Introduction

Originally erected in 1644, reduced to rubble during World War II, and then rebuilt in 1949, Sigismund III Vasa’s Column (later referred to as Sigismund’s Column) (Fig. 1) is undeniably not only Warsaw’s most recognisable historical landmark but also one of its most important monuments. Its pertinence for Warsaw’s cityscape and for Polish culture in general, as well as the sheer originality of its underlying artistic conception, resulted in a number of extensive studies by Polish art historiansFootnote 1 who, over the years, have taken a special interest in this seventeenth-century monument to the Polish-Swedish king, Sigismund III Vasa (1566–1632). The main objective of this chapter is to discuss the history of Sigismund’s Column in order to showcase its crucial dependence on the Roman and Florentine traditions of commemorating both the saints’ and the rulers’ glorious deeds using the form of a column. Consequently, the chapter wishes to address the long-held assumption about the Column’s uniqueness. Over the decades, a number of scholars have been tempted to argue that it was the first monument since late antiquity of an early modern ruler in the form of a column, and thus a memorial which was two centuries ahead of similar commemorative practices in Western art and architecture. Nevertheless, as this chapter will prove, it is possible to identify analogous commemorative designs and projects prior to the erection of Sigismund’s Column in Warsaw and, consequently, challenge the claim about the Warsaw monument’s unprecedented shape. While examining other projects—particularly the Column of the Virgin in front of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome (Fig. 2)Footnote 2 and the Column of Justice in Florence (Fig. 3)Footnote 3—this chapter will also focus on methods and means employed by the columns’ creators and commissioners in order to produce and represent political power.

Fig. 1
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Sigismund’s Column in Warsaw. Photo by Adrian Grycuk, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kolumna_Zygmunta_III_Wazy_2020.jpg

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Fig. 2
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Giovanni Paolo Pannini, the Piazza and Church of Santa Maria Maggiore (1744), oil on canvas, Palazzo Quirinale, Rome, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giovanni_Paolo_Pannini_-_The_Piazza_and_Church_of_Santa_Maria_Maggiore.jpg

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Fig. 3
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Column of Justice, Florence. Photo by Giovanni Dall’Orto, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:9794_-_Firenze_-_Colonna_di_S._Trinita_-_Foto_Giovanni_Dall%27Orto,_28-Oct-2007.jpg

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In the first part of my analysis, I will discuss the history of the memorial—both the story of its erection and the circumstances surrounding the origins of this enterprise, which was to bring about a monumental appearance of the ruler and to display it on an almost twenty-metre-high column.Footnote 4 Concurrently, I intend to carry out an analysis of the column-oriented research in which one observes considerable prioritisation of a specific political programme behind the monument, as well as its potential ideological meanings. In the second part of my chapter I will demonstrate an analysis of Sigismund’s Column which is placed in the broad context of ancient and modern monuments in the form of a column. The final section of the chapter focuses on the Column of Justice in Florence which was originally designed as a monument to Cosimo l de’ Medici by Giorgio Vasari (Fig. 4). Despite the fact that the original project was never accomplished, it will be recognised as a major source of inspiration for Władysław IV, Sigismund’s son and the commissioner of his father’s Column, as well as for the Italian artists involved in the creation of the Warsaw-based monument. As part of my discussion I will suggest that Władysław IV himself might have had a first-hand knowledge of Vasari’s idea. I argue that the Florentine genealogy of Sigismund’s Column should be recognised as pivotal and of utmost importance to any discussion of the origins and the very form of Sigismund’s Column.

Fig. 4
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Project of Cosimo I Column, anonymous drawer, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi. Drawing by Wojciech Szymański after Detlef Heikamp “Die Säulenmonumente Cosimo I”

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The Column’s History

Despite a number of gaps and some inconsistencies, the history of the column’s construction was very well recorded in the written documents from the period. Among them, pride of place should be given to the following: the memoirs by Albrycht Stanisław Radziwiłł (1593–1656), a nobleman and the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania; letters by Hubert Walderode von Eckhausen, Ferdinand III’s envoy to Warsaw,Footnote 5 as well as letters by Giacinto Orselli, a Faenza-born Piarist priest.Footnote 6 An inscription on the Column’s high plinth and a copperplate engraving by Wilhelm Hondius (1597–c. 1652), after a design by Agostino Locci “the Elder” (c. 1601–1660), in itself the oldest-known image of Sigismund’s Column, are particularly significant for this study. The latter showcases the southern view of the Column, alongside scenes depicting the transport of the Column’s shaft from quarries in Chęciny to its appointed destination, its erection upon the plinth, as well as the inscription tablets mounted onto the Column’s base, and a history of the Column’s creation (together with a list of its makers).Footnote 7

