Duchy na dachu – skrzydlaty lew, św. Marek i Santi Gucci

This article is an attempt to “conjure the ghosts” of the now-lost attic of the Grisoni townhouse located on the Market Square at number 5 in Lublin, a work designed in the 16th century by the Florentine master Santi Gucci. The only surviving witness to its existence is the painting The Fire of the City of Lublin in 1719, which serves as the starting point for an iconographic, archival and comparative analysis. The author juxtaposes the painted record with municipal documents, the reconstruction drawings by Juliusz Kurzątkowski, and analogies drawn from the architecture of Venice and Kazimierz Dolny.

The analysis proposes an interpretation of the sculptural program of the attic as a consciously composed ensemble of figures with a representational and symbolic character, referring to the motif of milites Christi - warriors of Christ known from Venetian iconography - as well as to animal figures with a protective function. A central place in this hypothesis is occupied by the winged lion of Saint Mark, a symbol of Venice and a possible key to understanding the identity of the townhouse’s founders and the meaning of the entire attic composition.

The text is not a reconstruction in the strict sense, but an interpretation based on sources, iconography and compositional logic, aimed at restoring the memory of one of the lost works of Renaissance architecture in Lublin.