Bazylika Przenajświętszej Trójcy, Kraków

Bazylika Przenajświętszej Trójcy is Kraków’s historic Dominican church on Stolarska Street, connected with the Dominican convent. Rebuilt in Gothic form after the Mongol invasion, it survived a devastating nineteenth-century fire and contains the burials of Saint Hyacinth, Duke Leszek the Black, and Filippo Buonaccorsi.

Bazylika Przenajświętszej Trójcy is the Dominican church at 12 Stolarska Street, joined to the friars’ convent. Its tall Gothic form belongs to a rebuilding begun after the Mongol invasion of 1241. Gothic here means the medieval language of pointed arches and soaring interior space.

The Dominicans arrived in Kraków from Bologna in 1222, led by Saint Hyacinth. Bishop Iwo Odrowąż gave them the existing Holy Trinity parish church, then moved the parish to St Mary’s; this church was consecrated on the twelfth of March 1223. Notice the entrance portal sheltered by the porch: the portal itself dates from the fourteenth century, while the neo-Gothic porch was added in 1876.

Fire nearly erased the church in 1850. Most of the interior burned, the nave vault collapsed, and reconstruction continued until 1884. One attempted vault gave way again on the twelfth of April 1855, damaging a neighbouring house; the disaster prompted Kraków to create a conservation committee.

Inside, Saint Hyacinth is buried here, along with Duke Leszek the Black and the Renaissance humanist Filippo Buonaccorsi. The church has held the rank of minor basilica since 1957.