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The article deals with a still little known history of the church in Pažaislis as a mausoleum o f Рас family. The church was built not only for Camaldolese monks but for Рас family as a burial place. In this context the most important was a crypt under the church entrance, where Krzysztof Zygmunt Рас and his wife Clara Isabelle de Mailly-Lascaris were interred. The founder not only supervised the construction work and decoration of the church, but also was occupied with high artist creation of his own crypt. Th e Chancellor of the Grand Duchy o f Lithuania wanted to bestow a representational character on the crypt, which was open for visitors with a convenient entrance in the south corridor between the church and a monastery and with wide stairs. The decoration sketches of the founder s crypt were created by Pietro Puttini after the death of Krzysztof Zygmunt Рас. Nevertheless, we could be sure that the artist and heir of the founder - Kazimierz Michał Рас planned everything according to the order of the Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Unfortunately the original decoration was not made and we have only little information how the founder s crypt looked like before 1860 when it was walled up by Russian Orthodox monks. So it is very interesting and completely unexpected that in 1988 an urn with heart o f Clara Isabelle de Mailly-Lascaris was found in Bielany church of the former Camaldolese monastery in Warsaw. The heart shaped urn made of silver is placed in the tomb of heart of Polish-Lithuanian King Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki, created at the beginning of 1674. It is obvious that the heart of Clara Isabelle de Mailly-Lascaris could not be interred in the kings tomb. She died in her palace in Warsaw on the 11th o f March, 1685 fourteen months after her husband s death. Рас family organized them a common burial in November 1685 in Pažaislis. At the end o f the 17th century a custom o f heart burial still was not universal. We could suspect that in this case the most important was a time of burial and a distance between Warsaw and PažaisHs. We know for sure that in the founder s crypt a special tomb for hearts was not foreseen. From the description made by Janusz Ferdynand Nowakowski in 1857 we know that in the founders crypt there were not only coffins but urns with brain and heart of Krzysztof Zygmunt Рас too. Nowakowski did not mention in his very precise description about the urn with heart of Clara Isabelle de Mailly-Lascaris. We could suspect that the urn was transported to Warsaw after the Pažaislis monastery had been taken by Russian Orthodox monks in 1832. It could happen under the unknown circumstances before 1857. The urn was hidden in Bielany church of the Camaldolese monastery in Warsaw in the kings tomb. Very soon there appeared a legend that in the tomb of king s heart is another urn with heart of his mother Gryzelda Wiśniowiecka. This legend is popular until nowadays but only a few know about the urn with heart of Clara Isabelle de Mailly-Lascaris. |
