Originalveröffentlichung in: Polish Art Studies 12 (1991), S. 27-36 Stanislaw Mossakowski Antique and Renaissance Models of the Porta Triumphalis in the King Sigismund Chapel in Cracow The sumptuous framing of the entrance arcade to the King Sigismund Chapel at the Cracow Cathedral on the Wawel hill, whose sculptural details have been obscured by the loss of decaying sandstone, hidden behind a thickly mullioned bronze grating, has failed so far to become a subject of systematic scholarly research (figs. 1 — 3, 7, 10, ll)1. The architectural scheme of the framing, which consists of a pair of pilasters of the unorthodox “composite” order, placed on high socles and supporting the Corinthian entablature was associated by Lech Kalinowski with a triumphal arch with one passage2, whereas Jerzy Kowalczyk, who studied the triumphal motifs in the decoration of the chapel, referring to the Kalinowski’s observation concluded: “The entrance portal shaped after a triumphal arch anticipates the mausoleum of an emperor-ruler, a king who is «the emperor of his own kingdom» [...]. The spandrels were filled with glorying genii holding torches after the fashion of the triumphal arches of Titus, Trajan or Septimus Severus in Rome”, and “the pilasters are [...] decorated with a vast repertoire of sacrifical instruments and vessels used for ancient triumphal rites [...]: trophies, pateras, pitchers, gorgoneia, cornucopias and heads of sacrifical rams in capitels”3. 1 For a description of the decoration see: S. Cercha and F. Kopera, Nadworny rzezbiarz krdla Zygmunta Starego Giovanni Cini z Sieny i jego dziela w Polsce (A Sculptor in Ordinary of King Sigismund the Old, Giovanni Cini from Siena and his Works in Poland), Krakow, 1916, p. 50, 51. 2 L. Kalinowski, Tresci artystyczne i ideowe kaplicy Zygmuntowskiej. Studia do dziejow Wawelu (The Artistic and Ideological Contents of Sigismund Chapel. Studies on Wawets History), vol. 2, 1960, p. 56, note I. The composite order of the portal is discussed by S. Mossakowski, Proweniencja artystyczna tworczosci Bartlomieja Berecciego w swietle dekoracji kaplicy Zygmun- towskiej (Artistic Provenience of Bartholomeo Bcrecci's Work in the light of King Sigismund Chapel Interior Decorations), “Biuletyn Historii Sztuki”, vol. 48, 1986 [in print]. 3 J. Kowalczyk, Triumf i slawa wojenna all antica w Polsce XVI w., [in:] Renesans, Sztuka i ideologia (The Triumpli and the War Glory all antica in Poland of XVI-th Century), [in:] Renaissance, Art and Ideology, Warszawa, 1976, p. 305 — 307. The definition of a king as “the emperor in his own kingdom” refers to A. Gieysztor’s work, Non habemus ceasarem nisi regem. Stanislaw Mossakowski 28 The problem of meanings which were attributed to the work by the founder-king and the executive artists deserves a separate study. In the present paper I should like only to investigate the origin of motifs that appeared in rich decorations of the Cracow portal, and particularly to recognize those which apparently drew upon actual works of ancient art. If we assumed that the creators of the chapel intended to repeat here the antique forms of a triumphal arch, their simplified rendering of its one- -passage scheme with pilasters in place of the columns and filled with reliefs would be very loosely connected with Roman triumphal arches, the only analogy being the pilastered arch of Septimus Severus, known as l’Arco degli Argentari in the Forum Boarium4 . The Cracow portal, however, is represen- tative of a certain type of Renaissance doorway, already popular at that time. As far as decorations are concerned, the relatively most distant resemb- lance to the antique models can be found in the ornamental candelabra reliefs which fill the small-sized panels in the jambs of the arcade. The same pertains to the carved socles of the pilasters with figures of winged genii holding oval shields with coats of arms of Poland and Lithuania (figs. 1, 7). This motif evidently refers to the tradition which developed in architectural framing especially of Roman tombs at the end of the 15th and in the beginning of the 16th centuries5 . The pose of genii, who stand astride with raised wings as well as their physiognomy evoke the image of one of the two putti with coats of arms, sculpted in the Florentine workshop of Benedetto da Rovezzano. and originally destined for the mausoleum of St. Giovanni Gualberto at Badia di Passignano (fig. 8)6. On the other hand, their fanciful curls, modelled realistically in stone, seem to combine the elements of hairdressing, characteristic of the ancient Roman statues of young ‘Octavian ’ Korona zamkniqta krdlow polskich w kohcu XV wieku i w wieku XVI, [in:] Muzeum i tworca. Studia z historii sztuki i kultury ku czci Prof. dr. Stanislawa Lorentza, (The Museum and the Creator. Studies in the History of Art and Culture. In Honour to Prof. Dr Stanislaw Lorentz), Warszawa 1969, pp. 277 — 292. When mentioning the Arch of Trajan the author probably meant the one at Benevento. 