Kościół parafialny w Brochowie koło Sochaczewa, wzniesiony w latach 1551–1561 z inicjatywy wojskiego warszawskiego Jana Brochowskiego, jest jednym z najbardziej znanych dzieł włoskiego muratora Jana Baptysty Wenecjanina. W niniejszym artykule jego architektura poddana jest jednak an alizie nie stylowej, lecz ikonograficznej. Brochowska budowla odznacza się niezwykłym kształtem, zaskakującym jak na warunki wiejskiego kościoła parafialnego – jest to trójnawowa inkastelizowana bazylika, z dwiema okrągłymi wieżami w fasadzie zachodniej i trzecią wieżą nad apsydą prezbiterium, która mieści obszerną emporę, otwierającą się do wnętrza świątyni. Wyjaśnienie tak złożonego programu przestrzennego, kojarzącego się przy tym z architekturą militaris, jest możliwe, gdy weźmiemy pod uwagę osobę fundatora, którego funkcją, jako wojskiego warszawskiego, było zapewnianie bezpieczeństwa i spokoju podległemu obszarowi. Wyjątkowy motyw wieży wschodniej mieszczącej emporę komunikującą się z wnętrzem prezbiterium za pomocą wielkiej arkady można z kolei uznać za cytat z gotyckiej katedry poznańskiej, gdzie taka wieża przy chórze powstała na początku XV w. Sięgnięcie po rozwiązanie kojarzące się z kształtem wielkopolskiego tumu jest zrozumiałe wobec przynależności parafii w Brochowie wraz z całym archidiakonatem warszawsko-czerskim do diecezji poznańskiej. Przedstawiona w niniejszym artykule analiza podnosi rangę brochowskiego kościoła jako jednej z najciekawszych kreacji architektury sakralnej w Polsce około połowy XVI w.
The subject of this article is the architecture of sacral buildings so far classified by scholars as one group of buildings (“the Tarłów group”) with similar stylistic features, designed by an anonymous architect. A critical analysis of the current research material allows us to limit their numbers to the parish church in Gołąb (1626–1634), the collegiate church in Klimontów (1643–1650), the parish churches in Tarłów (before 1647) and Jedlińsk (before 1645), and the Rosary Chapel (c. 1642–1650) at the parish church in Kazimierz Dolny. The church in Tarłów with its arrangement of vaults and lunettes seems to be reliant on the leading sacral architectural designs created in the first half of the 17th century in Northern Italy and the Kingdom of Bohemia. Its colonnaded façade, which was the first of its kind in Central Europe, repeated at least on the first floor the unrealized designs of the façade of the church of SS. Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso in Rome, designed by Onorio Longhi and Martino Longhi the Elder. On the other hand, in the case of the side chapels of the church in Jedlińsk and the Rosary Chapel, their columnar articulation refers to the completed or unrealized projects by leading late 16thand early 17th-century Italian architects such as Ottaviano Mascarino, Giovanni Maria Ricchini, Francesco da Volterra and Carlo Maderno. The system of vaults in the Klimontów collegiate church and the Tarłów church recalls the churches of Our Lady of Victory in Prague (1611–1613), St. James in Jičín (after 1628), and the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Stará Boleslav (1620s–1630s). The eclecticism of the spatial arrangement of the buildings and the staging of the façades and interiors prove a good knowledge of early modern Italian architecture. In the absence of archival sources, it is at present difficult to identify their architect. However, the builders of these structures were guild craftsmen operating in the former Sandomierz and Lublin provinces. An analysis of their working methods links the Tarłów church to the mason Lorenzo Senes, the builder of the collegiate church in Klimontów and the Krzyżtopór castle in Ujazd (1621–1644). In Tarłów and Kazimierz Dolny, Senes cooperated with the still anonymous Master of Tarłów, the author of stucco and terracotta decorations.
