Jelenia Góra Town Trail · the long route · Cieplice

Church of St John the Baptist

This church makes no effort to attract attention. Single-nave, without a tower, from the street it looks like a solid but ordinary building – and that is exactly its trick. Inside there is an altar with a painting attributed to Michael Willmann, the painter called the Silesian Rembrandt, eight side altars, a pulpit with Moses and Melchizedek, and beneath the chancel a crypt where the Cieplice line of the Schaffgotsch family has been buried since 1601.

A plain dress over a rich interior

Start by not judging the building from the pavement. The church has one nave and no tower; the body is compact and quiet. That is not a matter of thrift but a consequence of what it was: part of a monastic complex, not a town church that has to tower over the market square. Through its western wall the church adjoins the monastery building, raised back in the sixteenth century and extended in 1679–1684.

So you enter this interior from the street expecting little – the best thing that can happen to a visitor.

A fire that left only the bell tower

The tradition of this place goes back to 1175, when the first chapel was supposedly built here by Duke Bolesław the Tall – the same one legend connects with the discovery of the Cieplice springs. Buildings came and went until, in 1711, fire consumed the earlier church.

One thing survived: the free-standing bell tower, put up a year earlier, in 1709–1710, founded by Count Johann Anton Schaffgotsch. It also serves as a clock tower, and it is under it that you pass into the church courtyard from Plac Piastowski. When the new church was built in 1712–1714 – to a design by Kaspar Jentsch of Jelenia Góra – no tower was added to it. Why, with a new one standing next door.

Willmann, or why to go inside

The greatest treasure hangs in the main altar of 1716: a painting showing the Virgin surrounded by saints, attributed to Michael Willmann.

That word is worth stressing – *attributed*. Willmann, called the “Silesian Rembrandt”, is the most important painter of the Silesian Baroque, working mainly for the Cistercians of Lubiąż and Krzeszów. His work is still being studied, and with pieces scattered around the province attributions tend to be careful. So I will not write that this is a Willmann – I will write that it is attributed to him, and that is the honest version.

The sculpted architecture of the altar was made by Augustin Wagner. From under the choir gallery three Passion paintings by Johann F. Hoffmann look out; he worked for the Cistercians of Krzeszów – the same circle that produced the Long House next door.

There are also eight side altars from the eighteenth century, an organ of 1765 and a richly decorated pulpit with figures of Moses, Melchizedek and Saint Elizabeth.

A crypt with one prince

Beneath the chancel lies the crypt of the Cieplice line of the Schaffgotsch family, in use since 1601. Among the counts rests one prince: Philipp Gotthard Schaffgotsch, prince-bishop of Wrocław, son of Johann Anton – the man who founded the bell tower.

That closes a thread running through the whole trail. In the palace next door the Schaffgotsches gathered a library, in the Long House they kept collections, above Sobieszów they had Chojnik Castle, and here they buried their dead. Walking this trail you are in practice crossing the estate of one family – and only the crypt shows how long that family was present here.

Slabs from Radomierz set into the wall

Beside the tower you will see Renaissance tombstones of members of the family that ruled nearby Radomierz. They have not always stood here: they were brought in the 1840s from the church there, which was already in ruins. The board by the church says there are fifteen slabs and that they arrived in 1849; the city brochure says 1847. Two years' difference – with monuments, larger gaps happen.

The practice itself is interesting: when the church in Radomierz ceased to exist, the slabs were set into the wall enclosing the church in Cieplice instead of being allowed to vanish with the building. Thanks to that you can look at them today from the courtyard, without going inside.

Two columns easy to miss

By the tower stands a column of Saint Florian of 1717, the work of Johann Karl Schönheim. On the north side of the church – a Holy Trinity column of 1720, later completed with figures of Saint Hubert and Saint Sebastian.

Florian against fire, Sebastian and Hubert against plague and for animals: that is not a random set. They were erected a few years after the fire that consumed the previous church, at a time when plague was not an abstraction. These columns are a record of the fears of an age, set permanently by the road.

What you can see

The church today belongs to a parish run by the Piarists. The interior is sometimes open in the morning, but it is best to check on the spot – I give no opening hours, because they go out of date faster than websites.

Even with the doors closed it is worth stepping in: the courtyard, the gate tower, the slabs from Radomierz and both columns are accessible from outside and give half of what you come for. The other half hangs in the altar.