Sepulcrum i Templum Domini. Wokół jerozolimskich konotacji architektury Kaplicy Zygmuntowskiej .......... 587

SEPULCRUM AND TEMPLUM DOMINI: THE JERUSALEM CONNOTATIONS OF THE ARCHITECTURE OF SIGISMUND’S CHAPEL

The article attempts to interpret the meanings evoked by the architecture of the Sigismund Chapel – the mausoleum of King Sigismund I, built next to Cracow Cathedral on Wawel Hill between 1517 and 1533. In light of the analysis, the chapel’s architectural type, a single-space domed structure, appears to be a reference to Jerusalem’s most iconic structures: the anastasis rotunda, a prototypical funerary structure serving as a conceptual reference point for many mausoleums erected in Italy from the early 15th century onwards, and the Jerusalem Temple, which, from the Middle Ages onwards, through its association with the Dome of the Rock, was envisioned in the West as a central structure. As such, this structure also implied Mariological associations, appearing as the house and symbol of the Virgin Mary, making it a suitable ideological model for Cracow chapel which was dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Although the Wawel mausoleum is considered an all’antica structure, equating the Temple in Jerusalem with the central structure, and formally resembling church buildings erected within the papal sphere of influence, ideologically it is an independent creation, praising the justice and piety of the Polish king. Therefore, the sources of inspiration for its concept can be found not only in distant central-domed churches erected in Italy, but also in geographically closer buildings, in which the language of classical forms demonstrated the majesty of royal power. In the author’s opinion, such a structure could have been the Ladislaus Hall at the Royal Castle in Prague, whose ingenious portals evoke the image of Solomon and the Temple in Jerusalem.