The goal of this study is, on the one hand, to outline the circumstances leading to formation of the convent of Reformed Franciscans in Namysłów in 1675, and on the other hand, to show the way of conducting historiographical narrative in the chronicle sources of Reformed Franciscans. This issue is particularly interesting in the context of repossession activities, which have been conducted by the St. Wenceslaus’ Czech province of Reformed Franciscans since the beginning of the 17th century, aiming at the return of observance monasteries confiscated in the era of the Reformation and, in this way, rebuilding the struc-tures of the province. The goal of systematized vision of the past was, on the one hand, to consolidate the young province, on the other hand, to demonstrate historical rights of Czech Reformed Franciscans to particular monastic houses. An example of such narrative, coordinated by one of the provincials, Fr Bernard Sannig, is a chronicle of the convent of Reformed Franciscans in Namysłów, which was, with 9 other monasteries, a Silesian part of Czech province.
The objective of the present study is to examine the role of St. John of Capistrano – a Franciscan preacher and missionary – in the process of forming the identity of the community of Czech Reformed Franciscans in the 17th century. The aforementioned figure was the actual initiator of the creation of Czech Observant province, which in the 17th century was transformed into a Reformed province. Based on the analysis of the description of history of the convent of St. Anthony in Wrocław, included in Chronica de origine (1678) by Father Bernard Sannig, and of the painting St. John of Capistrano from this convent, it becomes possible to present this saint as an important element of the identity, both on the provincial and local (the convent in Wrocław) level.
Research carried out at the Reformed Franciscan monastery in Przemyśl has revealed information about three interesting historical objects recently discovered in the monastery library. Although their provenance is unknown, they may come from dissolved monasteries. They are: two images of the Madonna and Child as well as a view of Lviv. The painting depicting the Madonna with Child which comes from the turn of the 18th century (?) and which is by an unknown author was modelled on a miraculous painting from Marijampolé, dated late 16th century. It was initially owned by Stanisław Jan Jabłonowski (1634-1702), Castellan of Cracow and Grand Crown Hetman, who would take it with him on his military expeditions, which is why it was referred to as the Hetman Madonna, Knightly Madonna or Victorious Madonna. The painting was donated by his son, Jan Stanisław (1669-1731), to the Holy Trinity Church in Marijampolé, a town founded by Stanisław Jan Jabłonowski as votive offering after the victory at Vienna, and placed in the main altar. The origins of the copy kept at the Przemyśl monastery are unknown. It may have been made in connection with an intensification of the cult of its original in the 1730s. The copy of Raphael’s Madonna from S. Maria del Popolo (Madonna di Loreto, Madonna del velo) comes from the 18th century; we know neither its author nor its provenance. It faithfully follows the compositional pattern of Raphael’s painting, with the Madonna covering the Child with a thin veil and St. Joseph in the background leaning on a cane. It has been established that the painting from the Przemyśl monastery is a copy of the painting kept at Musée Condé in Chantilly. It is one of the many copies of Raphael’s picture of the Madonna from S. Maria del Popolo, which were made between the 16th and 20th centuries. Several of the copies are kept in Poland. The view of Lviv, made on parchment around 1640 by an unknown author, was reused as a cover for Simone Maioli’s work, Dies caniculares hoc est colloqvia tria... In the drawing we can see a fragment of a notarial formula ending with a date and place of its entry: “Leopoli, 164(?)”, and a signature of Józef Bartłomiej Zimorowic (1597-1677), town clerk, mayor of Lviv and its chronicler. It is a fragment of a document with a decorative border on the left, which was probably the left edge of the document. Most of the parchment is covered by a gouache-painted (?) view of Lviv from the first half of the 17th century, which is indicated by buildings that can be recognised when the parchment is compared with a copperplate print published in Civitates orbis terrarum (1618). The buildings include the Latin cathedral with its still Gothic cupola, the city hall and what is probably a fragment of the market square. There is also a distinct fragment of city walls. The work is probably the oldest known drawing of the city, made probably in Lviv itself around 1640.
The conservation of two, late Baroque, semi-circularly closed images of nearly identical size, located in the Reformed Franciscan monastery of St. Anthony in Przemyśl, which were thought to present the Communion of Saint Francis and the Veneration of the Cross by Saint Francis, brought about interesting outcomes. It turned out that the images were previously interpreted mistakenly, as they actually present the Communion of Saint Bonaventure and the vision of Saint Francis in Vicalvi (Vision of an angel with an ampoule), typical of the Franciscan post- Trent iconography. The pattern for the image Communion of Saint Bonaventure in the Przemyśl monastery was an engraved reproduction of a painting by A. van Dyck, which was to be created by Pieter Bailliu, an engraver from Antwerp (Balliu; around 1613- after 1660). The creation referred to the Last Communion of Saint Francis by Rubens. According to Carl Justi, the main idea of the presentation was a feeling of humility and a particular dignity of Saint Bonaventure towards the Blessed Sacrament. As a young monk, he attended a mass, but felt too unworthy to receive Holy Communion every day. During the mass, an angel appeared who, after taking a particle of a Host from the hands of a priest celebrating the mass, put it into Bonaventura’s mouth, so that “he knew that it was better to receive the Eucharist with love than to refrain from it for fear”. That pattern was common in Reformed Franciscan churches. The Communion of Saint Bonaventure was created to decorate the sacristy of the church in Pińczów (signature A. N. W. and the date 1717) and as a modello stored in the monastery in Kraków for an uncreated altar picture or sacristy decoration. That scene is also presented in the sacristy of the former Bernardine (now Dominican) church in Św. Anna near Przyrów. The second picture, Vision of an angel with an ampoule, was a reproduction of an engravery by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri called Guercino, presenting the vision of Saint Francis of Vicalvi, referred to as Vision of priestly dignity. The composition, popularized by, among others, the engraveries by Giovanni Battista Pasqualini (1630), was a pattern for painted decorations in the sacristies of Reformed churches in Pińczów, Wieliczka, Kęty and Biecz. According to Raffaell Colace in the article San Francesco e l’angelo con l’ampolla, the image of the saint by Guercino can be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, in the context of underlining the humility of the saint who considered himself unworthy of being a priest and, on the other hand – the “spotlessness” of priesthood, the value particularly emphasized by the Catholic doctrine after the Council of Trent. The discussed pictures are a typical element of equipment of the sacristies of Reformed churches in the former Lesser Poland province. They were probably connected with the function of that place, in which the liturgical celebration was prepared. It can be presumed that, in the past, the pictures could have been the equipment of the sacristy of the Przemyśl church. It seems to be confirmed by the archival files kept at Reformed Franciscan Province Archives from the 19th century, reporting “great images over the mensa in the sacristy”. The images, created by a local guild artist or an artist from the Order do not manifest significant artistic values. However, they are interesting from the point of view of iconographic values, as a reproduction – through graphic patterns – of renowned works of Guercino and van Dyck, who are among the greatest European painters. Presenting both legendary events from the life of the patriarch of the Order and the main theorist of Franciscan thought was supposed to emphasize the new, post-Trent form of devotion – veneration of Eucharistic Christ and an exceptional dignity of celebrating the Holy Mass. Perhaps the humble attitude of the monks had a moralizing significance in a form of an example for the priesthood in the Reformed Franciscan order. Thus, the presentations are of high historical and cultural importance for the research on the history of the order.
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