Information about the object:
The Church of the Holy Spirit in Vilnius is a temple with an extremely rich history. The first church was built in 1323. Destroyed in a fire, it was rebuilt in 1409 by Grand Duke Vytautas. The stone Gothic church was rebuilt by order of Alexander Jagiellon in 1501. It was then handed over to the Dominicans. Destroyed many times in fires, it was rebuilt and gained its present shape, designed by Jan Krzysztof Glaubitz, in 1770. According to local tradition, several thousand dead are buried in the basement of the temple, the so-called Kingdom of the Dead. In 2022, a non-invasive geophysical survey combined with laser scanning was commissioned.

Completed work:
23 mummified bodies with preserved clothing (17th-19th century) were found in the crypts of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Vilnius. Between 2011 and 2017, the bodies were examined by anthropologists and at that time the preserved items of clothing were removed.

The aim of the project was to carry out inventory and documentation activities with the detached textiles. The work was exploratory in nature, with the aim of reviewing, segregating and making an inventory of the preserved materials, along with producing photographic documentation. The activities were accompanied by preliminary conservation research to determine the number of surviving garments and types of textiles and haberdashery elements, as well as preliminary identification of garment types and their completeness.

Another important objective will be to assess the state of preservation of the textiles, collecting material for further research and conservation projects of the entire ensemble.

Funding: Institute Polonica programme "Polish cultural heritage abroad - volunteering".

More about the project: https://polonika.pl

• Fundacja Akademii Sztuk Pięknych w Warszawie, realizacja w roku 2023.