The above-listed sources have been used to tell the story of the Column’s genesis on several occasions. In 1643 a marble pillar was brought to Warsaw. On 14 September 1644 it was erected in the square in front of the Royal Castle. On 24 November 1644 the pillar was crowned with a bronze statue of Sigismund III Vasa who had died twelve years before.Footnote 8 The Column’s founder was Władysław IV Vasa (1595–1648), Sigismund’s son and successor in the aftermath of a successful election to the Polish throne. While the Column itself was not only a means to express filial love and to commemorate his late father, it was also an ingenious propaganda instrument: a memorialFootnote 9 in honour of the king and, simultaneously, a representation of royal power created in a very specific and complicated socio-political context.Footnote 10

The king’s intentions, of the kind stipulated above, are easily discernible if one closely reads the inscriptions placed on the bronze tablets and attached to the Column’s plinth. Given their relevance for this discussion, this chapter will quote them in full. The Latin text on the Western tablet reads:

Sigismundus III Liberis suffragiis Poloniae, haereditate, successione, iure Sveciae Rex. Pacis, studiis gloriaq[ue] inter reges primus, bello et victoriis nomini secundus, Moscorum ducibus metropoli, provinciis captis, exercitibus profligatis, Smolensco recuperato, Turcica potentia ad Chocimum refracta. Quadraginta quatuor annis regno impensis, quadragesimus quartus ipse in regia serie omnium aequavit aut iunxit gloriam [Sigismund III, following free elections the King of Poland; the King of Sweden by inheritance, succession, and law. The first among all kings in his love of peace and glory. A relentless warrior who never yielded to anybody. He took the Muscovite leaders captive. He conquered the Muscovite capital city and lands, and defeated his enemy’s troops. He re-claimed Smolensk. At the battle of Khotyn he dispersed and drove out the Turks. He ruled for forty-four years. He was the forty-fourth king. He matched them all in glory].Footnote 11

A bronze tablet placed on the southern side of the plinth contains the following inscription:

Honori et pietati sacram statuam hanc Sigismundo III Vladislaus IV natura, amore, genio filius, electione, serie, felicitate successor, voto, animo, cultu gratus patri patriae, parenti opt[ae] mer[iti] anno D[omi]ni MDCXLIII poni iussit cui iam gloria tropheum, posteritas gratitudinem, aeternitas monumentum posuit aut debet [In anno domini 1643, to commemorate Sigismund’s glory and piety, this sacred sculpture was erected upon the order of Władysław IV—his loving and rightful son, his next in line in the wake of the election, succession, and good fortune, who is full of gratitude to his father in all his desires, feelings, and esteem. To commemorate the father of the country, the worthies of fathers, whose glory brought him triumphs, whom posterity owes undying gratitude, and for whom eternity erected a monument].

For those visiting the plinth of Sigismund’s Column, the eastern and northern tablets contain the following inscriptions:

Sic coelo, sic terris Sigismundus III pietate insignis et armis, geminae gloriae merito sese approbavit, hinc gladium inde crucem tam forti quam pia manu tenet, illo pugnavit, in hoc signo vicit sub hoc insigni vixit, securus, invictus, felix, nunc felicitate quam terris dedit gloriosus, quam coelo meruit, beatus [Famous for his piety and valiancy, King Sigmund III rightfully deserved a double glory—on earth as it is in heaven. One of his hands holds a sword; the other, brave and pious, holds a cross. He fought with a sword and emerged victorious under the sign of the cross. Both the sword and the cross gave him protection, invincibility, and happiness. Now, he is famous due to the happiness he brought to earth; and blessed due to the glory he rightfully deserved];

and

Non statua ergitur, nec caeso gloria monte fulta, Sigismundi, Mons errat ipse sibi, nec fulgorem auro, robur neq[ue] sumit ab aere: Auro fulgidior, firmior aere fuit [Sigismund’s glory does not depend either on sculpture or hewn stone mountain. He was a mountain of his own. The brightness of his glory does not rely on gold, nor his power on bronze. His glory was brighter than gold itself and more lasting than bronze].

The northern tablet also features an addendum which states: “Daniel Tym S[acrae] R[egiae] M[aiestatis] fusor Varsaviae fecit, A[nno] D[omini] 1644 [Cast by Daniel Tym, a royal moulder, anno domini 1644].”Footnote 12

Latin inscriptions placed on the Column’s plinth unambiguously point to the meanings the monument was endowed with by its very creators. What is more, they also provide one with a general idea behind its iconographic programme and testify to a commemorative nature of the whole enterprise launched by the late king’s grieving son. Additionally, they also reveal the name of one of the monument’s creators.

