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 THE ORIGINS OF CRACOW accordingly a great promoter of Western civilization. He built the Cathedral at Plock, and by his order the famous Korsun brass portal, which now adorns St. Sophia's church at Great Novgorod, was made. At the same time, there was living in the court of Plock, as the Duke's chaplain, one Leopard (ab. 1130), whom the medieval chroniclers call "sculptor and goldsmith." It is not impossible that he took part in the execution of the magnificent miniatures in a MS. of the Genesis now at St. Petersburg. This is a masterpiece of twelfth-century art; it exhibits in particular a highly developed sense for the formal beauties of the human body,—just what might be accounted for by a sculptor sharing in the work;—for models, it shows the influence of the Celto-Carolingian patterns. In connection with this it may be mentioned that one of the bishops of Plock, Werner, went in 1165 as ambassador to the court of Frederick Barbarossa.

In this period, most of the Cathedral and Convent Libraries were founded. The Cathedral Archives of Cracow, in spite of the many domestic wars of the time, even now preserve a considerable number of medieval MSS., part of them illuminated. A library of world-wide fame was the very copious one of the Benedictine monks at Tyniec; this, however, in later times,, during the Swedish invasion, was plundered by the enemy, and what remained was destroyed by a fire at Lemberg, where it had been deposited. A magnificent missal from this collection, written in golden letters on purple ground, was sold at Cracow by one of the Swedish soldiers: it is now at Warsaw. It had been illuminated by a master of the Cologne school, and was most probably brought to Cracow by the Benedictine abbot Aaron, who, in 1046, had been consecrated Bishop of Cracow at Cologne. Another library of equal importance was that of the Cistercians in the village of Mogila, and that of the Dominican Convent at Cracow. The other convent libraries of Cracow mostly belong to a later period.

The foundation of libraries was not immediately followed by the rising of vernacular literature. Domestic feuds and the incessant