CRACOW - FLORENCE: Common Architectural Heritage

The ties between Italian culture and Polish culture have centuries-long and very rich tradition. Many Cracow buildings prove the presence of Italian masters in our city. The guests from Florence contributed to transmit Italian forms in Polish architecture. Brought to Cracow by king Sigismundus the Old, Franciscus Italius and Bartolomeo Berrecci, both Florentines, were involved in rebuilding the royal palace and building the chapel by the Wawel Cathedral. The rebuilding of the Cracow Cloth-hall, which had burnt down in 1555, was made by an Italian Giovanni Mario Padovano.

In the 19th century the architecture of Italian Renaissance was studied in Italy by many eminent Cracow architects, who later took advantage of those patterns when constructing the public buildings and tenant houses.

I am glad that - thanks to the co-operation between the Romualdo del Bianco Foundation and Cracow University of Technology - young students and architects have an opportunity of direct contact with ample heritage of Italian art. I believe that such contacts help exchange the experience and mutual improvement.

I am convinced that co-organised cultural activities such as conferences, seminars and exhibitions contribute to building ties between Cracow and Florence and improving our awareness of the ties uniting heritage of the European culture.

Andrzej Golas

Mayor of the city of Cracow

Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation is a non profit institution carrying out following social mission: to organize international meetings in Florence by which people of different cultures and countries may meet, get acquainted, understand each other in order to favor mutual knowledge and friendship and hence to contribute to the development of peace in the world.

By these few words I have tried to sum up all principles, all purposes that inspire our initiatives, where the art and the culture become a powerful engine, an "universal vehicle" to educate, bring together, create understanding and friendship among People coming from different countries and cultures.

I believe that the first priority should be to direct our efforts to young people and their enthusiasm in getting acquainted, as well as their hunger for art and culture. This is the reason so that students of foreign faculties, mainly of faculties of Architecture, Fine Arts, History of Art and Music, play the leading role in each international meeting which our Foundation organizes every year in Florence; a special attention is shown to the students coming from Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Asia and Far East; due to different reasons (historical, political or geographical) these countries have recently shown a great interest toward a stronger international integration and their younger generations just embody this growing interest. To meetings, exhibitions, concerts and many other kind of initiatives by which the Culture as such (that is without any distinction) becomes an engine for the development of interpersonal meetings, knowledge and acquaintances and thus favors friendship. Hence the Culture as an engine for the peace.

Our engagement wants to stimulate young people in sharing and spreading principles of comprehension and tolerance; around those principles Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation intends to gather the enthusiasm, the adhesion, the help of those who consider the art and culture not only an universal expression of beauty, but also a powerful means to contribute to the development of peace in the world.

The exhibition "Kraków - Florence: common architectural heritage" begins under the auspices of Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation, as an example of the initiatives in line with its social mission of international integration. This initiative, in fact, allows not only to strengthen the excellent ties with the Faculty of Architecture of Krakow but, most of all, it gives to the students coming from the Faculties of Architecture of different European Central and Eastern cities and host in Florence by Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation, a new chance to meet and become acquainted.

In such a manner, our Foundation, even though it is aware to be a small, unimportant grain of sand, wants to contribute to realize the above mentioned values of international integration and peace, carrying on its program of meeting in Florence, which will hopefully become a city of international meetings, acquaintance, comprehension and peace:

"For PEACE in the World, among YOUNG PEOPLE of different Countries, through CULTURE

Meeting, Getting Acquainted, Understanding each other to develop Friendship among Peoples"

I trust that the tourist entrepreneurs consider this activity not only as a business opportunity but even more a chance to contribute to the international integration as well as a mission of peace.

I wish that the new millennium will bring in this world peace among people of different cultures, making us discover the pleasure of living together and hoping that future will bring to the mankind a strong will of peace and comprehension and the deep joy of having reached them.

Paolo Del Bianco

President of Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation

Paolo Del Bianco!

On the threshold of the 2000th anniversary of the Christian Europe, four years of the co-operation between Florence and Cracow have passed. Initiated by you, Mr. President, the co-operation was undertaken by the Faculty of Architecture, Cracow University of Technology, by the academic circles from Cracow and Poland as well as from other Central-Eastern European countries. It concerns educating students-the future of intellectually integrated Europe; promoting groups of young research-

ers and intensifying contacts with the European cultural centres.

Our recent co-operation has resulted in meetings and seminars of scientific and designing character, which were organized in Florence, Prague and Cracow. There have been presentations of our common achievements, both historical and present ones. Our students participated in the designing workshops dealing with Florence and her influence on the culture of Central-Eastern Europe. They also evalu ated master’s projects, its contents inspired by historic Florence. They were – and are - very willing to take part in all sorts of our co-operation.

