Nowożytne fasady kościelne na obszarze Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego (do początku XVIII wieku)

ENThe facades encountered in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania differ as regards their typology, style and artistic merits. Although they developed the best during the Late Baroque, earlier examples are also noteworthy. The most important variants were the towerless facades, those with small turrets which were situated on the roof ridge ("donkey ears") and the facades with one or two towers. During the sixteenth and at the beginning of the seventeenth century the northern and western regions of the Duchy saw the realization primarily of single-tower and towerless solids as well as those flanked with slender turrets, i.e. types which belong to the architectural traditions of the Baltic lowlands. The main elevations of the churches were embellished with Renaissance or Mannerist architectonic details (cornices, niches, frames of openings) but not always did they deserve to be called facades. They were executed by local guild craftsmen as well as arrivals from the Crown (the Lublin region) who often worked within monastic communities. During the seventeenth and at the beginning of the eighteenth century the single-tower facades and those with small towers were endowed with linear architectonic orders (Vilno, Grodno, Kniazińce) and subsequently merged into a single entity by multiplying the projections of the pilasters (Kodeń). The first modern faęade of Italian origin was designed for the cathedral in Vilno by Bernardino de Gianotis but the later Jesuit faęade in Nieśwież was the first to be recognized as important. The towerless faęade dominated in the first half of the seventeenth century in the larger towns of the Duchy (Vilno, Brześć, Grodno, Mińsk) in the churches of the mendicant orders (the works of masons). The most outstanding facades were founded by magnates (the Radziwiłł and Pac families) and designed by renowned architects (Ber- nardoni, Tencalla, Gisleni) for the Jesuits and the Carmelites (Nieśwież, Vilno).From the middle of the seventeenth century the facades without towers began to dominate in the smaller churches in the western and northern regions; thanks to the intermediary of the Warsaw milieu there also appeared Palladian facades (Wigry). facades of Dominican churches enclosed chapels with two domes (Mińsk, Brześć). The facades with two towers which referred to fortified Eastern rite churches, gradually disappeared (Kamaja) and Catholic churches, originally Jesuit (Vilno, 1604) and ten of the mendicant orders (Cytowiany, Iwie, Mińsk) became distinguished for their modern architectonic orders. The towers were, as a rule, blended into the solid of the church or they were low and massive, but quite distinct in the faęade (Michaliszki, Kleck). In the second half of the seventeenth century and at the beginning of the eighteenth century a significant group of facades belonged to Jesuit churches (Grodno, Vilno, Kowno, Mińsk, Pińsk), as a rule transformed during the Late Baroque. They are particularly noted for unique solutions borrowed from Roman and North Italian patterns (the churches of the Pac foundation on the Antokol in Vilno and in Pożjaść). The facades with two towers gradually replaced other types and in the eighteenth century reached the eastern regions of the Duchy.