Hi there my Hivean friends and followers!
Welcome to my Architectural Photography series where I introduce you to interesting buildings that I get to visit on my travels. The past few episodes of the series were dedicated to remarkable pieces of Krakow architecture because this beautiful Polish city has been our temporary home for a couple of months already and my today´s post will show you yet another impressive architectural gem of the city - the renowned Pauline Monastery of Skalka.
To be honest with you guys, I got quite confused while doing the research on this extraordinary architectural complex. Let me start out with the actual name of it. According to Wikipedia, the official name of the church is the Saint Michael the Archangel and Saint Stanislaus the Bishop and Martyr Basilica but in fact, it´s commonly referred to as a Pauline Monastery.
Moreover, as the whole complex is located on a little rocky outcrop just above the bank of the Wisla River, this place is also known colloquially just as Skalka, which means a little rock in the Polish language (and in Czech too btw). So you can also find this building being referred to as the Skalka Church, the Skalka Monastery or the Skalka Sanctuary.
The history of this place also seems to be quite complicated but very long and dark too. Originally, there was an ancient Romanesque church on the site, probably dating to the 10th century or possibly even earlier. In 1079, the Polish king Boleslaw II (also known as Boleslaw the Generous, Boleslaw the Bold or, probably more appropriately, Boleslaw the Cruel) had Stanislaus of Szczepanow, then Bishop of Krakow, killed in the church. Allegedly, the bishop was beheaded and quartered on the king´s order.
In the 14 century, the church was reconstructed in the Gothic architectural style and since 1472, it has been owned by the monastic community of the Pauline Fathers. Later on, in the first half of the 18th century, the monastery got some dominant Baroque features that gave the complex its current appearance.
Because of the Stanislaus of Szczepanow martyrdom, the Skalka Monastery became one of the most important religious and pilgrimage sites in Poland. All newly elected Polish kings would visit this place prior to their coronation to remember the hideous act of one of their predecessors. Stanislaus was canonized by Pope Innocent IV in Assisi, Italy in 1253. He also became the patron saint of both Krakow as well as all Poland.
Underneath the monastery, there is a crypt that serves as the final resting place of many prominent Polish figures including artists, writers, scientists, politicians etc. When I was taking these photos just a few days ago, the crypt was closed and the interiors of the church probably too but I will try to get in there later to see if it is as impressive in the inside as it is from the outside.
There are also statues, altars and some other monuments in the garden next to the monastery. The whole place is very large and one can easily spend several hours in there, included the visit of the crypt and the interiors.
I hope that you enjoyed this episode of my Architectural Photography series and that you also learned something new from this post. I actually wanted to take some photos of this magnificent piece of architecture and write a post about it for quite some time already but I had to wait for better weather as the place was covered in snow until recently. I think the pictures eventually turned out pretty nice. (The one taken from across the river is actually zoomed in quite a lot, hence the lower sharpness of this one).
This is also my very first contribution to the Architecture+Design community run by great Hivers @discoveringarni and @storiesoferne. If you guys are fans of architecture or design, make sure to check this community out ;)
This post was created by me for the Hive blockchain exclusively. All rights reserved.
This temple is really beautiful. It must be recognized that it is always something enigmatic to contemplate the architecture of the temples. Also behind them hides some dark history, but in sight we enjoy their impressive and striking designs. Successful and excellent photographs, very surprising.
Thank you very much for your feedback, I am really glad you enjoyed the photos and even read the text :) Yes, some very dark history to this place but in the medieval times, things like this happened, unfortunately. The architecture work of the place is really outstanding though, I agree.
Thanks to you, for your post. You present us with good informed photos and we learn. That is valuable.
Superb old school Architectural they had so much class in them days 👍
I can only agree my friend, thanks, these buildings that date long centuries ago are really fascinating.
Hello @phortun! Welcome to Architecture + Design Community! The church and the monastery are well preserved. Looking at the facade, one would be oblivious to the horrors that took place inside the church once upon a time. A reconstruction in the 14th century was due to change and re-purpose it to uplift the hideous memory within those walls. Interesting post!