Having a great respect for the Romualdo del Bianco Foundation, we would like to help widespread the Foundation's ideas. Our research and educational programs will continue to be involved in the concept of "integration of Europe" in accordance with the principle of the common cultural heritage. The history of recent 60 years that destroyed the "roots" of European cultural foundations has to be "repaired" by our integrated effort. That is the expectation of the Florence’s intellectual circles. The same applies to the attempts made by Cracow's scientists and students from the Cracow University of Technology.

Today we present in Florence the documentation of masterpieces connected with the Italian Renaissance in Poland. In the future we intend to provide the creative output within the framework of our co-operation.

We express deep gratitude to Mr President Paolo del Bianco for his activating our circles with his ideas in order to work for the integrated Europe - not only in the economic way but in the cultural and intellectual one as well.

Mr President !

We wish you further great successes with the idea of the cultural integration of Europe. We feel that your idea is a creative driving force for our circle – professors and academic teachers - as well as for many students learning about their spiritual roots.

Your contribution to the integration of the European culture will be appreciated by the history.

With regards and thanks for the contribution of the recent years

Waclaw Seruga

Dean of the Faculty of Architecture

Cracow University of Technology

 Kazimierz Kusnierz Dean Deputy for the Research Affairs

Dariusz Kozlowski Dean Deputy for the Program Affairs

Ewa Weclawowicz-Gyurkovich Dean Deputy  for the Students Affairs

CRACOW - FLORENCE: Common Architectural Heritage

There is no need to prove former and present ties between Poland and Italy, as well as the special connection between Cracow and Florence. Apart from numerous personal contacts, family relationships, connections of economic, scientific, artistic and institutional character, this long list should be completed with the recently established Romualdo del Bianco Foundation animated by the unusual personality of the Viva Hotels company's President - Paolo del Bianco.

"Through people - to people - for people". The Foundation's saying seems to appear just in time as in the depersonalized world of computers, automates and sophisticated technologies there is often no space for humanistic reflection, contact of personalities and intellects, or perception of talents. The Foundation intends to ease it all.

In the 15^th (quattrocento) and 16^th (cinquecento) centuries Tuscany and its capital - Florence - was a real motherland of Renaissance, enjoying specially advantageous development conditions and becoming one of the greatest contemporary European commercial and banking centres. Of the Florentine families, quickly growing rich and rivaling one with another, the leadership was taken by the Medicis whose power was to be based upon the foundations created by Giovanni di Bicci, the father of famous Cosimo il Vecchio, the very creator of Tuscany's power and prosperity. Humanistic philosophy and new artistic trends radiated from Florence to all over Europe, including contemporary Poland where perfect political and economic conditions were found to let it flourish. It was in Cracow, the capital of Poland, that the unique conditions for the development of science, culture and art were created.

Presenting the genesis of Renaissance in Poland, Helena Kozakiewicz and Stefan Kozakiewicz drew attention to the importance of humanistic upbringing received by the three sons of king Kazimierz Jagiellonczyk - Jan (John) Olbracht, Alexander and especially Sigismundus I who, as a young heir-to-the-throne staying at the court in Hungarian Buda, became familiar with the Renaissance art in its pure form, realized by the circle of Italian artists.

The Italian artists, their names well-known - Andrea Verocchio, Andrea Ferrucci or Benedetto da Maiano - worked there for the king Maciej (Matthias) Korwin. Perhaps it was through the court of Maciej Korwin that Sigismundus I brought the first group of Italian artists as well as that Francesco della Lora called "The Florentine" (Floreniczyk), whom he commissioned in 1502, belonged to the group. Sigismundus I made him responsible for the important and prestigious task of rebuilding his Cracow residence. Having arrived in Cracow, The Florentine established a workshop at the foot of the Wawel Hill, at the Kanonicza Street, employing Italian architects and sculptors including Bartolomeo Berrecci. It was there that the modernization plans for the royal seat were made, which started with rebuilding the so-called Queens House, as well as numerous architectural details forming a unique composition of three-storied arcades of unusual lightness, whose origin is drawn from the Florentine urban cortille. After The Florentines death, Bartolomeo Berrecci took over the workshop and, depending on his own, built the Sigismundus l’s grave chapel of perfectly pure Tuscan forms, considered by art historians "pearl of Renaissance architecture north of Alps", whose interior was decorated by other outstanding masters: Giovanni Cini from Siena, Bernardino Zanobi de Gianotis and Filip from Fiesole. Berrecci and his group worked also for the Church patronage, especially in the Kanonicza Street neighborhood, which had been chosen by most of the Wawel Cathedral chapter nobles (canons) for locating their seats there. It was them who erected beautiful palaces featuring arcaded courtyards, built for bishop Erazm Ciotek (7 Kanonicza Street), bishop Jan Konarski (9 Kanonicza Streot), and bishop Samuel Maciejewski (1 Kanonicza Street). Mentioned above, Giovanni Cini, Zanobi and Filip from Fiesole were also very active as royal masons involved in the extension of the cathedral in Ptock and rebuilding the cathedral in Vilnius after fire. Moreover, to them is attributed the famous "villa suburbana" near Cracow in Wola Justowska, built on the commission of Jost Decjusz (Dietz) - first the secretary of a Cracow banker and salt-miner-in-chief Seweryn Boner, later a royal advisor and secretary. Controversy over the authorship resulted from the interpretation of a documents character, considered either the contract for the suburban residence construction or, merely, an agreement on financing by Decjusz economic investments under-taken by the Italian masons. And, though recent research in the Decjusz's palace in Wola Justowska did not reveal certain architectural traces of their activity, the designs features such as elegance, harmonious simplicity or functionality and landscape values, seem to be convincing that the artists working in the royal workshops were commissioned by the royal secretary, too.

