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The exhibits, which belong, with a
few exceptions, to the Wawel King Sigismund I
the Old Castle collection, have been organised
into four sections.The first, entitled
Jagiellonian Wawel, includes exhibits linked to the
arts in the Wawel of the Jagiellons: particularly
during the reigns of King Sigismund I the Old and
Sigismund II Augustus. The Royal Castle, the
building of which was begun by King Alexander around
1504, and then continued and completed by Sigismund
I after 1540, is represented not only by original
fragments of the interior decoration, such as
stonework, tiles, ceiling rosettes and tapestries,
but also by copies of carved wooden heads from the
ceiling of the Envoys' Room. The most important
exhibits are five tapestries with the Polish and
Lithuanian coats of arms from the magnificent
collection of tapestries woven in Brussels after
1550 for King Sigismund Augustus, most of which are
still intact. The other group of exhibits in this
section shows the link between the Jagiellons and
the Wawel Cathedral. They are plaster casts of royal
effigies from their tombstones in the Wawel
Cathedral, from Ladislaus Jagiellon through to
Sigismund Augustus, 19th century bronze caskets in
the shape of the royal tombs, but above all plaster
casts (some from the 19th century) of fragments of
relief decorations from the walls of the Sigismund
Chapel. The mausoleum of the last of the Jagiellons,
built on to the cathedral in the years 1518 to 1533
for Sigismund I the Old by the great Italian
architect Bartolomeo Berrecci, is considered the
most beautiful work of Renaissance architecture
north of the Alps.
The exhibition's
second section, entitled Kings of Poland and Grand
Dukes of Lithuania, has assembled portraits of
almost all the Kings of Poland (simultaneously Grand
Dukes of Lithuania), and their wives and children,
beginning with Sigismund I the Old and ending with
Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski. They are oil
paintings and medals, both original works and copies
painted later. The portrait of St Casimir, the son
of King Casimir Jagiellon, depicted with St John the
Baptist in a religious painting from the first half
of the 18th century, is an imaginary portrayal. The
exhibits beginning this part of the exhibition also
have an educational function. They include a copy of
the coronation sword which was used to crown kings
in the Wawel Cathedral. There is also a copy of the
sceptre donated by Cardinal Fryderyk Jagiellon to
the Krakow Academy, the oldest university in Poland,
which was founded by Casimir the Great in 1364,
reestablished by Ladislaus Jagiello and later named
the Jagiellonian University in his honour.
The collection of the
Wawel Castle contains one of the most extensive
portrait collections of the Polish and Lithuanian
aristocracy in Poland. The third section of the
exhibition, entitled Dignitaries of the Grand Duchy
of Lithuania, includes portraits of members of
prominent Lithuanian noble families: the Radziwill,
Chodkiewicz and Sapieha families. The most
represented family are the Sapiehas. Some of the
portraits belong to the family gallery set up in
Koden at the beginning of the 18th century, which
was transferred to Krasiczyn Castle in the 19th
century (and has been on deposit in the Wawel for
several years).
The final section of
the exhibition is entitled Culture of the Nobility
in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The political
commonwealth of Poles, Lithuanians and Ruthenians
led to the development of a common ideology among
the class of nobles, which was linked to Sarmatism
and expressed in similar models of lifestyle, and
artistic and material culture. Vilnius clocks,
kilims and kontusz sashes were known throughout the
Commonwealth, and the hussars of the Polish Kingdom
and Lithuania were identically armed. Polish and
Lithuanian magnates ordered similar Church garments
from local or foreign manufacturers. Coffin
portraits and plaques, unknown in other European
countries, are a characteristic cultural and
artistic phenomenon of the western and northern
regions of the Commonwealth, and accompanied the
exceptionally elaborate funeral rituals of the
Baroque era.
Kazimierz Kuczman
Curator of exhibition
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