The Branickis’ Tomb and the Chapel of St. Stanislaus Kostka, the Defender of Poland Against „the Pagan” in the Jezuit Church in Cracow

Abstract

In the post-Jesuit St Peter and St Paul church in Cracow the eastern wall of the transept’s southern arm is filled with the magnificent tombstone of the Branicki family (the coat of arms – Gryf): of Jan Klemens, the Crown Court Marshal (died in 1673), his wife, Aleksandra Katarzyna née Czarniecka (died in 1698), and their son, Stefan Mikołaj, the Podlasie Voivode (died in 1709) and his wife, Katarzyna Scholastyka née Sapieha (died in 1720) (Fig. 1). The tombstone forms a big wall painting surrounded with portraits of the dead that is placed under the portal over the entrance to the chapel situated beside it. The painting shows a fragment of a battle, with the commander leading the soldiers for the fight against the Turks in the foreground. Over the battle the Virgin Mary with Infant Jesus are hovering on a cloud; in front of them a young priest in kneeling, pointing with his hand to the fighting ones (Fig. 2).

The painting in the tombstone has raised the researchers’ interest for a long time – they have tried to find out which battle is presented in it. From the middle of the 19th century the opinion prevailed that the painting presents the victory gained by Jan Sobieski, then still a hetman, over the Turks at Chocim in 1673. Identification of the painting with another big picture (known from mentions in archival sources) probably contributed to this opinion. The picture was an easel one and it was hung on the same transept arm; it also showed the battle against the Turks at Chocim, but the one in 1621; it was offered for the church by King Jan III in 1676. With time opinions appeared that in the tombstone painting the battle against the Cossacks and Tartars at Beresteczko in 1651 was presented, then – the battle against the Turks and Tartars at Lvov at 1675, and finally (quite recently), that it was the battle of Vienna against the Turks in 1683.

The painting undoubtedly presents the Vienna victory of 1683. This is proven by: the numerous borrowings from Martino Altomonte’s The Relief of Vienna from the parish church in Ż ółkiew (1696) (Fig. 3) (among them ones so significant for identification of the contents as the figure of King Jan Sobieski and a panoramic view of Vienna) and participation of Stefan Mikołaj Branicki (the initiator of raising the monument) in the battle of Vienna. However, the question remains unanswered, why in the presentation of the battle the figure of St Stanisław Kostka appeared. The victories of Chocim in 1621 and 1673 were generally attributed to his advocacy; but not the one of Vienna. In order to answer the question we can try to show that Jan III Sobieski attributed all his victories to the intercession of that saint; however, the proper explanation should be looked for in another way – we have to find out about the circumstances in which the tombstone was raised.

In the second half of the 17th century the Branickis changed the burial place of the members of their family to the St Peter and St Paul church in Cracow (earlier they were buried: first in the church in Ruszcza, then in the chapels that they had founded – in the church in Niepołomice, in the Franciscan monastery in Che˛ciny, in the Tarnów collegiate and in Jasna Góra in Cze˛stochowa). The reasons for the choice of the Jesuit church were probably: its magnificence and the fact that it was situated in the capital city of Cracow, which suited the ambitions of the family that had recently gained the status of magnates as well as the numerous ties the Branickis had with the Jesuit order – they were the benefactors of their Cracow home and Jan Klemens’s brother reached the dignity of the provincial in that order. In the church where the bodies of his parents rested Stefan Mikołaj Branicki decided to raise ‘a rich and ornate tombstone for his father, mother, wife and successors’; and, certainly, for himself.

At the time when the plans for raising the Branicki family monument were ripening, the Cracow Jesuits started preparations for honouring St Stanisław Kostka whose canonization (he still was blessed only) was expected from 1714. An occasion arose to decorate the Saint’s chapel (formed by the southern arm of the transept) using the money from the founders of the monument. The ideological programme of the tombstone had to be drawn up that would connect in the proper way St Stanisław Kostka’s glory with the glory of the Branicki family.

Since in the chapel there was already an altar with a picture showing the Saint’s Vienna vision (Mary with Infant Jesus appeared there to the young Jesuit in 1566; Fig. 4), and on one of the side walls the mentioned picture of the 1621 battle of Chocim was hanging (with the same saint, also kneeling before the Madonna with Child), the Branickis were allowed to place the tombstone on the eastern wall of the chapel that was very well seen from the nave and from the row of chapels. In the tombstone the painting showing the famous victory at Vienna in 1683 would be exposed (also with St Stanisław and the Madonna with Jesus), forming in this way a pendant for the painting with the battle of Chocim and, to a lesser degree, for the painting in the altar. In a tombstone situated in this way its lower part would turn into a portal leading to the chapel of the Holy Relics in which a special place would be taken by St Stanisław Kostka’s head and rib.

The Branickis surely had nothing against such honours for the Polish tutelary saint – in the battle of Vienna Stefan Mikołaj took part (he is shown in the painting immediately behind Sobieski, holding a banner with his coat of arms – Gryf; this figure may be compared with the portrait in the tombstone; Fig. 5), and his son, Jan Klemens (the hetman), who completed erecting the monument, celebrated St Stanisław Kostka (he founded his altar in the Tyczyn church).

It was not then accidental that the tombstone was completed in the middle of 1725, half a year before Stanisław Kostka was canonized.