Gothic stained glass
- Subject
- Witraż
- Date
- 2 poł. XIV w.
- Type
- Przeszklenia witrażowe
- Material and technique
- Szkło, ołów
- Size
- 21 m x 65 cm
- Owner
- Bazylika Mariacka w Krakowie
- Copyright
- Bazylika Mariacka w Krakowie
- Location
- Prezbiterium, ściana wschodnia
- Description
- When the new chancel was completed, presumably around 1360, the glazing of all its eleven windows was undertaken. Each window was divided into three vertical sections of twenty quarters each. Recent research by Helena Malkiewicz and Lech Kalinowski has shown that several workshops worked on the stained glass during the second half of the 14th century. The first, under the direction of the so-called Master of the Kraków Bible Pauperum, worked in 1360-65 and began glazing, according to custom, from the liturgically most important window at the close of the chancel. The Gothic stained glass windows survived, although damaged, until the end of the 18th century. At the beginning of the 19th century, the remains of all the quatrefoils from the eleven Gothic stained glass windows were juxtaposed in the three windows enclosing the apse. Of the 120 quatrefoils, 106 date from the Middle Ages. Among them, it was possible to identify the remains of several thematic cycles (Biblia Pauperum, a hagiographic one, two Marian cycles, an Old and a New Testament cycle). The scenes depicted contain two themes: in the north-east window (left), the history of the world according to the Old and New Testaments, and in the east (centre) and south-east windows (right), the life of Christ in typological terms according to the Biblia Pauperum.
