Galéria – Ročenka SNG 2004–2005
3. Cracow, Main Market Square no 17, the boss decorated with a helmet surmounted by crest of the Dobrzyń region. 1365–1370 (?). Photo: S. Michta
4. Cracow, Main Market Square no 17, the boss decorated with a helmet surmounted by crest in the form of an eagle’s wing. 1365–1370 (?). Photo: S. Michta
in accordance with the style of the reliefs. The most difficult question to resolve concerns the function of this interesting building. I will venture to repeat my own recently formulated thesis that this was a royal palace which played an important propagandistic role in the city, among the main municipal edifices.11 What links the two above-discussed buildings is their location, their connection with municipal and at the same time royal power, the political programme represented on the vault bosses, the decoration combining the armorial bearings and bust portraits of rulers, as well as a replacement of escutcheons with crested helmets. This substitution is of extremely important consequence for the composition of the bosses, because their decoration acquired an unusual monumentality, especially in Cracow, where the deep-carved reliefs give the impression of fully wrought sculptures suspended from the vault. The effect of realism is additionally enhanced by the fact that the helmets are shown in different views – in profile, in three-quarters, and in full face. Two of the Cracow crests are set on the so-called Schirmbrett (screen-panel), frequently encountered in West European heraldry.12 These features cannot of course be analysed as stylistic properties sensu stricto. The choice of such a mode of expression resulted rather from a high heraldic consciousness and erudition exhibited by the authors of the two programmes of decoration. One of the most outstanding contemporary heraldists in Poland, Stefan K. Kuczyński, wrote about the refinement of such solutions,13 and as early as 1898 Franciszek Piekosiński had observed that “in monuments of architec-
ture this phenomenon is most unusual, and bosses in churches, representing coats of arms shaped like this, could be counted on one’s fingers”.14 In both groups a prominent position is occupied by closed helmets which were widespread in the first half of the 13th century, gradually to become anachronistic in the following century. Having lost their importance in battle, these headpieces were nevertheless transformed into elements of tournament equipment and of a knight’s gala costume. According to Andrzej Nowakowski, “in iconography a closed helmet soon became a symbol – the attribute of a knight and no mean one. By representing combatants in such helmets, medieval artists emphasized their noble birth and their membership in the knightly class. A plebeian, a Moor, a Turk, or a Mongol could only be shown in an open helmet. A Christian knight, especially an eminent one, was entitled to a closed helmet, typical exclusively of Latin Europe, suitably ornamented, and with time provided with a crest and mantling”. 15 The headpieces
11
I discuss these problems extensively in the book: WALCZAK, Marek: Rzeźba architektoniczna w Małopolsce w czasach Kazimierza Wielkiego (in print). 12 OSWALD, Gert: Lexikon der Heraldik. Leipzig 1984, p. 351. 13 KUCZYŃSKI, Stefan Kryzstof: Polskie herby ziemskie. Geneza, treści, funkcje. Warszawa 1993, p. 11. 14 PIEKOSIŃSKI 1898 (op. cit. note 9), p. 2. 15 NOWAKOWSKI, Andrzej: Uzbrojenie ochronne. In: Uzbrojenie w Polsce średniowiecznej 1350–1450. Ed. Andrzej NADOLSKI. Łódź 1990, p. 41.
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