Photos of Wawel Cathedral

The Vaults by A.Davey

<b>About the Frescoes</b> The ceiling is decorated with five frescos that cover 14.94 m2 (160.8 sq ft) which are the second largest ceiling frescoes (after the Pažaislis Monastery) in Lithuania. The three smaller frescoes above the organ form a triptych from Saint Peter's life: healing a cripple, escape from prison, and vision of a sheet with animals. The other two frescoes depict Quo vadis? and Peter's confrontation with Simon Magus. These frescoes are of a rather simple composition, poorly executed, and lack background detail, but the figures are expressive, making complex, dynamic, almost theatrical movements. The authorship of the frescoes is unknown. Vladas Drėma attributed them to Martino Altomonte, while Mieczysław Skrudlik suggested Michelangelo Palloni. Mindaugas Paknys, using surviving written records, disproved both hypotheses and attributed the frescoes to Johann Gotthard Berchhoff. ======================================================== <b>From Wikipedia</b> St. Peter and St. Paul's Church is a Roman Catholic church located in the Antakalnis neighbourhood of Vilnius, Lithuania. Construction was begun in 1688 and the decorative works were completed in 1704. It is the centerpiece of a former monastery complex of the Canons Regular of the Lateran. Its interior has masterful compositions of some 2,000 stucco figures by Giovanni Pietro Perti and ornamentation by Giovanni Maria Galli and is unique in Europe. The church is considered a masterpiece of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Baroque. The interior of the church changed relatively little since that time. The major change was the loss of the main altar. The wooden altar was moved to the Catholic church in Daugai in 1766.[4] The altar is now dominated by the Farewell of St. Peter and St. Paul, a large painting by Franciszek Smuglewicz, installed there in 1805. The interior was restored by Giovanni Beretti and Nicolae Piano from Milan in 1801–04.[11] At the same time, a new pulpit imitating the ship of Saint Peter was installed. In 1864, as reprisal for the failed January Uprising, Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky closed the monastery and converted its buildings into military barracks.[11] There were plans to turn the church into an Eastern Orthodox church, but they never materialized.[11] In 1901–05, the interior was restored again. The church acquired the boat-shaped chandelier and the new pipe organ with two manuals and 23 organ stops.[12] The dome was damaged during World War II bombings, but was rebuilt true to its original design.[12] When in 1956 Vilnius Cathedral was converted into an art museum by Soviet authorities, the silver sarcophagus with sacred relics of Saint Casimir was moved to the St. Peter and St. Paul's Church.[13] The sarcophagus was returned to its place in 1989. Despite religious persecutions in the Soviet Union, extensive interior restoration was carried out in 1976–87.[11] <b>About the Decorative Scheme</b> St. Peter and St. Paul's is one of the most studied churches in Lithuania.[19] Its interior has over 2,000 different decor elements that creates a stunning atmosphere.[20] The main author of the decor plan is not known. It could be the founder Pac, monks of the Lateran, or Italian artists. No documents survive to explain the ideas behind the decorations, therefore various art historians attempted to find one central theme: Pac's life and Polish–Lithuanian relations, teachings of Saint Augustine, Baroque theater, etc.[19] Art historian Birutė Rūta Vitkauskienė identified several main themes of the decor: structure of the Church as proclaimed at the Council of Trent with Saint Peter as the founding rock, early Christian martyrs representing Pac's interest in knighthood and ladyship, themes relevant to the Canons Regular of the Lateran, and themes inherited from previous churches (painting of Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy and altar of Five Wounds of Christ).[21] The decor combines a great variety of symbols, from local (patron of Vilnius Saint Christopher) to Italian saints (Fidelis of Como),[22] from specific saints to allegories of virtues. There are many decorative elements – floral (acanthus, sunflowers, rues, fruits), various objects (military weapons, household tools, liturgical implements, shells, ribbons), figures (puttos, angels, soldiers), fantastical creatures (demons, dragons, centaurs), Pac's coat of arms, masks making various expressions – but they are individualized, rarely repeating.[23] The architects and sculptors borrowed ideas from other churches in Poland (Saints Peter and Paul Church, Kraków, Sigismund's Chapel of Wawel Cathedral) and Italy (St. Peter's Basilica, Church of the Gesù).[22] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St._Peter_and_St._Paul,_Vilnius" rel="noreferrer nofollow">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St._Peter_and_St._Paul,_V...</a> ======================================================== <b>From the Church's Brochure</b> The church was erected after the Russian invasion that devastated Vilnius in the mid-17th century. Barely a dozen years passed, and the capital of Lithuania began to recover. In 1668 Mykolas Kazimieras Pacas, Hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and wojewode of Vilnius, embarked upon the Antakalnis. The church is decorated by the stucco mouldings of two excellent Italian sculptors, Giovanni Pietro Petri and Giovanni Maria Galli. The interior of the church consists of the main nave, six chapels on both sides, and the transept.
Wawel Cathedral (Polski: Bazylika archikatedralna św. Stanisława i św. Wacława w Krakowie) is a tourist attraction, one of the Roman Catholic cathedrals in Kraków, Poland. It is located: 590 km from Łódź, 760 km from Warsaw, 880 km from Budapest. Read further
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