Kielce Cathedral, the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, stands on Castle Hill in the center of Kielce, next to the former Palace of the Bishops of Kraków. Gedeon, Bishop of Kraków, built the original church in the twelfth century. The Tatars destroyed it in 1260. Bishop Kazimierz Lubieński began the reconstruction in 1719, in an early Baroque style. In 1805 it became the cathedral of the new Diocese of Kielce.
Inside are three naves with frescoes by nineteenth-century Kraków painters. The high altar, by Fontana, is Baroque and Rococo. A shrine holds the icon of Our Lady of Graces, which was crowned in 1636 and again in 1872.
The silver-gold dress and many votive offerings on the icon were stolen after its coronation in 1636.
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