# Cracow, the royal capital of ancient Poland: its history and antiquities/Gothic Style in Cracow Art

GOTHIC STYLE IN CRACOW ART
​GOTHIC STYLE IN CRACOW ART
AFTER the destruction of Cracow in the thirteenth century both princes and subjects had set themselves to work in order to rebuild the old metropolis. We have already spoken of the new foundation, and of the plans for the enormous market-place and the new streets. The architectural activity of the Gothic period coincides with an epoch of material progress. Two Orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, were particularly busy in satisfying the religious needs of the population by active church-building. The Franciscans seem to have been the first who introduced the Gothic movement into Polish art. Boleslaus the Modest called this brotherhood from Prague to Cracow, and installed them in two brick buildings, a church—originally devoted to the Holy Trinity—and a convent. Of the original structure of this church as erected in the years 1237-1269, there is nothing preserved but the cross-shaped ground plan and the gable of the northern transept, distinguishable by its round-arched moulding. The space below this gable is now taken up by a bow window with a pointed arch and modern tracery. The choir, with a plain octagonal chevet, was lengthened and otherwise transformed in the fifteenth century; in 1580 it was burnt down and, on rebuilding, provided with a new vault, which, however, immediately under the curvatures of its arches, still shows the old tracery of the blind double windows of the early Gothic period. The three round mullions, crowned with bell-shaped capitals, form, above, two arcades with pointed arches and trefoil tracery; over these there runs a cinquefoil ornament consisting of semicircles, and above this the empty spaces within the pointed arches of the bow windows are filled up by trefoil ornaments of a similar kind. The cloisters date in part from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and still bear some traces of the original polychrome paint.
A thorough extension, however, of Gothic art over Poland did not begin till the fourteenth century; the first impulse for this movement probably came from the Royal Court on the Wawel: in the reign of King Ladislaus Lokietek the cathedral church ​was built as a basilica with three naves and a transept (illustrations 18 and 19). Of the original Romanesque structure only
18. WAWEL CATHEDRAL (NORTH SIDE). those parts were preserved that have already been described in the first chapter, all the rest gave way to the new style. In considering the ground plan of this Gothic building, we find ​in it a certain resemblance to the dome of the sister-city of Breslau, which may be explained by the fact that Bishop Nanker, after having laid the foundation for the new cathedral building became, in a few years (1326), Bishop of Breslau, and continued the building of the cathedral which had been begun there.
19. WAWEL CATHEDRAL (SOUTH SIDE). The chevet of the choir is rectangular, as in the Dominicans' church; it has a low-roofed ambulatory round it, which is a continuation of the side-aisles. In 1712 this was rebuilt and made higher. Along the sides there is a long row of chapels symmetrically arranged. The building of the choir lasted from 1322 to 1346. The great work was begun by Bishop Nanker, who ​built the chapel of St. Margaret. Its keystones illustrate the sculpture of the period.
The largest of the chapels, being at the same time the most beautiful and interesting one, is St. Mary's, also called the Royal Chapel, on a square ground plan, and crowned with a fine rib vault. The outline of the choir is a rectangle, composed of four smaller ones which correspond to the four compartments of the vault. Ten windows light the interior of the choir. By the heightening of the ambulatory walls in the eighteenth century the choir itself was darkened. Below the windows are the archways which formerly served both for communication between the choir and the ambulatory, and for the admission of light into the latter.
The cathedral was at first dedicated to St. Salvator, later to St. Wenceslaus. This is also illustrated by the keystones of the vaulting, which give historical evidence of the tendencies of worship: they show relief images of St. Wenceslaus, St. Stanislas, and St. Margaret. The choir is built of mixed material, partly brick, partly sandstone ashlars. The middle aisle, of later date, but said to have been ready before 1349, is constructed, on its inside, of limestone and freestone ashlars. The brickwork of the choir is set in "Polish" fashion, that is to say, with constant alternation of black borders and red stretchers. Both the middle aisle and the side aisles were included in the plan of the Romanesque basilica; some obliquity of the middle aisle's axis was occasioned by the fact that the architect—whose name is unknown—could not precisely determine the fundamental direction, because the old church and fortress buildings were still standing. To the side aisles are aggregated the fine chapels which were also distributed somewhat irregularly, in place of different parts of the Romanesque church; thus the southern tower (visible in illustration 19) was refashioned, and the ground floor of it was transformed into a chapel which was dedicated first to St. Stephen, then to St. John of Kenty. The clock tower on the north side is older than the dome itself, although its outward side, especially ​the upper part and the roofing, is baroque in style. The basis, with its beautiful stone wainscotting, protrudes into the northern side aisle; here also a chapel was established. This tower, and the one called after King Sigismund, on the same side, originally belonged to the fortifications, and the wall that connects them has preserved this character to the present day.
At the western entrance of the cathedral, which is gained only by passing through a portal in a baroque wall and between two protruding Gothic chapels we find, on both sides of the baroque door, remains of Gothic sculpture, viz., images of St. Michael and St. Margaret, which are reliefs from the original portal; above the door we see the old cornice, and, on its stone escutcheon, the Poray arms of Bodzanta, who was bishop of Cracow at that time. On the western front gable-end, covered with stone slabs, there is a graceful rose-window, dodecagon in outline, with tracery of a design unusual in the North. Besides, we find on this front wall, above the rose-window, a Polish eagle carved in stone, and above this, standing on a corbel, a figure of St. Stanislas, flanked by two double-windows, with acute angles for arches; above the statue there is yet a little rhombic window. The ironwork on the entrance door is of the time of Casimir the Great and shows his initial, a crowned K.
The northern and the southern gable-end of the transept were characterized by great simplicity. They only show blank window-frames with little lancet-windows within them. The system of vaulting, and of the pillars which support it, is extremely original; it originated in the building of Wawel Cathedral and thence spread over the whole of Poland. In order to increase the carrying-power of the many-jointed pillars, and at the same time to avoid the flying-buttresses which did not stand the raw air of the country very well, a protruding abutment was joined on to the back of each pillar; in other words, the buttresses serving to counteract the lateral thrust of the vaulting, and generally placed on the outside of Gothic buildings, were here put into the church itself; they rise up ​to the roof. The next consequence of this arrangement was a changed form of the pillar with its buttress, both growing broader towards the axe of the church, in order not to obstruct the side-aisles. The Gothic pillars of the dome rest on square plinths with chamfered edges; the bases are jointed; in the middle aisle we find them below the floor, which has been raised. The pillars have no capitals; they are set round with vaulting-shafts, to which a piriform profile is given by added pillars on the front side. The arches of the rib vaulting are equilateral, which is also a common characteristic of the Cracow development of Gothic style. The middle aisle gains much beauty from the niches which interrupt the lines of the vaultingshafts; they are surmounted by gracefully carved canopies, and contain wooden statues of the Fathers of the Church, of which three are from the workshop of the famous Vitus Stoss, of Nuremberg.
The vaulting is, in most parts, a cross-vault with ribs; above the high altar, however, we find a network vaulting in the form of a half-star—as in St. Mary's Chapel—produced by two arcades in the eastern wall of the choir.
One of the chief characteristics of the dome is the variety of decorative architectonic forms employed in the walls of the upper story, in spite of their small height as compared with buildings in the West of Europe; this proves the high artistic sense of the builder. There was no room here for a complete triforium; the architect had to replace it by something else, and did so by creating a combination of window and triforium: in the upper part of the middle window-like niche he made a window, which he divided by mullions into three parts, and adorned with tracery. The lower part of the niche remained intact, was walled up, the mullions made to join into pointed arches at the top, and a parapet placed above them as a bar between the niche and the window. The old stained glazing was destroyed in the early nineteenth century.
No report has been preserved either of the architect or of the masonic lodge that acted in the building of the cathedral; ​but when we consider that architectural activity had been displayed for several decades before in connection with the convents of the Cistercians, Franciscans, Dominicans, and others, we cannot but admit that native hands, as well as foreign ones, were employed in the work: thus, e.g., the ground-plan of the choir, with its garland of chapels, reminds us of French models; in the measures, we find the Paris foot besides the Brunswick and the Hanover one; in the masonry and the structure of the pillars we find proofs of local workmanship.