Another outstanding Florentine artist that left behind his masterpieces in Cracow and Poland was Santi Gucci.

His father, named Giovanni della Camilla, belonged to a numerous group of masons working at the construction of the Florentine cathedral and most probably was the first to teach him his profession. Besides, it is supposed that Santi Gucci was, like his stepbrother Francesco Camilliani, a disciple of the famous Florentine sculptor- Baccio Bandinelli, therefore being influenced by the leading group of Italian cinquecento artists.

The Bandinelli's position among the Florentine artists was particular. It was due to his exceptional talent as well as to his cleverness and being favored by prince Cosimo de Medici, a great patron of art. It was on his commission that Bandinelli and architect Baccio d'Agnolo undertook elaborating the prestigious project of re-building some of the audience halls in the Palazzo della Signoria. In 1547 Bandinelli, on the commission of the prince, built octagonal choir decorated with marble and bronze relieves; for many years he was also a supervisor of the cathedral’s construction. Therefore, if Santi Gucci was Bandinelli's disciple, he must have participated in the great artistic events and received the solid builder’s school.

The first note on Gucci's stay in Cracow, which dates back to 1557, concerns rebuilding the Cloth-hall (Sukiennice) after the great fire of Cracow in 1555. "Santo Italo lapicidae" received in 1557 a remuneration for making a mascaron model, which helped make a whole series of stone sculptures decorating Cloth-hall’s parapet wall. They were made of the Pinczów stone by another Italian artist Giovanni Mario Padovano, a disciple of Agostino Zoppo, who had been active in Poland since 1530 and is considered an author of a whole architectural concept of the Cloth-hall’s parapet wall. Padovano was also an author of the ciborium in the Cracow church of Saint Mary and a tombstone of bishop Samuel Maciejowski in the Wawel Cathedral. The name of Santi Gucci, married to Katarzyna Górska and for some time living in Pinczów where he could have run a stonework workshop, is associated by art historians with creation of architectural masterpieces such as royal palaces in Lobzów by Cracow and Niepotomice, the palace in Ksia,z Wielki, the extension of the castles in Pinczów and Janowiec, the chapter house in Cracow at 21 Kanonicza Streot and the castle in Grodno. Not all of those works have been preserved in their original form: wars, disasters and destruction caused by the economic situation were responsible for their numerous reshaping and rebuilding.

Many more names of the Italian masters working in Cracow and Poland, especially Tuscan ones, can be quoted. It is characteristic that they found there good conditions to develop their talent, wealthy patrons and protectors. They often decided to stay in Poland for their lifetime, set up families and were rooting in the local society. For example, Berrecci, married to a Cracow lady Malgorzata Szela,g, was a juror of the city of Kazimierz (now a district of Cracow), where he owned a house. We also know that Giovanni Cini received Cracow citizenship and, together with his native Nicolas Castiglione, a sculptor and mason from Florence and supposed renovator of the castle in Pieskowa Skata, owned a house in Kraków behind the Mikotajska (Nicolas) City Gate. Many other names of Italian artists appear in the city's documents certifying their great social activity.

Their works, nowadays among the leading architectural monuments of Cracow, have become a great subject of the training and research by many generations of students of the Cracow Facully of Architecture. Many of those whose names can be found in the drawings register are nowadays among the leading figures of art, science and culture; they are eminent creators whose artistic sensitivity has been shaped through the contact with the Renaissance masterpieces considered today the patterns of perfection and aesthetic canons.

Today those cataloguing and artistic works are themselves pieces of art, contributing to the unique archival collection of the Institute of History of Architecture and Preservation of Monuments.

Today we present them as a document illustrating our cultural values - common for both Cracow and Florence - the Renaissance architectural heritage.

Andrzej Kadluczka

Director of the Institute of History of Architecture and Preservation of Monuments

Faculty of Architecture, Cracow University of Technology