Treści chrystocentryczne i angelologiczne modlitw Gertrudy Mieszkówny na tle ówczesnej ikonosfery
Christocentric and angelologic issues in Gertruda Mieszkówna’s prayers against the background of 11th c. iconosphere

Summary/Abstract: Gertude, a Polish 11th century princess, the daughter of Mieszko II, an educated but unfortunate sovereign of the Polish Piast dynasty, and Richeza, the sister of the archbishop of Cologne, the wife of Iziaslav, the Prince of Kyiv – is remembered thanks to the collection of almost one hundred Latin prayers included in the so-called Codex Gertrudianus preserved in Museo Archeologico in Cividale in north-eastern Italy. The paper aims at presenting the relationship between the text of the prayers and then iconosphere – works of eastern and western art which Gertrude knew, could have known and which were produced in her times. Her prayers are accompanied by five miniature Bizantine-Ruthenian paintings and it was also under her very eyes when marvellous mosaic were being made in Kyiv by artists from Constantinople. In Rhineland, where she received her education, she may have the opportunity to see, in the foundations of her aunts-abbesses, the series of Christological scenes, such as e.g. a series of reliefs on the door of the Santa Maria im Kapitol church in Cologne or the images on the cover of a gospel in Essen. One of the miniatures included in her Codex show the crucifixion and this was the scene she could have seen in Kraków in the Tyniec Sacramentarium, offered to the Polish Benedictines by their fellow monks from Rhineland. Similar parallels may be drawn between the image of Christ seated on a throne included in the Codex and Maiestas Domini from Tyniec. These works contain also seraphs, cherubs and thrones of angelic choirs. In the central dome of the Saint-Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, one of the most monumental 11th century mosaics, Gertrude was watching the image of Pantocrator among archangels and in the scene of Annunciation she saw the Archangel Gabriel and Mary. As a faithful of the Latin rite, in Rhutenia she could at the same time contemplate the crowning achievements of the spirited Eastern art of that time.

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