4 M. Pallotino, L'Arco degli Argentari, Roma, 1946; P. Pray Bober and R. Rubin- stein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture. Handbook of Sources, London, 1986, p. 213, 214 (No 180). 5 Cf. the tombs of: Bartolomeo Roverello (d. 1476) in S. Clemente; Pietro Riario in SS. Apostoli; Antonio Rido in S. Francesca Romana, and though with shielded boys not on the socle, of Filippo della Valle in S. Maria in Aracoeli. The Roman origin of the presentation of this motif was first noticed by A. Misi^g-Bochenska, Bernardinus ■ Zanobi de Gianotis Romanus i refleksy dekoracji rzymskiej w kilkti dzielach krakowskich Berecciego, (Bernardinus Zanobi de Gianotis Romanus and the Influences of Roman Decoration in some Cracovian Bereccfs Works.) “Sprawozdanie Poznahskiego Towarzystwa Nauk 1. (58), 1960, p. 63, 64. Other represen- tations of shielded putti, limited in number outside Rome, are mostly wingless and free-standing figures (cf. the tombs of: Carlo Marsuppini in S. Croce in Florence, executed by Desiderio de Settignano in 1455, and Antonio Reselli in the basilica of S. Antonio at Padua by Pietro Lombardo, from ca. 1467), with the exception of small shielded angels on the socles of the retable of the Corpus Christi altar in the cathedral at Gesena, the work of Pietro Lombardo, ca. 1481. 6 E. Luporini, Benedetto da Rovezzano, Milano, 1964, p. 128, pl. 211, 212; A. Luchs, A relief by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, vol. 18, 1974, p. 365, pl. 3. Porta Triumphalis iti the King Sigismund Chapel 29 and Antinous, stored at that time in Florence7. It is also the blown up drapery at their backs that betrays the sculptors’ acquaintance with similarly arranged attires of figures represented to antique reliefs, which were studied carefully by the Renaissance artists. I especially mean the personification of Summer from the socle of the candelabrum (fig. 9)8 now in Musee Conde at Chantilly (I BC). The ancient Roman genesis can also be discerned in the pair of capitals decorated with heads of rams on whose horns garlands of fruits are suspend- ed and adorned with bands on both sides. As I have already remarked elsewhere their rare form results from the combination of patterns, copied from a certain type of capital dating back to the early Roman empire, with motifs which were frequently found on the socles of candelabra or in antique altars, retraced among others by Giuliano da Sangallo9. Antiquity provided the Cracow artists not only with the motif of winged figures in the spandrels of the arcade (figs 2, 3), repeated with utmost accuracy on the entrance wall inside the chapel, but it also offered models for their peculiar stylization, whose provenance Jan Boloz Antoniewicz saw in Paduan Renaissance sculpture, while Julian Pagaczewski derived it from the reliefs by Agostino di Duccio at Perugia and Rimini10. The overall composi- tion of the left-hand figure, repeated less dexterously in the figure on the right side, was borrowed from the relief in the left spandrel of the northern elevation of the Arch of Constantine in Rome, which can be noticed in the arrangement of attire as well as in the representation of the head and the choice of hairdress (fig. 4) 11. Even the oval shape of loose sleeves, which have no equivalent in the reliefs on the Arch of Constantine (their resemblance to the sashes wrapped round the torsos of shield-bearing youths on the tomb of the doge Angrea Vendramin, executed by the Lombardi brothers ca. 1495, led Wlodzimierz Zaloziecki to seek stylistic inspiration for the Cracow reliefs in Venice12) was the modification of analogous sleeves .of figures in the spandrels of the portico from the so-called Crypta Balbi, known as Portico dei Caccabarii. The ruins of this ancient edifice, which no longer exist, are known from the drawings by, among others Giuliano da Sangallo, and their 7 G. A. Mansuelli, Galleria degli Uffizi. Le sculture, part 2, Roma, 1961, p. 51 (No 39), p. 90, 91 (No 98); K. Fittschen, Sul ruolo del ritratto antico nelTarte, [in:] Memoria delt antico neirarte italiana, vol. 2, Torino, 1985, p. 395, 396, pl. 363; Bober and Rubinstein, op. cit., p. 163 (No 128). 8 Bober and Rubinstein, op. cit., p. 94 (No 57). Cf. also the relief, known as “Borghese Dancers”, now at Louvre (Ibid., p. 95, No 59-B). 9 Mossakowski, op. cit., pl. 15, 16. 10 J. Boloz Antoniewicz, O rzezbie figuralnej kaplicy Zygmuntowskiej na Ifiawelu (On the Sculptures in King Sigismund Chapel in the Wawel Castle ), Prace Komisji Historii Sztuki, vol. 1 1919, p. XXIII; J. Pagaczewski, Jan Michalowicz z Urzydowa (Jan Michalowicz firom Urzydow), “Rocznik Krakowski”, vol. 28, 1937, p. 67, note 1.