Kościół pw. Świętej Anny, Kraków

Kościół pw. Świętej Anny is Kraków’s Roman Catholic parish and university collegiate church on Saint Anne Street. Its present Baroque form was designed by Tylman van Gameren after the earlier church was replaced in 1689. The church preserves the tomb of Saint John Cantius and a baptismal font from its predecessor.

St Anne’s Church is the Roman Catholic parish and university collegiate church at 13 Saint Anne Street in Kraków’s Old Town. Its two-storey façade, framed by twin towers with later Baroque caps, was deliberately designed to make its strongest impression when seen at an angle along this narrow street. In the triangular pediment, the relief of the Eye of Providence crowns a façade that also holds figures of four saints in its niches.

This church has repeatedly been remade. A wooden predecessor stood here in the fourteenth century and was first recorded in 1363. It burned in 1407 amid anti-Jewish riots; King Władysław Jagiełło funded a Gothic replacement that same year and placed it under the care of Kraków’s academy.

Saint John Cantius, a university professor, was buried here in 1473. As pilgrimages to his grave grew, the academy demolished that church in 1689 to build a larger one. The present building was designed by Tylman van Gameren and erected between 1689 and 1705.

It is a major Polish example of Baroque architecture, a style that uses theatrical scale and ornament to create a sense of ceremony. Inside, the tomb of Saint John Cantius occupies the right arm of the transept, while the bronze baptismal font survives from the earlier church.