This article focuses on the infrequent but intriguing phenomenon in the 19th century history of residential architecture in the Congress Kingdom, which decorated the facades of the landed gentry’s residences with sculpted portraits of outstanding Poles. The main subject of analysis is its most spectacular example – the Sancygniów Palace near Pińczów, built for Andrzej Deskur in 1882 from the designs by the Warsaw architect Adam Oczkowski. The author argues with Magdalena Swaryczewska’s older thesis recognizing the historical decor of the palace as the “manifestation of independence and the relentless spirit of fighting patriots” in the “difficult post-uprising times”. Getka-Kenig demonstrates that it is a simplified interpretation, which does not explain the possible motives and goals, for which Deskur – a wealthy, but devoid of any aristocratic ambitions veteran of the Pińczów County uprising – decided at that time on such an unusual form of manifesting his patriotism. The author shows that Deskur’s ambitious undertaking took place in a very specific context, both local and national (within the Congress Kingdom). However, in order to properly determine the place of the Sancygniów Palace and its specific decoration in the history of the 19th-century residential architecture, a diachronic analysis of this phenomenon is required, in this case a comparison with earlier and similar buildings – Ludwik Pac’s palace in Dowspuda and the Eliza Krasińska’s palace in Ursynów. As a result, the historical decoration of the palace in Sancygniów appears to be a special type of manifestation of the landed gentry’s experience of modernity, evolving over the period of the partitions of Poland. Both the case of Sancygniów and the earlier similar projects, coincided in time with the moments of political crisis of the landowning elite – in the first two cases the nobility, in the third case the rich landowners distancing themselves from it – when confronted with the gradual weakening of their once superior position in the struggle for independence. The phenomenon of the palace in Sancygniów can thus be considered on the two complementary levels, which helps us to appreciate the exceptional value of this monument of the nineteenth century residential architecture. It is not only a strictly artistic value (above all in terms of the originality of the project), but also and to an equal extent, a historical one.
The art of the leading 20th century still-life painter Giorgio Morandi (1898–1960) drew inspiration from various sources. One of the most important points of reference was Jean Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, an older master of still life active in the 18th century. In this article, the dialogue with Chardin will thus be considered in the context of important inter-pictorial associations leading to the reflection on the approach of both masters to the studied objects. Formal similarities between their paintings allow us to question their relationships in terms of the ways of representing objects, with a particular emphasis on the difference in their materialization in the field of vision.
An analysis of their works shows that in Chardin’s case the pictorial status and living texture of objects is an extension of the interior in which they are located, while in Morandi’s they are isolated from it and their earlier functions. The objects appearing in the paintings of the Bolognese painter are largely ‘eviscerated’ of any references to the rhythm of everyday life. Instead of a free gaze, characteristic of the domesticated atmosphere evoked by Chardin’s paintings, Morandi’s compositions force the viewer to an intense and focused contemplation, which corresponds to the painter’s own intense observation of the objects in his studio. An important aspect of the comparison will be an analysis of the temporality of the perception of objects implied by the works of both artists. Chardin’s still lifes aim to bring together the temporality of seeing objects and the time of seeing an image. They play their game by simulating in the pictures the natural process of looking – they allow the viewers to freely immerse themselves in the temporal development of the image. In their expression, Chardin’s paintings thus encourage the viewers to come to terms with the material reality of the surrounding world. If the 18th century artist stages in his still lifes the man’s time of looking at objects, Morandi activates the distinct temporality of the image itself. Looking at the latter’s works we experience pictorial fluctuations, in connection with which objects appear like actors leaving their everyday lives behind them. In this register, they become participants in the drama taking place in the act of observation, which touches upon the foundations of their existence. In Morandi’s paintings, the viewer is prompted to reflect on the distance between one object and another; to experience the threshold between oneself and things.
This article, however, is not limited to the identification of analogies and differences, but also aims to show a special relationship in which Chardin’s work stages elements of a still-life painter’s practice. From this point of view, Morandi’s reception of Chardin’s Boy Building a House of Cards is important. An analysis of the testimony of the Italian artist’s encounter with this painting during his stay in Winterthur shows that the art of the 18th century painter was for Morandi an object of a unique self-reflexive and existential identification.
The article examines the problem of the historicity of Jesus Christ – the incarnate God, in Cyprian Norwid’s Album Orbis, a personal collection of cultural texts of mostly visual nature. The artist uses the material to present his own vision of the history of the world. He thinks about it symbolically, every fact and historical vestige becomes a sign, which allows reading the fate of humanity as a book about the human salvation. Its central figure is Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnate Ideal and the most perfect man. The artist accumulates the cultural texts that refer to Him the most in the second book. He shows the importance of Christ in history, both directly and indirectly. He presents the views of the Holy Land and Sinai as well as the ancient artefacts such as the Titulus Crucis and the Bezetha Vase. Norwid sees them as evidence of the naturalness, rationality and universality of Christianity, which combines valuable elements of all cultures, especially the Greco-Roman and Jewish one. Norwid also collects portraits of Jesus, mainly in profile, supposedly copied from an emerald gem made for the Emperor Tiberius (in fact, the tradition only goes back to the Renaissance). These images are related to Norwid’s own theory of art and his definition of beauty, as the shape/profile of Love – that of the loving God, Jesus Christ. The Saviour is also a model of humanity, and the best image of the Father, which everyone should imitate. The portraits in profile illustrate the conception of the entire Album Orbis, the profile of the human history, and point to its most important figure.
