Studia Waweliana (5.1996)

A BYZANTINE STAUROTHEKE IN WAWEL CROWN TREASURY

Summ ary

Among the objects exhibited in the rooms of the ancient
Crown Treasury on Wawel Hill can be found a smali, conside-
rably damaged reliąuary which has hitherto been only men-
tioned in more extensive studies on the Puławy Collection and
on Wawel antiąuities. In both references it has erroneously
been defined as a 15th century Russian work.

The reliąuary has the form of a fiat casket with a slid-
ing-down lid which, when pulled back, revels an inside with
a specific disposition. In the centrę there is a deep cut-out
recess in the form of a cross with two transverse arms,
surrounded by 16 smaller cubic cutouts disposed symmetrically.
Although the reliąuary has been damaged in several places
and some fragments of it have been irretrievably destroyed,
it is a richly decorated object. Its entire front and sides are
covered with remnants of sheet silver-gilt, repousse and chased
in subtle geometrical and vegetal designs. The cutouts in the
metal cover are filled with paintings representing Cmcifrxion,
the Stylites, as well as other, unidentifiable saints. The back
of the sliding lid shows a cross placed on four steps, each of
whose arms ends in three so-called eyes of peacock's taił. The
sheet silver lining the interior of the reliąuary is unomamented;
however, at the bottom of some cubic recesses can be discerned
single Cyrillic letters - surely the remains of inscriptions
referring to the rehc contained therein. The back of the
reliąuary in tura is covered with a fragment of Seljuk fabric.

Analysis of the specific form of the reliąuary, of the
disposition of its interior as well as the ornamental and figura]
decorations, permitted the determination of its type, that is,
the establishment of what relics it had once contained, and
also rectification of the date and place of its execution.

Among all kinds of reliąuary forms only two - those of a
cross and of a fiat box with a sliding lid - were reserved to
enshrine fragments of the True Cross. The latter form is
specifically Byzantine, and this kind of reliąuary - called
iconic for the concurrence of their shape with that of icons -
was used exclusively from the end of the lOth century to the
turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. Inside the iconic reliąuary
there was a cut-out craciform recess designed to 7-eceive the
identically shaped particles of the True Cross and sometimes
surrounded by recesses for other relics. Therefore, the form

and interior of the object discussed here warranted its iden-
tification as a Byzantine staurotheke. This is additionally
attested by the iconography of the figures on its front, sińce
it was a rule that the front of a staurotheke carried the
Crucifixion. The poor state of the Wawel reliąuary and its
19th centui-y restoration were a certain impediment to its
precise dating and to defining its place of origin. Nevertheless,
analysis of the geometrical and vegetal ornamentation of the
covering metal sheet and the elongated openings in it -
designed for full-length images of saints - permitted the
unąuestionable conclusion that the staurotheke was made in
the second half of the 12th century. Furthermore, the kind
of plant ornamentation and the extremely rare presence of
the holy Stylites on both sides of the Crucifixion scenę, along
with the specific shape of the cross on the back of the lid,
encourage the attribution of the object to a Georgian workshop.

The Wawel staurotheke is no w the property of the Prince
Czartoryski family. They have owned it sińce 1814/15, when
it was bought, together with other, numerous historical objects
and books, for the Puławy Collection of Princess Izabela
Czartoryska from the widów of Tadeusz Czacki, a well-known
collector of national antiąuities. During the storage of the
staurotheke in the Puławy collection and subseąuently in Paris
and Cracow, a legend grew around it to the effect that it was
one of Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski's spoils of war, captured
from the Shuiski czars and next deposited in the Cracow
Treasury, whence it would finally have found its way to the
Czartoi-yski collection. However, analysis of numerous references
in the inventories of the Czartoryski collections made possible
the statement that the legend dated from no earlier than the
second half of the 19th century. All the same, the entries in
the inventories of Tadeusz Czacki's collection, earlier than
those in the Puławy ones, provide a strong argument for
supposing that the Wawel staurotheke is indeed an object
coming from the Crown Treasury looted in 1795. This may
be corroborated by the fact that the numerous inventories of
the Crown Treasury contain summary descriptions of some
staurothekes one of which may be the object discussed here.
However, it is absołutely impossible to establish how it found
its way to the Treasury.