dr Adam Soćko

Section 2.: On the trail of the Bolesławs - memory of the rule of the first Piasts

The paper is devoted to the analysis of artistic and iconographic choices made by Edward Raczyński, the originator of the Golden Chapel project. The 19th-century aristocrat’s strategies for commemorating the first Piast rulers, which this reading aims to identify, have informed the chapel structure and decoration. Finding the specific points of reference for the form and interior of the building is paramount; both the historical circumstances of the chapel construction and its iconographic programme have been identified, but the genesis of the artistic ideas has scarcely been analysed. A deeper awareness of their origin will help with the precise reconstruction of Raczyński’s intentions, thus contributing to a better understanding of the point of contention in the dispute over the chapel, which eventually led to Count’s suicidal death.