Życie i twórczość Cypriana Godebskiego można widzieć jako modelowy przykład kariery artysty XIX-wiecznego, realizowanej w Paryżu, ale także w wielu innych ośrodkach i na prowincji artystycznej Europy od lat 60. XIX do początków XX stulecia. Jednocześnie jego los stanowi pod pewnymi względami przypadek nietypowy (zwłaszcza dla polskiej emigracji), całkowitej asymilacji kulturowej. Urodzony we Francji w rodzinie politycznego emigranta, kształcił się w Paryżu, ale początki jego kariery rzeźbiarskiej wiążą się z Wiedniem, Lwowem, Petersburgiem. Następnie przez kilka lat Godebski był ważną postacią kultury belgijskiej, jako zięć znanego wirtuoza Adriena-François Servaisa, którego dom pod Brukselą dekorował i którego pomnik w Halle należy do najlepszych rzeźb artysty. Osiadłszy wreszcie w Paryżu, prowadził tam (korzystając równocześnie z dobrodziejstw Carrary) życie światowe i szeroką działalność artystyczną. Pracował dla Polaków, Rosjan, Belgów, Francuzów, Węgrów, uprawiając twórczość „juste milieu” w kilku gatunkach (portrety, sceny mitologiczne, pomniki). Sukcesy zawdzięczał znakomitemu rzemiosłu, ale także starannie planowanemu życiu towarzyskiemu i umiejętnościom marketingowym. Jego paryskie i podparyskie rezydencje stawały się salonami goszczącymi znakomitości europejskiego życia muzycznego i literackiego. Jedna z ostatnich jego rzeźb, wielka grupa Madonny rozbitków na przylądku Pointe du Raz w Bretanii, realizowana była przy świetnym wykorzystaniu lokalnej i ogólnopaństwowej koniunktury politycznej w okresie napięć na linii władze państwowe – Kościół katolicki we Francji ok. 1900 r. Zapomniane dziś zasługi Godebskiego wiążą się również ze wspieraniem polskich emigrantów, artystów, pisarzy we Francji, a także organizacją wystawy sztuki polskiej w Paryżu w 1900 r. Biografia ta winna więc być widziana nie tylko jako żywot artysty rzeźbiarza, lecz również – przedsiębiorcy, mecenasa, organizatora, światowca.
Na fali odrodzenia rzemiosł w 1901 r. w Krakowie powstało Towarzystwo Polska Sztuka Stosowana (TPSS), szybko skupiło ono w swoim kręgu najwybitniejszych polskich projektantów. Towarzystwo ze względu na bliskość geograficzną, ale przede wszystkim pokrewne idee i cele możemy zestawić z działalnością Warsztatów Wiedeńskich. Towarzystwo próbowało zaistnieć na wiedeńskiej scenie artystycznej poprzez prezentowanie przedmiotów zaprojektowanych przez jego członków na wystawach wiedeńskiej „Secesji”, ich sprzedaż w wiedeńskich sklepach, a także publikację tekstów na temat własnej działalności w czasopiśmie „Hohe Warte”. Analizując prace projektantów mebli związanych z TPSS, możemy wskazać trzy tendencje: inspiracje sztuką ludową, zwrot ku stylom dawnym, a także skłonność do upraszczania sprzętów i nadawania im minimalistycznej formy, pozbawionej ornamentyki. Zazwyczaj na pierwszy plan wysuwany jest nurt związany ze sztuką ludową, wiążący się z poszukiwaniem stylu narodowego. Jednakże najbardziej innowacyjne projekty możemy odnaleźć w trzeciej grupie. Właśnie te prace polskich projektantów możemy porównać z dziełami artystów związanych z Warsztatami Wiedeńskimi. W nurt purystycznej geometryzacji, który dominował w pierwszych latach działalności Warsztatów, wpasowują się projekty Stanisława Wyspiańskiego, Edwarda Trojanowskiego i Karola Tichego. Również kolejna faza stylowa, którą prezentowało młodsze pokolenie członków Warsztatów, czyli skłonność do dekoracyjności i eksperymentowania ze stylami dawnymi, znajduje odbicie w polskim meblarstwie, czego przykładem są projekty Karola Frycza i Henryka Uziembły.
