The Wawel Cathedral, Poland's national sanctuary with 1000-year-old history, was the coronation site of Polish monarchs. Its present 14th-century walls shelter a great variety of top-class objects of art, from Gothic to Renaissance to Baroque to Classicist to Modern. It is also the burial ground of most Polish royalty as well as the greatest national heroes, two poets, four saints and countless Krakow bishops. The center of the nave is occupied by the 1630 mausoleum of St. Stanislav, Poland's saint patron, the 11th-century Krakow bishop murdered by King Boleslav II (1058-1079). The martyr's silver coffin (circa 1670) is adorned with 12 relief scenes from his life and posthumous miracles. At the end of the north aisle there is the mid-l4th-century sandstone sarcophagus, the cathedral's oldest, of King Vladislav I the Short (1320-1333). Eighteen chapels full of art treasures surround the cathedral. Magnificent white "pearl of the Renaissance" vis-a-vis the tomb of Queen Jadwiga, the Sigismund Chapel, couples the exquisite Baroque of the black marble Vasa Chapel.
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