The cathedral served as coronation church: the coronation of a Polish king is illustrated by a miniature (illustration 20) of the middle of the sixteenth century. A special feature of the act was the solemn penitential procession to the neighbouring Skalka where St. Stanislas had been murdered by a Polish king.
In the lower church we find, besides the Romanesque crypt already described (illustration 2), the tomb where most of Poland's kings, from Ladislaus Lokietek down, lie buried. Their monuments, which will be dealt with in the description of sculpture, stand in the church itself, From the reign of Casimir the Great it had become customary for each king residing at Cracow to add a chapel of his own to the cathedral.
Of particular interest are the additions, likewise in Gothic style, that were made in the fifteenth century.
Thus there is the treasury building, close to the vestry; it was founded by the Cardinal and Secretary of State Zbigniew Oleśnicki, and abounds in precious objects of art. Originally in two stories, it was changed into a hall with a stone wainscoting, by Bishop Rzeszowski in the years 1471 to 1482. To the left of the entrance-door of the cathedral, there is the chapel of the Holy Trinity, built by Queen Sophia in 1431-1433, and containing also her tomb. On the outside this is cased with ashlars and lined with trellis tracery; the interior has been frequently renovated, and adorned by later monuments. The Holy Cross Chapel, opposite this to the right, was built by King Casimir of the Jagellons and his wife, Elizabeth of Austria, in the years 1461-1471. The exterior of this chapel is also covered with ​hewn ashlars and trellis tracery; the interior has, for the most part, preserved its original aspect: a beautiful star-shaped cross-vaulting with keystones bearing the royal arms; the walls covered with paintings in Byzantine style, done by Ruthenian artists. In the northern side-aisle we notice, on entering, the lower part of the clock-tower, lined with tracery, which looks as if it had been built into the church. This forms the body of a chapel founded by Zbigniew Oleśnicki, but finished and fitted up only by Queen Elizabeth in 1502.
Want of space forbids us to dwell further on the Gothic architecture of the Wawel; we will therefore conclude by some general remarks on the row of chapels which surround the cathedral. Those round the choir were included in the original plan; although the dates of their actual erection are later, yet they were all organically fitted into the structure of the cathedral. Those on both sides of the body of the church, on the contrary, are only partly in systematic connection with the whole; part of them may be looked upon as originating in the unavoidable incorporation of remains of the older Romanesque building into the new Gothic structure.
Up to the fifteenth century the architectural development of the church ran on uniform lines, but from this time changes set in which disturb the original harmony. Thus, the western front as a whole was spoiled by the addition of the two side-chapels just described. Of course, these innovations were not without good consequences either; they introduced a picturesque element by this extraordinary mixture that arose from the juxtaposition of so many precious monuments of art of all periods and styles, which make up a perfect museum of ancient Polish civilization—a museum mystically sanctified by the glamour of religious associations.
It seems appropriate here to take a cursory survey of this round of chapels, and to characterize each of them by some chronological data. Turning from the chief portal to the right, we come to the following chapels in succession:—
I. The Holy Cross Chapel, built (as said before) in the years ​1461-1471, containing the marble tomb of Casimir Jagello (1492), a masterpiece of Vitus Stoss, altars with side wings in the manner of later Cracow Gothic art, and polychrome paintings in Byzantine style.
20. THE CORONATION OF A POLISH KING. (From the Pontifical of Bishop Erasmus Ciolek.) II. The corner chapel of Our Lady and the Three Magi. This was erected as early as 1381 by Bishop Zawisza, but in 1575 it was rebuilt in Renascence style, and adorned with a statue by the ​Polish architect and sculptor John Michalowicz, of Urzedow; finally, in the years 1832-40 it was modernized again by Pietro Nobile, at the suggestion and expense of Count Potocki, and decorated with works of Thorwaldsen, of the bronze sculptor John Danninger of Vienna, and of the Italian painter Guercino da Cento.
Adjoining to this, there is
III. The Capella doctorum, founded by the Szafraniec family about 1420.
IV. Next to this there stood, in the Middle Ages, the Chapel of the Psalterists, or of St. Paul, lodged in the lower part of the tower. This was changed by King John Casimir, in 1663-1667, probably on plans drawn up by the Court architect, John Baptist Gislenus, into the Royal Chapel of the Vasa dynasty, in baroque style, with black marble wainscotings.
V. The chapel next following is a perfect gem of Renascence style: the Sigismund Chapel, built in the years 1519-1530, in place of one originally erected by Casimir the Great in 1340. To this, we shall return in speaking of the modern period.
VI. Our Lady's Chapel of the Penitentiaries, founded by Bishop Bodzanta in 1351, rebuilt in 1522 by Bishop Konarski, whose fine tomb is placed here, and renovated again in 1752.
VII. The Chapel of St. John Baptist, re-erected by the Treasurer Andrew Koscielecki (d. 1515) on the site of an old fourteenth-century structure, pulled down at the beginning of the sixteenth century. This was renovated by Bishop Zadzik (d. 1642).
VIII. Corpus Christi, or St. Andrew's Chapel, with the oldest Renascence statue, being that of King John Albert (d. 1501); founded, in 1501, by the Queen-Dowager Elizabeth of Austria.
IX. The Chapel of the Holy Innocents, founded in 1344 by Bishop John Grot. This was twice transformed: once in 1522, and for the second time under Bishop Andrew Zaluski (d. 1758), into a rococo building.
X. The Chapel of St. Thomas a Becket of Canterbury, also dedicated to the Three Magi; dating from 1391, but completely rebuilt in 1530, in elegant Renascence style, by the Italian ​architect Bartholomew Berecci, at the order of the famous Bishop Peter Tomicki, who also put up a splendid mausoleum for himself there.
XI. Next follows old St. Mary's Chapel (also called the Sacristans', the Ciborium, or the Bathory Chapel); it was built in 1331. In the sixteenth century Queen Anne adorned it with a sepulchral monument to her husband Stephen Báthory (who, from a duke of Transsylvania, had become one of Poland's greatest kings, and died in 1586), a work of Santi Gucci, with marble stalls in Renascence style; a new decoration of black marble was added by Canon Adalbert Serebrzyski at the end of the seventeenth century.
XII. St. Catherine's (also called the Gamrat or Grochowski's) Chapel. In this a monument to Bishop Gamrat was erected, in 1545, at the expense of Queen Bona Sforza, by the sculptor Gian Maria Padovano. This chapel was later renovated by Canon George Grochowski (d. 1659), and in our own times, by the late bishop, Cardinal Puzyna.
XIII. Of the chapels to the north side, the oldest one is the present "vicars' vestry," adjoining the treasury, already mentioned; it was built of ashlars, in Gothic style, by Bishop Nanker in 1320, and dedicated to St. Margaret. Towards the end of the fifteenth century it was renovated, but the vaulting retained its original forms.
XIV. Next to this there is the Chapel of SS. Cosmas and Damian, or of the Zebrzydowski family. Founded as early as 1335, this was rebuilt, from the funds left by Bishop Andrew Zebrzydowski (d. 1560), as a sepulchral chapel, with monuments of himself and his family.
XV. The Chapel of St. Laurence was erected by Archdeacon Jaroslaw Bogoria Skotnicki in 1339, and thoroughly renovated by the scholar Stanislas Skarszewski (d. 1625).
XVI. Then follows the Chapel of SS. Matthew and Mathias, with the funeral monuments of the Lipski family. It was founded by Bishop Bodzanta, then rebuilt after the death of Bishop John Andrew Lipski, who had bequeathed a fund towards the erection ​of new chapels; and then transformed once more, and richly decorated, by Cardinal John Lipski (d. 1746).
XVII. The Chapel of St. Mary in the Snow, or the Maciejowskis' Chapel, founded by Bishop Florian Mokrski (1367, d. 1380), was changed into a sepulchral chapel, by the Italian master, Gian Maria Padovano, at the order of Bishop Samuel Maciejowski (d. 1550), whose monument it contains.
XVIII. In the lower part of the clock-tower a chapel was built in the fifteenth century, at the order of Cardinal Zbigniew
21. SEPULCHRAL MONUMENT OF KING LADISLAUS LOKIETEK, IN THE CATHEDRAL. Oleśnicki, and called after his name. Now it is also called the Chapel of the Czartoryski family.