Doubtlessly, the Western inscription serves to introduce and describe Sigismund III. It lists the king’s virtues (peace-loving and full of glory) and military triumphs, particularly Poland’s victorious wars against pagans and religious dissenters, the Ottoman Empire, and the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which took place during Sigismund’s decades-long reign. The latter should be carefully considered not only in the context of the following inscriptions but above all in the light of the king’s counter-reformation policies.Footnote 13 It is noteworthy that Sigismund III Vasa is presented as Poland’s electoral king (“Liberis suffragiis Poloniae”), as well as a hereditary and rightful king of Sweden (“haereditate, successione, iure Sveciae Rex”)—despite his deposition in 1599. Both southern and western tablets, though they continue to enumerate the king’s virtues, mostly reveal the monument’s commemorative function. Its founder, Władysław IV Vasa, has been presented here as both a public and private figure: a loving son on the one hand (“filius”) and a rightful heir elected to the Polish throne on the other (“successor”). Comparatively, Sigismund III Vasa has been “privately” and “publicly” commemorated: as a biological father (“parens”) and father of the country (“pater patriae”) respectively. The eastern tablet also lists Sigismund’s virtues, as the king is described as pious, invincible, glorious, famous, and blissful.

What one might find particularly intriguing with regard to the eastern tablet is that it explains only the form of the sacred statue (“sacra statua”): a bronze sculpture which crowns the pillar and which is purported to be the ruler’s image (“imago regis”), thus leaving the rest of the monument uncontextualised. Consequently, one learns about the general meaning of two highly symbolic objects which Sigismund III Vasa holds in his hand: a sword (“gladius”) and a cross (“crux”).Footnote 14 Both speak for the king’s power and virtues and are symbols of his glorious rule. One could even speculate that the monument presents the king as a saintly warrior: the figure holding a sword and a cross has been clad in a suit of armour, while the ruler himself has been recognised as a blessed man (“beatus”). The virtue of piety, which the cross symbolises, has been straightforwardly stipulated in the Column’s bronze inscription (“pietate insignis”). Piety’s companions are courage and fortitude. The Latin word fortitudo has not been used in the inscription, but the virtue has been brought up by means of two associated attributes, the armour and the sword, as well as the following phrase: “insignis et armis.” Another virtue that has not been directly named in the Latin description is justice (“Iustitia”)—an essential characteristic of a good, happy, and Christian (Catholic to be more specific) ruler which Sigismund III Vasa, a slayer of heathen Turks and Muscovites, represents. Similarly to fortitude, justice can also be symbolised by the sword. In his insightful and comprehensive study, Mariusz Karpowicz sums up the iconography of the virtuous ruler employed in Sigismund’s Column (which Karpowicz also perceives as a means to commemorate the king’s glorious rule) in the following fashion:

Iustitia et Pietas duo sunt regnorum omnium fundamenta. Such were the words engraved in the High Gate, Gdansk’s major city gate, directly under the Coast of Arms of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This line draws one’s attention to one extra meaning of the word sword, or rather sabre. As it is widely known, it symbolises justice, Iustitia. Thus, Sigismund’s sword was, metaphorically if not literally, double-edged: it smote the king’s external enemies and administered justice to his subjects. Bringing the two virtues, namely Iustitia and Pietas, together is as ancient as Europe’s notion of regnum—its origins can be traced back to the Middle Ages.Footnote 15

Finally, the inscription featured on the northern tablet acknowledges the creator of the king’s bronze statue: the foundry master Daniel Tym. However, this craftsman was not the only artist working on the monument. If Tym appears to have been responsible for casting the king’s bronze statue in a foundry, the sculpture’s actual designer and rightful author was Clemente Molli (c.1599–1664), a Bologna-born sculptor who was mostly active in Venetian territory and who frequently collaborated with the celebrated Italian architect Baldassare Longhena.Footnote 16 It is Molli’s name that was inscribed on the lowly base on which Sigismund’s statue proudly stands.Footnote 17

The names of the remaining architects/creators of the monument can be found in the copperplate engraving made in the Hague two years after the Column’s completion.Footnote 18 They are the Roman architects Agostino Locci and Constantino Tencalla (1610–1647), the former a Ticino-born builder and the latter an engineer who were both employed by Władysław IV Vasa to carry out projects for the king’s service. The former frequently delivered set designs and instances of ceremonial architecture for the royal court. Regarding Sigismund’s Column, he was primarily responsible for locating the monument at the square in front of the Royal Castle, as well as for its harmonious incorporation into the larger urban planning scheme.Footnote 19 The latter, Tencalla, as the chief royal architect, supervised the construction works and it is generally assumed that he came up with an idea to build the monument in the form of a column.Footnote 20

