Poland during the Renaissance

Let me express it more directly:

Hal: you lost a lot of cred in the last week or so. A lot. At least for a while, I suggest you fit in or fu(k off.

In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Well, looky here. We got ourselves a Toblerone-denier, boys...

nah ,just someone who has waited since the dawn of the internet for an excuse to quote the best film ever :)

Poland did produce some literature. And a unique culture. And Poland did civilize a nation or two, and did colonize wilderness. And preserved a rather interesting foreign culture. And protected this part of Europe against Islam. And... well... all right, we didn't cull heretics, but every country has it's weaknesses, innit.

Subtle is something you don't really get do you. However the marked difference in the achievements of Italy and Poland during the Renaissance is far from subtle.

And they had better weather too. Have a cookie.

And knew how to use it.

The question one could ask is,there are Italianate buildings all over Poland,where are the Polenate buildings?
But only when playing Devils Advocate ...

Wiki: The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture.

Don,t trust the Devil, man... :)

He's got some great tunes though apparently ;0

Wawel
Around 1504, King Alexander Jagiello commissioned a German architect Eberhard and an Italian sculptor and architect Francesco the Florentine to rebuild the Gothic residence in a Renaissance fashion. The King’s brother Sigismund I (the Old) continued this enterprise from 1507. Master Francesco, the creator of the decorative stone bay window in the western wing, had erected the eastern wing of the castle, and begun the construction of the arcaded galleries before his death in 1516. Further work was conducted by Master Benedict and then by the famous Bartholomeo Berrecci (the creator of Sigismund’s Chapel in the Cathedral). After his death in 1537 the work was continued by Niccolo Castiglione and Mateo the Italian. The interior decorations were created by sculptors, wood carvers – Sebastian Tauerbach and Hans the Wood-Carver, who built the wooden ceilings, and painters who decorated the walls with friezes and painted royal portraits. The Castle’s halls and chambers gained much splendour after Sigismund I Augustus acquired magnificent Flemish tapestries.

from official site

And now you're hitting me with aesthetics. Nasty.

As per topic :) the Italian Renaissance, as popularly understood, was very popular in Poland at the time. Influential too. We even imported some Renaissance Italians, hard cash paid. And we keep some paintings up till now, those missed by Ger... Nazis and Ru... Soviets. Honest.

Edit:


I didn't even know all these names, impressed... But the Alter in Kościół Mariacki was sculpted by Wit Stwosz! And you BratBoy just shut up right now!

And what is your point? That the Polish king was rich enough to hire some talented Italian architects, sculptors and painters? Hey, he was even rich enough to cover the chapel in the Cathedral all in real gold!!


Oh, I can teach you those names, no problem. After all I'm tour guide from Kraków.

Sorry, Bzi, I don't care :) I mean, I don't care to know all of them. They were second sort anyway.

Spoilsport ;)


No, they were decent.

That's roughly what I meant. Not bad.

Nope,Ive been a few times,but that was a cut and paste from the Official site Im afraid :)


Ive still not got in there yet....maybe its my Methodist childhood or agnostic adulthood,but I always fear a sudden bolt of lightning around catholic churches ;).....nah,actually,it always seems to be either shut or a service going on when Ive been,but,being a bit closer to the low countries a bit of flemmish woodwork is not a main pulling point in Krakow for me....the girl behind the Bar in bar Szara a few meters away back in 04,now she was a reason to hang round the rynek :)

JChrist, you got to go there and admire! Now!

Nobody can be trusted these times. People are hopeless. Good night. Yes.

well played mods ;)


Ok,I promise,if you promise,if in the UK to visit York and its Minster.

I think the closest we can get is the Polish Mannerist architecture that emerged from the later years of the Italian high Renaissance.

The architecture of the 16th century Polish mannerism is marked by common usage of richly embellished attics of palaces and houses, arcade courtyards and side towers. The church architecture combined the late gothic tradition with renaissance symmetry and mannerist decoration. Churches were slender, usually without towers. The 17th century Polish mannerism characterize with much more simplicity in decoration in benefit to harmony of the construction.

