Grób i nagrobki świętego Jacka w dominikańskim kościele Świętej Trójcy w Krakowie do końca XVI wieku

Abstract

THE GRAVE AND TOMBSTONES OF SAINT HYACINTH IN THE DOMINICAN CHURCH OF HOLY TRINITY IN KRAKÓW TO THE END OF THE 16TH CENTURY

Brother Jacek (Hyacinth) Odrowąż died in an aura of sanctity around 1257 and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church in Kraków. His tomb was located near the altar screen. When in the last quarter of the 14th century the screen assumed the form of a magnificent Gothic gallery crossing all the aisles, the tomb was to be found within its northern bay. Numerous reconstructions of the church meant that by the end of the 15th century the Dominicans were unable to pinpoint the exact location of the tomb. They only managed to locate it in 1543, at which time Hyacinth’s relics were moved to a separate chapel. In order to keep the place of veneration as close as possible to where Hyacinth had been buried, the chapel was placed in the northern part of the loft of the screen. The oratory was enclosed by a grill, accessed by a staircase from the north aisle and equipped with an altar. The main part of the chapel was a recess open to the loft. It housed a second altar, under which Hyacinth’s bones were deposited. A tombstone with some of his relics was placed behind the altar. This exquisite work by Giovanni Maria Mosca, called Padovano, is preserved in the parish church in Bochnia. It depicts the friar in a reclining pose, surrounded by books, which was unique in his iconography. In 1581–1583, Brother Severin of Luboml built a new, more spacious chapel. Its surviving remnants and passing references in the sources allow a virtual reconstruction of the oratory’s body. It occupied the space above the chapel of the Virgin Mary and the Epiphany, on the north side of the choir. The screen was demolished and replaced by a vast platform in front of the new chapel, with an entrance via stairs from the north aisle. The saint’s bones were placed under the altar table, and a new alabaster funerary monument with Hyacinth’s relics was raised behind the altar. Between 1615 and 1618, stonemason Andrzej Jarząbek built the third chapel dedicated to St. Hyacinth (canonised in 1594), which has been preserved to this day, although with partially altered furnishings. The Dominicans decided to dismantle the alabaster tomb and replace it with a smaller structure (1629). In 1947 Krystyna Sinko-Popielowa and Stanisław Świszczowski hypothesised that parts of St. Hyacinth’s alabaster tombstone were used to build the stalls in the Church of St. Giles, which also belongs to the Kraków friary. However, their drawn reconstruction of the tomb must be revised in the light of new findings. Based on laser scanning of the stalls and descriptions of St. Hyacinth’s second chapel, the authors of the article propose a new virtual reconstruction of the tomb. It was an outstanding example of Dutch Mannerism, inspired by the work of Hans Vredeman de Vries. The author of the work was probably the stonemason Henrik Horst. The tomb reconstruction is a preliminary proposal, the details of which may change in the course of further research.