It is my belief that the very form of the monument (a tall marble pillar with a smooth, unfluted shaft and a Corinthian capital, as well as the protruding impost on which the statue of Sigismund III Vasa stands) remains the most interesting aspect of the king’s commemoration. Had the sculpture representing Sigismund III Vasa, a joint effort by Clemente Molli and Daniel Tym, not been placed on a column, the monument itself would not have been so very unusual and therefore intriguing. It would not have attracted the considerable attention of Polish art historians who have long acknowledged Sigismund’s Column as not only the first monument dedicated to a layperson ever to have been erected in Polish urban space,Footnote 21 but also as an unprecedented, ground-breaking, and even revolutionary means to represent the ruler in early modern Western art.Footnote 22 Its originality depends on the assumption that the form of the Warsaw-based memorial in honour of Sigismund III Vasa differs considerably from other royal monuments erected in early modern Europe. According to Karpowicz, royal monuments assumed predominantly two shapes: either equestrian statues resting on variously sized plinths or static figures placed on the base.Footnote 23 Fine examples of the first type are the equestrian statues of Alessandro Farnese in Piacenza (1625) and of Cosimo l de’ Medici, the latter of which was erected on the Piazza della Signoria in Florence in 1594 thanks to the efforts of his son, Ferdinando I de’ Medici. An excellent example of the second type of monument is the Monument of the Four Moors (“Monumento dei Quattro mori”), located in Livorno, and constructed in 1626, whose objective was to commemorate the victories of Ferdinando I de’ Medici.

The Monument and Its Origins

Nearly every study which references Sigismund’s Column is compelled to acknowledge the monument’s originality vis-à-vis other commemorative forms and practices carried out in early modern Europe. These authors also tend to emphasise the fact that this mode of royal commemoration is heavily dependent on the antique Roman memorial tradition. As such, two paradigmatic examples of such tradition are typically put forward: Trajan’s Column (113 AD), and the Column of Marcus Aurelius (after 180 AD), both erected in Rome and both topped with the statues of the two rulers, which were removed in the Middle Ages. In the light of the commemorative nature of the two Roman columns, it should be remembered that although Trajan’s Column was erected during the Emperor’s lifetime to commemorate his victory in the Dacian Wars, the Emperor’s statue was put on its top only after Trajan’s death in 117, once he had been deified by the Senate and his ashes deposited under the monument. By comparison, the Column of Marcus Aurelius was crowned with the Emperor’s statue in the aftermath of his demise, when it was commissioned by his son Commodus.Footnote 24 In the sixteenth century, both columns were renovated upon the initiative of Pope Sixtus V (Felice Peretti) (1521–1590), himself a connoisseur of antiquities. Thus, in the early modern period they were known as Pope Sixtus V’s Columns,Footnote 25 and they were crowned with the bronze statues of St. Peter and St. Paul.Footnote 26 The Christianisation of the pagan heritage of Rome’s urban tissue, initiated by Pope Sixtus V, left a significant legacy through the renovation of two imperial columns which powerfully resonated throughout Europe. This was not only because of the city’s unique position on the cultural map of the Christian world but also due to Rome’s popularity among pilgrims and all sorts of early modern travellers. According to Steven F. Ostrow,

[t]hrough the agency of his architect, Domenico Fontana, the Peretti pope created a vast new urban network of streets linking the major Early Christian basilicas, providing pilgrims with monumental access routes to the sacred treasures of the city. At the heart of Sixtus’s urban project was the transformation of pagan into Christian Rome, exemplified by his ‘christianizing’ of ancient monuments, most notable among them the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, and the four Egyptian obelisks that he raised—at the center of St. Peter’s square, in front of the north transept of the Lateran basilica, before the apse of S. Maria Maggiore, and at the center of the Piazza del Popolo.Footnote 27

However, the two Roman columns differ considerably from Sigismund’s Column—particularly with regard to their forms. As has already been noted, the shaft of Sigismund’s Column is smooth—unlike those of Trajan’s and Marcus Aurelius’ Columns which are decorated with a continuous narrative relief. What is more, contrary to their Polish equivalent, the Roman columns have spiral staircases which provide access to the very top. Krzysztof Lesiak and Hanna Samsonowicz unambiguously declared that the Roman columns could not have by any means influenced the shape of Sigismund’s Column.Footnote 28 But there is yet another Roman monument which due to its specific structure, proportions, and, above all, location bears some resemblance to Sigismund’s Column: the Column of Phocas dedicated to the Eastern Roman Emperor Phocas and erected at the Forum Romanum in 608 by Smaragdus, the Exarch of Ravenna.Footnote 29 Its top was also crowned with a statue of the Byzantine ruler; however, this was lost in the Middle Ages and never rediscovered. Nevertheless, the Column’s high plinth, slender proportions, as well as the Corinthian capital encourage one to recognise some formal similarities it shares with the Warsaw-based memorial.Footnote 30

