Baroque in Poland - Counter-reformation

Counter-reformation

The Roman Catholic Church became one of the major patrons of the arts; another was the royal house, whose patronage was most visible in the new capital of Warsaw. There the pious Catholic king Sigismund III Vasa sponsored many Baroque sacral constructions. In its first phase, ecclesiastical Baroque architecture was primarily associated with the Jesuit Order, who arrived in Poland in 1564, as part of the counter-reformation, a trend which over the next century would triumph in Poland. The Jesuits established churches and schools in many major cities, slowly winning over the Protestant educational centers in Thorn (Toruń), Danzig and Elbing (Elbląg), and Leszno (where the Comenius school of the Bohemian Brothers was located). The eventual victory of the counter-reformation in Poland would eventually be one of the reasons that would contribute to its cultural stagnation.