Public and religious ceremonies were part of the daily life of many Jesuit colleges throughout Europe. The Jesuit education was enriched by numerous occasional celebrations and events, of which many were closely related to the academic year. Young noblemen and magnates took part in various school and public celebrations, which marked the culmination of important teaching stages. Leaving the college was linked to a public debate, which was a great event in the life of the college. It gathered an eminent audience and was accompanied by extensive ephemeral decorations. In the Baroque period, young Polish nobles and magnates also took part in numerous ceremonies during their education in the colleges of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the educational travels in the most famous colleges in Europe. In the summer of 1686, Jan Stanisław Jabłonowski and his brother Aleksander Jan, sons of the Grand Crown Hetman Stanisław Jabłonowski and Marianna née Kazanowska, held solemn debates in the famous Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris. It was one of the stages of their educational journey through Europe in the years 1682–1688. The travel diaries by Aleksander Jan and his tutor Jan Michał Kossowicz attempt to recreate the course of the ceremony, and provide valuable information about its artistic setting. The theses of the Jabłonowski Brothers were published in 1686 in Paris. The sequence of the ceremony and the ephemeral decorations that accompanied it carried a clear message glorifying the Polish Hetman, a commander from Vienna, famed as the Mars Polonicus.
The ceremonial entry of Sigismund III into Krakow on 9 December 1587 was an important event in the international arena, but it was particularly important for the urban community of Cracow, who greatly supported his candidacy as the king of Poland. For the capital city, which organised and incurred the costs of the ceremony, the arrival of the newly elected ruler meant a happy ending to the siege and the related war effort. The most detailed description of the entry, and the only illustrated one, which was most likely prepared in advance, is preserved in a printed festival book called Sigismundi tertii Cracoviam ingressus. It shows the topographic and administrative scenery of the entry, its individual stages as well as the artistic and epigraphic setting. The prose-like description of the triumphal entry, the ideologically coherent portrayal of kings and the related poetic works make equal components of the print. They are a visual and literary praise of Sigismund III and the genealogy of his legitimate rule, based on the Jagiellonian roots and his military victory over Maximilian. Reprints, translations, and numerous references to this message in the 16th-and 17th-century printed material ensured its long-standing influence in Poland and abroad. The content of the message was adjusted to the interests of various reading groups and specific political interests, but during the process of its reception the description of the entrada did not lose its identity, and propagated the image of the ceremony depicted in the Sigismundi tertii Cracoviam ingressus for posterity.
The study of Jakub Siebeneicher’s print from the point of view of its textual and visual message, its circulation space within which it functioned, and the role it played in shaping the memory of Sigismund III’s entry into Krakow, made it possible to identify a number of problems related to the ways of representing the artistic setting of the triumphal entry in prints. It was pointed out that in printed language the artistic setting of the entrada was rendered by typographical and graphic means, through cited inscriptions distinguished by different fonts, as well as full-page woodcuts functioning as ideograms of the monarchs and their royal power. In the process of translating one text of culture (artistic setting) into another (printed message) many meanings, symbols and images escaped, but the effect was still a coherent, clear and lasting message about Sigismund III’s entry into Krakow. It imposed ready-made interpretative formulas on subsequent generations of its readers, which spread the fame of the ruler and of the city welcoming him, and harked back to the common heroic and political past of the Kingdom of Poland and Krakow.
