In this artwork, how is the Storkyrkan church and Tre Kronor castle of the Medieval Stockholm elucidated?
The painting is centred on the Storkyrkan church, first mentioned in historical records in 1279 and gradually enlarged over the following centuries. In 1468–1496, during the reign of Sten Sture the Elder, its size was doubled — the chapels were transformed into aisles, while rounded windows and a taller roof allowed more light into the building. The building in the painting depicts the church as it must have appeared when Gustav Vasa became king — the buttresses added in the 1550s are not present in the painting, which seem to confirm that the 17th century copy was faithful to the original. The church still exists, although the present exterior is mostly a later Baroque design.Immediately behind the church is Tre Kronor castle. Destroyed by fire in 1697 and subsequently replaced by the Stockholm Palace, it was named after the central citadel, a large gun tower emblazoned with the Three Crowns symbol, known as the first building in Stockholm and a symbol for the Swedish Crown. While it is not known when the symbol was first added to the citadel (it became the national coat of arms in the late 14th century), it was gilded during the 16th century. Again, the painting is strictly accurate, as the 1540s enlargement of the tower is not present in the image. The castle's eastern wing, the king's personal residence, was destroyed by fire in 1525 and in letters ten years later the king, burdened by debts of war to Lübeck, expressed his indignation over the fact that the reconstruction was still not completed. In the painting to the right of the church the eastern wing is accurately depicted as under construction, the exposed roof trusses confirming the inconvenience experienced by the monarch.
However, the two western towers left of the church display an unusual detail in the painting. The uniformly proportioned, large, square windows depicted there are associated with the Italian Renaissance, which was introduced in Sweden in 1572 during reconstruction of Kalmar Castle. While the construction works of Gustav Vasa are poorly documented, the presence of these windows in Stockholm in 1535 is unlikely. It seems more credible that this part of the painting had been damaged before 1632, forcing the copyist to rely on another source. As the two square and crenellated towers in the painting are depicted much as they appear on a copperplate of Stockholm produced by Frantz Hogenberg around 1560–1570, the painting thus probably renders this part of the castle as it appeared while the reconstruction was still under way, before its completion in the 1580s.
painting Stockholm Lübeck Italian Renaissance Kalmar Castle Frantz Hogenberg Stockholm Palace buttress Baroque Tre Kronor castle Sten Sture the Elder church aisle citadel Three Crowns right Storkyrkan Gustav Vasa castle left