Italian Inspiration for the Painting Decorations by Maciej Jan Meyer from the First Half of the Eighteenth Century in Szembek Chapel at the Cathedral in Frombork

The Bishop of Warmia, Krzysztof Andrzej Jan Szembek from Słupów (1680– 1740), erected a domed reliquary chapel devoted to the Most Holy Savior and St. Theodore the Martyr (Saint Theodore of Amasea) at the cathedral in Frombork, also known as Szembek Chapel. The entire interior of the chapel is covered with frescoes dating from around 1735 by Maciej Jan Meyer (Mat­thias Johann Meyer) from Lidzbark Warmiński. Educated in Italy, the artist made polychrome decorations in the style of illusionistic architectural paint­ing known as quadrature. In the lower part of the chapel stand busts of saints and the entire figure of St. Theodore of Amasea; in the cupola of the dome is the adoration of the Holy Trinity and the Holy Cross by the Mother of God and the Saints. Using the comparative method, I discuss the decoration of the chapel in the context of quadrature painting, which was developing in Italy and then in Central Europe, especially at the end of the 17th and the first half of the 18th centuries. Influential artists who played an important role for Pol­ish quadratura techniques were Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709) and painters who came from Italy or studied painting there, such as Maciej Jan Meyer. I also show the prototype for the decoration of the chapel’s dome, namely, the fres­coes from 1664–1665 by Pietro Berrettini da Cortona in the dome of Santa Maria in Valicella in Rome, as well as for medallions with busts of saints mod­eled on the structure of the main altar from 1699–1700 in the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw, funded by Meyer’s first patron, Bishop Teodor Potocki, primate of Poland.