Najstarsze relikty kościoła Św. Trójcy oraz kaplicy grobowej Pileckich odkryte przed zachodnią elewacją kościoła Dominikanów w Krakowie

Abstrakt

THE OLDEST ARCHAEOLOGICAL RELICS OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY AND THE PILECKI SEPULCHRAL CHAPEL DISCOVERED IN FRONT OF THE WEST ELEVATION OF THE DOMINICAN CHURCH IN KRAKÓW

During the first stage of archaeological research conducted  in 2011 on the site of the former graveyard in front of  the south part of the church’s façade fragments of mediaeval  walls were discovered. The relics underwent architectural research  and were identified as part of the 12th-century Church  of the Holy Trinity and the 14th-century sepulchral chapel of  the Pilecki family.  Stratigraphic analysis has revealed that the oldest structure  is the fragment of a stone wall (430 cm long and 130  cm tall) which constitutes a part of the foundations of the  south aisle of the present church. Adjacent to its south-west  corner is a stone circular building, located also in the dig on  the bottom of a drain built in 1910, and in the crypt of the  Lubomirski Chapel. An analysis of the projection shows that  the circular building erected in the second phase has a regular  outline of a sector (three quarters of a circle whose outer  diameter is 690 cm, inside diameter being 450 cm) and is  probably a part of a round corner staircase tower which could  also have been used as a belfry. At this stage of research, only  its general location in the south section of the nave of the  present church can be determined. The foundation walls are  interpreted as fragments of the parish church of the Holy  Trinity surrounded by a graveyard, and they are dated to the  second half of the 12th century (ca. 1220).  Erected on the relics of the walls of the Romanesque church  was the west, brick wall of the present-day Gothic church  (1290–1320). Remains of the corner buttress survive on the  crown of the staircase tower whose inside was filled with stones  and broken bricks to create the foundation of the buttress. The  location of the stone foundation of the wall of the Chapel of  the Transfiguration which existed in front of the church’s facade  in the years 1597–1860 has also been determined.  In front of the Lubomirski Chapel, under the retaining  wall of the sewer drain, researchers also discovered relics of an  older, polygonal chapel: the fragments of four walls, each of  them 240 cm long and 110 cm thick, two buttresses (of which  one survives in vestigial form), and two corners between the  buttresses. The deep, stone foundations of the middle buttress  were built against the circular tower. Surviving in one of the  corners of the chapel is the entrance (bricked up in the 16th  century) featuring a stone door jamb with a pear-shaped profile,  a threshold and a fragment of a chamfer joined with the  base of a respond with a concave profile. The structure is interpreted  as the Pilecki Chapel built around 1383. Its overground  part was completely demolished before the construction of the  early baroque Lubomirski Chapel in the years 1605–1610.  Analysis of the geometrized layout of the walls has led  to a hypothetical reconstruction of the central, dodecagonal  design of the chapel which was topped with a tripartite rib  vault with bundles of ribs joining at the responds located in  the corners reinforced with buttresses.  An alternative composition of the Pilecki Chapel, involving  the walls of the church and of the neighbouring side chapel, is  also probable. According to this hypothesis, the design would  be a rectangular interior with a polygonal closing in its west  end. At the present stage of research, it is impossible to determine  the exact original form of the chapel, or to exclude the  possibility of its earlier construction. The relics of the chapel  and of the oldest church will be the subject of further research,  the second stage of the project being scheduled for 2012.