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2024-12-17T08:49:06+01:00

Editorial

2024-12-17T08:51:36+01:00

Wrocławska kuria książąt legnicko-brzeskich w epoce nowożytnej – perspektywy badawcze

2024-12-17T08:53:19+01:00

The present seat of the Institute of History of the University of Wrocław is a four-winged complex occupying the northern part of the quarter delimited by Szewska, Uniwersytecka, Kuźnicza and Nożownicza Streets. The buildings in this area date back to the time before the city was granted an urban charter, and in previous centuries the walls of today’s institute housed burgher residences, possibly a synagogue, a ducal curia, a monastery, a Police Presidium office and university teaching rooms. The heyday of the edifice was during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, when the dukes of Legnica and Brzeg had their residence here, followed by the Ursuline Sisters of the Roman Union. In the 16th c. the houses on Szewska Street were transformed into a ducal city palace, which was given representative Baroque forms in the following century through the modernization of the façade and the introduction of stucco and painting ornamentation into the interiors. Based on these, it can be assumed that the leading architects and stucco artists active in Silesia in the early modern period were involved in these reconstructions: Jakub and Franciszek Parr as well as Carlo Rossi and his workshop. The architectural changes made to the former curia at the end of the19th c. and in the first half of the 20th c. resulted in these representative forms ceasing to be recognizable, and the edifice began to be perceived through the prism of purely clerical and didactic functions. This led to an unjustified depreciation of its place and its role in the development of Silesian architecture in the early modern era.

In recent years archaeological and architectural research has made it possible to uncover and expose those elements that determined the rank of the curia in the buildings of early modern Wrocław: walls of three-story houses from the Middle Ages, whose legible door and window openings allow conclusions to be drawn about their original spatial disposition; the beamed ceilings, vaults and architectural details of the Renaissance period; and Baroque stucco ornamentation and painting. These discoveries open up new research perspectives in relation to the forms of the Wrocław curia of the Dukes of Legnica and Brzeg in the early modern period – both in terms of its construction and decoration – and provide an opportunity to verify the assessment of the significance of this building for the development of architecture in the city and the region. The aim of this article is to review key issues for the study of the early modern forms of the palace, their conditions and potential directions of development.

Wrocławska kuria książąt legnicko-brzeskich w epoce nowożytnej – perspektywy badawcze

2024-12-17T09:05:12+01:00

Niezrealizowany projekt gmachu szkoły św. Marii Magdaleny we Wrocławiu autorstwa Valentina von Saebischa

2024-12-17T09:12:20+01:00

Valentin von Saebisch (1578–1657) is known in the history of Wrocław mainly as a city fortifier. However, in addition to attending to the city’s defences, he was also active there in the field of civil architecture. The aim of the article is to expand knowledge of Saebisch’s design commitment responding to the needs of Wrocław. The analysis performed relates to four drawings that can be dated to the period 1616–1618, comprehensively depicting the design of a grand building. The architectural forms proposed by Saebisch are distinguished by a stylistic language typical of him yet isolated in Silesia, characteristic of the elite architectural foundations developed in the Rudolphine architectural circle. The specificity of the faithfully portrayed details makes it possible to identify the drawing as an unrealised design for the St. Mary Magdalene School in the location to which the institution’s building was moved in the 18th century. Thus, Saebisch’s identified project is a valuable source for research into the architecture of Wrocław at the dawn of the Thirty Years’ War, as well as the non-fortification activities that this architect carried out to meet the city’s needs.

Niezrealizowany projekt gmachu szkoły św. Marii Magdaleny we Wrocławiu autorstwa Valentina von Saebischa

2024-12-17T09:17:18+01:00

Malarz śląski Johann Lichtenstein (1610 – po 1672) i jego epitafium Johanna von Götz und Schwanenfließ, prezesa rady miasta Wrocławia

2024-12-17T09:21:37+01:00

The Wrocław painter Johann Lichtenstein has been rediscovered thanks to an extensive autobiographical inscription he placed on one of his own paintings in the Church of St. Mary on the Sand in Wrocław. It tells us that he was born in Kąty Wrocławskie (German: Canth), that he left Wrocław in 1633, where he probably took his first painting lessons, and that in the course of his travels he visited the home of Peter Paul Rubens in 1636, and then, still on the move, served various mighty lords. Although he returned to Wrocław in 1648 and was active here afterwards, he did not abandon his expeditions. Unfortunately, neither of his two signed canvases in the Church of St. Mary on the Sand Wrocław survived the catastrophe of 1945. The intriguing Lichtenstein painting placed in the epitaph of a local prominent person, Johann von Götz und Schwanenfließ, president of the town council, is preserved in a terrible state in St. Elisabeth’s Church. The theme of the work is salvation, which can also be obtained by repentant sinners. This motif, depicting Biblical sinners gathered around Christ, was gaining popularity from the late 16th and early 17th c., both in Catholic (Flanders) and Protestant circles. In view of the poor state of preservation of this currently only painting by Lichtenstein, the attribution of the two portraits surviving in Wrocław to him can only be hypothetical.

