Psaltery
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PsalteryThe Psaltery standing opposite the Church of Our Lady in Summo is a reminder of the unusually rich musical life that once centred on Poznań Cathedral.
Bishop Jan Lubrański founded the cathedral's college of psalters in 1512. This group of 12 priests was obliged to sing daily votives to the Holy Cross (votive mass). In 1624 the psalters were also obliged to sings psalms at almost any hour of the day; they sang in pairs, changing every hour, supported by pupils from the Lubrański Academy. The chapter offered the psalters a canonical curia standing "on the vicarage causeway". It was on the site of this wooden building that the walled, late-Gothic psaltery came into being during Bishop Lubrański's term in office. On the western façade and gable the founder is commemorated by his Godziemna coat of arms - a pine with three boughs and five roots. The southern façade is crowned by a decorative gable. In 1529 the psaltery was reinforced by pillars in the ground floor hall, upon which high water levels were marked during Poznań's frequent floods. The highest notch is marked "1698'.
Although the psalters' college existed until 1810, the building became home to the cathedral staff at the end of the 18th century and in 1844 an orphanage was set up there. In 1858 a questionnaire was circulated amongst the psalters instructing them to decide in favour of renovating or demolishing the psaltery. As we can see today, they voted to retain the building (voting 10:3 with two abstentions). One of the canons wrote that by virtue of saving the psaltery "a monument to taste much more refined than that seen in later constructions has been retained". Renovation work undertaken between 1860-61 altered the original layout of the windows and their decorative elements and removed unsightly extensions to the building.
The building was severely damaged in 1945 and rebuilt two years later.