Juliusz Chrościcki, an esteemed Polish art historian, also acknowledges the Column of Phocas as an important point of reference for Sigismund’s Column.Footnote 31 In his 1980 study, Chrościcki formulated a highly influential interpretation of the monument, which in the following decades received widespread endorsement from fellow art historians.Footnote 32 According to Chrościcki, Sigismund’s Column should be seen as part of a larger artistic and urban planning project which he calls Forum Vasorum (“Vasa Forum”).Footnote 33 In Chrościcki’s view, the Vasa Forum, a representational and centrally located space in front of Warsaw’s Royal Castle, was to comprise a series of monuments which were to serve as the apotheosis of the Vasa dynasty—very much in the manner of the Muscovite Chapel, a mausoleum dedicated to the Muscovite tsars imprisoned by Sigismund III during the Polish–Muscovite War and held captive in Warsaw, where they later died.Footnote 34 Among the structures which the Forum was to accommodate, Chrościcki lists the following: a triumphal arch in honour of John II Casimir Vasa (1609–1672), Władysław IV’s half-brother, and the third Vasa king on the Polish throne, as well as a freestanding statue of Władysław IV Vasa on a plinth.Footnote 35 According to this interpretation, Sigismund’s Column would be the only completed part of the Forum—its very heart, and simultaneously demonstrating the “beatification of the king in the Catholic sense, as well as his deification in line with the antique tradition.”Footnote 36 Fascinating as it is, Chrościcki’s interpretation is exclusively based on only one iconographic source, which in turn makes his argument quite controversial and inherently flawed.Footnote 37 The source in question is a drawing on the frontispiece of a catalogue by Giovanni Battista Gisleni (1600–1672), an Italian architect and set designer who worked in Poland. The drawing features Sigismund’s Column, as well as other monuments and buildings which have never been erected or designed. For this reason, it is justifiable to consider it Gisleni’s capriccio, or architectural fantasy, and not a fully fledged architectural and urban design (as Chrościcki would have it).Footnote 38

The commemorative tradition discussed herein, which has its origins in antiquity, adopts the form of a column, and was effectively “Christianised” by Sixtus V in the 1580s, was revived in papal Rome once more in 1614, when Pope Paul V (Camillo Borghese) (1551–1621) erected the Column of the Virgin in front of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. Its shaft was taken from the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine several decades before, at a time when Sixtus V was still the Roman pontiff and the Basilica was known as the temple of peace (“Templum Pacis”).Footnote 39 The original plan to erect the Column vis-à-vis the Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri was soon abandoned, and the Column of the Virgin was located in front of the most important marine shrine in Rome. It was to be not only a sacred statue but also an allegory of the papacy. In his study dedicated to the Column of the Virgin, Ostrow writes about the monument’s significance:

The column and statue thus unite to communicate the idea of a new Pax Romana—a new eternal peace—achieved through the Virgin, who stands as guardian before her basilica in Rome. And while the peace was ushered in by the birth of Christ, Paul V, through this monument, celebrates Mary as the source of that peace.Footnote 40

Along these lines, the pope was to be understood as an “earthly representative of the Prince of Peace,” while “his papacy was marked by his efforts to establish peace among the Catholic powers.”Footnote 41

The Column of the Virgin has a lot in common with the Column of Phocas: they share proportions, a high plinth, as well as the employment of the Corinthian order. Individuals behind Sigismund’s Column must have been familiar with the pillar in front of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore which is testified to by the form of the Warsaw-based memorial. Its plinth with four inscription tablets shows some incontestable formal affinities with the base of the Marian pillar in Rome. Also, one cannot dismiss the fact that both plinths have been adorned by four eagles with luxurious garlands hanging between them. Finally, they also share a protruding impost which makes both columns look particularly slender and elegant. While discussing the influence of the Column of the Virgin on Sigismund’s Column, one should also take into account the pan-European popularity of the former. It should be noted that the Column of the Virgin soon became a prototypical model for several other Marian columns, as well as those dedicated to various saints and crowned with their images/statues. A good example of this proliferation is the Munich-based Mariensäule erected in 1638 (a few years before Sigismund’s Column was created) or the Croce di Sant’Elena in Milan, which some art historians were eager to see as the prototype of Sigismund’s Column.Footnote 42

Indeed, the Italian artists who worked at Władysław IV Vasa’s court in Warsaw could not have been strangers to the Column of the Virgin from the Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. Locci was born in Rome and he settled in Poland around 1630, whilst Molli was involved in erecting several columns topped with the statues of saints across Italy.Footnote 43 What is more, it is a well-known fact that Władysław IV was familiar with the Column of the Virgin as he saw it during his visit to Rome as part of his 1624–1625 Grand Tour of Europe.Footnote 44 A 1650 narrative poem by Samuel Twardowski, which offers a chronologically arranged, historically accurate, and diligently factual biography of Władysław IV,Footnote 45 provides a detailed record of the future king’s travels around Western Europe. While offering an account of Władysław’s stay in Rome, Twardowski confirms that the Polish prince visited not only “Sistine columns” but also the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore.Footnote 46 Ten years before Władysław’s visit to Rome, the Column of the Virgin was erected in the piazza in front of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore.

