Przeworsk and surroundings
St. Barbara Church and Monastery of Bernardines
The late-Gothic Bernardines monastery complex is situated in eastern outskirts of the town. The St. Barbara Church, erected in the years 1461–1465, was founded by Rafał Tarnowski. The adjacent building of monastery was finished by Bernardines in the years 1465–1489. Later on, in 1611 the church obtained a mannerist pinnacle over the presbytery and added in 1644 an octagonal tower wreathed in conical roof with the attic used as a watchtower during invasions from the East.
There are some exemplars of the Gothic art in the interior such as stone portals e.g. in the passage between the presbytery and monastery wing. In the cloister there is a polychrome (turn of the 15th century) displaying scenes from the Passion that can be connected with a Bernardine painter and a miniaturist Franciszek of Sieradz who was active at that time. The equipment of the sanctuary derives form the age of Baroque: a high altar with paintings of the Mother of God of Consolation and St. Barbara, illusionistic Rococo side altars painted on walls in al fresco technique, stalls richly decorated with carved patterns made in 1646 and an ambo. In the 18th century at the northern side aisle a chapel of St. Antony was built on. In that interior there is an altar made at the beginning of the 20th century in the local wood-carving workshop of Antoni Rarogiewicz. In 1645, in the monastery of Przeworsk a well-known Bernardine painter, Franciszek Lekszycki, started his work. He left some paintings such as an effigy of St. Barbara in the high altar or St. Anthony in the chapel.
A fragment of the defensive wall remained at the monastery complex from the mid-17th century.