Thank you very much for the welcome and for the nice feedback to my first contribution :) I have been actually running this architectural photography series on my blog for a long time already but it was not until recently that I realized these posts might be a nice fit for your community. If they really are, it will my pleasure to keep submitting them here. Thanks for running this great community Arni :)
Thank you, @storiesoferne and I are grateful for the support of OCD, the engagement and cooperation of everyone in the community, and for bloggers like you who want to write about architecture.
Well, you obviously do a great job, it´s a very lively and engaged community :) I also try to give out some votes in there every day but I have been really struggling with my drained voting power lately so my support is not as substantial as I would wish :D :/
Sacred and other forms of religious architecture will constantly have their own special allure! The city of Krakow in Poland certainly has plenty of them, as I've seen in your previous posts. In fact, the Architectural Photography series you've started has done a great job in featuring those marvelous buildings in their beautiful splendor! We would be happy to let you showcase more of them here!
Hello @phortun! It has been a while and yes, it's my pleasure to welcome you to the Architecture+Design Community! We're looking forward to experiencing more of your architecture and design content soon!
Thank you very much for your warm welcome in the Architecture & Design community Erne, it´s a pleasure to contribute here :) Like I already said, you and Arni have been doing a fantastic job running it. I highly appreciate your positive feedback on my first contribution and I will do my best to keep up the work for your community in future. Best regards from Krakow :)
Hiya, @LivingUKTaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Top 3 in Daily Travel Digest #1131.
Your post has been manually curated by the @pinmapple team. If you like what we're doing, please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider supporting other authors like yourself and us so we can keep the project going!
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No way! Seeing the constantly growing competion in your community and the daily amount of top notch travel pieces there, I thought I might never make it to your daily Top 3 again :D But there we go... Thank you so much guys!!
I love these green roofs, makes the whole house even more nobel.
!gif nobel
Yeah, green roofs are quite unusual here in Central Europe, most old buildings have red ones as you can see in for example this photo that I took in Prague:
I like the green & white combination of the monastery though, it makes it somewhat special :) Thanks for stopping by!
Via Tenor
Hello bro greetings, seeing your publication in this community, I thought that perhaps you might be interested in this initiative that I am promoting a Challenge that is about "knowing our cities", if you want to see what it is about, you left the link https://hive.blog/hive-178708/@feiderman/a-different-post-with-a-new-initiative-knowing-your-city-challenge-un-post-diferente-con-una-nueva-iniciativa-conociendo-tu-
Hey hey, thanks for letting me know, I will check it out :)
Wonderful photography, History behind these sacred places speaks a lot about them. Keep posting such great content. Have a lovely week 😊
Thank you! I am really happy to see such a great response from so many people here, it only confirms how amazing and engaged the Architecture & Design community is :) Thanks for checking out my post, have a great week too :)
Good morning @phortum.
Keep posting, Engaging is fun:)
Sensational piece of Architectural work you can not beat the old school this is just classic tremendous photos you have captured.
Thank you very much! Well, with the very origins of this masterpiece dating back to more than a thousand of years ago, this is old school indeed :)
I hope to be visiting some real old Asian temples soon with the most out-standing architecture design to bring to the hive platform.
Nice photos. I used to love your tropical paradise photos, but this are good too!
Thank you :) Actually, I was missing those tropical colors too so I recently decided to launch this photo series ;)
A very beautiful publication. The ancient architecture is impressive in its scale. Thank you very much.
Thanks for your kind feedback, I can only agree - ancient architecture is very impressive. Fortunately, we have a lot of that in Europe ;)
Nádhera!
Děkujííí :) Konečně zase trošku počasíčko na slušné fotky, tak je třeba to využít :)
Absolutely beautiful ❤
Thanks man :)
Hello @phortun, a warm welcome to the Architecture + Design Community!
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Thank you guys so much! Really looking forward to contributing to your community more often :)
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