Latin Cathedral in Lviv. Part I, Vol. 21.

A new volume of the monumental series Materials for the History of the Religious Art in the Eastern Borderlands of the Former Polish Republic – Roman Catholic Churches and Religious Houses of the Former Rus Voivodeship, Part I, Vol. 21.

This new volume in the series inventorying historic pieces of sacral art in the eastern borderlands of the former Polish Republic is unique in being a monograph of a single building: the foremost Roman Catholic church in Lviv [Lwów], the Latin Cathedral.

As well as a study of the medieval circumstances of its construction and furnishing, alterations to it in the Early Modern Age (involving the addition to the core structure of a ring of chapels, and its conversion in its entirety to the Baroque style in the years 1765–1780), a further restoration at the end of the nineteenth century, and the conservation work performed in the interbellum, the publication also details the history of the cathedral to the most recent times, as it gradually regains its former glory thanks to contemporary conservation work.

As is standard for this series, it contains extensive descriptions of the architecture, painted decoration, and sculptural work. It brings up to date what is known about the many and varied elements of the cathedral’s interior furnishings (e.g. its collection of portraits and liturgical requisites) and compares them with those objects that have been preserved but are in many cases scattered. This systematisation of historical information facilitated a critical analysis and assessment of the state of research and a broad overview of the artistic subject.
As in all the previous volumes, the textual information is richly illustrated, with 844 often unique photographs documenting the historic and contemporary appearance of Lviv’s Latin Cathedral.

Work on this inventory of the historic complex of the Latin Cathedral in Lviv – which is essentially an art historical monograph of the complex¬ – was a task far more complex than previous work on the inventorisation of the art of the Roman Catholic Church in the former Rus Voivodeship. The edifice is comparable in scale, in terms of both its architecture and the sumptuousness of its fittings, with the biggest monastic churches in the city, above all the Bernardine and Dominican churches. There is a fundamental difference, however, in the rank of the cathedral, as the metropolitan seat, in terms of the complexity of the historical issues that attend it, and in view of the continuity of the cathedral’s history, from the fourteenth to the twenty-first centuries.
(from the foreword)


Scientific Editor: Jan K. Ostrowski

Polish version