The St Jacob"s Church is one of the oldest and the most valuable monuments of both Sandomierz and Poland. It was built 1226-1250 for the Black Friars and was founded by Iwo Odrowąż – the Bishop of Kraków.
The temple was built on place of the previous church founded in the end of 12th century by the King Kazimierz the Just"s daughter – princess Adelaide. The Odrowąż"s church is a three-nave basilica with elongated, three-spanned chancel.. The visitor"s attention is caught by the late-Romanesque ceramic ornamental elements of elevation, from which the northern portal is of the greatest importance. It consists of two entrances separated with a column and bounded by a tri-leaf ornament. The portal and the arcaded frieze allude to the architecture of northern Italy from where the church builders came from. The chancel itself has a ribbed vault with lunettes and late-Reneissance stucco works. Two chapels are adjacent to the southern nave: the first one of Saint Jacek Odrowąż and the second one of Our Lady of the Rosary – both designed in the 20th century. The northern nave is adjacent to early-Baroque, square chapel of the Martyrs of Sandomierz (1603-1606). The church is adjoined by the remaining wings of monastery and a belfry from 1314, in which the oldest Polish church bells, dating back to 1314 and 1389, are preserved.
The curiosity of the church, apart from the breath-taking interior and design – is the 13th century case with bones of the Martyrs of Sandomierz taken from the viridary tomb, in which the Tatar arrow traces are visible. In the chancel one can also notice the princess Adelaide"s sarcophagus made of the single oak log. The fragment of the altar"s 16th century polyptych presents the series of the Saint"s portraits painted on wood.
