Bartolomeo Berrecci

Bartolomeo Berrecci (also Bartolomeo Berecci or Berreczy , * around 1480 in Pontassieve near Florence , † August 1537 in Krakow ) was an architect , sculptor and stonemason of the Renaissance . Berrecci belonged to the second generation of Italian artists who worked at the Krakow royal court.

Life

Epitaph Berreccis in the Corpus Christi basilica

Bartolomeo Berrecci was born in Pontassieve near Florence around 1480 . He was probably a student of Andrea Ferrucci . He came to Krakow in 1516 on behalf of the Archbishop and Primate of Poland Jan Łaski . In the same year he took over the workshop from Francesco Fiorentino , who had died shortly before. Sigismund I the Old entrusted him with the further construction of the Gothic royal castle on the Wawel, which burned down in 1499, in the Renaissance style . He carried out this together with Master Benedikt von Sandomir . Berrecci adapted the inner courtyard of the royal castle to the snowy and less light climatic conditions, ie. Unlike in Italy, he created a gable roof, double taller columns in the inner courtyard and larger windows. His design was then very often copied in smaller copies all over Poland-Lithuania until the Baroque era .

In 1528 he acquired the civil rights of the Kraków suburb of Kazimierz . Berrecci was a very sought after and very well paid artist. In addition to the Polish royal court, Berrecci received orders from Krakow, Niepołomice , Posen and Tarnów . The Sigismund Chapel in Wawel Cathedral is considered to be his opus magnus , which he created from 1517 to 1533 as the burial chapel for King Sigismund, his most important patron, for his wife, Queen Barbara Zápolya , who died shortly before . To this end, he also accepted other important Italian architects and artists into his workshop, including Bernardino Zanobi de Gianotis , Giovanni Cini , Filippo da Fiesole , Nicolas Castiglione and the five Soli brothers, and most recently Giovanni Maria Mosca . The Sigismund Chapel became the mausoleum of the last Jagiellonians and is considered the most beautiful Italian Renaissance building outside of Italy. It served as a model for hundreds of chapels in Poland-Lithuania that were to be built over the next two hundred years. The interesting thing here is that there was no model for the shape of the Sigismund Chapel in Italy. However, Leonardo da Vinci designed a design for a chapel that was never realized, which is very similar to the Sigismund Chapel. However, it is not known whether Berrecci knew the plan drawing of his Tuscan farmer.

Berrecci was the owner of several houses on the market square, several palaces, two market stalls and several brick factories. In Cracow he married Małgorzata Szelągówna and then Dorota Czarnowoyska. His success brought him many envious people among the less well-heeled Italian artists in Krakow. In the summer of 1537 he was stabbed to death by a compatriot in Kraków's market square in front of the Potocki Palace . According to his will, he was buried in the St. Anne Chapel of the Corpus Christi basilica in Kazimierz. Its epitaph in the basilica has been preserved. Along with Francesco Fiorentino, Berrecci is considered to be the most important representative of the Florentine High Renaissance in Eastern Central Europe .

Create

Buildings

From the works of Bartolomeo Berrecci have survived:

• Sigismund Chapel of Wawel Cathedral
• East and south wings of the Royal Castle on the Wawel in Krakow
• Reconstruction of the royal castle in Niepołomice
• Villa Decius in Krakow - partly controversial authorship
• Balconies of the Kraków St. Mary's Church

building

Sigismund Chapel

Chapel dome

Balcony, Marienkirche

Wawel Royal Castle

Niepołomice Royal Castle

characters

From the works of Bartolomeo Berrecci have survived:

• Tomb of Bishop Jan Konarski in the Konarski Chapel of Wawel Cathedral
• Tomb of Bishop Jan Lubrański in Poznan Cathedral
• Canopy on the tomb of King Ladislaus II in the main nave of Wawel Cathedral
• Tomb of Barbara Tarnowska in the cathedral in Tarnów
• Tomb of Bishop Piotr Tomicki in the Tomicki Chapel of Wawel Cathedral
• The tomb of the castelan and great crown treasurer Mikołaj Szydłowiecki the Younger in the Sigismund Church in Szydłowiec

Works

Jagiellonian Tomb

Ladislaus tomb

Lubrański tomb

Tarnowska tomb

literature

• Leonardo Cappelletti: Bartolomeo Berrecci da Pontassieve. Un genio del rinascimento tra arte e filosofia. Polistampa, Florence 2011 ISBN 978-88-596-0986-5 .
• Stefan S. Komornicki, f: Polski Słownik Biograficzny. T. 1. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności - Skład Główny w Księgarniach Gebethnera i Wolffa, 1935, pp. 467–469. Reprint: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, Kraków 1989, ISBN 83-04-03484-0
• Helena Kozakiewicz:  BERRECCI, Bartolomeo. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 9:  Berengario – Biagini. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1967.