XIX. The last of these side-chapels to the west is that of the Holy Trinity, or Queen Sophia's Chapel, so called because erected by the pious consort of King Ladislaus Jagello, in the years 1431-1433. The interior of the chapel, originally built in Gothic style, underwent several changes in course of time; thus it was modernized first by Bishop Tylicki, who was buried here in 1616, and once more, most thoroughly, by the Italian architect Lanzi, ​at the order of Mrs. Wasowicz, in 1830. In 1898 it was restored to something like its original shape.
XX. Having now finished the round of the chapels, we must still
22. ST. MARY'S CHURCH. add a few words concerning an altar under a ciborium, in the very middle of the church's crossing: this is the chapel of St. Stanislas. Its history is intimately connected with the building of the cathedral. The bones of the Saint were taken, in 1089, from ​the Skalka to the Wawel, and interred near the southern portal of the cathedral. When Stanislas was canonized in 1254, they were transferred to their present place. The different periods were reflected in the forms that the tomb of the Saint took in turn, till finally Bishop Martin Szyszkowski, in the years 1626-1629, raised the present fine memorial, at an expense of 150,000 Polish florins (illustration 61).
A contrast to the cathedral is formed by the city church of St. Mary, founded in 1226 by Bishop Ivo Odrowaz (illustration 22). In the cathedral supreme splendour and magnificence manifest the greatness and power of Poland's monarchs and its lords spiritual and temporal; in the market-place the citizens of Cracow, at the time of the town's highest development, in the fourteenth century, erected in place of an old wooden church the present magnificent building, with three naves and an oblong choir 91 feet in height. The work was done under the supervision of Nicholas Wirsing (d. 1360), treasurer to King Casimir the Great. The interior of the building—which has a triangular chevet—is extraordinarily beautiful and noble in its slim proportions, simple forms, and manifold decorative ornamentation (illustration 23). The exterior is varied by projecting buttresses, which have a very rich crown, viz., a panelling with blank tracery on three sides; on the front side the shaft wears a detached roof, surmounted by a fine pinnacle.
The walls of the choir are bordered above by a solid cornice with beautiful consoles cut in stone. Above this cornice there was formerly a gallery with pointed arches, and this was originally the upper termination of the walls. The slender threefold windows, which begin low down and reach high up, are terminated above by tracery and keystones with plastic ornaments. In 1384 the choir was entirely completed. The coloured glazing of the windows in the apse is for the most part of fourteenth and fifteenth century date. The original vaulting broke down for unknown reasons, and a new star-shaped one with four bays was made in 1442, by Master Czipser, a mason of Kazimierz. On the north wall of the interior part of the choir there was a beautiful ​ 23. INTERIOR OF ST. MARY'S CHURCH. ​arrangement of clustered vaulting shafts, and below the windows the triforium with tracery.
A chancel-arch led from the body of the church to the choir,, which was narrowed in at the limiting line by two projecting pillars; thereby the arch, high as it is, is made to appear more lofty still.
The body of the church consists of four bays, which are separated from the side aisles by three pillars on each side. The outline of the pillars is the same as in the dome, a four-edged accretion being attached to the back of each pillar, and terminating above in a broad band which runs along the arch of the arcade. It is only near the turning point of the pillar arch that a richer ornamentation begins, which intersects the flat spaces of the pillars. The arrangement of the windows is the same as in the dome, only they have no niches here.
The vaultings, being cross-rib vaults, built by Master Werner, of Prague, in 1395, extend both over the nave and the side aisles. The garland of chapels, founded in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by rich patrician families such as the Salomons, the Turzos, the Szembeks, the Pernus, the Fogelweders, and in later times the Lesniowolskis, Boners, and others, have for the most part complicated network and stelliform vaultings, and the windows are decorated partly with tracery of late Gothic style, partly with vertical mullions.
The west front of the church would have looked very bare and monotonous indeed if it had not received additional and peculiar grace from the beautiful arrangement of the towers on both sides of the porch. Both towers, built of brick, are of square shape, and divided by cornices into stories, in which there are twofold windows with stone tracery. Only the northern tower, called St. Mary's, was entirely finished; it terminates in a slender octagon, surmounted by a lofty, fantastic spire, which, though somewhat resembling that of the Teyn Church at Prague, yet seems of independent and original construction (illustration 24). Eight graceful turrets surround the pyramidal spire in the middle, which wears a golden crown of the year 1666, dedicated to the ​Holy Virgin. This charming roof arrangement undeniably owes its origin both to the fortress architecture of the Middle Ages, and to the native wooden architecture. The man who planned
24. SPIRE OF ST. MARY'S. the construction that produces such a picturesque and fascinating impression, must have been an artist of extraordinary talent. The "Tower of the Silver Chimes," on the Wawel, served for model; the date of the erection is probably 1478—just the time when Vitus Stoss was here at work on the high altar; this would seem to make it probable that he had himself a part in the plan for St. Mary's tower.
The tower clock, with its twelve figures, has long disappeared; but there is the medieval custom preserved that the warder of the tower, after the completion of each hour, sounds on a trumpet a certain traditional air, called Heynal by the people.
Popular tradition has attached a legendary story to the building of the two towers of St. Mary's. According to this the two builders were brothers, and one of them, seeing that the other's tower was going to grow higher than his own, killed him with a knife, which is hanging to the present day at the eastern door of Drapers' Hall (Sukiennice). This is said to account for the one tower having remained unfinished.
​To the church and its chapels thus erected, some later buildings are attached, such as, e.g., the vestry built in 1399.
Within this church monuments have been put up by citizens, which bear perpetual testimony to their exertions on behalf of art and civilization.
Bishop Ivo Odrowaz, who had consecrated St. Mary's Church, entered, during his stay at Rome, into close connections with St. Dominic, the founder of the well-known preaching order. To him accordingly he confided his two nephews, Hyacinth and Czeslaw, and these two, having assumed the habit of the new brotherhood, returned to Cracow in 1220 as the first Dominicans who entered the town. A few years later, in 1226, the old church of the Holy Trinity, sometime parish church to the city, was put at their disposal, and not long after that the Order began to build a convent house of its own and a large Gothic church, the largest next to St. Mary's, instead of the. old parish one. In the years 1286-1289 the choir, with a rectangular chevet, was built. Its beautiful arcade frieze, with pointed arches, bears witness to the original height of the choir. Down to the fifteenth century it was covered by a ceiling, but then the walls were heightened and overarched by a network vault, the ribs of which were supported by shafts. The body of the church—which was burnt down completely in 1850—was erected in 1321. The outline shows an oblong chancel, terminating at a right angle, and three naves. Both parts have pillars constructed on the Cracow principle, as described before. Of five chapels, three are to the north side, then follows the ascent to St. Hyacinth's Chapel and the cloister, with its remains of Romanesque style already mentioned, with a broad-arched cross vault, and with numerous monuments constituting a perfect Campo Santo of Cracow's citizens; this is surrounded by the convent buildings proper. In the convent house, besides a large refectory, there is an interesting hall with three octagonal pillars which support the cross vault, and other architectural relics.
Judging from the outward appearance of the walls, the church must originally have been lower. The two stair-like gables at ​the end of the saddle roof, which are characteristic of Cracow Gothic art, have preserved the original arrangement of triangular flat spaces and stone ornaments.
After the great fire of 1850 the church was but poorly restored. To a brother of the Order, who had no taste for art, it is indebted for such architectural additions as the new porch, which quite overshadows the magnificent fourteenth-century portal, or the modern high altar.
25. OUTER GATE OF ST. CATHERINE'S CHURCH. Besides the metropolis of Cracow, the rival town of Kazimierz, now a suburb, also developed Gothic architecture. Casimir the Great, after founding it, had called from Prague a colony of monks of the great mendicant Order of St. Augustine. The foundation stone of their church was laid in 1342, but it was not till 1378 that the choir was completed, the church consecrated and dedicated to St. Catherine. The body and the splendid porch are of fifteenth century origin (illustration 25).
