The parish church in Olkusz is home to the largest and best-preserved organ from the early 17th century in Poland. Hans Hummel and his pupil Georg Nitrowski the Elder created a work there between 1611 and 1631 whose technical and tonal characteristics formed the starting point for a long tradition of organ building. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the organ-building dynasties of Nitrowski and Brandtner that followed Hummel supplied instruments for churches of various denominations and language communities in the territory of the First Polish Republic and beyond, from Spiš to the mouth of the Vistula. This type of instrument with its characteristic features has been almost completely absent from previous classifications of European organ building schools. This bilingual monograph documents the restoration of the instrument in Olkusz by the Flentrop company (Zaandam), deals with all aspects of organ building technology of the instrument family and, on the basis of archival and field research, provides catalogues of works for the seven organ builders of the Hummel-Nitrowski-Brandtner school as well as further attributions.
