The Chapel of St. Casimir in Vilnius – A Counter-Reformation Landmark

Abstract

Summary The present study takes issue with the accepted view (cf. Vikipedija) that the Chapel of St. Casimir in the Cathedral of Vilnius (1623–1636) resembles the Pauline and the Sistine Chapels in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. A closer look and comparison of the dimensions, geometry, materials, and internal décor, however, reveals significant differences. The defining architectural features of the Chapel of St. Casimir do not derive from these Baroque chapels but from multiple Biblical and Early Christian sources. (This study focused on the Chapel’s interior features that survived the 1655–1661 occupation of Vilnius.) Its cubic core recalls the twenty-cubit amplitude of the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. The black marble walls (noir de Namur) allude to the blackening acacia wood of the Ark of the Covenant holding the Ten Commandment stone tablets that Moses received from the Lord on Mt. Sinai. The ox-blood colored pilasters (vieux rouge de Rance) recall the porphyry columns of the Aedicule that sheltered the Tomb of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem. The Chapel’s reduced Greek cross plan derives from Vitruvius and recalls Early Christian mausoleums. The Ionic column capitals in the Chapel duplicate the ones in the entrance portals of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and in the Confessio above the tomb of St. Peter the Apostle in the Roman necropolis underneath the Basilica. The Council of Trent upheld Early Christian customs, precedents, and traditions. Materializing the Council’s values, the Chapel became a landmark of the Counter-Reformation. The study at hand relied heavily on the indispensable archival documents gleaned by Povilas Reklaitis, Paulius Rabikauskas, SJ, Zenonas Ivinskis, Mintautas Čiurinskas, Birutė Rūta Vitkauskienė, and Piotr Jacek Jamski.