National Pantheons in Europe

Strona wydawcy: https://www.wuj.pl

The article is an essay intended to present the history of the European National Pantheons. Originating from the Antiquity, they began to reappear in the epoch of Renaissance. The first modern national pantheon, dedicated to the eminent artists and poets, was built in the 1529, when the people of Rome deposed the earthly remains of the genial artist, Raphael Santi. They were soon imitated by the Florence people who buried Michelangelo in 1564 in the vaults of the gothic church Santa Croce, creating this way their own Pantheon. The same did the English when deciding to open the Westminster Abbey and intending the Poets’ Corner to be the place to bury the most eminent artists, writers and scientists, as well as the Portuguese with the Lisbon Hyeronimites Abbey. The Spaniards quickly followed, creating the world famous Escorial. In the second half of the XVIII Century the French people decided to take off the idea of the - secular in their case - Pantheon, located in Paris. The second part of the article is dealing with the history of the Polish National Pantheon. It consists of Great Poets’ Crypt, neighbouring the Wawel Castle Royal and National Heroes Necropolis and of the Crypt at the Skałka Church. Lately, as there was no more place in this Crypt, a new National Pantheon was created in Cracow in the vaults of the Saint Peter and Paul Church. It was there that the world famous dramatist Sławomir Mrożek was buried in September 2013.