Needless to say, a number of similarities between the Roman columns discussed above, namely the Column of the Virgin and the Column of Phocas, and Sigismund’s Column, by no means override their two major differences. The first difference is straightforwardly formal. If the shafts of the former are fluted, the shaft of the latter is smooth. However, the second difference is far more important and essentially ideological. If the formerly antique and recently “Christianised” columns erected by Sixtus V and Paul V were topped with the statues of saints (and, consequently, became the objects of veneration), the Warsaw memorial was crowned with a figure of a secular, but nonetheless powerful figure, who died no more than twelve years before. Sigismund’s statue was called the “sacred sculpture” (“sacra statua”); high above his head the cross was raised, much like in the case of St. Helena’s column in Milan, and the king was labelled “blessed” (“beatus”). Nevertheless, nothing could change the fact that the column was crowned with a figure of a secular ruler, a layman. In this sense, it became a unique mode of commemoration—one that alluded not only to the antique tradition of former rulers having been remembered and deified by their immediate successors, but also to the early modern, Roman, and Christianised tradition of column erection. However, as the research demonstrates below, this mode is not as unparalleled and singular as many would like it to be.

Florentine Inspirations

Since at least the mid-fifteenth century, Florentine humanists appear to have been familiar with the phenomenon of a statue-topped column. In his architectural treatise published in 1486, but written in the late 1440s and early 1450s, Leon Battista Alberti pronounced: “In the whole art of building the column is the principal ornament without any doubt; it may be set in combination, to adorn a portico, wall, or other form of opening, nor is it unbecoming when standing alone. It may embellish crossroads, theatres, squares; it may support a trophy; or it may act as a monument.”Footnote 47 The Renaissance architect thus continued his scholarly exploration of columns:

Columns may […] be designed purely as markers or as memorials for posterity. […] This type of column is composed of the following parts: steps, serving as a podium and base, rise directly from the ground; a quadrangular dado sits above these, and on top of this another, no smaller than the first; third comes base to the column, then the column itself, and on top of that the capital, and finally a statue sitting on a plinth.Footnote 48

However, as Alberti duly notes, knowledge about this commemorative tradition was not wholly unproblematic as it faced a number of challenges, both ethical and political. Alberti provides his readers with the following example of a problematic commemoration: “Who would not condemn the extraordinary arrogance of Heliogabalus, for proposing to construct a huge column, on top of which, reached by an internal staircase, was to be seated a statue of himself as deified Heliogabalus, to whose cult it was dedicated?”Footnote 49

It is likely that the above-mentioned concerns were very much alive in Florence even a century later—at the time when Cosimo l de’ Medici (1519–1574), the Duke of Florence from 1537, and the first Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1569, considered the erection of his own monument in the form of a statue-topped tall column. Even though the project itself has never been accomplished, it deserves an in-depth study in the context of Sigismund’s Column. The existing design drawing of Cosimo I’s Column,Footnote 50 the long-standing debates about the statue-topped column in the courtly and artistic milieu of Renaissance Florence, as well as close contacts and kinship between the Medici court in Florence and the Vasa court in WarsawFootnote 51 encourage one to examine and expound on the analogies between the two monuments.

Paul William Richelson draws attention to the ruler’s fundamental quandaries regarding his own memorial.Footnote 52 According to Richelson, Vasari himself, who at the time served as the Duke’s artistic entrepreneur, should be credited with the very idea to put the ruler’s statue on a column and erect it in the very heart of Florence’s urban tissue.Footnote 53 The column in question was presented to Cosimo I by Pope Pius IV in 1560 and was shipped to Florence a year later. It was an ancient artefact, recovered from the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla. By the Duke’s order, the memorial was to be erected at the Piazza Santa Trinita: the very place where Cosimo learnt about Florence’s victory over the allied Sienese-French forces at the Battle of Marciano in 1554.Footnote 54 Consequently, the column was to commemorate the Duke’s triumph over his enemies and preserve the eternal memory of the victory (“eterna memoria”).Footnote 55 In line with Vasari’s intention, the column, erected in 1565, was to be crowned with the statue of the Duke and thus provide a “visual impact and symbolic importance that it might even convince the Duke to permit the creation of the first full scale sculptural representation of his person in Florence.”Footnote 56 The sculptor Bartolomeo Ammannati was named responsible for the decorative ornaments and stone incisions. Whilst neither sketches nor models of the Duke’s statue have survived, there is no doubt that the phrase “your statue” (“la vostra statua”), which is used in Ammannati’s letter to Cosimo,Footnote 57 refers to this exactly.

