Pacai route

Furnishings of the church in Raczki

Architecture, Poland

A team of the same Italian artists who worked on Pac's palace in Dowspuda was responsible for furnishing and decorating the interior of the church. The walls and vaults were covered with polychrome. In addition to the main altar, there were 8 side altars in the church, 4 on each side. All of them were equipped with sculptures and paintings.

The most valuable elements of the church's interior are two bas-reliefs made of white marble. These are epitaphs in the shape of tomb stelae. On one – a woman wearing a carona muralis on her head (the personification of the country, in this case undoubtedly Poland aka Rzeczpospolita) mourns a bust of a man crowned with a garland of flowers, bearing the Pac coat of arms – Gozdawa, crowned with a count's crown), lictor's rods and order crosses. On the second stele, the angel writes the deeds of the knight with a stylus, as indicated by the Roman swords, cuirass and helmet.
Both steles are composed as counterparts, which suggests their original purpose:
mausoleum in the palace chapel in Dowspuda. The plaques were most likely to commemorate prominent representatives of the Pac family - Michał or Józef. They were originally placed in the chapel of the palace in Dowspuda. They are believed to be the work of one of the students and collaborators of the sculptor Antonio Canova, perhaps Ludwik Kaufmann. Among the elements of equipment entered in the register of monuments, the following deserve attention: a wooden sculpture of St. John of Nepomuk, two bronze altar crosses and four brass candlesticks from the second half of the 19th century. John of Nepomuk was made in 1842 of wood (polychrome, full plastic). Stylistically, it refers to classicism.

The main altar, placed in the aedicula closing the presbytery, has a sculptural composition depicting the crucified Christ accompanied by St. Mary, St. Magdalena and St. Jan. The authorship of this sculptural composition is attributed to the Italian sculptor Carlo Aurelli, who made many sculptures in the church, as well as those on the facade of the church.

dr Dariusz Maciej Ambrosiewicz

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