Although Warsaw did not replace Krakow as a place of royal burials, it gained an important role in royal funeral ceremonies as a place of death or a stop on the way of the funeral conduct. In the case of the earliest royal funeral ceremonies, the city served only as a station on the way to carrying the body from the place of death to Krakow. The bodies of Zygmunt August and Stefan Batory were led through Warsaw, and their coffins were displayed in the St. John collegiate church. The convoys with the coffins of Cecylia Renata, Władysław IV, Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki and Aleksander Karol Vasa also passed through the city. In all these cases, the Warsaw part of the ceremony involved the lying in state at the Royal Castle. From the funeral of Anna Jagiellon, to the funeral of August II (with the exception of Jan Kazimierz, who died in France), the Royal Castle served as a place for the exposition of the dead body of the king or queen. Based on historical accounts, one could conclude that the castle had one particular room that was more often than others converted to a funeral or parade chamber after the death of a king, queen or their children. Unfortunately, from the preserved testimonies it is not possible to clearly determine which room exactly performed this function. However, it is possible to identify what kind of decoration was set out for the lying in state. It consisted of similar elements: an elevated platform with a canopy, a place for royal insignia, a cross and altars. The whole was complemented by hanging coats of arms, candles in candlesticks, and sometimes when the coffin was exposed, a portrait of the deceased. The character of the interior was determined by precious fabrics and objects made of expensive ores. Only in a few cases in Warsaw were decorations and castrum doloris set in the church where the coffin with the body was to be exhibited. They were erected in the St. John collegiate church for Anna Habsburg, probably in the Church of the Visitation Sisters for Ludwika Maria, in the Jesuit church where Karol Ferdinand Vasa was buried, and in the Capuchin church for the funeral of John III. In addition to the lying in state, Warsaw’s funeral ceremonies also involved the transport of the royal remains to the place of burial. Several types of conducts took place there – conducts bringing the bodies into the city; private conducts; conducts carrying the bodies into the Royal Castle in case of deaths in suburban residences; conducts taking body parts to the place of burial; conducts of family members who were buried in the city. The most official and lavish funeral processions were those carrying the royal bodies to Krakow. The ceremony of moving the coffins out of Warsaw took place according to a repetitive scenario and order, and the convoy followed a fixed route. The ceremony began with prayers, masses and speeches said by the body in the castle’s hall, its courtyard or, less frequently, in one of the churches in Warsaw where the coffin was temporarily deposited. They were followed by a procession that travelled to the city walls and then to Ujazdów, where the first station was designated. Krakow’s funeral processions differed in the number of participants in particular groups, and the presence of deputies and ensigns with banners not only of the Kingdom and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but also of voivodeships and districts. The ministers and officials carrying the signs of their office were more numerous than in Warsaw. Krakow’s conducts were also distinguished by the presence of the “figures” in the robes of rulers and the archimus.
Warsaw is also connected with burials of parts of royal bodies (organs). In the basement of the Jesuit Church are the hearts of Constance of Austria and Cecilia Renata, in the Church of the Visitation Sisters the heart of Ludwika Maria Gonzaga, at the Camaldolese that of Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki, and in the Capuchin church the heart of John III. The city was also associated with the exposition and sometimes the burial of some of the royal children or their organs. The last royal burial of the 17th century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the funeral of Jan III Sobieski in the Capuchin church, took place entirely in Warsaw.
Apart from the Warsaw churches connected with the burial of body parts or family members, other funeral ceremonies but without the presence of the body, took place in other churches in the city, its suburbs and the district of Prague. Throughout the entire funeral period masses and prayers for the dead were said there, and sometimes a special decoration was prepared in their interiors. This was common with many other cities and churches of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Funeral ceremonies deserve special attention among the ceremonies organised in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th century. For obvious reasons, they constitute the most extensive research material, which on the symbolic, propagandist and artistic level reflect the social needs and tastes of the period. Their lavishness corresponded to a specific Sarmatian devotion associated with traditionalism, provincialism and a certain orientalisation, leading to exaggeration and extravagance in order to achieve maximum splendour. Although Polish funeral ceremonies drew on their European models, in many respects they also showed significant differences and became a particular cultural phenomenon – a long and splendid theatrical performance.
Preserved archive material allows for the identification of about two hundred funeral ceremonies, which received more or less impressive ephemeral artistic settings. However, it did not provide a basis for estimating the average cost of a noble burial, nor the expenses associated with its individual stages, although most probably the largest sums were spent on payments to the clergy for pastoral services, the purchase of fabrics, haberdashery and lighting, and the organisation of daily copious funeral feasts. Funerary decorations were as varied in terms of form, content and artistic expression as were the tastes and requirements of the clients and the possibilities of the employed designers and craftsmen. Despite an extremely modest iconography, one can attempt a synthetic reconstruction of an important multi-day funeral scenario and the church interior design systems, with a particular emphasis on the artistic and content-based dominant – the castrum doloris.
