St. Hyacinth's Church ( pl, Kościół św. Jacka), named after Saint Hyacinth of Poland, is located in Warsaw's New Town at Freta Street 8/10.

History

St. Hyacinth's Church was founded by the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of ...

and adjoins Warsaw's largest monastery. The church is a mixture of

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

and early-

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...

styles. Its construction began in 1603 and it was completed in 1639. During the construction and shortly afterwards the church was encompassed with ornate chapels. In 1627 Jadwiga Mińska established the Holy Cross Chapel, the so-called ''Dark Chapel'', and in 1651 the Royal Musicians founded the Chapel of Our Lady of the Snows. When Warsaw was captured by Swedish and

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an area of 29,480 squ ...

ian forces in 1655, the church shared the same fate as other buildings in the city. it was ransacked and burned. After the war it was rebuilt and consecrated in 1661 by bishop Wojciech Tolibowski, the bishop of Poznań. In 1662 the bell tower was erected, adjacent to the church, and in 1690 the

Wyszogród Wyszogród is a town in central Poland, in Masovian Voivodeship, in Płock County, by the Vistula River. The population of Wyszogród was 2,793 in 2004. History The settlement dates back to the 7th century, when there was a Slavic pagan temp ...

pantler A pantry is a room or cupboard where beverages, food, and sometimes dishes, household cleaning products, linens or provisions are stored within a home or office. Food and beverage pantries serve in an ancillary capacity to the kitchen. Etymol ...

Adam Kotowski established the most important church feature - the St. Dominic Chapel. The ornate baroque building was constructed according to the design by prominent Warsaw architect Tylman Gamerski. The 18th century was the age of the church's greatest prosperity. The monastery's library possessed the richest collection of volumes in Poland. Unfortunately it was later completely destroyed. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the church and monastery served the Polish forces in the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led ...

as a

field hospital A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine (such as the Mobile Ar ...

. This fact turned these buildings into targets of frequent

bombing A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanica ...

s by the Germans. During the bombardments over a thousand civilians and insurgents were killed.

Interior

The facade is baroque, although the interior is completely modern, because very few of the original furnishings of the church were preserved. Among them, the most interesting are the tomb monuments - the

mannerist Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Ita ...

tomb of Katarzyna Ossolińska, constructed in 1607 (it was only partially reconstructed); the tomb of Anna Tarnowska, carved from brown

Chęciny Chęciny (Yiddish: חענטשין – Khantchin or Chentshin) is a town in Kielce County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, southern Poland, with 104,361 inhabitants as of December 2021. It was first mentioned in historical documents from 1275, an ...

marble in about 1616, which depicts Anna in the typical Polish sepulchral art sleeping pose; the black marble epitaph of Regina Sroczyńska, a wealthy merchant from

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula, Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland un ...

, originally adorned with a

coffin portrait A coffin portrait ( pl, Portret trumienny) was a realistic portrait of the deceased person put on coffins for the funeral and one of the elements of the castrum doloris, but removed before the burial. It became a tradition to decorate coffins of ...

of Regina painted on tin plate. Next to the sanctuary there is a chapel for St. Dominic with the most valuable element of the church's furnishing - an 18th-century wooden statue of ''Ecce Homo'' by Antoni Osiński, with profuse

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

decorations, a black marble altar and a portal.

References

External links

*
Dominikanie na Freta
*
Kościół pw. św. Jacka i klasztor Dominikanów
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Hyacinth's Church, Warsaw Roman Catholic churches completed in 1639 17th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Poland

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

Hyacinth 1603 establishments in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Religious organizations established in 1603 Baroque church buildings in Poland

History

Interior

See also

References

External links