Dwa nowożytne stropy i ich dekoracje w kamienicy Arcybractwa Miłosierdzia w Krakowie

Abstract

TWO MODERN CEILINGS AND THEIR DECORATIONS IN THE TOWNHOUSE OF THE ARCHBROTHERHOOD OF MERCY IN KRAKÓW

The study presents a discussion of the historic elements of the ceiling and decoration of room 007a in the Archbrotherhood of Mercy building at 5 Sienna Street in Kraków. The room has a beamed ceiling, probably constructed during the conversion of the former bourgeois townhouse into the seat of the Archbrotherhood by the Society of Jesus, which took place in 1589–1597. The simple beamed ceiling was then covered with Renaissance wallpaper in the form of ornamental prints washed with watercolours. Around 1692, a painted frieze was created under the ceiling, in addition to ornaments containing four cartouches with quotations from Holy Scripture. Both the cartouches and the ceiling were renovated at the end of the 18th century. At that time, the original sentences were covered up, paper versions were pasted on the cartouche mirrors, and the ornamentation of the painted frieze was renovated. Shortly afterwards, a frame ceiling from the 1st half of the 17th century was installed in this room, decorated with five oil paintings on canvas (four of them are still in place). These paintings, depicting pairs of personifications taken from Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, are the work of the Venetian Tommaso Dolabella, who may also have designed the architecture of the ceiling. Thus, the four compositions belonging to the five-part frame ceiling have enriched the known oeuvre by the Venetian painter.