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The Market Square, or Main Market Square in Krakow, is one of the largest medieval squares in Europe.
It was built in 1257 and was very large for that time, but gradually overgrown with new buildings and blended into the urban landscape. The layout of the square has remained unchanged since the 13th century - it is a slightly irregular square with sides of 200 meters, from each side of which there are three streets leading to the entrance gate of Krakow. The buildings surrounding the square were erected in the 14-15 centuries, but over time they were rebuilt more than once, so now we see the facades in the classical style of the 17-19 centuries, in which many architectural fragments of the Renaissance and Baroque have survived: portals, ceilings, attic, galleries courtyards.
The market square has become shopping center, where there was a place for artisans of various specialties: there was a salt row, coal, fish, bread, etc. In addition to the commercial function, the square began to play the role of the central one in the city, it more than once became a witness to the most important historical events, even executions took place here. For example, here, after the coronation, the burghers took an oath to the king.
From the beginning of the 19th century, when the Austrian authorities came to the city, the market square became just a decoration of the city. Only the renovated Cloth Hall (Cloth Hall) and the town hall tower were left on the square. The facades of houses are being renewed, the cemetery near St. Mary's Church is being cleaned up.
Among the main current attractions of the square are the Sukiennice, the Town Hall Tower, the Church of St. Wojciech, the Zbaraski Palace, the Palace "Under the Sheep", the monument to Adam Mickiewicz and, first of all, St. Mary's Church.
Now the square and adjacent streets are closed to traffic and turned into a place walking tours... On the western side of the square there is an opportunity to ride in a carriage. Cafeterias, taverns and restaurants, museums and cultural institutions located on the Main Market, along with historical sights, attract tourists from all over the world.
The Market Square is rightfully considered the heart and soul of Krakow.
Founded in 1257, for centuries it was a center of trade and crafts, and the most honorable place was occupied by the cloth rows, which divide the area in half. The square has the shape of a square, from each side of which there are three streets leading to the entrance gate of Krakow.
But the Market Square is not only a trading place, it is also teeming with historic buildings. Here is located city hall, Museum of the square, as well as the striking beauty of the Church of the Virgin Mary, which is undoubtedly the pearl of this place.
The square is a favorite place for both tourists and townspeople, as it is here that you can feel the spirit of medieval Poland.
Mateyki square
Matejki Square (Krakow) is the former market square of the town of Klepaz. The square was named in honor of the famous Polish artist Jan Matejko, who became famous for his canvases on a historical theme.
St. Mary's Square
A small square to the right of St. Mary's Church is called St. Mary's Square (plac Mariacki). There is a fountain with a figurine depicting a poor student - Jacques. This fountain, a gift to the city of Krakow craftsmen, was erected in 1958. The figure is copied from the altar of Vit Stosh.
The Market Square in Krakow is not only the city center, but also the center of historical, cultural and tourist life. The dimensions of the square are 200 by 200 meters, which rightfully gives it the title of one of the largest in Europe.
The time of its appearance dates back to the XIII-XIV centuries, when Krakow was the capital of Poland. The traffic of cars to the Market Square is closed, so the townspeople and guests of the city can freely walk around the square and the streets adjacent to it.
In the center of the Market Square is the Sukiennice building, the first floor of which is occupied by a shopping arcade with many souvenir shops. On the second floor there is a museum of paintings by Polish masters of the 18th-19th centuries. Near the shopping arcade there is a small church of St. Wojciech, partially buried under the ground.
Just behind the Sukiennice is the slightly rickety tower of the Town Hall. Once, in its dungeons, prisoners were tormented and tortured, and the city treasury was located on the first floor. Now the building of the Town Hall houses the Krakow Historical Museum. Also, part of the museum is located in the undergrounds under the area, which occupy about 6,000 square meters.
It is impossible to pass by the unusual asymmetric Gothic architecture of the St. Mary's Church (Bazylika Mariacka), located between the Market Square and the adjacent St. Mary's Square. Every hour a trumpet player plays on the tower of the church. This signal is a tribute to an ancient tradition, when the sound of a trumpet announced to the townspeople an impending attack or fire.
