**6. Conclusions**

The medieval iconography of Ladislaus Jagiełło, modest as it is, with only a few surviving portraits, stands out by its innovative use of pictorial formulas and heraldic devices, as well as by consistently propagating the image of the king as a pious neophyte ruler and victorious commander; a monarch who duly fulfilled the commitments of his electoral contract and the oath taken before he was crowned king of Poland.

In the diplomatic sphere, the majesty of the king was conveyed by his image represented on the Great Seal, which came into use shortly after Jagiełło's coronation and had remained in service throughout his entire reign. This seal represents a novel type in Polish sigillography, conveying the idea of Jagiełło's contractual-elective rule as a successor to the Piasts on the Polish throne and simultaneously a lord of Lithuania, through an image of the enthroned monarch surrounded by a group of heraldic emblems of the state and its lands.

The remaining likenesses of the king, made on his initiative, had a commemorative function: two portraits painted in the Holy Trinity Chapel at the royal castle of Lublin in 1418, and his effigy in the tomb executed before 1430 and after Jagiełło's death assembled in Cracow Cathedral—a church serving as a burial site of Polish monarchs since the reign of the last Piast kings.

The wall paintings in Lublin, being one of several such schemes of fresco paintings commissioned by the king and executed in keeping with the precepts of Byzantine monumental painting by artists brought from Ruthenia, include a founder's portrait of Jagiełło, which shows him in adoration of the Virgin Mary and Child, and his equestrian portrait, which praises his contributions in the military and ecclesiastical fields by means of likening him to the Emperor Constantine the Great.

Jagiełło's monument of red marble, in the form of a tomb-chest with figural decoration and an architectural canopy, alludes to the forms of two earlier royal tombs located in the chancel of Cracow Cathedral, but its iconographic programme is entirely original and was dictated by a desire to demonstrate the king's involvement in securing the territorial integrity of the Polish Kingdom. Jagiełło, shown in effigy on the top slab, with closed eyes, is accompanied on the side walls of the tomb-chest by mourning figures holding shields with armorial devices of the state and its lands—representatives of regional communities of the Kingdom, who guaranteed the political and constitutional order during the interregnum. Their sadness expresses the grief of the subjects orphaned by their king and shows the condition of the monarchy bereaved of the most important person in the state. The choice and arrangemen<sup>t</sup> of heraldic devices on the tomb-chest is undoubtedly an allusion to the design of Jagiełło's Great Seal, with a modification in the choice of the coats-of-arms intended to manifest the king's personal contribution in his carrying out of the electoral contract.

The last of the portraits discussed here attests to keeping Jagiełło's memory alive by Casimir IV Jagiellonian, his son and successor on the Polish throne. The portrayal of the founder of the Jagiellonian dynasty as one of the Three Magi offering gifts to the Christ Child in Bethlehem, depicted on the reverse of a triptych wing mounted on an altar table in the Holy Cross Chapel opposite to Casimir's tomb, reminded his descendants about the merits of the neophyte king for Christianity and attested to the piety of the monarch who, although born as a pagan, paid homage to Incarnated God and recognised his sovereignty over the world.

**Funding:** This research was funded by The Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland, gran<sup>t</sup> number NPRH nr 0467/NPRH5/H30/84/2017 (Iconography of Jagiellonians as kings of Poland and grand dukes of Lithuania and members of their Families 1386–1795).

**Acknowledgments:** I thank Joanna Wola ´nska for translating this entry into English.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

**Entry Link on the Encyclopedia Platform:** https://encyclopedia.pub/20720.