Detlef Heikamp argues that an undated letter from Ammannati to Cosimo, which contains the descriptions of sculptural and ornamental forms to be applied to the column’s plinth, should be read as a proclamation of the memorial’s iconographic and ideological programme conceived by Vasari himself, a true commemorator of the Duke.Footnote 58 Bronze tablets attached to the column’s plinth were to display the Duke’s virtues, as well as his glorious deeds. As Henk Th. van Veen discerningly observes,

[t]he reliefs were to glorify Cosimo’s princely virtues, his acquisition of ducal authority, his military prowess, his unification of Florence and Siena, and the manifold blessings of his reign. An inscription was also planned for the pedestal: MAXIMO COSIMO AUCTORI PACIS, ET FOELICITATIS NOSTRAE, AETERNUM HOC DECUS MERITO EREXIMUS.Footnote 59

Reliefs of the virtues that are both enumerated in the letter and remain visible in the memorial’s project are: “la Fortezza” (“Fortitudo”), “la Magnanimitá” (“Magnanimitas”), “la Benignitá” (“Benignitas”), and “la Prudenza” (“Prudentia”), translated respectively as fortitude, magnanimity, kindness/generosity, and prudence; as well as three allegorical figures representing justice (“Iustitia”), clemency (“Clementia”), and military virtue—all fleshed out with peace (“Pax”) and felicity (“Felicitas”).Footnote 60

The Florentine memorial in honour of Cosimo and his many virtues has never been accomplished. One of the reasons for the project’s failed completion may have been Cosimo’s own misgivings about Vasari’s/Ammannati’s propensity for ostentation and grandiosity.Footnote 61 As a result, this first early modern attempt to restore the antique tradition of the ruler-topped monument is discovered exclusively by means of the written sources, as the statue of the ruler, quite literally, never made it to the top. In 1565, upon the occasion of the marriage between Francesco, Cosimo’s son, and Joanna of Austria, the column was crowned with a terracotta statue of Justice by Ammannati.Footnote 62 Five years later, in 1570, the works on the monument resumed and the inscription was placed onto the column’s plinth.Footnote 63 Only after Cosimo I’s death in 1577 was the temporary terracotta figure of Iustitia removed from the memorial’s top. Four years later, in 1581, the column was crowned with a new porphyry statue carved by Francesco del Tadda. However, what was placed on a new stone capital (the former was made of wood) was not a Florentine duke but Justice, clad in a cloak and a suit of armour, and clutching a sword in her hand.Footnote 64

The construction of Cosimo’s Florentine memorial took about two decades. Over the years, a memorial in honour of the Duke was replaced by a memorial in honour of one of his virtues. One could argue that conceding on Vasari’s original idea resulted in a transition to a new approach: to erect not one but as many as three columns.Footnote 65 According to Richelson, each column was to be dedicated to a distinctive emblematic concept, namely Justice, Peace, and Religion. Three of Cosimo’s biographers mention these columns, as well as their location: Justice (Piazza Santa Trinita), Religion (Piazza San Felice), and Peace (Piazza San Marco). Richelson claims that each column was supposed to support an allegorical statue of the particular emblematic concept to which it was dedicated.Footnote 66 Van Veen sums the new concept up in the following manner: “Like the column of Justitia these [two other columns] were to support statues of the respective Virtues. […] The columns’ purpose was to place his [Cosimo I’s] regime squarely in the context of Florentine history.”Footnote 67

Cosimo I’s death did not put an end to ambitious commemorative schemes which were being developed in Florence at the time, as evidenced by the already mentioned city map from the 1580s, which depicts an unfinished equestrian statue of Cosimo I at the Piazza San Marco or the subsequent (until the seventeenth century) attempts to build ruler-topped columns in Florence’s cityscape. One of these attempts deserves special acknowledgement: a (failed) attempt to crown the column located at the Piazza San Marco with a statue of Joanna of Austria (1547–1587), the late Duchess of Tuscany, in the early 1600s. Ferdinando I, Cosimo’s son, commissioned the Flemish sculptor Giambologna to carve the statue—possibly on the occasion of Maria de’ Medici’s per procura marriage to the King of France which took place in Florence in 1600.Footnote 68 Both the apotheosis and the commemoration of Joanna of Austria were to be a reminder of one of the royal aspirations of the House of Medici since Joanna, the mother of Maria and sister-in-law of Ferdinando I, was from the imperial House of Habsburg, and her official title was Queen of Hungary.