The market square is surrounded by houses, each of which has its own interesting architectural appearance and its own history. These houses now house cafes and restaurants where you can eat, drink and admire the view. Also at the services of tourists in the square: street artists, sellers of fresh flowers, coachmen with horse teams and carriages and "living sculptures".
How to get there: the nearest stops are Plac Wszystkich Swietych (trams No. 1, 6, 8, 13, 18), Poczta Glowna (buses No. 610, 904, 62, 69) Address: Krakow, Stare Miasto, Rynek Glowny
As in any medieval town, the center of Krakow was the market square - the Main Market. And here, on the square of the Main Market, at the beginning of the 14th century, St. Mary's Church was built - the heart of the ancient city.
Its foundation was preceded by dramatic events. In 1241, passing through the lands of Kievan Rus, the hordes of Batu Tatars fell on. was taken and destroyed, and the small church of the Virgin Mary, which stood on the square of the Main Market, was completely destroyed by the Tatars. The legend tells that the trumpet-signaller, standing on the tower of the church, was the first to see the approach of the army of "rotten" (pagans) and sounded the alarm signal - "heinal". But at that moment, a Tatar arrow stuck into his throat and the sound of the trumpet cut off.
Since then, every hour on the tower of St. Mary's Church appears a figurine of a mechanical trumpeter who blows the "heinal", And the old signal again and again breaks off on the note at which the life of the defender of Krakow was cut short. "Heinal" of St. Mary's Church became the call sign of the Krakow Astronomical Observatory as a signal of the exact time, and every day at noon, Polish radio broadcasts "heinal" throughout the country.
What is true, what is untrue in this legend is unknown, but back in 1382 in the city expense books of Krakow, a daily payment of eight pennies to the guard on the tower was recorded and half a penny to the trumpeter, who was supposed to trumpet “heinal” in case of danger. A clock with a figurine of a trumpeting signalman appeared on the tower of St. Mary's Church only many years later.
The oldest surviving part of St. Mary's Church - the main nave and the lower parts of the towers - dates back to the first half of the 14th century. The cathedral was built for almost a hundred years, throughout the XIV century. Another legend tells about the creation of the temple. The construction of the towers of the church was entrusted to two brothers-masons. The elder, more experienced and dexterous, finished his tower, erected a spire over it and left for another city to build a new temple. Returning to Krakow, he saw that the second tower was still unfinished. But it was built tighter and better - which means it will be taller than his tower! Seized with envy and anger, the bricklayer attacked his younger brother with a knife and killed him. But then he was tormented by remorse, and in despair he threw himself from the unfinished tower onto the stones of the market square.
This terrible story shocked the townspeople so much that the councilors of the city hall decided to delete from the city books the names of the brothers-builders who turned the holy work of building God's temple into a competition of their own pride. And they decided to leave the unfinished tower for the edification of the descendants as it is, and only covered it with a roof.
Again, it is not known whether this is true or fiction, only of the two towers of St. Mary's Church, one is indeed noticeably lower than the other. And in the Sukiennice - medieval trading rows - the very knife with which the brother killed his brother is still kept ... But in general, the ancient one with its thousand-year history is a city of legends. Anything could be.
St. Mary's Church is an outstanding monument of Polish Gothic architecture. Huge, directed upward, with its large, northern tower, it rises above the city to a height of more than sixty meters. It is crowned by a wooden tent with pointed turrets of exceptional beauty and clarity of design. The height of the second, southern tower is smaller - just over 40 meters. And the height of the main nave of St. Mary's Church is 28 meters.
The oldest stained glass windows of the cathedral were made in 1370, but not all of them have survived. Some of the existing stained-glass windows date back to the beginning of the 20th century and belong to the work of masters S. Vyspiansky and Y. Mehoffer. And the altar painting was done by one of the greatest Polish artists of the 19th century, Jan Matejko.
St. Mary's Church in Krakow is associated with the name of Wit Stwosz, a talented sculptor, painter and graphic artist. It was his work that created the main shrines of the temple, the altar and the Crucifixion, which are among the most significant works of medieval European art.
Vit Stvosh lived a long life - he died at the age of ninety-three. Stwosh was born in South, in Nuremberg, but in 1447 he moved to and lived here for 22 years. Of these 12 years, from 1477 to 1489, he worked on the altar of St. Mary's Church - the largest of the altars medieval Europe, which became the main creation of the brilliant master and the greatest treasure of St. Mary's Church. The three-winged altar contains about 200 painted wooden figures, executed with extraordinary care.
