Title of Product:

Prandocin- the St. John Baptist’s Church as an example of the XII Century Architecture

Image of the product:

Name of Author(s): Malgorzata Fugiel-Kuzminska

Name of Producer: Net periodic: „albumy.pl”

Language/s of Product: Polish

Website of the product: www.albumromanski.pl/album/prandocin/prandocin-01.htm prandocin.uw-hosting.org/index.php?id=p

Target Group: General audience

Availability of community:
Newsgroup

Objectives & Structure:
Aspects to consider:
- The website gives a vivid support via observations and instructions
- Reading out the plan of the church and the styles’ referred formulas and completing
- Plans of the churches, The Polish resemblances as regards the trends of the epoch
- Possibility of the course developing the ideas within a collective database

Description of contents:
The surroundings of Cracow possess numerous Roman Style monuments.
The St. John Baptist’s Church was funded most probably by the Comes Prandot about XII century. The most important traces were left after the epoch of Gothic. Then, there was set off the eastern apse, and in its place there was set in the bigger, bricked, gothic presbytery. From that period there also come partially preserved frescos on the eastern wall of the chorus. In the epoch of Baroque there was introduced a big Baroque altar, and there expanded porch and sacristy.
The church was built on the basis of the limestone’s cuts off, from which on the colour grounds there stands out the bricked presbytery. The temple evidences as a unique example of the double chorus formula (surprisingly similar shaped was in the case of the first church in Jedrzejow). That order was probably a reduction of the widely exposed scheme of the double chorus basilica (it is probable that it was the scheme of the Roman Style basilica on the Wawel) and it does not function outside of Poland. Till now there has preserved the western apse, and the remains of the eastern apse are hidden under the floor of the gothic presbytery.
The non typical space’s organization and the mastery of the architecture’s detail prove the fundation’s richness. The art historians find here some resemblance with the Nadrenian school (and with the Cathedral in Spira) and the Italian. In Poland we find the related architecture style’s details in the Collegiate in Opatow, in Tum by Leczyca, and in the crypt of the Wroclaw Cathedral.
From the western side, over the preserved- western apse there stands 8 sided set below and covered by a Baroqoue helmet tower. The tower was joined with the porch, through which one can enter the church. The primary, richly adorned by the plotted ornament and polichromy (its remains are in red, blue and green) portal with a flat tympanon was set on the southern wall. The external walls of the church were richly decorated- there are fund lizens, half- columns, on the western apse- the arcade fries. Small, primarily surely set in the slanting direction windows were broken through during the Baroque, however on the southern wall there preserved a trace of the window’s framing with the plotted decoration.

Evaluation and Comments:

Description of how the website can be used with the students::
- The website offers a wide scope of thematic information

Comments::
- Student get conscious about very inspiring solutions as regards the style’s compositions and practical correspondences

Evaluation Date: 01.09.2008.

Name of teacher: Michał Seroczyński

Name of School: CKU SOpot

Country: Poland

Subjects Taught: Fine Arts