​The ground-plan of this remarkable church consists of an oblong choir of one nave with a pentagonal chevet, and of a body of three aisles. The pillars are of the same outline as those in the cathedral and in St. Mary's, and, just as in these, richer ornamentation only begins about the turning-point of the arcade arches. The original vault broke down during an earthquake in 1443, and the new star-shaped one was put in its stead by the master-mason, Hanus, in 1505. This bears some resemblance tothat of St. Mary's; so does the general aspect of the tall and slender architectural forms in the interior of this church. The cross-vault of the middle aisle is of wood.
The outward view of the church is pleasing, chiefly owing tothe simple outlines of the choir. The buttresses, with stone pinnacles, project very far, and thus give some breadth to the building in spite of the general slenderness of its forms. The builder of the church—whose name is unknown—has left his monogram on an escutcheon above the entrance door. A noteworthy feature is formed by numerous portrait heads both within the church—on the consoles of the vault ribs—and without.
To the fourteenth century also belong: the vestry; a chapel formerly dedicated to St. Thomas, with a vault resting on one pillar, the keystone bearing the inscription KA-ZY-MIR (which probably refers to the royal founder); the cloister, of the year 1363, with wall paintings partly preserved to the present day: they range in date from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, and show scenes from the lives of St. Thomas, St. Austin, and other saints whom the Augustine Order has produced.
The side-aisle, on the southern side (visible from the street) shows a somewhat different architecture; the wall is not of brick, as the rest, but of ashlars, with carved buttress work and ornamented window-frames. This part, as well as the added porch, which is characterized by an ogee arch, crockets, pinnacles, and blank wall niches with tracery, both belong to a later period. The stone wainscotings, in their exuberance of forms, show some resemblance to the chapels of the cathedral, which were built about the same time.
​A particular feature of fifteenth century Cracow Gothic art is exhibited by the portals, the profiles of their soffits breaking off at right angles above.
26. CORPUS CHRISTI CHURCH. On the model of Cracow, Kazimierz also had its central marketplace, and by its side a parish church, founded in 1347: the choir, however, was not built till 1385-1389, and the body of the church even later. Master Peter of Kazimierz and the two Czipsers, ​father and son, are said to have been the builders of it. Bishop Peter Wysz gave the church, when it was ready, to the Canons Regular of St. Austin (illustration 26). Some parts of the building, as the western gable-end and the tower, are fifteenth and sixteenth century work. The church, both in plan and detail, as well as in dimensions, shows close imitation of St. Catherine's, which we have just described; the system of construction is also the same. The choir, with an octagonal chevet and eight oblong bays, has very narrow windows, partly walled up, with stained glasses; the panes, added later, are a complete failure with regard to harmony of form and colours. The body of the church consists of three naves; on its western side, it has a stair-like gable-end, the most perfect sample of the peculiar Cracow system of gable structure, common both in churches and private buildings. Its vertical lines are broken by stone ornaments—figures and coats-of-arms. The Polish eagles among the latter are surmounted by cardinals' hats, which point to Cardinal Frederick (d. 1503), a son of king Casimir Jagello. A medieval tower, rebuilt in 1556, was crowned in 1635 by a baroque spire, which is also of a character peculiar to Cracow. Adjoining the north side of the church there is a vestry, built in the Gothic period, and a two-storied oratory of later date. A medieval gangway leads over from the upper story of the oratory to the convent buildings.
The convent house, rebuilt in the seventeenth century, and provided with galleries in Renascence style, served as headquarters for the Swedish king, Charles Gustavus, when besieging Cracow in 1655.
In the interior of the church the baroque style is predominant; the gigantic high altar, in baroque style, the canopied seat for the Prior, and the double-rowed stalls produce a grand impression. At the entrance door there was hanging in former times—as in St. Mary's Church at Cracow—an iron collar for public sinners; here also was placed the prison for ecclesiastical transgressors, and a Calvary, where probably the medieval mysteries were produced.
​In the above account of the Gothic churches the features they have in common have already been dwelt upon; a few general remarks only need, therefore, be added here. The bays of the vaultings are peculiarly broad, the proportion of the breadth of the compartment to the width of the middle aisle being 2:3, nay even 3:4, in some cases. The considerable height of the interior gives to the whole a tall and imposing aspect. As for the pillars, it is in the Cathedral only that they are richly carved: everywhere else they are quite plain, and it is only above the arcades that a richer moulding begins. As regards the outward side, the brick buttresses, projecting very far, terminate either in tabernacle-like structures of stone (with which,
27. CALVARY, AT THE ENTRANCE OF ST. BARBARA'S CHURCH. however, they are not organically connected) or in mere bevel weatherings. Flying-buttresses do not appear. All these characteristics combine to give to the Cracow School of Gothic Art in its first period a certain originality, something of a local colouring.
Besides the great churches, numerous smaller chapels were built at Cracow at this time. Just behind the choir of St. Mary's Church the building of St. Barbara's was begun in 1394. A legend, known in other cities also, tells us how the masons occupied in the larger building employed their leisure hours in gratuitously erecting, in the then churchyard round St. Mary's, ​this church of St. Barbara. It was originally one of two naves of equal height; but both the interior and the exterior of the church have been thoroughly modernized; only the west front with its steep gable-end has remained unchanged. Here we see a charming porch in late Gothic style, squeezed in between two buttresses (illustration 27), with a little mortuary chapel, vaulted, and showing already sculptured consoles and keystones. The refinement of the ornamental forms, particularly the fantastic profusion of foliage, and the sculpture, cannot be otherwise accounted for than by the influence of Vitus Stoss's master-hand.
In the sixteenth century St. Barbara's Church, at the intercession of King Sigismund I, was given up to the Germans of Cracow, the German sermons having disappeared from St. Mary's Church in 1537, owing to the preponderance of the Polish element.
A group by itself is formed by the Gothic hall churches. In 1257 Boleslaus the Modest had called the Order of the Cæsarites from Prague to Cracow, and given them a basilica of three naves, dedicated to St. Mark, to which a choir was adjoined. About 1500 this was changed into a picturesque Gothic hall with a low tower.
Among the most noteworthy medieval churches of Cracow is the small, one-aisled church of the Holy Cross, built in the sixteenth century in the latest forms of Gothic style; it is to be considered as a hospital church, having formerly been in connection with the Hospital of the Holy Ghost. It consists of a chancel with a rectangular chevet, and a square nave, in the middle of which there stands a slender round pillar; from this the ribs of the star-shaped vault issue palm-like, which produces a highly artistic effect (illustration 28). At the west front there is a tower and two chapels of later date, which by their forms still recall the medieval ones. Both choir and nave still retain the old wall paintings. Besides the pictures, the church contains some interesting objects of applied art, such as the brass font of 1420, and the stalls.
​At the foot of Castle Hill there rises the small church of St. Giles (already mentioned), with an interesting series of pictures dating from the end of the fifteenth century, and stalls of noble Renascence forms. The church was founded as early as the eleventh century, but it was completed, in brick, only in the fifteenth century.
28. INTERIOR OF HOLY CROSS CHURCH. Civil Architecture only began in the fourteenth century. The enormous architectural activity of Casimir the Great, as attested by history, proves true the saying of posterity, that he had found a Poland built of wood, and left behind one of brick. Cracow architecture was regulated by a statute for masons, issued in 1367. Although none of the medieval buildings has preserved its original form, yet those that remain show many ​traces of medieval structure and give us an idea of what profane architecture was like.
The royal castle on the Wawel had been an essentially wooden building till then; the fortifications consisted, in the thirteenth century, of low walls and towers which had been heightened and strengthened after the capture of the town by Bishop Tobias of Prague, general of the forces of King Wenceslaus of Bohemia. Ladislaus Lokietek then began to build a Gothic palace, which was continued by Casimir the Great, and completed by Ladislaus Jagello.
