A monument of history, Ordinance of the President of the Republic of Poland of 28.02.2011.

History

The former Augustinian complex erected in the north-western part of the Old Town includes several significant buildings: a parish church, a former monastery, a monastic school and a monastic granary. The buildings are clustered around the courtyard with a polygonal outline.

According to the oral sources, the first temple in Żagań was built already in 1175, but it remains unknown whether it stood in the same place as the present parish church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The first mention of this ecclesiastical feature dates back to 1272. In 1284 it was handed over by Duke Primislaus to the Augustinians brought here from Naumburg am Bober. At that time, the temple was a three-aisle basilica. Only in the second half of the 14th century did significant construction works begin, during which a chancel was torn down and replaced with a larger one, preserved to this day in an unchanged shape. In the days of abbot Ludolf (1394-1422), the church was extended northwards. In 1472 and 1486 the temple was destroyed in fires. Afterwards, in the course of the second reconstruction, numerous architectural changes were introduced: the naves were extended upwards and the main body adorned with a wide gable was extended westwards. A tower was added at the east end. In the 18th century the feature was covered with a mansard roof. In 1602 a Renaissance cloister with a loggia on the ground floor was erected at the west façade. During the reconstruction of the temple after a fire in 1730 Gothic windows were replaced with larger window openings with semicircular terminating arches, while the tower dome was replaced with a mansard roof. As a result, the Gothic features of the external façade were blurred. A Baroque décor was introduced in the temple interior.

A two-storey building adjoins the north wall of the church - a seat of the former monastery, currently occupied by a clergy house. The building, preserved to this day, received its form after the fire in 1730. It remains unknown what the oldest monastic buildings looked like. Masonry parts of the ducal castle were used at the construction of the abbey, while the wooden ones were demolished. Traces of buildings originating, most probably, from the 13th century have been preserved in the monastery walls. In the 14th century the Augustinians erected the east and north wing of the monastery, housing bedrooms, a library, a brethren chamber and a novitiate school. Moreover, they built features located on the west side: a summer and winter refectory, an abbot’s palace and a chapter house. Only basements have survived of these buildings or, as is the case with a refectory - walls with a relic of the tower (in the attic of the current west wing). In the early 15th century the east wing was redeveloped and a chapel of St Anne was built with a library rising above it. During a reconstruction after the fire in 1730 the abbot’s palace was demolished, similarly as a refectory and a chapter house, while a novitiate school and a monastic school were erected in place of utility buildings. In the second half of the 18th century two astronomic observatories were built in the monastic school tower and the library. In the years 1783-1795 an observation point forming a part of the oldest meteorological network, Societas Meteorologica Palatina, operated under the patronage of the Augustinians.

Description

The temple interior is a three-nave hall with pointed-arch arcades resting on twelve octagonal pillars. The vaults are of the groin, stellar and lierne types. The northern nave includes a shallow gallery with an openwork balustrade. The upper section of the main nave is adorned with windows featuring illusionistic paintings and sculptures of angels sitting on sills. The majority of the fixtures and fittings represent the Baroque style, although older elements have also been preserved, among others, a stone Gothic sarcophagus of Duke of Głogów and Żagań, Henry IV the Faithful, who died in 1342. Currently, the sarcophagus is currently located in the south chapel, to where it was relocated from the chancel. The church crypts contain tombstones of other dukes, including Henry V of Iron, John I of Żagań and Henry VIII the Sparrow. Interesting elements of the fixtures and fittings include a Renaissance altar of the Holy Trinity from the 16th century as well as the main altar in the Baroque style from 1685, later complemented with sculptures of the saints. Twelve side altars originate mostly from the second half of the 17th century. Some of them were crafted around 1730. A painting by a Silesian painter Michael Wilmann hangs in the altar presenting the Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. The chancel includes choir stalls built in 1695 and adorned in the 18th century with eighteen paintings and the same number of sculptures presenting the bishops. The Baroque décor also includes a sculpted pipe organ casing from 1735. The west wall of the north nave features a fresco from 1584 presenting the coronation of Christ with a crown of thorns, while the east wall displays epitaph plaques: commemorating John I who died in 1439 and a woman surnamed von Sleynitz who died in 1479.

The monastery building, adjacent to municipal defensive walls, surrounds a relatively long section of the monastery courtyard. The entrance is adorned with a Rococo portal. Inside, portraits of 52 abbots from the 18th century, painted owing to Simon Rihl - who served as an abbot between 1732 and 1747, have survived in a corridor adjacent to the garth. Above the chapel of St Anne there is an abovementioned monastic library consisting of two rooms covered with barrel vaults with lunettes. The vaults are adorned with frescos from 1736, painted by a Silesian painter Georg Wilhelm Neunhertz. Library bookcases with parts of the original collection of books date from the same period. The collection consisted of over 10,000 volumes before the secularisation of the orders in 1810. Some of them found their way to the university library in Wrocław. The library rooms also feature preserved globes from 1640.

A former monastic school, terminating the courtyard on the north-east side, was altered in the years 1972-1975 due to its adaptation to serve as a hotel. A Gothic granary from the 15th century adjoins the monastic school and a tenement house was added to it in 1898.

The temple is accessible all year round, while visiting the post-Augustinian library is possible after arranging the date.

Author of the note Dr Krzysztof Garbacz, National Institute of Cultural Heritage, Regional Branch in Zielona Góra, 05-01-2018

Bibliography

• Brzezicki S., Nielsen Ch., Grajewski G., Popp D. (ed.), Zabytki sztuki w Polsce. Śląsk, Warsaw 2006, pp. 1096-1098.
• Garbacz K., Przewodnik po zabytkach województwa lubuskiego, vol. 2: Powiaty: żarski – żagański – nowosolski – wschowski, Zielona Góra 2012, pp. 106-109.
• Kowalski S. (ed.), Klasztor augustianów w Żaganiu. Zarys dziejów, Żary 1999.
• Kowalski S., Zabytki architektury województwa lubuskiego, Zielona Góra 2010, pp. 436-440.