Wawel Cathedral

Architecture Around the World ......................Poland - Table of Contents

South façade, Wawel Cathedral
Cracow (Krakow), Poland

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Right: Renaissance *Sigismund's Chapel; left* is the Baroque Vasa Chapel**	17th century Renaissance style pedimented entrance	14th century Renaissance style pedimented entrance	Acroterion includes religious imagery

Corinthian capital	Built 1619 A.D.		Scroll buttress

Baroque Vasa Chapel ... Renaissance King Sigismund's Chapel	Renaissance King Sigismund's Chapel	Finial	Lantern

		Gilded cupola	Gilded cupola

Dragon gargoyle		Renaissance King Sigismund's Chapel

Wawel Cathedral — the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Stanislaw and Vaclav - and Castle stand on Wawel Hill, a 15-acre rocky limestone outcropping on the banks of the Vistula River, dominating Old Town Krakow. The hill is a natural point for fortification on the otherwise flat Vistula Plain.

In the 8th century Wawel Hill was topped with a tribal stronghold; since the 10th century it has hosted a royal residence and the seat of the bishops of Kraków. From 1037, when Kraków became the capital of Poland, Polish kings were crowned and buried in Wawel Cathedral.

The present cathedral, the third to stand on this site, was begun in 1320 and completed in 1364. The original austere structure remains mostly unchanged today, save for some Renaissance and Baroque chapels that now huddle up against it.

Two chapels flank the entrance (they were both built as funerary chapels):

On the left is the Baroque Vasa Chapel, or Kaplica Wazow, built a hundred years later, but with an identical ground plan as the earlier Sigismund's Chapel. It was planned in 1598 by King Sigismund Vasa (the son).

On the right is the Renaissance King Sigismund's Chapel, or Kaplica Zygmuntowska, or or Zygmunt Chapel, covered with a gilt dome. This is is one of the most notable pieces of architecture in Krakow and perhaps the purest example of Renaissance architecture outside Italy. It was financed by King Sigismund I the Old, it was built in 1517-33