The oldest parts of the Castle are the following: the northeast corner called "Hen-foot" (Kurza stopa), the western and northern parts of the wall (which underwent some change at the time of the Renascence), particularly those on the ground floor, and the Lubranka tower. In the lower parts Gothic style generally prevails; here, e.g., we find, to the north side, an old square refectory of Ladislaus Lokietek, with an hexagonal pillar in the middle, on which the cross-vault rests; the room is lighted by two narrow windows with stone frames. On the east side of the aforesaid corner there is a royal bedroom, where Casimir the Great is reported to have died, then apartments that belonged to Queen Hedwig and her husband Ladislaus Jagello; both their arms are engraved on the keystones of the vaults. The decorations of these rooms have of course disappeared long ago. Only the outward wainscoting with trellis tracery of 1461, and the "Hen-foot" Tower with the arms of Ladislaus Jagello, are preserved in their Gothic form.
In its present shape the Castle is a Renascence building; accordingly its further development will be dealt with in the chapter on the Modern Period. The fortress buildings on Castle Hill form an independent, solid, isolated whole, a stronghold, part of which is visible to the present day. In 1399 Ladislaus Jagello had the whole of the Wawel girt with entirely new fortifications.
In order to consider what else there is of profane Gothic architecture, let us first turn to the market place. According to a ​decree of the senate in 1817 the old land-mark of civic liberty, the Town Hall, was pulled down in 1820; only the old tower, though mutilated, still stands there, proudly uplifting its spire (illustration 6). About the year 1383 a brick Town Hall had been built instead of the old wooden one. Of the magnificent Aldermen's Room in the old building, only a Renascence door remains, which has been transferred to the University Library. The tower is a structure of ashlars, preserved, up to the gallery, in its original state, with only the tracery of the windows wanting. Its decorative part was formed by oriels demolished, however, at an early period; at the four corners of the tower there stood statues on large consoles.
In the interior there is, down to the present day, a square room with a cross-vault, on the east side an old window of a pleasant shape frequently to be met with at Cracow (e.g., in the Castle, in Canons' Street, &c.), strongly bevelled in the upper part. The doorway, which is still preserved, shows in the inter-lacings of the jambs, the Eagle of Poland and the Town Arms of Cracow on escutcheons placed in the corners. The door itself, studded with iron, is made in a fashion peculiar to Cracow. The topmost part of the tower, and its spire, were only erected in the years 1683-1686, after a great fire, on the plans of the royal architect, Peter Beber. Its style shows the influence of the Flemish Renascence, which was transplanted to Poland and Cracow by way of Danzig. In 1783, the seventeenth century spire was somewhat deformed.
At the very refoundation of the town in 1257 the necessity had become apparent of building wooden shop-stalls, and, in the middle of the market-place, a large hall, originally likewise of wood. This has in course of time been changed to the present large bazaar or market-hall, known by the name of "Drapers' Hall" (Sukiennice). The original building, occupying the very centre of the square, consisted, in fact, of four rows of booths severed by a narrow gangway, now replaced by the hall. In the second half of the fourteenth century the middle space was ​covered by a timber roof, and at the same time the present building, with its large market hall, about 132 yards in length and 14 in breadth, was erected by the city architect, Master Martin Lindintolde (1391- 1395). Of the Gothic middle building, with pointed arches at the narrow ends and a steep-gabled roof, and of the booths built round it in several rows, not much has remained; the only medieval features of the present building are the buttresses, and the ground-plan as a whole; the ancient shop-stalls, owing to the raising of the level of the ground, make the cellars of to-day.
29. DRAPERS HALL. After a great fire in 1555, Drapers' Hall was changed into a Renascence building by the Italian architect, already mentioned, Gian Maria Padovano, together with one Master Pancras. The hall was covered by a barrel vault, and thus deprived of light; but this loss was counterbalanced by the splendid addition of the new upper hall, to which broad stairways led up at the gable-end sides, close to the turreted annexes. The rich architectural ornamentation of the outward side produces a charming effect by the picturesque outline of the attic rising above the cornice, and moulded into niches and pilasters, with stone mascarones ​and vases. The building having got into disrepair, it was restored in the years 1876-1879 by the architect Thomas Prylinski; he pulled down the annexes, which were not in style, added the characteristic archways leading along on both sides, and thus gave a harmonious and uniform character to the whole building. The crystal vaults of these archways rest on granite pillars, with capitals designed in part by the most famous of modern Polish painters, John Matejko.
Of medieval palaces and private houses, only scanty remains have been preserved. They consist in the vaulted halls and corridors on the ground-floors of some of the houses in Central Square. The finest hall among them is that in the old Mint and Provost's
30. KEYSTONES OF THE GOTHIC HALL IN THE OLD MINT. House (now No. 17, Central Square), built about 1340-1356: here the profuse arrangement of ribs on the vault, with beautifully carved keystones (illustration 30)—one of which shows the builder's mark bear eloquent witness both to the good taste and the fondness for architecture of Cracow's citizens at that period. More numerous are door-frames terminating either in pointed arches or straight horizontal lintels. Above some doors, there are reliefs which give the house its name; e.g., the house called "The Lizards" (No. 8, Central Square) shows, in a cavetto, the inlaid figures of two animals biting each other; they are, however more like greyhounds than lizards.
​A glamour of poetry surrounds the magnificent building of the Jagellonian Library (illustration 31), the cradle of the famous University. The complex of houses standing here was bought partly by King Ladislaus Jagello for the University when he refounded it in 1400, partly by the University itself at a later time. The houses were rebuilt in 1468, and totally burnt down in 1492. This was the opportunity for the Jagellonian Prince-Cardinal Frederick to combine all University buildings into one. In 1497 the monumental structure was finished; in its main outlines, it has preserved its original shape to the present day. In the first half of the nineteenth century the building was restored, and received some modern additions, which, however, do not spoil the harmony of impression and are, besides, easy to distinguish. The medieval character is discernible at first sight by the oriel and the gables, which resemble those of the Dominican Church. Round a square arcade court, the most precious relic of medieval secular architecture, there runs, on the first floor, an open corridor with a modern balustrade, furnishing the communication between the different rooms. Below this corridor there is a beautiful cloister, with a cell-like vault and fine round pillars partly adorned with oblique channelling. The staircase, at the restoration, was transferred to the inside of the building, but the staircase leading up from the first floor to the second is still preserved. Among the architectural forms, which are full of picturesque variety, the balcony on the north-eastern corner of the building deserves special mention; it forms a perfect treasury of Gothic forms of the late Middle Ages. The most remarkable feature is the masonry, which, at the restoration, was transferred to this place by degrees from other buildings that were pulled down. The frames of doors and windows, partly plain and simple, partly adorned with tail-pieces, twisted pinnacles, knotty branches, show plenty of motives characteristic of late Gothic art. The Porta aurea, with ogee arches and twisted branches with leaves and crockets, leads into the so-called Obiedzinski Hall (1517). Its high walls are decorated with old stone coats-of-arms and tablets which were brought over here from the ancient students' rooms. ​Further within, there are lecture-rooms, now rebuilt and adapted to library uses, a large Aula for solemn meetings, the Stuba communis with the oriel where the elections of the Rector used to
31. COURTYARD OF THE OLD UNIVERSITY BUILDING. take place, and common meals were taken—corresponding, in tact, to the hall of an English college. On the ground floor, to the left of the entrance-door, there are the rooms once occupied by St. John of Kenty, who was Professor of Divinity in the ​University; to the right, the chapel where he performed his devotions.
Finally, the old synagogue of Kazimierz town (now suburb) deserves special mention; it is of medieval origin. Its interior has the shape of an oblong hall with six cross vaults, resting on two tall round pillars. Within each of the arches formed by the wall-ribs there is a high-placed window with a round arch; these admit the light. The whole place, with its iron Al-Memar in the middle, has an air of grave solemnity. The vaulting, and the fantastically shaped outward ornaments of tin, probably date from the restoration in 1570; for in this year, the Cracow architect, Matteo Gucci, made a new vault to the synagogue.
