Vivendo morimur, moriendo vivimus. Na styku nowożytnej rzeźby nagrobnej i architektury drewnianej
Vivendo morimur, moriendo vivimus. At the Interface between Early Modern Tomb Sculpture and Wooden Architecture

Summary/Abstract: Numerous Renaissance tombstones of monumental size filled the interiors of churches in vast areas of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the sixteenth century. Most of them had a wall-mounted construction and were made of some types of decorative stones, sometimes supplemented with bronze reliefs. The architectural frames of these monuments contained the images of the deceased, coats of arms, and inscriptions. Our knowledge of the early modern tombstone sculpture in Poland is based almost exclusively on monuments funded for churches made of bricks and stones. Tombstones funded for wooden churches were omitted in the studies due to the poor state of preservation of wooden church architecture, as were tombstones made for wooden buildings. The extent of this phenomenon in early modern times is difficult to determine. Stone monuments derived from wooden churches have been preserved as remains. Therefore, it is not certain what they originally looked like. The issue of the form and structure of sepulchral monuments is an open question. We can only assume that the construction of such monuments required completely different technical solutions, both in brick and wooden buildings.

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