were not necessarily made consciously; cf. Z. Świechowski, Zagadnienie odrodzenia romanizmu w Polsce,
“Biuletyn Historii Sztuki”, 22, 1960, pp. 339-350. In the case of the Brochów church, no structural or decorative solutions ascertained
there can be derived directly from pre-Gothic art. Only the simplicity of the solid, which is composed of stereometric spatial forms, can
be associated with the additive quality of the oldest ecclesiastical structures in Poland. Hence, what was at stake was most probably not
an evocation of “the Romanesque” (which is, after all, a construct of 19th-century historiography), but at the most a conscious reference
to the forms of the oldest churches in Poland, which were constructed of simple, “building-block” solids.
58 Gryglewski, op. cit., p. 227.
59 See R. Lieberman, The Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Venice, New York 1986; Santa Maria dei Miracoli a Venezia.
La storia, la fabbrica, i restauri, ed. M. Piana, W. Wolters, Venice 2003.
60 G. Mantese, Interventi del Palladio nell’architettura sacra di Vicenza, “Bollettino CISA”, 19, 1977, pp. 88-91; L. Puppi,
Andrea Palladio, Milan 1999, p. 482.
19
by written sources as early as in the 12th century. These officials, usually knights (later, members of the
gentry) of venerable age, were “deputies to castellans, guardians of castles, counties and lands, defenders
of the peace when the knights went away on campaigns”.55 Their task was thus to protect the lands, towns
and villages entrusted to their care. The unusual, castle-like forms of the Brochów church constitute, to
a certain extent, a very early example of architecture parlante',56 57 one which conveys its message through
the very shape of the edifice, which in this case contains clear references to military architecture, and
through the style of its statement, here an austere and ascetic one - a style which, in keeping with the
theory of rhetoric and elocution can be described as stilus gravis.51
THE GALLERY IN THE EASTERN TOWER - A QUOTATION FROM THE POZNAŃ CATHEDRAL
Perhaps the most unusual element of the spatial programme of the Brochów church is the eastern tower
above its apse. It contains a spacious gallery whose arcade, filling the upper section of the eastern wall
of the chancel, provides a strong and expressive accent to the church interior. So far, it has received little
scholarly interest, which all the more surprising since it seems that the correct iconographic interpretation
of this architectural solution is the key to understanding the form of the edifice. Only Piotr Gryglewski
noted that “the most surprising feature” of the Brochów church, “one that finds no analogy in any
edifice of the region, is the tower above the chancel, which repeats solutions known from Romanesque
architecture”.58 This point requires a closer analysis.
The first question to ask is whether a tower above the apse, with a gallery open to the interior of
the chancel, could have been a personal idea of the Italian architect, or whether the initiative to include
it came from the founder. Considering the potential analogies of this feature in European architecture,
the latter seems more probable. An extension above a church apse was a solution relatively frequently
encountered in the entire Italy from the late 15th century onwards, but the extensions were in form of
slim domes on drums which let additional light into the chancel. In Venice, the key model was the church
of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, built by Pietro Lombardo in the years 1481-1489 (Fig. 13)59. This model
of a church, which in essence is a simplified version of the domed complex of the basilica of St Mark,
was repeated in the Laguna and in the Venetian terra ferma until the 18th century. Among its significant
examples is the slender apse with a dome added by Andrea Palladio to the medieval cathedral in Vicenza
in the years 1558-1566,60 that is concurrently with the construction of the Brochów church. It is also
worth noting that this northem-Italian method of adding light to the apse by means of a dome resting on
a tall drum appeared in the architecture of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania with the arrival
55 Z. Gloger, Encyklopedja staropolska ilustrowana, vol. 4, Warsaw 1903, pp. 461-462.
56 See e.g. A. Hauser, Architecture parlante - stumme Baukunst. Über das Erklären von Bauwerken, [in:] Architektur und
Sprache, Hrsg. C. Braegger, Munich 1982, pp. 127-161; G. Ś witek, Architecture parlante. The art of speaking to the eyes and the
philosophy of language, “Ikonotheka. Prace Instytutu Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego”, 23, 2012, pp. 23N-5.
57 See R. Suckale, Peter Parler und das Problem der Stillagen, [in:] Die Parier und der schöne Stil 1350-1400. Europäische
Kunst unter den Luxemburgern, Hrsg. A. Legner, Bd. 4, Köln 1980, pp. 175-183 [reprinted in: idem, Stil und Funktion. Ausgewählte
Schriften zur Kunst des Mittelalters, Hrsg. P. Schmidt, G. Wedekind, Munich-Berlin 2008, pp. 257-286]. In this context, it is necessary
to mention the issue of the so-called “Renaissance Romanesque revival”, which is alleged to have manifested itself in ecclesiastical
architecture of the 16th century in Poland in the use of simple, rudimentary solids, semicircular apses, biforia or arcade friezes; See e.g.
Lewicka, op. cit., s. 133; Gryglewski, op. cit., s. 192-239. In the context of Brochów, Adam Miłobędzki wrote of “an almost-Romanesque
additive character of the cylindrical towers, the main body and the apse” of the church, and “wall arcades that have a quasi-Romanesque
character”; Miłobędzki, Pułtuski „system architektoniczny”..., p. 240. However, as stressed by Zygmunt Świechowski, such references
to pre-Gothic architecture were not necessarily made consciously; cf. Z. Świechowski, Zagadnienie odrodzenia romanizmu w Polsce,
“Biuletyn Historii Sztuki”, 22, 1960, pp. 339-350. In the case of the Brochów church, no structural or decorative solutions ascertained
there can be derived directly from pre-Gothic art. Only the simplicity of the solid, which is composed of stereometric spatial forms, can
be associated with the additive quality of the oldest ecclesiastical structures in Poland. Hence, what was at stake was most probably not
an evocation of “the Romanesque” (which is, after all, a construct of 19th-century historiography), but at the most a conscious reference
to the forms of the oldest churches in Poland, which were constructed of simple, “building-block” solids.
58 Gryglewski, op. cit., p. 227.
59 See R. Lieberman, The Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Venice, New York 1986; Santa Maria dei Miracoli a Venezia.
La storia, la fabbrica, i restauri, ed. M. Piana, W. Wolters, Venice 2003.
60 G. Mantese, Interventi del Palladio nell’architettura sacra di Vicenza, “Bollettino CISA”, 19, 1977, pp. 88-91; L. Puppi,
Andrea Palladio, Milan 1999, p. 482.