The parish cemetery in Opinogóra and the sepulchral chapel of the Krasiński family

Abstract

The parish cemetery in Opinogóra was established in 1824 near the parish church funded by Count Wincenty Krasiński in 1822, designed by an anonymous architect. The first burial in Opinogóra took place in 1822: Wincenty Krasiński’s wife, Maria Urszula née Radziwiłł was interred in the family burial chapel adjacent to the back of the church. The parish cemetery has interesting pieces of sepulchral architecture. Among the oldest
and the most remarkable examples is the tomb of Baron Franciszek Girardot, funded by his friend General Count Wincenty Krasiński; it was sculpted by Józef Czerwiński, a student of Paweł Maliński, in the form of an obelisk. The oldest surviving tomb is that of Baroness Helena de Le Haye née Hemmers, from 1829, the only specimen of the Neo-gothic style with a cast-iron gravestone in this cemetery. Another remarkable item is the sandstone tomb of Rev. Alojzy Ludwik Chiarini, funded by Wincenty Krasiński, probably in 1832. It is shaped as a case placed on a pedestal, with an Egyptian-art-inspired caryatide at each corner. The case is decorated with floral ornaments reminiscent of column capitals. The tomb of Tomasz Maria Pastecki from the fi rst half of the 20th c. is the only figural example in the cemetery; the figure was signed by Roman S. Lubowiecki. The Opinogóra cemetery is also the burial place of Colonel Tadeusz Wyleżyński, an adjutant of General Krasiński and later of General Józef Chłopicki and of Tsar Nicholas I. The church has several remarkable epitaphs, starting with the marble tombstone of Countess Maria Urszula Krasińska née Radziwiłł, sculpted in 1841 by Luigi Pampaloni. In the chancel there is a marble epitaph to Zygmunt Krasiński’s sons, Władysław and Zygmunt, showing them in the scene of the apotheosis of the Cross, sculpted in 1875 by Jules Franceschini. On the nave wall there is an epitaph to Countess Amelia Załuska née Bronikowska by Konstanty
Laszczka from 1899.  In the vaults there is a sepulchral chapel, restructured in the 1870s when a new church was designed by Wincenty Rakiewicz, funded by Róża Krasińska née Potocka. The crypts were designed by Jan Kacper Heurich (the elder). The family vault has four chambers; the last chamber, the burial place of the masters of Opinogóra, including the bard-poet Zygmunt Krasiński, is decorated with three bronze bas-reliefs showing scenes from his works: Nie-Boska Komedia [Non-Divine Comedy], Irydion and Przedświt [Before Dawn], made in 1877, signed by Jules Franceschini and E. Gruet; Franceschini designed the reliefs together with the aforementioned epitaph, while Gruet cast them in his Paris works.