History of the site

The Society of Jesus, founded in 1534 by Ignatius of Loyola, attracted very well educated individuals. The Jesuits swore absolute obedience to the Pope, which made them stand out among other religious organisations. For this reason, the pope used them as an efficient tool of the Counter-Reformation. After arrival in Kraków in 1579, the Jesuits settled at the Church of St Stephen and later took over the Church of St Barbara. The seat was too modest to enable a large-scale pastoral activity. A desire to move to a larger facility statred to emerge.

After winning King Sigismund III Vasa as a mighty sponsor in 1595, preparatory work began. The Jesuits purchased land and began to gather construction materials. The Jesuit and architect Joseph Britius began to draw the first designs of the church and the residential facility.

The king’s sponsorship and aspirations to erect a temple that would be make the main Jesuit church in Poland caused the structure to be designed as larger and more monumental than originally planned. The cornerstone was laid in 1597 and the church was almost finished in 1605. Only the dome and some of the vaults were missing. The dome was finally completed in 1619 (the first attempt to finish it in 1610 was unsuccessful). From then on and until the solemn consecration in 1635, mainly decoration and finishing works were carried out in the building

A fire of the college building in 1719 also damaged the church. Part of the church roof and equipment perished. The renovation works that followed did not significantly affect the looks of the church. In 1722, the Jesuit sculptor David Heel made the fence of the outer square designed by Kacper Bażanka. The fence made up of 12 pedestals linked by a metal screen with 12 huge statues of the apostles was dismantled in 1959 due to the poor condition (the statues were replaced with 20th-century copies by Kazimierz Jęczmyk). Heel also sculpted the figures of four Jesuit saints in the lower parts of the façade and probably four wooden statues at the base of the dome. Bażanka designed the main altar (1725). The suppression of the Jesuit order by Pope Clement XIV in 1773 initiated gradual ruination of the temple which lasted half a century. The situation improved in 1824 when the church accommodated the parish from the demolished Collegiate Church of All Saints.

Description of the site

The church is built on a rectangular, Latin cross plan with its length twice the width. The cross is made up by a short chancel closed with a semicircular apse, a similarly short and wide transept (transverse nave) and a wide central nave. Three pairs of identical chapels connected by passages open to the central nave with extensive arcades. The front body so arranged can be inscribed into a square. The whole body is completed by a sacristy with a vestibule (from the north) and a chapel (from the south) adjoining the chancel and a small storeroom behind the apse. The two-level dolomite façade resembles the Roman Church of St Susana by Carlo Maderna, but it also takes after the façade of the main Jesuit church in Rome, Il Gesu. The feature that distinguishes the Kraków church from the other two is the proportions: the nave, transept and chancel are much higher than in the Roman churches compared to their width. The dome is also different than that of Il Gesu. Initially, the design had a half-spherical cupola, but Giovanni Trevano made it slimmer and gave it a semi-elliptical cross-section that typified Baroque solutions.

The building is owned by the All Saints Parish.

The church is open to visitors as follows:

Hot season: April - October, Tuesday-Saturday 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Cold season: November - March, Tuesday-Saturday 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Sundays and holidays 1:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Faucault’s pendulum shows: 10:00, 11:00, 12:00 (Poland’s largest pendulum)

The church offers regular concert events.

Author of the note Grzegorz Młynarczyk, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Kraków 03/2015

Bibliography

• Beiersdorf Z., Kleszczyńska B., “Kraków, Kościół pod wezwaniem śś. Piotra i Pawła. Dokumentacja historyczno-konserwatorska, 1972 maszynopis w archiwum NID, Oddział w Krakowie.
• Małkiewicz A., Kościół ŚŚ. Piotra i Pawła w Krakowie – dzieje budowy i problem autorstwa, “Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Prace z Historii Sztuki” V, 1967, pp. 43-86
• Dziewulska J.M., Prace “reparacyjne” i restauracyjne kościoła śś. Piotra i Pawła w Krakowie w XIX wieku, “Rocznik Biblioteki Naukowej PAU i PAN w Krakowie”, R. 53: 2008, pp. 259-282.
• Prace “reparacyjne” i restauracyjne kościoła śś. Piotra i Pawła w Krakowie w XIX wieku, “Rocznik Biblioteki Naukowej PAU i PAN w Krakowie”, R. 53: 2008, pp. 259-282.;
• Wokół restauracji kościoła śś. Piotra i Pawła w Krakowie, “Rocznik Biblioteki Naukowej PAU i PAN w Krakowie”, R. 54: 2009, pp. 239-275.