Radvilų alaviniai sarkofagai Kėdainių evangelikų reformatų bažnyčioje

ENIn the article five tin sarcophagi of the Radvilas from the Kėdainiai Evangelical Reformers church are being investigated. In the second half of the 17lh century (after the year 1656) on the initiative of Dukes Radvilas of Biržai and Dubingiai in the new Kėdainiai church of Evangelical Reformers the family kripta was founded. It became the main mausoleum for the family. The sarcophagi of Kristupas Radvila the Perkūnas (Thunder, 1547-1603), and those of his four juvenile grandchildren - Mikalojus, dead in 1611, George - 1617, Steponas - 1624, and Elizabeth - 1617, have been moved to it. It is a unique example of the funeral fine arts which has no similar analogue to the style of this kind. The function and the significance of the sarcophagus to the baroque burial ceremony of the 17th century is under study, and the symbolics of the decor of the sarcophagi with references to the baroque emblematics is analysed in the article as well. It is maintained that it corresponds to the ideas of Evangelical reformers as well as to their attitude in the presence of death. Texts also add much to the artistic programme of the sarcophagi. The author of the texts is Saliamonas Risinskis, a poet, writer and philosopher who worked in the manor of the Radvilas. It is supposed that all the five sarcophagi are created at the same workshop, probably, in Vilnius. A fairly interesting matter was the problem of the thinkers themselves of the sarcophagi. Artistic motifs and the texts of their decor were inspired by Lithuanian Evangelical reformers puritanical views which were influenced by the acquaintance with the antique philosophy.The fatalistic spirit of the 18th century is felt as well. This is seen from the comparison of the decor programme of the sarcophagi with the testaments of the Radvilas as well as by the literary creation of men who served in the manor. The ethics of stoicism was acceptable to the Evangelical Radvilas, and this was expressed by Justus Lipsius’ philosophy („De constantia“, 1600, printed in Vilnius). In this context the Kėdainiai sarcophagi according to their formal expression belong to the fine arts of the mannerism of Northern Europe, and, nevertheless, they should be ascribed to the level of the European intellectual elite of the beginning of the 17th century. In the article the conclusion is made that two persons - Kristupas Radvila II, 1585 - 1640, and the poet of his manor Saliamonas Risinskis, around the year 1560-1625, might have been the designers ofthe sarcophagi. The article is devoted to the 450th anniversary of Duke Kristupas Radvila the Perkūnas birth. In the article inventorial material on the sarcophagi gathered by the order of Lithuanian Culture Heritage Centre is used.