Monuments and fountains

Statues and a fountain on Cathedral Island, Piasek Island and the Old Town moat.

Cathedral Island and Piasek Island

St John of Nepomuk

A stone figure of St John of Nepomuk stands on Plac Kościelny, in front of the Church of the Holy Cross. The register of monuments dates it to 1731. Look up to the top: the saint holds a crucifix raised above his head, under a ring of stars.

The stone monument of St John of Nepomuk on its round stepped base inside a balustrade, a saint with a raised crucifix and a ring of stars above a crowd of cherubs and angels, against the red-brick walls of the Holy Cross church.

PiotrMig Wikimedia Commons CC BY 4.0

Cardinal Kominek

A bronze figure of Cardinal Bolesław Kominek stands on Piasek Island, beside Tumski Bridge and in front of the Church of Our Lady on the Sand. It was unveiled on 3 December 2005, forty years after the Polish bishops’ message to the German bishops, and the sculptor was Sławoj Ostrowski.

Read the ground in front of the figure. The inscription, in Polish and German, is a line from that message: przebaczamy i prosimy o przebaczenie, “we forgive and ask for forgiveness”.

The dark bronze figure of Cardinal Kominek in a mitre and cope, standing before the long brick wall and tall windows of the Church of Our Lady on the Sand, with the Polish and German inscription cut in the pale stone ground in front of him.

Palickap Wikimedia Commons CC BY 4.0

Pope John XXIII

A granite figure of Pope John XXIII stands on ul. Świętego Marcina on Cathedral Island, near St Martin’s church. It was unveiled on 5 June 1968, and Ludwika Nitschowa designed it. The title of his encyclical, Pacem in terris, “Peace on Earth”, is cut into the base.

It was put up with the backing of the communist authorities, on an idea from the Caritas association, and Archbishop Bolesław Kominek and the Polish bishops spoke against it.

A grey granite figure of the Pope in a long robe on a low slab of stone, the words PACEM IN TERRIS cut along its front edge, with a red-brick church and a tall tree behind.

Abzeronow Wikimedia Commons CC BY 4.0

The Old Town and the moat

Cupid on Pegasus

A winged Cupid rides Pegasus on a high stone plinth at the back of the Old Town Garden, by the park along the moat. Theodor von Gosen made it, in bronze, and it has stood here since 1914. Look at Cupid’s hand: he holds no bow.

A dark bronze winged boy riding a prancing horse on a tall plain stone plinth, among trees and a hedge.

Neo[EZN] Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

Fight and Victory

The fountain on plac Jana Pawła II, on the Promenada Staromiejska along the moat, dates from 1905 and was designed by the architect Bernard Sehring and the sculptor Ernst Seger. It was ordered by the committee of the Bismarck monument, which no longer exists.

Two sculptures flank the basin. On one a young man fights a lion; on the other he sits on it, having won. The figures were damaged in the war and restored in 1955. The fountain has been in the register of monuments since 1980, and it is lit after dark.

A sandstone sculpture seen from below against a blue sky: a muscular young man with one arm raised, wrestling a lion on a rocky base.

ViktoriaLi Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

The floodlit sculpture of a man sitting on a lion at night, with the stone fountain basin and its tall central column at the left.

Strumyczek Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

Elsewhere on the site

Bolesław Chrobry on his horse, at the entrance to the Promenada Staromiejska: Renoma.

The Fredro monument and the Zdrój fountain: Market Square.

The Fencer fountain: University of Wrocław.

The Copernicus monument: Copernicus Park.

The Multimedia Fountain: its own page.

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