It is not only in the domain of architecture, but in that of plastic art as well, that fifteenth-century Cracow exhibits a picture of stirring life. The building of the churches above enumerated and described is intimately connected with the development of sculpture; their decorative parts required the skilled hands of stone-cutters and sculptors. These came from afar, together with the masonic lodge: they are the masters who created the figures and other heraldic and ornamental forms of medieval decoration on portals, capitals, consoles, and keystones. Their favourite line was the curve of the letter S. The mawkish faces of their statues are generally devoid of vivid expression, nor would the drapery allow the beauty of bodily forms to express itself. To this group belong the keystones of the Cathedral—representing in the naïve medieval manner the fight of St. Michael and St. Margaret with the dragon, or the Patron Saints. Other specimens of this series of Cracow sculptures are the beautiful keystones of the ground-floor room at the old Mint in the City Square (illustration 30), dating from the middle of the fourteenth century. They show seven coats-of-arms of the principalities of Poland; among these, the arms of the Dobrzyn country with the expressive head of King Casimir the Great, that of his wife Adelaide of Hesse, and other figures of men as well as of beasts and imaginary symbolical creatures. These works of plastic art ​are distinguished by subtle intuition of nature and eloquent expression of character; both they and those in the windows of St. Mary's Church prove an intimate knowledge of medieval symbolism on the artist's part, and his close contact with Western art. In the apse of the church just mentioned, we see on the top of the windows such plastic scenes as the head of Christ surrounded by angels, the Holy Mother with the Child, the victory of the Church over the synagogue and heathendom, St. Christopher, Hell, then a scene from the story of Phyllis fettering Aristotle. All these works exhibit much resemblance to the sculptures of Prague in the reign of Charles IV, when a dominating position in Prague art was taken by the second architect of St. Vitus's Cathedral, Peter Parler, who created the famous plastic portraits adorning the tri-foria. His brother—or perhaps nephew—Henry Parler, we meet at Cracow in 1392; in 1394 considerable sums were paid to him by the town for stone-cutter's work in St. Mary's Church, and it has been supposed that this refers to the sculptures described above, and that they are his work. To the same cycle belongs the portal of the Dominican Church with its sculptured ornaments, of which the forms are partly plants and animals, partly human figures. Of carvings in this period, the hermae of St. Stanislas and St. Ursula, of 1382-1384, must be mentioned: they formerly belonged to All Saints' Church, but now they stand in the archeological cabinet of the University, Other pieces of carved work are the crucifix of Queen Hedwig in the left-hand aisle of the Cathedral, and the Madonna of Kruzlowa, now in the National Museum; also the interesting little figures of the Virgin and St. Joseph at the cradle of Our Lord in St. Andrew's Church. They are a gift of Queen Elizabeth of Hungary, sister of King Casimir the Great and wife to Robert, King of Hungary. They are probably the earliest fourteenth-century cradle figures known in Europe. The statue of Our Lady from St. Nicholas's Church at Cracow, now in the National Museum, must also be mentioned here. Although dating from the first years of the fifteenth century, it possesses many of the characteristics detailed above. In all these sculptures we notice a lack of anatomical knowledge, ​and the artistic ambitions of the carver are limited to beauty of drapery and grace of movement. To Ladislaus Lokietek, who died in 1333, his son Casimir the Great erected, in the northern side-aisle of the Cathedral, a monument of sandstone (illustration
32. A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY MADONNA. (National Museum.) 32). Originally, this sepulchral monument was polychrome and had a canopy supported by eight pillars. The one standing there at present is quite recent work, by Professor Odrzywolski, imitating, in form and arrangement, the sarcophagus of ​Henry IV, Duke of Cracow and Breslau (1290), in Breslau Cathedral. On the upper slab there is the figure of the king reposing in his coronation vestments, with sceptre and orb in his hands, the long coronation sword by his side. The
33. SEPULCHRAL MONUMENT OF KING CASIMIR THE GREAT. head of the king is of a pronouncedly Slavonic type. The feet are propped against a console adorned with vine-leaves. On the sides of the tomb there are reliefs of figures complaining, being personifications of the four estates of the Realm mourning ​the death of the King. Some forty years later a royal sepulchre was put up, at state expense, to Casimir the Great (d. 1370). Its
34. SEPULCHRAL MONUMENT OF KING CASIMIR JAGELLO, IN THE CATHEDRAL. (Vitus Stoss.) perfect artistic forms were probably the work of Italian craftsmen called from Hungary by Queen Elizabeth or by her son King Lodowick (illustration 33). As Casimir himself was the greatest ​personality among Poland's early kings, so is his tomb the grandest and most precious among the royal sepulchres on the Wawel. It is made of red marble and sandstone. On the tomb reposes the noble figure of the monarch, his crowned head adorned by a long, curled beard, the gravity, wisdom, and calm which characterize his reign depicted in his face. The right hand holds a sceptre, the left an orb; there is a dagger at the side. The body is clad with a tunic, girt on the haunches with a belt wrought in the form of a wall with little turrets. The upper garment, a cope, is held together by a broad clasp across the breast. The square tomb is divided into panels containing figures, over each of which there is a tail-piece canopy with tracery. The tomb is surmounted by superb canopy on eight pillars, the whole monument profusely adorned with crockets and finials of exquisite workmanship.
Space forbidding us to give a detailed description of the consoles found in the convent cloisters, the ivory casket at St. Mary's Church, and sundry small objects wrought of precious material and preserved in the museums, we now pass on to fifteenth century sculpture.
This is characterized by more accurate study of and deeper insight into nature. The Northern artist, having no opportunity for close contact with the relics of antiquity, had to turn a diligent eye to nature. In the period we now speak of, plastic art is no more at the service of architecture, but independent. The sculptor makes no attempts at the monumental, but directs his endeavours to a servile imitation of nature; he wants a knowledge of anatomy and is entirely under the spell of medieval superstition and the tenets of his age. The clothing of the figures is intended to cover completely the naked body, and it is in the lines of the drapery that the artist's imagination is fully and forcibly displayed; here the tendency to movement finds its immediate expression. Preference is given to strong, rough lines; they are characteristic of Northern work generally, and thus found in Poland too. The picturesque element enters with full force into all conceptions. Down to the middle of the fifteenth century Bohemian ​influences prevail at Cracow; from that time the art of Nuremberg is dominant. From that famous art centre numerous sculptors, carvers, painters, goldsmiths, and other craftsmen came to Cracow to settle down, marry, and establish their workshops in the city: they formed the stock of what are called the Germani polonicati. To this period belongs the sarcophagus of King Ladislaus Jagello's sepulchral monument, in the nave of the dome. This was erected after 1421, of red marble—probably from Salzburg—and is doubtlessly the work of a German artist. The canopy, of later date (1524), was added by an Italian, supposed to be Giovanni Cini. The features of the king's face, rendered very faithfully, seem to point to careful previous study of the living original. About 1463, that great and many-sided genius, Vitus Stoss, came for the first time to Cracow, where he settled down and married. His appearance marks an epoch in the development of Cracow art; his personality left the most signal and permanent impression on the character of the town and its peculiar style. The crucifix in the chancel-arch of St. Mary's Church, of 1473, already shows all the characteristic features of this artist's workmanship. In 1477 the citizens of Cracow summoned the "admirably adroit, diligent, and well-minded master, whose understanding and fame shine over all Christendom"—thus the town clerk describes him—from Nuremberg where he then lived, and ordered him to produce what became the magnum opus of his life: the high altar of St. Mary's Church (cf. frontispiece, and ill. 35). This magnificent work he finished in 1481. The Golden Legend of the Genoese monk, Jacobus a Voragine, was his literary guide in the conception of the carvings. The large middle panel of the altar shows, in figures of natural size, the decease of the Virgin Mary, who is represented collapsing amid the faithful circle of apostles. Above this group, Christ appears receiving into heaven the soul of the Holy Virgin, attended by angels singing and making jubilee. Above this, in the gable, rich with Gothic ornamentation, Mary is seen being crowned Queen of Heaven, between two angels and holy bishops. On the side wings of the altar-piece, scenes from the life of Christ and of the Virgin are represented ​in bas-relief. On the predella we see an image of the rod of Jesse. The work is a landmark in the development of Stoss's art. Vivid and vigorous treatment of all details, rich drapery with restless crumpled foldings, bold and nervous movements: all these give to his art its own peculiar characteristic, which is simply exuberance of life. The types are extremely manifold, and bear witness to his masterly, dashing way of handling the chisel.
