Boim Chapel, Renaissance chapel near Latin Cathedral, Lviv, Ukraine.
The Boim Chapel is a Renaissance structure next to the Latin Cathedral in Lviv and stands out for its elaborate stone carvings on the western facade. The facade divides into three tiers with detailed reliefs depicting biblical scenes and religious figures.
George Boim, a Lviv merchant and moneylender of Hungarian origin, began the chapel as a family tomb around 1609; his son Paweł completed it by 1615. The design is attributed to Andreas Bemer of Wrocław and likely drew on Sigismund's Chapel at Wawel. In the second half of the 18th century the Boim burials were moved to Lviv cemeteries.
The chapel's name comes from the Boim family, whose founder George Boim was a Lviv councillor and merchant of Hungarian origin. On the east facade, fresco portraits of George Boim and his wife Jadwiga, painted in 1617 and attributed to Giovanni Giani, carry Latin inscriptions identifying them. The carved scenes were called a "Bible for the poor" because the Passion cycle could be read without literacy.
The chapel stands on Cathedral Square, its west facade facing the square and its east wall on Halytska Street; the south side is closed off by a 19th-century house built against it. Since 1969 it has been a branch of the Lviv Art Gallery, open 10:00–17:00 except Mondays. The interior reads as taller and larger than the exterior suggests.
On the dome stands a Pensive Christ resting his cheek on his left hand, unlike most such figures, which lean on the right. Below it runs a Latin band with Lamentations 1:12: "Look and see, all you who pass by: is there any sorrow like my sorrow?"
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