Marshall funds the Camaldolese monastery

Abstract

Mikołaj Wolski (1553-1630), founder of the Camaldolese hermitage at Bielany near Cracow, was an exceptionally colourful and interesting personage. He travelled widely in his youth touring the most important European countries and getting familiar with the Renaissance culture. In spite of the fact that he supported a candidate of the House of Hapsburg to the Polish throne, he managed to get appreciation of king Sigismund III, who entrusted him with a position of the Royal Marshal to the Crown and made him his close advisor. Many a time he was sent as an envoy to the pope and monarchs, playing, at the same time, the role of a patron of artists, whom he won not only for the royal palace, but to beautify his own residence in Krzepica. The last 27 years of his life he devoted to the idea of bringing the Camaldolese Order to Cracow and building a hermitage for them on the Bielany Hill. The founder persoally  supervised construction  works and resided in one of the first monastery houses. As an expression of humbleness he wished to be buried after his death under the threshold of  he church in a monk’s robe.