More than thirty years of the reign of the last king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was marked by many official events linked to lavish occasional presentations. Among the most important were the so-called Gala Days. The anniversaries of the ‘miraculous’ rescue of the king from the hands of the Bar Confederates, the Victory of Vienna, or the adoption of the Constitution of the 3rd of May were also celebrated. The ruler also made several dozen journeys of national, economic and political or sociable nature, during which he had the opportunity to visit various places connected with the history and development of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and to meet his subjects. His triumphal entries to the visited cities and his stays were organized in a ceremonial manner and were usually carried out according to a predetermined plan. Providing attractions for the king, the court and the guests generated costs and engaged a large group of people specialized in various fields. In addition to the artists and their projects, it was necessary to build machinelike structures, mount the appropriate lighting, install pyrotechnic materials, and provide accommodation and food for several hundred people. Most often, to mark the ceremony, triumphal gates (arches), obelisks (colossi and pyramids), fountains, pavilions and various buildings were erected, complemented by spectacular illuminations and fireworks. Gatherings were also enriched with occasional theatre and music performances, occasional poetry, songs and speeches. Usually, the artistic means were combined with a rich symbolic and ideological programme.
The present article includes descriptions of a few such celebrations. Among other things, the drawings by Wincenty Lesseur are mentioned, showing a tent (exhibited in Zapol) and its plan, the images of the personification of rivers as well as the hunting gazebo in Bialowieza, etc. The author describes some of the schemes of those ceremonies, the most popular gifts offered and the most frequently used symbols in the decorations, which served as a glorification of the royal power and added splendour to the ceremony.
The Apostolic Constitution Quequmque of Pope Clement VIII, published on 7 December 1604, re-established the legal structure and functioning of all confraternities throughout the Church after the Council of Trent. The Constitution closed the medieval chapter of their activities and paved the way for their dynamic development over the next centuries, until the patent of Emperor Joseph II of 22 May 1783, which abolished all religious brotherhoods in the entire Habsburg monarchy, including the diocese of Krakow.
The activities of confraternities covered almost all areas of social and religious life. However, the overriding goal was the development of public worship in the Church, its deepening, and the renewal of the Christian life of the members of the fraternity. Consequently, the focus was on the appropriate artistic setting for the celebrations, which was reflected in the care for a suitably arranged and decorated liturgical space, which was a place of common spiritual practices and meetings, the so-called trysts. If the confraternity was wealthy, the side chapel at the church where the confraternity was established was used for this purpose. The chapels of the Cracovian fraternities provide good examples. Sometimes, confraternities operating in villages (e.g. the Brotherhood of St. Isidore in Radziechowy), had magnificent chapels. The basic element of the chapel’s furnishings was the main painting placed in a special altar. In the case of very wealthy fraternities, the chapel had a few side altars placed under various invocations, and even a pulpit and a musical choir. When the fraternity had only the chapel at its disposal, and there was no meeting room or it was located in the so-called caper, i.e. the building outside the church, then the most necessary paraphernalia as well as ceremonial clothes were stored in the wardrobes placed inside the chapel. Often the wardrobes were decorated with representations referring to the charisma of a given confraternity.
The basic element creating the “everyday” artistic setting for the brotherhoods’ celebrations was the altarpiece. It contained a painting with a representation of the patron saint or the illustration of the truth of faith, which was particularly revered and promoted by the brotherhood. The devotional painting was usually accompanied by other depictions of saints from the religious order, which cared for the confraternity, and to whose spiritual graces the confraternity was affiliated. They could be the patron saints of the founders, the commonly worshipped saints, or the saints in whose memory special indulgences were obtained. At times, the content of the altar was accompanied by pictures hanging in the immediate vicinity of the altar. An important role was also played by processional crosses and floats, especially the main float, where the brotherhood’s painting identifying the confraternity was placed.
The splendour of these ceremonies, including the grand processions and pilgrimages, was raised by the costumes characteristic of individual confraternities and strictly defined by their statutes. The members of a confraternity used special staffs and sceptres with the symbols of the brotherhood. For many of them it was an honour to belong to a particular confraternity, so they portrayed themselves in their ceremonial costumes as Queen Anna Jagiellon did after 1586. These ceremonials also involved the creation of occasional decorations to celebrate the most important events. Triumphal gates decorated with emblems and coats of arms and lemmas were erected, and the route of the procession was decorated. Carriages were decorated with brotherhood’s paintings. On the backdrop of occasional decorations short theatrical spectacles were staged. This was always the case on the occasion of the inauguration of a new brotherhood, in which other confraternities from the immediate vicinity dressed in costumes, carrying staffs and accompanied by floats and banners took part. The musical setting also played an important role in these celebrations.
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