Tancred and Clorinda

A contemporary copy of a marble group of sculptures commissioned by Stanisław August to an Italian artist, Francesco Lazzarini from Carrara. It stands near the Amphitheatre, on a crossing of alleys.

The sculpture shows a scene from the epic poem Jerusalem Delivered, written at the end of the 16th century by an Italian poet, Torquato Tasso. The plot of the work is set in the time of the first crusades, whose goal was to free the Holy Land and Jerusalem from the Muslim reign. One of the leaders of the crusade, Tancred, falls in love with Clorinda, a follower of Islam. The events of the poem lead to a fight between Tancred and Clorinda disguised as a soldier. Tancred, unaware of the identity of his foe, kills the Saracen, who asks for a baptism as her last wish.

The choice of a Medieval subject shows a growing interest in this period at the end of the 18th century. It was a harbinger of the coming period of Romanticism.

The original sculpture was brought to Warsaw in 1791 and set up in the Łazienki Garden. After 1806, it was moved to the Park of Izabela Czartoryska in Puławy, where it stands to this day.