Art: A MASTERPIECE COME HOME

AS last week's riots in Warsaw testified (see FOREIGN NEWS), troubled, spirited Poland continues to writhe under the heel of Communist rule. But the heel has been lifted enough, since Wladyslaw Gomulka came to power a year ago, to permit the restoration to its proper place of Poland's greatest treasure of religion and art. After 18 years' absence, the famed Cracow altar, a huge, polychrome Gothic masterpiece carved out of linden wood in the 15th century, is back in its place in the red brick Church of Our Lady.

To welcome back their revered altar, 6,000 devout Poles thronged the 13th century...