Malarz śląski Johann Lichtenstein (1610 – po 1672) i jego epitafium Johanna von Götz und Schwanenfließ, prezesa rady miasta Wrocławia

2024-12-17T09:29:48+01:00

Hagiografia, heraldyka, ideologia. Obrazy Johanna Jacoba Eybelwiesera młodszego dla klasztoru Franciszkanów Reformatów we Wrocławiu i ich fundatorzy

2024-12-17T09:34:38+01:00

This article analyzes paintings by the Wrocław painter Johann Jacob Eybelwieser the Younger (1667–1744) for the cloisters of the former Reformed Franciscan monastery in Wrocław. Only five of the original series of 22 oil paintings on canvas depicting scenes from the life of St. Anthony of Padua have been preserved. Today they embellish the interior of the parish church of St. Anthony of Padua in Wrocław-Karłowice. Among them are: Presentation of St. Anthony, St. Anthony’s Sermon on the Rain, Resurrection of the Dead, Confession of St. Anthony and Sermon of St. Anthony. The paintings feature the coats of arms and initials of the funders. Their exact identification is possible thanks to the monastery chronicle written in 1750–1756, deposited in the National Archives in Prague. It records that between 1719 and 1722, the friars received donations from 21 contributors to fund the creation of the cycle. Reading their names leaves no doubt that these were the most prominent representatives of the official elite, holding leading positions in the structures of the imperial administration, and in particular in its two most important institutions in Silesia – the Superior Office and the Silesian Royal Chamber. Therefore, the overarching aim of this article is to revisit the chronicle’s records of the cycle’s funding, to identify the donors, and to describe the surviving paintings, defining their ideological program, function, and purpose.

Hagiografia, heraldyka, ideologia. Obrazy Johanna Jacoba Eybelwiesera młodszego dla klasztoru Franciszkanów Reformatów we Wrocławiu i ich fundatorzy

2024-12-17T09:40:24+01:00

Wybrane aspekty treści ideowych w dekoracji kaplicy św. Franciszka Ksawerego przy kościele pw. Najświętszego Imienia Jezus we Wrocławiu

2024-12-17T09:44:38+01:00

The university church, together with the Collegium Maximum, was the most important foundation of the Wrocław Jesuits, which was reflected in the rich ideological programme of the decoration of this building complex. The aim of this article is to analyse selected aspects of the ideological content contained in the decoration of the chapel of St. Francis Xavier in the Church of the Most Sacred Name of Jesus in Wrocław, which has not yet received a monographic study. The literature on the subject emphasises how much attention the Jesuits paid to the message inscribed in the decoration of their buildings, and how they used the power of art to this end. Within this context, religious and political themes have been read and their authors identified. The source material for the analysis of the content of the chapel’s decoration consisted of fragmentary preserved Jesuitica, including Litterae annuae and an inventory of the Jesuit library in Wrocław from 1707. Indirect evidence suggests that the ideological programme and artistic expression of this interior was heavily influenced by the college rector Friedrich Wolff von Lüdinghausen (1643–1708) and prince bishop Franz Ludwig von Pfalz-Neuburg (1664–1732). The article also identifies the formal patterns of these ornaments.

Wybrane aspekty treści ideowych w dekoracji kaplicy św. Franciszka Ksawerego przy kościele pw. Najświętszego Imienia Jezus we Wrocławiu

2024-12-17T09:57:29+01:00

Cztery miecze księcia Jerzego II brzeskiego w drezdeńskiej zbrojowni (Rüstkammer)

2024-12-17T10:02:45+01:00

The article focuses on a group of four longswords at the Dresden Armoury, which, according to an early inventory entry, came from the possession of Duke George II of Brzeg (1523–1586). The group is identified as a likely diplomatic gift by the Silesian duke to the elector of Saxony; the political backdrop of such a gift is discussed, and a possible occasion proposed. After a typological and functional analysis of the swords, the article places the objects in the context of the German fencing culture of the Renaissance. An excursus identifies two further gifts from the dukes of Legnica and Brzeg in the Dresden Rüstkammer.

Cztery miecze księcia Jerzego II brzeskiego w drezdeńskiej zbrojowni (Rüstkammer)

2024-12-17T10:11:29+01:00

Antyczne inspiracje w plastyce figuralnej Georga Leonharda Webera (1672–1739)

2024-12-17T10:30:02+01:00

Appreciation for ancient art in the modern era led to a particular reverence for ancient sculpture. As the process evolved, its scope and scale expanded with the discovery of new statues, the growth of contemporary collections and the emergence of new methods for reproducing classical models. The impact of copies cast in bronze or plaster could not match the popularity and reach of prints depicting ancient figures. Initially published as separate works, over time they also appeared in publishing series (e.g., publications by François Perrier, Jan de Bisschop, Joachim Sandrart, or Giovanni Pietro Bellori and Pietro Santi Bartoli).

The influence of ancient artistic traditions on Baroque artists was not uniform across Europe and depended on many factors. Silesia was not among the privileged regions in this respect, and sculptors working in the area around 1700 had limited possibilities to further their knowledge of ancient art compared to territories closer to Europe’s major artistic centres. This makes the case of Georg Leonhard Weber all the more surprising.

References to ancient art in the figurative sculpture of the Świdnica-based artist are multi-layered. These are usually paraphrases or compilations of ideas derived from several works. His oeuvre reveals numerous references to the most famous ancient statues, such as Belvedere Hermes, Laokoön, Farnese Hercules, Ludovisi Ares, as well as sculptures that are less recognisable but also immortalised in prints: Castor and Pollux, busts of Fauns, Dionysus, or Meleager. The artist acquired his knowledge of ancient works in a manner typical of artists beyond the Alps, mostly through graphic reproductions, and possibly supplemented by studies of copies made in plaster or bronze. Weber also drew on the tradition of modern art assimilating forms taken from ancient visual arts. While these mechanisms were not unusual, the outcomes are exceptional, exceeding the standards of Baroque sculpture in Silesia at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. They place the artist from Świdnica at the forefront of a small group of local sculptors of the time – in particular Thomas Weisfeldt and Johann Georg Urbansky – who consciously followed the formula of antiquity-inspired art.

Antyczne inspiracje w plastyce figuralnej Georga Leonharda Webera (1672–1739)

2024-12-17T10:34:35+01:00