„Soli gloria Deo”. Stałość w zmienności na przykładzie modyfikacji ołtarza głównego Kościoła Mariackiego w Gdańsku

Abstrakt

In 1511 in Gdańsk a contract was signed between the guardians of Our Lady’ Church and Master Michael of Augsburg according to which the latter was to build a new main altar. It was to be the third main altar founded for the church. The first one was probably built as early as about 1363. The second altar for the church that was constantly extended was established on 2 August 1476.

On 25 January 1517 in St Mary’s Church, at the altar newly built by Master Michael, the first Holy Mass was celebrated; it was one on the Virgin Mary’s Assumption. The presbytery was filled with the great altar retable, about 15m tall and 7m wide. It consisted of three basic parts: a predella, the main box with three pairs of wings and an architectonic finial. In the solemn opening it presented the Triumph of Our Lady and the Church in Heavenly Jerusalem. In the finial the central figure was Christ ascending Heaven.

Probably in 1539 the painter Master Merten enriched the altar’s painting contents placing ten Christological scenes on the reverse of the box and three scenes illustrating the life of Esther on the reverse of the predella. In 1618 the altar was subjected to renovation made by Izaak van den Blocke.

On 22 April 1804 Jacob Domke, a Gdan´ sk merchant, died, assigning a certain sum of money for a renovation of the main altar. The devastated late Gothic finial was dismantled and a figure of Our Lady and the Infant was put over the closed altar box, devoid of the painted side wings. Over it a relief presentation of the Prayer in Gethsemane, and still higher, the scene of Crucifixion were put. The former predella was replaced by the picture of the Last Supper painted by F.C. Mayerheim.

In 1867 the guardians of the church decided to order a new altar finial. On 5 June 1870 the altar, cleared from the grey paint, gilded and painted again, complemented by Julius Wendler with a neo-Gothic finial referring to the primary one, rich in meaning; with a new predella showing Jesus’ Reposition, was solemnly consecrated.

The next stage of the altar’s history was connected with the development of the modern theory of conservation. In 1936 the neo-Gothic finial and the side framing were dismantled, the renovated side wings were mounted and the original predella was restored. In 1944, before the expected Soviet offensive, the altar was taken to pieces and taken to Kadyny. There it remained until the war was over. After the necessary restoration works in 1966 the still incomplete altar returned to its former place where it was still subjected to further preservation measures.

The magnificent and extraordinarily precious work of art brings the mood of the late Middle Ages enriched with Renaissance elements. It was devoted to the Virgin Mary reigning together with the Trinity on a common throne in the centre of a richly developed presentation of Heavenly Jerusalem. However, the work, profuse in meanings connected with the Virgin Mary, was crowned with the figure of the ascending Christ; and among the verses engraved on the brass candlesticks to extol Mary, there is one saying ‘Soli gloria Deo’ – ‘Glory to God Himself’. This invocation remained topical when all the Protestant changes took place in the retable’s form and contents. Keeping at all times the scenes devoted to Mary and the figure of Christ crowning them stress his superiority in the history of Salvation.