Introduction

The Corpus Vitrearum Poland has conducted its research along two parallel tracks. The research on medieval stained glass on Polish lands is supervised by Dr Dobrosława Horzela. In 2018 a volume dealing with stained glass of St Mary’s Church in Cracow was published in the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi series (Lech Kalinowski, Helena Małkiewiczówna, Dobrosława Horzela, Die mittelalterlichen Glasmalereien in der Stadtpfarrkirche Mariä Himmelfahrt in Krakau: mit einer kunstgeschichtlichen Einleitung von Marek Walczak, Cracow, 2018 (CVMA Polen, I.1)). Two subsequent volumes in the series are under preparation by a team headed by Dobrosława Horzela, as part of the research project: “The Corpus of Medieval Stained Glass in Poland”, supported by a grant awarded by the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities (NPRH) in 2014.

In 2012, also thanks to the funding from the NPRH, a wide-scope investigation of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century church stained-glass windows was started within the project “The Stained Glass from the Years 1800–1945 in the Roman Catholic Churches of the Metropolises of Cracow and Przemyśl” (project director: Prof. Wojciech Bałus). After its completion, a similar survey was begun in 2018, with a territorial scope covering the area of the Archdiocese of Katowice and Diocese of Gliwice. At the beginning of 2014 the first volume of a publication which presents the results of the 2012 research project appeared: The Stained Glass from the Years 1800–1945 in the Roman Catholic Churches of the Metropolises of Cracow and Przemyśl, ed. by Wojciech Bałus, Tomasz Szybisty, vol. 1: Archdiocese of Cracow. Deaneries of Cracow, by Danuta Czapczyńska-Kleszczyńska, Tomasz Szybisty, with the collaboration of Paweł Karaszkiewicz and Anna Zeńczak, Cracow, 2014. It is well worth mentioning that the above publication is the first of its kind in the entire history of the Corpus Vitrearum.

The next volumes in the series came out in 2015 (vol. II: Tomasz Szybisty in collaboration with Danuta Czapczyńska-Kleszczyńska, Archdiocese of Cracow. Deaneries outside Cracow; vol. III: Irena Kontny, Tomasz Szybisty, Archdiocese of Bielsko and Żywiec) and in 2017 (vol. IV: Andrzej Laskowski, revised and augmented by Wojciech Bałus and Tomasz Szybisty, Diocese of Tarnów, pt 1–2; vol. V: Tomasz Szybisty, Diocese of Kielce). Subsequent volumes, dealing with the Dioceses of Katowice and Gliwice, are due to appear in 2022–2023.

These works are planned to be complemented by an interdisciplinary project aimed at creating a modern stained glass database, which will contain the results of the research described above. Its implementation began in 2022 as part of the research grant entitled "Construction of the Corpus Vitrearum Poland database  - analytical phase", financed under DigiWorld PRA (Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University). The project is carried out in cooperation with researchers from the Cracow University of Technology (Dr Aneta Gądek-Moszczak, Dr Dariusz Karpisz, and Dr Paweł Lempa).