Saturday, June 23, 2012

Niasvizh Catholic Corpus Christi church


Nesvizh is a city in Belarus. It is the administrative centre of the Nesvizh District (rajon) of Minsk Province and location of the Nesvizh Castle World Heritage Site. Its 2009 population was 14,300.
Niasvizh Catholic Corpus Christi church was built in 1587–1593 according to the design of the Italian architect Jovanni Maria Bernardoni at sponsorship of Mikolai Christopher Radziwill the Orphan. The Jesuit church in Niasvizh was the first construction in Baroque in the whole territory of Rzecz Pospolita. The temple interior is richly decorated with paintings. The frescoes were performed in 1750–60-s with participation of the artist K.D. Gesski (restored in 1900–1902). The frescoes embrace 40 individual compositions depicting Saints, allegorical scenes and biblical stories. The fresco compositions include cartouches with the Bible stanze and references. There is K.D. Gesski’s picture "The Lord's Supper" (1753) in the main shrine. In addition to the paintings, the church interior contains a lot of plastic images, i.e. bás-reliefs and bust gravestones of the 17th – 19th centuries, marble altars and monuments. There is a choir with an organ above the temple entrance. An entrance into the family crypt – a burial vault of the Radziwills – is located next to the bás-relief under the altar of Christ. There are over seventy burials of the mighty dynasty in the semi-basement.
My friend Eugenia sent me this nice postcard.

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