The Architecture of Poor Clares’ Nunnery in Stary Sącz. Early Fourteenth-Century Artistic Relations between Lesser Poland and Upper Rhineland

The nunnery of Poor Clares in Stary Sącz, founded in 1280 by the Duchess of Cracow and Sandomierz (recently canonized as Saint Kinga), is regarded as one of the most notable religious institutions of its kind in medieval Poland. This article focuses on the first tierce of the fourteenth century, when the present church - consecrated in 1332 - was constructed. The paper presents detailed analysis of the Stary Sącz nunnery’s architecture, which was developed in the context of a dense network of artistic relations between the southeast regions of the Polish Empire and Central Europe. The church emerges not only as an exemplary case of a dynastic foundation for a female order, but also as a prime example of the artistic phenomenon that today’s historiographers cite as “architectural avant-garde around the year 1300”.