Polish mannerism

Chelmno ratusz



Kryski Tomb in Drobin



Kazimierz Dolny, Przybyła Houses



Warsaw Royal castle



Krasicki Palace

Certainly unique, gorgeous photos mate,thanks.

I think the two key areas where Poland (and later Pol/Lit Cth) 'did something' during the Renaissance period were in the fields of Constitutional/legal reforms and military theory.

Poland was the only country in Europe to have in place a gradually increasing volume of laws and Constitutions essentially de-centralising 'power' away from the monarch, thus paving the road away from centralised, autocratic and absolutist rule.

Whilst the 'power' of the ruler was diminished somewhat, it was more the case as I see it that the ruler was to be held accountable, and hamstrung in regard to any machinations toward autocratic rule, rather than being politically impotent. I think it was Davies who suggested that as a consequence of the Pacta Conventa and the Henrican Articles (amongst others), no king of Poland could have aspirations other than being a closely monitored manager of a body politic. That said, a competent monarch, such as Batory, wielded power effectively, ensuring that the checks and balances against unilateral and arbitrary exercise of power were rarely evoked by carefully navigating through what he could and could not do.

Whilst these political/constitutional imperatives may seem commonplace and unremarkable to us relative to today's democratice principles, it must be remembered that the context to which these reforms took place, against the European backdrop of absolutist leanings at the time, were quite simply remarkable.

No such king sorry, Aleksander Jagiellonian was the name.


And architecture and legislature and philosophy.

As for polish reinessance? Astronomy (no not only Kopernik) the first artillery handbook in Europe, cavalry tactics that would dominate the world for over a century, laws from which all of Europe sourced its later constitutional orders


upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Lwow-StaryUniwersytet-kosciolSwMikolaja.jpg

Here for example.

It's pretty hilarous to see the usual bashing of Poles by those who either do not realize, or choose not to realize the fundamental difference between Poland and Italy. Rome had been well developed long before Poland came tobeing as a political and cultural entity. For centuries before the first Polish king, Romans had been in contact and under direct influence of Greeks, Romans, North Africa and Middle East. They already knew that the earth was flat and some even accepted a cerain Greek's idea that the weak and handicapped are best served by euthanasia.

That was around the time when Slavs, wearing animal skins, were standing on a river bank, staring at a goup of people on the other side (also wearing animal skins), and wondering whether they too were Slavs or some Germanic peoples.

Thus, I am not surprised at a late adopion of the Renaissance in Poland, but what surprises me is why did it have to be a Renaissance (rebirth) in Italy. How come such a forward lookig and advanced society dragged the rest of Europe into a 1000 year long time of the Dark Ages during which Poland offered save heaven to many so caled heretics and to Jews. But then, perhaps it wasn't the Italian's fault. Could have been some of those animal skin wearing peoples standing on the Germanic side of the river who destroyed the developed civilization only to admit the mistake a thousand years later?

Just speculating.

I think the point Dariusz was trying to make (and forgive me if I misunderstand you ZD), is that rather than going through a 'renaissance' per se, Poland, in essence, during the Renaissance period merely led the way in the cited disciplines, consequent upon an organic predisposition toward those being the best in those disciplines rather than as a reaction to, or by virtue of, what the renaissance was all about?


Good point. Supreme tactics unparalled at the time (say early 1500's to mid 1600's) with another resurgence (albeit limited) during the Napoleonic period.


'Tis ironic in the circumstances that said 'bashers' have referred to our good selves as the 'nasty brigade'.

I've just started working on a translation of Walenty Rozdzienski's Officina Ferraria (1612). The source version is available here.
pbi.edu.pl/book_reader.php?p=50174 broken link?
An English translation was published in 1976 but is not available online, which is a shame as such a significant poem really deserves a wider audience. I'm planning to do 8 lines a day and I figure that at this rate it'll take me about six months to complete. Any feedback would be more than welcome. Here's the link:

rozdzienskiproject.blogspot.com