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Niepołomice. Church of Ten Thousand Martyrs

Niepołomice. Church of Ten Thousand Martyrs

Niepołomice. Church of Ten Thousand Martyrs

Niepołomice. Church of Ten Thousand Martyrs

Niepołomice. Church of Ten Thousand Martyrs (detail)

Niepołomice. Church of Ten Thousand Martyrs (detail)

In the 16th century, this church received a Renaissance Chapel from the Branicki Family. In 1596, the Starost of Niepołomice, Jan Branicki, became the founder of the great memorial chapel for his parents, Katarzyna (d. 1588) and Grzegorz (d. 1595) which lies adjacent to and on the southern side of the church. The chapel and the monument are the work of the royal court architect, Santi Gucci. A gate that is today found in the wall surrounding the church also comes from the chapel, as it originally served as a portal to it.

The Branicki Chapel is of unimposing size, adapted to that of the church. It is roofed with a lanterned dome resting on pendentives, and the interior is lit by round windows. Situated opposite the entrance is the figural funerary memorial of the two Branickis, chiselled in grey stone and red marble. The composition includes a tripartite plinth, on which rests a colonnade with three arcades. The sculptor placed three figures in the arcades: the kneeling Branicki and his wife in the side niches with resurrected Christ in the centre. This is one of the earliest representations of nearly complete statues of kneeling figures in Polish tomb sculpture. The decorative motifs applied - a skull with crossbones, winged heads of cherubs, rolled cartouches, rounded protrusions, and symmetrically composed vertical ornaments of leaves and flowers on the pilasters are typical of Santi Gucci and are present also in his other works.

In the beginning of the era of the Italian Renaissance in Poland, Bartolomeo Berrecci from Florence developed two variants of the model central domed chapel. The one used for the design of the Sigismund Chapel was more complex, and the one applied in the Bishop Tomicki Chapel (both in the Kraków Cathedral) was simpler. The two became models for later structures, but the simpler chapel, without a drum, was replicated more frequently, an additional factor being its lower costs of construction. The Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre in Miechów was modelled on the latter in the 1530s and so was the mortuary chapel of the Branickis in Niepołomice towards the end of the century. Kraków - in the 16th century, the royal capital city of Poland -radiated its culture and art out over the province. As the model designs of Berrecci were popular for over a hundred years, their application can be perceived as an indication of a certain stagnation.