Chapel of Saints Margaret and Judith at Salwator Kraków

Monuments

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ul. św. Bronisławy 88, 30-203 Kraków Tourist region: Kraków i okolice

tel. +48 124244360
tel. +48 124244364

The chapel belongs to the complex of the Norbertine Sisters' monastery. Its spatial layout is reminiscent of Renaissance burial chapels and retains Gothic forms. It is one of the oldest wooden chapels in Poland erected on a central plan.

Congregations of Norbertine nuns were brought to the village of Zwierzyniec near Kraków between 1148 and 1165. It is not known when the first chapel commemorating the sisters, burnt down in 1587, was erected. A cemetery chapel was built on its site between 1591 and 1604. In 1652, the dead of the cholera epidemic were buried around it. In 1657, the Swedes destroyed the chapel. The chapel, which has survived to the present day, was built in 1689-1690 on the initiative of the prioress of the monastery, Sister Justyna Oraczewska, on a hill between the Norbertine nuns' convent complex and the Church of the Most Holy Salvator. The cemetery next to the chapel was also used to bury the dead during the subsequent cholera epidemics of 1707 and 1709.
In the 19th century, the chapel began to be linked to the site of ancient pagan cults and was named Gontyna.
The chapel was repaired several times in the 18th and 19th centuries, and between 1956 and 1957, the stone foundations, walls, and cupola were restored. The shuttering of the outer walls was replaced with shingles, and a balcony was added above the entrance. Between 1989 and 1990, maintenance was carried out on the structure's frame, dome, and lantern, and the vertical planking was restored.
The timber-framed Baroque chapel was built on an octagonal plan with an eight-bay, shingled dome with a glazed lantern. In the late 1980s,the walls were boarded with vertical planks and topped with a moulded cornice. The entrance portal, with a lintel cut into a donkey's back, is decorated with a door with 17th-century fittings. A small balcony overhangs the entrance.
The chapel, which has been renovated many times, retains few original elements; the furnishings from the 17th century were moved to the Norbertine nuns' convent. Today, in the single-space, modest interior, you can see the early 17th-century Baroque main altar from the Church of the Most Holy Salvator, with a 1962 painting of Christ the Salvator by Ludomir Śledziński and the 18th-century side altar from the Church of St Adalbert. One of the most interesting is a crucifix from 1939, the work of Bronisław Langman.

Since 2008, a statue of John Paul II, the work of Czesław Dźwigaj, has stood in front of the chapel.

Salwator is a picturesque villa estate from the early 20th century located in the former village of Zwierzyniec. It occupies the peaks of Mt Sikornik in the Słowińca Range, also known as St Bronisława Hill. A walking route leads through Salwator to the Kościuszko Mound, the Wolski Forest, and Bielany. Nearby are the Norbertine Sisters' monastery, the Church of Saints Augustine and John the Baptist, and the Church of the Most Holy Salvatore, consecrated in 1148, some of the oldest monuments in Krakow.

The chapel is located on the Wooden Architecture Route (a description of the Chapel of Saints Margaret and Judith on Salwator Kraków)