Vilnius Cathedral Lithuania

Vilnius Cathedral is the main Roman Catholic Cathedral of Lithuania. It is situated in Vilnius' Old Town, just off the Cathedral Square. It is the heart of Lithuania's spiritual life.

picture
Lithuania (2003) 50 Litas (back) - Vilnius Cathedral

The coronations of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania took place within it. Inside its crypts and catacombs, many famous people, among them Vytautas the Great (1430), his wife Anna (1418), his brother Sigismund (Žygimantas) (1440), cousin Švitrigaila (1452), picture
Saint Casimir (1484), Alexander Jagiellon (1506), two wives of Sigismund Augustus: Elisabeth of Habsburg (1545) and Barbara Radziwiłł (1551), as well as others, are interred.

Inside, there are more than forty works of art dating from the 16th through 19th centuries; both frescoes and small and large paintings. During the restoration of the Cathedral, the presumed altars of an alleged pagan temple and the original floor, laid in the days of King Mindaugas baptism, were discovered, in addition to the remains of the cathedral built in 1387. A fresco dating from the end of the 14th century, the oldest known fresco in Lithuania, was found on the wall of one of the underground chapels.


This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Vilnius Cathedral"