Page:Cracow - Lepszy.djvu/168

 ART FROM THE RENASCENCE and architect in one—Il celebre Musca, che lasciava in marmo ed in bronzo opere pregevolissime—had already won a name at home by his decoration of St. Anthony's Church at Padua. From his hand also came the exquisite medallions of Sigismund and Bona Sforza. As an architect he produced several Cracow buildings described above, and many others in other places in Poland. The tombs of King Sigismund I (illustration 58), of Bishop Peter Gamrat (d. 1545), of Peter Boratynski (being the first piece of Renascence sculpture in freestone), the statues adorning the ciborium altar in St. Mary's Church, dame from his workshop. In the tomb of King Sigismund, besides Musca, John de Senis had a share, and the figure of Sigismund Augustus filling the raised niche was added by Santi Gucci. Thus the double tomb is not a uniform work of plastic art, but a composite creation of three different artists. Near the Sigismund Chapel we notice the tomb of Bishop John Konarski, of Cracow (d. 1525), another specimen of Italian art.

The numerous other masters of this period, known by name as having worked at Cracow, shall not be separately noticed here, because no direct connections can be established between each of them and any extant monuments. Of these we may yet mention the tombs of Bishop Samuel Maciejowski (d. 1550)—one of the most perfect works of the Renascence, pure and sublime in style—of Andrew Zebrzydowski (d. 1560)—rich in decorative ornament and of Valentine Dembinski, castellan of Cracow (d. 1584). All three are closely allied in structure. Another one, quite distinct from the rest, is the standing image of a Polish knight, Peter Kmita (d. 1553), Crown-Marshal and waywode of Cracow, the last scion of a noble race, praised in contemporary records as vir animi magni et consilii. Of the grand display of plastic ornament in the castle, particularly in the royal apartments, nothing has been preserved except the door and window frames mentioned before, and some of the heads carved in wood that adorned the meeting-hall of the Diet. These carvings, however, point to the Prankish school rather than to Italian models; but it is difficult to say, whether they