Abstract
The Album of the Archconfraternity of the Blessed Sacrament and Five Wounds of Our Lord ff Jesus Christ at Kazimierz in Krakow was made in the 17th century, but its oldest section duplicates the contents of an earlier catalogue comprising entries from 1551–1612. The album is a large-sized manuscript volume, an original and ambitious work, a gem of the Old Polish sacred art, a genuine document of several cultural epochs and an invaluable historical source. However, to date it has been largely ignored by researchers, although it has been referred to and used as a source on multiple occasions in studies on the Corpus Christi Church and the history and resources of the monastic archive. The album had a representative function, and the very act of opening. its pages must have evoked excitement as the book was beautifully executed. In its form, shape, and artwork, it resembles lavishly decorated Mediaeval and Renaissance codices. Many of its sheets are in fact whole-page paintings with figural scenes; it also features impressive floral and heraldic elements as well as initials. Despite the passage of four centuries since its inception, it is still in use, and has therefore become a link between the past and the present. Its scholarly, cognitive and application-related value was noticed by researchers only in the early 20th century. It was Rev. Józef Augustyn Błachut, author of the first modern monograph of the monastery, published in 1905, who introduced the album into scholarly circulation. Today, it is one of the most frequently consulted sources in the archive of the monastery, drawing attention of historians, art historians, culture historians and religious geography historians, but also culture enthusiasts who visit the monastery and its library. It is a remarkable memorial of cultural heritage of the nation and the Church, and a source to be used inresearch on Poland’s religious life, population mobility, reception and transmission of ideas, cultural exchange, ties of the monastery with its surroundings; it provides research data for studies on the demography, system of government, culture and infrastructure of Kazimierz and the entire Krakow urban area.
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