St. Mary's altar by Vit Stvos consists of a central part and four wings. The central plot is the wedding of the Mother of God with the crown of the Lady of Heaven, and twelve scenes from her life are depicted on the wings. Wit Stwosz himself carved sculptures and altar details from linden wood and painted them himself. His work is striking in its realism. It lacks the simplified schematic features characteristic of medieval art - all the details of the human body, proportions, movement are reproduced with scrupulous accuracy and, at the same time, are spiritualized - they live.
During the Nazi occupation of Krakow, the altar of St. Mary's Church was taken out and hidden by the Nazis in the dungeons of the Nornberg castle. In 1946 it was discovered and after many years of restoration it was returned to its original place - to the temple.
In St. Mary's Church there is another masterpiece of the Middle Ages - the sculpture "Pieta" ("Lamentation of Christ"), dating back to 1410. The perfection with which this composition is made allows some researchers to believe that its author was the mysterious “Macter of the Beautiful Madonnas” - an ingenious nameless sculptor who left behind several amazing perfection and beauty sculptural images Madonna.
As in other Catholic churches, in St. Mary's Church there were many small altars and chapel chapels. One of these chapels, in the name of St. Anthony, was called among the people the Chapel of the Criminals - in it, according to tradition, the priest confessed before the execution of criminals sentenced to death, whose heads were then cut off -
right there, on the square of the Main Market.
In the northeastern part of the Market Square, the Town Hall Tower rises lonely, and once the Market Square was closely built up: here stood the Gothic Town Hall with a tower, a Renaissance-style barn for storing grain and a guardhouse. The town hall was built in the second half of the 13th century, and the construction of the tower was completed in 1383.
In past centuries, the Town Hall and its tower performed a variety of functions. From the day the Town Hall was founded, the Dorotka prison was located in its dungeons, in which three of the darkest crypts were intended for torture. And in the neighborhood, in the basement of the tower, ironically, a merry tavern "Svidnitsa" was set up, where wine and beer poured like a river ...
The Town Hall was reliably guarded not only because of the criminals in it: the treasury of the wealthy city of Krakow was kept on the first floor of the Lord's Hall. Public finances, which were in charge of three treasurers, were kept in a chest called a kadula. The chest was locked with three different keys, and each treasurer had only one of them, so the treasurers could open the chest only at the same time. In the Lord's Hall, Polish kings took the oath of the citizens of Krakow. Naturally, the Lord's Hall is the heart of the Town Hall: it was decorated with paintings and precious fabrics, and along the walls there were long benches lined with cushions made of red morocco.
This tower is especially revered by the Poles. Before her, the small-scale Belarusian gentry Faddey Kosciuszko swore allegiance to the Polish people.
Cultural and Historical Center of Krakow; one of the most popular squares. This square is even ranked among the largest medieval squares in Europe. It is pedestrianized and always full of tourists. For a long time, Poles have loved to trade fish, meat, bread, salt and coal here. Today, the Market Square is full of entertainment for all tastes. It is included in the version of our site.
Its main architectural objects are the monument to A. Mitskevich, St. Mary's Cathedral and the Sukiennice building. It has always been customary to gather around the monument to the famous Polish poet A. Mickiewicz as friends, sports fans, etc. In addition to this sculpture, there is also a new surreal object on the square - "Bound Eros". It is especially interesting to visit the 120-meter building of Sukkenice, the entire lower floor of which is occupied by shopping stalls. On the top floor there is an exposition of the Art Museum.
The shape of the Market Square, or "main market" as it is often called locals, resembles a regular square. The square is surrounded on all sides by old buildings, many of which are cafes. Among the entertainment, street artists, musicians and other artists can be noted. Nowadays you often come across "living sculptures" with which you can take pictures. The Tower of the City Hall today houses the Historical Museum, and St. Mary's Cathedral is considered one of the best examples of Gothic in Europe.
Finding the Market Square is not difficult, as it is located in the very heart of the Old Town. You can get here by many Krakow trams, for example 1, 6, 8.
Attraction photo: Krakow Market Square
