When a civilization ends, it does not leave behind a tombstone. Instead, it leaves stackings of stones (i.e. buildings.) We lose the remembrance of individual people, the things they said, did, and wrote, but we remember what they built because those things endure for much longer. The Ancient Greeks and Romans tell us about themselves through their Classical Architecture. We remember the Medieval period in Europe from its castles and Gothic Cathedrals. We remember the early 20th century from the Art Deco buildings it left behind. The style tells us something about their priorities, what they believed, what they knew, and what their hopes were. In a sense, the buildings a culture leaves behind are a kind of epitaph.
Let’s look through the structural epitaphs of our ancestors.
Pažaislis Monastery (Kaunas, Lithuania)
I really love learning about the beautiful culture, art, and architecture from Eastern Europe. In the U.S., we have some familiarity with Western Europe’s culture, art, and architecture. A relatively large percentage o f the U.S. was initially settled by Western Europeans. Perhaps because of that, and because of proximity, Americans tend to go on vacation to Western Europe more often than to the East. So the sites in the West are more familiar. Encountering Eastern Europe feels like encountering and getting to know a distant cousin with whom you share a lot of similarities as well as some sharp differences. (Just imagine a version of you with a completely different voice accent than your own.) There are obvious parallels to what is familiar, but the differences are also striking and they sort of invite curiosity.
Putting it another way, sometimes (for me) looking at art and architecture from Eastern Europe feels like peaking at an Earth from a different multi-verse.
Baroque Architecture was introduced by Catholics, as a means of combating – via beauty – the Protectant Reformation. The style eventually spread across Europe but you are most likely to find it in countries that were historically Catholic. A lot of Eastern Europe was Catholic. A lot of Western Europe (and most of the U.S.) was historically Protestant. So this style has a tendency to feel unique if you are from a historically Protestant country.
This beautiful monastery in Lithuania is one of my favorite examples of Baroque Architecture anywhere. Something about it just feels a bit otherworldly… but in a good way.
Pažaislis Monastery and the Church of the Visitation (Lithuanian: Pažaislio vienuolynas ir Švenčiausios Mergelės Marijos apsilankymo pas Elžbietą bažnyčia, Polish: Klasztor w Pożajściu) form the largest monastery complex in Lithuania, and the most renowned example of Baroque architecture in the country. The church is the most marble-decorated Baroque church of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
The monastery was designed by Pietro Puttini, Carlo Puttini and Giovanni Battista Frediani. Exclusive architectural solutions were used for the first time in Lithuania: a hexagonal church plan, and a concave facade (both heavily influenced by Borromini who used a more elaborate and refined hexagonal plan and also a concave facade for Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza and also for Sant’ Agnese in Agone, both in Rome) interior stucco work is ascribed to Joan Merli and the frescos to Michelangelo Palloni.
Krzysztof Zygmunt Pac burned the monastery construction bills before his death, saying, “What I have given to God, let him alone know.” and was buried in the monastery according to his testament. Writers of the time wrote that the construction cost 8 barrels of gold coins.
In 1755 the addition of the towers and the dome was funded by the king’s chamberlain Michał Jan Pac. The construction was completed in 1690, overseed by Michał Jan Pac.
The monastery’s church, decorated with highly polished marble, was damaged by the horses of Napoleon’s army which was based in the complex. In 1832 the monastery was closed by the Russian authorities and later converted into an Orthodox church. The author of the Imperial Russian national anthem God Save the Tsar, Alexei Lvov, was interred there in 1870.
In 1915–1918 when the Orthodox monks had fled a German war hospital was established in the monastery. The leaving Orthodox monks has stolen many treasures from the monastery, including the St. Mass Cup, decorated with over 1000 gemstones (over 400 diamonds, 300 rubies and 200 emeralds).
After 1920 the ruined monastery returned to Roman Catholics and was restored by sisters of the Lithuanian convent of St. Casimir. After World War II, the Soviet authorities converted the church and monastery into an archive, a psychiatric hospital and finally an art gallery (in 1966).
In 1990s the complex was returned by the newly independent Lithuania to the nuns of the convent and reconstruction work began.
The monastery has the painting of Mary Belle Mother and Child, revered by the congregation, two bells of the church and St. Romuald titles, cast in the seventeenth century and the oldest church clock tower in Lithuania.
Music festival
Today the monastery is home to the annual international Pažaislis Music Festival. It was started in 1996 and now lasts for three summer months and offers about 30 different concerts.
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