35. THE PASSING OF THE VIRGIN MARY. (Scene from the high altar in St. Mary's Church.) (Vitus Stoss.) The master's admirable work procured him, in 1492, an order from King Casimir IV for a tomb in the Holy Cross Chapel (illustration 34). This was executed after Stoss's design, by George Huber of Passau, in red marble, probably of Salzburg. The most attractive feature of this piece of sculpture is not the architectural moulding of it, which seems rather heavy and affected, but the figure details; especially the highly individualized ​expression of emotion in the figures on the side walls of the tomb constitutes the great artistic value of the whole. Though they do not reach the height attained by the artist in his wood-carvings, still they bear the lion's mark. The same characteristics that
36. THE ANNUNCIATION. (From the high altar at St. Mary's.) (Vitus Stoss.) distinguish his work in the high altar of St. Mary's, are reflected in the statues of the Fathers of the Church which are distributed in the nave, the Gothic niches, and on the consoles. Among the numerous objects at Cracow which have been attributed to Stoss's ​workshop, there is the stone crucifix on a side altar at St. Mary's (illustration 42). Another one, doubtless his, is "Christ praying in Gethsemane" (illustration 43). This relief, as well as the crucifix just mentioned, are both from the cemetery that
37. THE THREE MARIES AT THE GRAVE OF CHRIST. (From the high altar at St. Mary's.) (Vitus Stoss.) once surrounded the church. In the collections of the Cracow Academy there is a carved shrine from the village of Lusina. On the wooden panels there is a representation of the Holy Family according to the poem of Walter of Rheinau, and the several scenes repeat those of the high altar at St. Mary's. ​Another proof of Stoss's activity at Cracow is to be found in the convent church of the Bernardines; it is a wood-carving representing St. Ann in company with the Virgin and Child. This has only been preserved in a very bad state; but in the Diocesan Museum at Tarnow there is a well-preserved copy of it, rather free in its imitation; it is unsigned and probably issued from the master's workshop. Finally, some wooden statues have been preserved in the Calvary of St. Barbara's Church, which also would seem to proceed from Stoss's workshop. Recently, the design of the excellent monumental brass on the grave of Callimachus
Buonacorsi (d. 1497) in the Dominican Church has also been assigned, not without some probability, to Stoss's sphere of activity. When the aged master left Cracow in 1496, his eldest son Stanislas succeeded to the management of the famous workshop, which he conducted for thirty years. First as goldsmith, afterwards as carver, he worked at Cracow, then at Nuremberg, where he died in 1527. None of his works is signed, and it is on the internal evidence of certain characteristics pointing to a former goldsmith's work that two carvings are ascribed to him, viz., the altar of St. Stanislas in St. Mary's Church (illustration 44), ​and the shrine with a relief of Christ's passion in the chapel of the Czartoryski family on the Wawel. The son differs from the father by the quiet, phlegmatic temper he exhibits. His figures are short, broad-shouldered, sometimes correctly modelled, but wanting the buoyancy proper to the father's work. In the proceedings of the law courts and the city records we find quite a number of names of sculptors and wood-carvers, of whom we only know that they remain professional sculptors to the end of their lives; the names are mostly German, but it is impossible to positively connect them with any works extant. It is most
40. HEAD OF ST. PETER. (Detail from the high altar in St. Mary's Church, Cracow.) (Vitus Stoss.) probable, however, that all these carvings came from the Cracow workshops. Thus, e.g., the folding altar-piece, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, in the Holy Cross Chapel of the cathedral, exhibiting all the characteristic features of North German Gothicism, is usually assigned to the carver Laurence of Magdeburg, who lived at Cracow. The altar of St. John in St. Florian's Church, of 1518, differs from all the carvings hitherto described; it is evidently the work of an artist more modern in spirit, and desirous to strike out in a new direction: the elegant attitudes of the bodies, the picturesque grouping, the noble lines of the drapery, all usher in a new period. This altar originally stood in the Boner family chapel in St. Mary's Church.
Next to Vitus Stoss another great name of Nuremberg appears in the annals of Cracow art, viz., that of Peter Vischer. This famous brassfounder never indeed visited Poland himself, yet there is hardly any other foreign artist of whose work so much is to be found in this country. Down to the middle of the fifteenth century Flanders only supplied brasses to Poland. This ​import from Flanders was checked by the rise of the Vischer workshops, which spread their influence over the whole country. The brass plate on the grave of Callimachus (mentioned above as designed by Stoss), the relief brasses of Peter Kmita (d. 1505) in
41. RECUMBENT FIGURE OF KING CASIMIR JAGELLO, ON HIS TOMB IN THE CATHEDRAL. (Vitus Stoss.) the cathedral (illustration 45), those of three members of the patrician family of Salomon (illustration 46), of late fifteenth or early sixteenth century date; finally the magnificent monument to the Prince-Cardinal Frederick of the Jagellons, Bishop ​of Cracow, were all produced by the famous Nuremberg brassfounder. Some of these already belong to the early Renascence.
The history of Gothic Painting at Cracow closely resembles that of sculpture. It is entirely under the influence of the Prague
42. CHRIST ON THE CROSS. (In a side altar at St. Mary's.) school, and we find the Madonna of Hohenfurt repeated, with small variations, in the works of the fourteenth and even of the fifteenth century. An example of this is the Madonna with the goldfinch, of 1395, formerly in Odrzykon Castle, now in the ​Czartoryski Museum, being a rendering of the Madonna in the royal castle hall at Prague. The same type is repeated in a Madonna picture in the private collections of Mr. Ziemiencki, and in one at the village of Trzemesnia. Still purer aspects of fourteenth-century art, with its characteristic features preserved even more intact, are supplied by the great coloured windows of some churches: St. Mary's, St. Catherine's, St. Dominic's, and Corpus Christi. True, the artists here are wanting
43. CHRIST IN GETHSEMANE. BAS-RELIEF. (National Museum.) (Vitus Sloss.) in originality, they often repeat their models without any deeper insight; yet the tradition has been preserved of a Cracow artist, named Wenceslaus, having painted the windows in St. Mark's Church at Florence. In the miniature paintings of this period we see various influences at work; all civilized countries contribute to enrich our collections. Thus in the antiphonaries of Tyniec Abbey, in the wall paintings of Lond (fourteenth century), as well as in the later Swietoslaw Codex (date 1449, Czartoryski Museum), the motives of the school of Prague are repeated. These relations with Prague, made evident by the works of art, ​are also attested by written records of the time. Most of our miniature painters probably began their career like John Klobuk, called Kropacz, who was a student in Prague University from 1398 to 1400, and there also acquired his knowledge of art, which he then turned to account at home. The records of Kazimierz town from the years 1387-1390 contain some interesting notes on prices of pictures bought from Cracow masters. Of this period we possess a distemper painting of the Madonna
44. BURIAL OF ST. STANISLAS. (From a triptych in St. Mary's Church.) (Stanilas Stoss.) in Corpus Christi Church, which, in the features of the face, bears a resemblance to the pictures of Thomas of Modena, yet with the characteristic difference that Byzantine influence makes a more distinct appearance.
