The Wawel Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Stanisław and Vaclav, is a church located on Wawel Hill in Kraków – Poland's national sanctuary. It has a 1,000-year history and was the traditional coronation site of Polish monarchs. It is the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Kraków. Pope John Paul II offered his first Mass as a priest in the Crypt of the Cathedral on 2 November 1946,[1] and later as Pope considered being buried there.
The current, Gothic cathedral, is the third edifice on this site: the first was constructed and destroyed in the 11th century; the second one, constructed in the 12th century, was destroyed by a fire in 1305. The construction of the current one begun in the 14th century on the orders of bishop Nanker.
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Interior
The Cathedral comprises a nave with aisles, transepts with aisles, a choir with double aisles, and an apse with ambulatory and radiating chapels. The main altar, located in the apse, was founded about 1650 by Bishop Gembicki and created by Gisleni. The altar painting of Crucified Christ is from the 17th century[2]. Over the main altar stands a tall canopy of black marble supported by four pillars, designed by Giovanni Battista Trevano and Matteo Castelli between 1626 and 1629. Underneath the canopy is placed a silver coffin of St. Stanisław created between 1669-1671 after the previous one (donated in 1512 by King Sigismund the Old) was stolen by the Swedes in 1655 [3].
Chapels and burial chambers
The Wawel Cathedral has been the main burial site for Polish monarchs since the 14th century. As such, it has been significantly extended and altered over time as individual rulers have added multiple burial chapels.
Sigismund's Chapel, or Zygmunt Chapel ("Kaplica Zygmuntowska"),[4] adjoining the southern wall of the cathedral, is one of the most notable pieces of architecture in Kraków and perhaps "the purest example of Renaissance architecture outside Italy."[4] Financed by King Sigismund I the Old, it was built in 1517-33 by Bartolommeo Berrecci, a Florentine Renaissance architect, who spent most of his career in Poland.
A square-based chapel with a golden dome houses the tombs of its founder as well as of his children, King Sigismund II Augustus and Anna Jagiellonka.
Burials
The crypt beneath the Wawel Cathedral holds the tombs of Polish kings, national heroes, generals and revolutionaries, including rulers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth such as Jan III Sobieski and his consort Maria Kazimiera, the remains of Tadeusz Kościuszko – Brigadier General in the American Revolutionary War; national bards such as Adam Mickiewicz (laid to rest there in 1890) and Juliusz Słowacki (1927), as well as Władysław Sikorski – Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile and Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces as well as Józef Piłsudski – Marshal and founder of the Second Polish Republic.[5]
See also
- Royal coronations in Poland
- Polish Crown Jewels
- Szczerbiec
- Poznań Cathedral
- Gniezno Cathedral
- St. John's Cathedral, Warsaw
References
- ^ Witness to Hope, George Weigel, Pg 81
- ^ (Polish) Wzgórze wawelskie wraz z siedzibą królewską at www.integracja.org
- ^ (Polish) Święci miesiąca Święty Stanisław Szczepanowski
- ^ a b CODART, an international network of curators of art from the Low Countries, [1] Accessed 2007-12-23
- ^ Marek Strzala, Royal tombs of the Wawel Cathedral in Krakow
External links
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Coordinates: 50°3′16.7″N 19°56′7.5″E / 50.054639°N 19.935417°E
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