On the project
This research project, realised within the framework of the National Program for the Development of Humanities of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education No. 0122/NPRH6/H11/85/2018 aims for conducting a thorough, comprehensive, multi-task inventory of sacral heritage within the perimeter of Toruń Old Town complex, based on interdisciplinary methodologies and research tools. During the first stage the research shall cover the former parish church (present cathedral) of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist and the church and part of a former Franciscan convent of the Holy Virgin Mary. A complete inventory shall include the architecture with its decor (architectonic details, mural paintings, stained-glass windows, floor tiles, flagstones and grave plates as well as movable furnishing: painting, woodwork and carpentry (including retables, stalls, pews, confessionals, pulpits etc.), sculpture (including free-standing statues, epitaphs, tomb effigies), handcraft (including liturgical vestments, vessels and implements, baptismal fonts, bells, wrought iron grating, etc.). The project shall include both objects preserved in situ and those incomplete and scattered among museum collections in Poland and abroad (e.g. Toruń, Warsaw, Pelplin) and provincial churches (Gostkowo, Kowalewo Pomorskie, Złotoria, etc.).
The realised tasks belong to the first phase of an extended research project planned for the forthcoming decade, that in future shall include also municipal and military architecture of both the Old and New Town and other historic districts of Toruń.
As a result the first detailed, monographic study shall emerge, that shall include all individual elements of the preserved sacral heritage (including descriptions of the structure, type, style, iconography, function, history and historic significance, executed simultaneously by specialists in particular areas and periods of art: the Medieval and Early Modern architecture, architectonic sculpture, Medieval mural and panel painting, Medieval sculpture, Early Modern décor, Early Modern retables and woodwork, Early Modern, Early Modern epitaphs, handcraft (liturgical artefacts and interior décor). The primary aim of the project is detailed recognition of sacral heritage of Toruń, integrating all research results obtained in the project. The result shall be publication of first volumes of THE INVENTORY OF TORUŃ ART.
A measurable final result of the project shall be a bilingual (Polish-English) digital platform containing a complete structural and historical description of objects, metric data, iconography, complete photographic documentation, results of architectonic and technological surveys, models, reconstructions , etc.