The painting of profane subjects is gaining ground towards the end of the fourteenth century. King Ladislaus Jagello had a court painter of his own, Jacob Wezyk. When this man had left the king's court on account of a disease in the eyes, the king called some Russian painters to Cracow, who executed sundry wall-paintings ​in the Castle. This preference of the king for Byzantine forms is easily explained by the influences of Russian civilization, which were naturally very strongly at work in the Lithuanian court he had occupied before ascending the throne of Poland. In later years he seems to have inclined more towards Western art,
45. BRASS MONUMENT OF PETER KMITA, IN THE CATHEDRAL. for shortly after the Russians the place of a court painter was taken by a Cracow master, Nicholas Speckfleisch. His social position would render the hypothesis admissible that it was he who first organized the painters' guild at Cracow in 1410. This guild included sign-painters and church painters, carvers, ​goldsmiths, glaziers, and saddlers (whose occupation was then closely connected with painting). The arms of the guild were fashioned after those of the painters' guild at Prague; like them also, the Cracow painters had St. Luke for their patron, and the tasks set for admission to mastership—"masterpieces"—were similar in both towns. This explains, for instance, the fact that Cologne influences are traceable in such works as the picture of the Annunciation, in
46. BRASS MONUMENT OF PETER SALOMON, A CRACOW PATRICIAN, IN ST. MARY'S CHURCH. the Czartoryski Museum, or the tripartite family altar of Princess Sophia, sister of King Sigismund I., the latter (now at Warsaw) being a work of an artist known only by the initials M.S.T., of 1456. The Cologne school had just reached the height of its development, and all medieval ideals were embodied in its work. Cracow painters mostly lodged near the Castle and in Broad Street. A measure of their artistic perfection is supplied ​by the paintings at Ruszcza (c. 1425). It is possible that they were done in the Cracow workshop of Master Paul of Kremsier. In these there is again a strong Bohemian element, which we also notice in a picture representing the birth of St. Mary in St. Catherine's Church; and in a votive picture, being the offering of one John Ognazd, Governor of Czchów in 1450 (this is now at Lemberg). Sometimes, however, Cracow painters venture beyond mere mechanical routine; this is shown, e.g., by a pen-drawing of 1445, being a portrait of Cardinal Zbigniew Oleśnicki. As early as Jagello's times there had come to Cracow a painter named Nicholas, of Kres, in Istria; 1423-1444 was the period of his most intense activity in the town. The fashion he introduced is best represented by a Madonna on a throne, adored by the two St. Jacobs and the two donors; the picture, which is painted in tempera, is in the National Museum at present. The religious lyrism of its spirit, the harmony of forms, the light, silvery colours combine to produce a strangely fascinating impression; as regards form, there is besides the Greek profile of the head of Christ and the regular features of the Virgin—which point to Cologne models—the notable endeavour to overcome rudeness and awkwardness in the outlines of the bodies; the background is formed by a piece of Venetian brocade. In all the characteristic features of the picture we see the influence of the master's model.
Stanislas Durink, a miniaturist, was court painter to King Casimir Jagello from 1436 to 1486. His miniatures have been preserved in the archives of the Chapter. In the court of King Casimir two tendencies in art stood opposed to each other. The Queen-Mother greatly favoured Byzantine civilization. To her, the Holy Cross Chapel is indebted for its magnificent decoration by Russian painters in 1471. The king's wife, Elizabeth of Hungary, on the other hand, was all for Western European culture; her influence is seen in a number of artistic undertakings, the execution of which she entrusted chiefly to masters called from Nuremberg. One of these works is an altar-piece with side wings, to be found in the chapel already mentioned, of 1471; it contains ​a picture of the Mater Dolorosa; on one of the panel paintings there appears a distinctly Jagellonian type of face. In the execution of this altar, the Nuremberg master, Hans Pleydenwurf, had an active share. The contemporary influence of Flemish painting is already noticeable in some Cracow pictures, such as one representing St. Augustine, in the private collections of Countess Potocka. The religious worship of St. Stanislas having become a national institution, Cracow artists frequently choose subjects from the life of
47. CRUCIFIXION. (Fresco Painting in the Refectory of the Dominican Convent.) (Fifteenth century.) the holy martyr for the themes of plastic works, which in that case always exhibit some peculiarly local features. About this time several shrines were erected to this saint, one of them in the cathedral; of this, the pictures of SS. Stanislas and Adalbert, evidently dating from the middle of the fifteenth century, have been preserved. Some cycles of pictures were composed under the influence of the church mysteries; they were mostly set into shrines such as those preserved in St. Giles's Church, or in the cloister of the Augustine Convent. The influence ​exercised on painting by the carvings is manifestly shown by a picture of the Holy Family in the National Museum. Cracow painters of the fifteenth century enjoyed a very wide reputation; they were often called to other Polish cities when painters' work was wanted. Thus, in 1476, the city of Lemberg summoned a painter of Cracow, Nicholas Haberschack, brother-in-law to Stanislas Stoss, to paint a carved altar-piece. He probably stood in a close relation to the workshop of Stoss.
The restoration of several convent churches, during recent years, brought to light a number of valuable medieval wall paintings, which had been thickly covered by whitewash for centuries. They have been renewed and made permanent, and in this state bear witness of the artistic movement of the period, which had made its way from the West through Bohemia to Cracow. Such pictures, as the Mystic Press (illustration 48), in the cloisters of the Franciscan Church, are rarely to be found anywhere else in the world. The Crucifixion, in the refectory of the Dominican convent (illustration 47) is typical of an epoch of ardent faith and spontaneous religious emotion. Unfortunately, the tempestuous ages that have passed over the city, with fires and invasions, have not suffered many such relics to be preserved. Master Vitus Stoss himself, whose merits were so great in reforming all departments of Cracow's medieval art, had also been the first one (about 1485) to execute copper engravings in a true painter's spirit and with a fine sense of the rules of design. One of his drawings for the altar of Bamberg is to be found in the archaeological cabinet of Cracow University. At the same time foreign artists and merchants coming to Cracow brought woodcuts and copperplates, chiefly German work, into the town; these, of course, could not fail to exercise some direct influence on the imagination and workmanship of Cracow's painters. Thus, a miniature in the MSS. collection of the Chapter is copied from an engraving by Franz of Bocholt, or Israël of Meckenen.
Applied art, in the Gothic period, has the same origin as the plastic arts; its monuments are mostly products of native industry. The magnificent seals used by kings and princes are ​ 48. MYSTIC PRESS. (Fresco Painting of the Fifteenth Century, in the Cloisters of the Franciscan Convent.) ​distinguished by tasteful design and delicate execution. One Reinhardus, appointed Governor of Cracow by King Wenceslaus in 1305, had been minter at Florence. The first Polish gold coins produced under Ladislaus Lokietek were modelled on the fiorino d'oro. The Florentine lily, being equal in signification with that of Anjou, becomes the symbol of our Gothic period. Of all branches of applied art, metallurgy stands foremost. The city records of the time mention a great number of goldsmiths. Besides the native products, there was much jewellery of excellent manufacture brought to Cracow from various parts. Thus,
49. IVORY CASKET IN THE CATHEDRAL TREASURY. through Queen Hedwig, the treasury of the Cathedral—rich even to-day, though repeatedly plundered—came into possession of a beautiful ivory casket with silver mountings and bas-reliefs of various scenes from romantic legends. Of the same period there is a large golden cross in the same treasury, adorned with gems and niello, small figures of knights at the chase, and animals: it was probably made of two crowns, viz., those of Queen Hedwig and Ladislaus Jagello. The so-called "Cup of Hedwig" must also be mentioned here; it is a cup of yellow glass with silver fittings; the glass is Oriental, but the engraved ​stem of silver added to it is Cracow work of the fifteenth century. Three silver sceptres, all of the fifteenth century, are preserved in the University. A pax in St. Adalbert's Church with fine niello work, pointing to connections with the Rhenish school, also belongs to this period. Similar to it in style, but simpler, the cross in St. Mary's Church marks the transition from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century. A splendid collection of chalices is preserved in the treasuries of the churches; they are all of the fifteenth or first half of the sixteenth century and exhibit a rich variety of artistic details; generally, however, the foot is composed of six leaves adorned
50. RELIQUARY, CONTAINING THE HEAD OF ST. STANISLAS. with figures of saints, either sculptured or engraved, the handle either of architectonic shape with tracery windows, miniature buttresses and pinnacles, or spherical, with filigree enamel.
In 1488 Matthew Stoss, goldsmith (d. 1540), a brother of the famous carver, came to Cracow, where, as records in the archives attest, he displayed great activity. Many a work of Cracow goldsmith's art is probably to be attributed to him. They naturally all show, both in manner and detail of execution, the paramount influence of his brother's genius. The treasury of the cathedral is also rich in reliquaries; the finest of these, a work of the court goldsmith, Martin Marcinek, is a gift of Queen Elizabeth of ​Habsburg and her sons John Albert and Cardinal Frederick. In spite of the late date (1504), its exquisite forms are purely Gothic (illustration 50). Other products of applied art can be but briefly mentioned ; among such are some glazed tiles preserved in the town's collections, being most interesting specimens of medieval pottery ; sundry small pieces of cabinetmaker's work, fine tissues and embroideries used for paraments, and some beautiful specimens of artistic bookbinding.
51. BRASS MONUMENT OF PHILIP CALLIMACHUS BUONACORSI, IN THE DOMINICAN CHURCH.