An overview of the misfortunes of Cosimo I’s memorial, as well as a number of other unfinished Florentine projects, does not intend to prove that the erection of Sigismund’s Column in Warsaw was a fully self-conscious allusion to and reinforcement of the artistic, aesthetic, and political ideas that flourished in Renaissance Florence. It is not the intention of this chapter to propose spurious and unfounded links between Florence- and Warsaw-based memorials. Nevertheless, the story of Florentine columns entitles one to reach two major conclusions. Firstly, it is impossible to sustain various art historical narratives that would consider Sigismund’s Column to be fully unprecedented and singular. Indeed, the Warsaw-based Column is an aesthetically imposing structure; it is, indeed, the first completed specimen of the ruler-topped column in Early Modern Europe; however, one should also acknowledge the fact that the Florentine projects of the said column precede the Warsaw realisation by several dozen years. Secondly, despite a number of differences between Warsaw and Florence, both courts operated in similar political situations and purposefully used art to reach similar political objectives.

First and foremost, what the two courts appear to have shared are their ambitions and their attempts to satisfy these. In this light, memorials in the form of a column might be interpreted as means of legitimising the Medici/Vasa rule, which the courts achieved by proclaiming the glory of their respective dynasties and by representing their glorious rulers. One should remember that Cosimo I de’ Medici became the ruler of Florence and Tuscany by accident once the main line of the House of Medici had died out: he came into power after the death of Alessandro de’ Medici, “il Moro,” the last from the main line of the House of Medici, and the first hereditary ruler of Florence. Similarly, Sigismund III Vasa ascended to the Polish throne in the wake of free elections: he was a nephew of Sigismund II Augustus, the last hereditary Polish king, and the last of the Jagiellonian line. Consequently, Władysław IV Vasa, Sigismund III’s son and the Column’s architect, was not a hereditary ruler of Poland but, like his father before him, he was elected to be ruler by the Polish and Lithuanian noblemen. Similar to his father, Władysław IV used the title of the hereditary king of Sweden—despite the fact that Sigismund III was deposed by the Swedish parliament in 1599. What is more, both the Houses of Medici and of Vasa felt a pressing need to prove their legitimacy and showcase the splendour of their power far and wide—this was made apparent in Florence in the 1600s when it was decided that the statue of Joanna of Austria should crown the Piazza San Marco column, as well as in Warsaw in 1644 when Sigismund’s Column was erected.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that in the act of commemorating his own father Władysław IV used a phrase which proclaimed that Sigismund was not only equal but first among world rulers (“inter reges primus”). One should also pay attention to the fact that the inscription on the Warsaw monument features the formula “pater patriae,” the father of the country. This phrase was also used in Florence with regard to Cosimo di Giovanni de’ Medici (1389–1464), Cosimo I’s ancestor, and the first of the House of Medici. Crucially for the present discussion, the formula was a propaganda tool used by Cosimo I to validate his attempts to erect a memorial in the form of a column. According to Suzanne B. Butters,

[p]arallels were often drawn between Cosimo I and his forebear, Cosimo the Elder, eulogized as PATER PATRIAE and PARENS PATRIAE. For this reason the Duke and his apologists may well have noted, as a possible prototype for a Medici monument, the column raised in the Roman Forum to the memory of Julius Caesar by his followers. Described by Suetonius as “lapidis Numidici”, and bearing the inscription PARENTI PATRIAE on its base, it was said in 1565 by the Tuscan antiquarian Bernardo Gamucci to have been of “marmo numidico” and inscribed PATER PATRIAE.Footnote 69

Finally, it needs to be observed that even though the first early modern ruler-topped column (Cosimo I’s column, not Sigismund’s) was not erected in the end, it was transformed into a memorial to Cosimo’s virtues, the most important of which were Iustitia, Pax, and Religia.Footnote 70 In other words, the very virtues which characterised Sigismund III Vasa can be identified in his Column’s inscriptions.

By way of conclusion, the following question should be posed: was Władysław IV Vasa, the founder and commissioner of Sigismund’s Column, aware of the proximity between Florence and Warsaw? Most likely he was—especially given the close dynastic links between the Vasas and the House of Medici. Suffice to say, when the thirty-year-old Polish prince visited Florence in 1625, he was welcomed there as if he were a close relative.Footnote 71 But, as a matter of fact, he was a close relative. At the time of Władysław’s visit to the Tuscan capital city, Florence was ruled jointly with Christina of Lorraine (1565–1637), Ferdinando I’s widow by Maria Maddalena of Austria (1589–1631), who was the sister of Anne of Austria (1573–1598) and Constance of Austria (1588–1631), Władysław IV’s mother and step-mother respectively. But the family ties that bound Władysław IV Vasa and Maria Maddalena of Austria were not the only links between Warsaw and Florence. Throughout the 1630s, the Polish king, a connoisseur and collector of art, purchased a number of Florentine sculptures which were subsequently shipped to Warsaw.Footnote 72 None of them survived the Swedish Deluge (1655–1660) and Swedish occupation of Warsaw. However, Sigismund’s Column miraculously survived and today stands as the only element of the Vasa Forum, a glorious reminder of both Florence and Rome.